Poor Paul Wolfowitz!!!

According to MSNBC this morning Paul Wolfowitz blames the media for his messy exit from the World Bank. My what a load of self-pity. I don't know about any one else but I saw few stories on broadcast or print about his problems. I saw much more about Anna Nicole's baby, the dysfunctional Lohan family and its drug problems, a drunken, boorish David Hasselhoff, etc., than Wolfowitz. His problems are as much of his own making as the others, except the baby who inherited a mess she had no part in creating.

This ethically myopic man seems to forget that appearances do matter. What doesn't matter is whether his girlfriend was qualified for the job he approved her for or that the pay package he approved was in line for the position she was given. What did matter was that she was (is?) his girlfriend and he approved. The media simply reported the conflict of interest.

I guess I am not really surprised. After all, Mr. Wolfowitz was part of an administration whose ethically challenged state is made more apparent every day the hearing on the fired U.S. Attorneys continue. What does depress me is the willingness of the committee hearing the testimony to fall over themselves, with few and sporadic exceptions, to condone the behavior of a Justice Department for whom political partisanship is more important that competence.

I still hate job hunting...

The newspapers are thin and the job boards are almost as thin. I went to our local state employment office to look at any jobs that may not be posted on their web site. Most were taken from the newspapers or from Monster or CareerBuilder. Nothing much. I am playing with the online resume on Monster and will see what comes up.

Though the job hunting is coming up empty at least I am making some headway on my needlework. Ab0ve is a quillow I made for my brother for his 30th wedding anniversary in July. The quilt on the left folds up into a pocket to form the pillow on the right. It is the first quillow I have done and only the fifth or sixth quilting project I have finished. I am doing something very different for my sister-in-law and will post pictures as soon as I finish it.

Sometime ago my mother asked me to design and embroider some figures for a great-grandmother's jacket. She wanted a little figure for each of her children, grand-children and great-grandchildren that can be appliqued on to a jacket. It has been quite a project since she has four children, five grand children and eight great-grandchildren. I modified Sunbonnet Sue and Strawhat Sam for embroidery and now have all but four of the figures finished. Here are two of them.

I really hate job hunting. I spent about three hours checking out various sites like careerbuilder and Monster without finding much of interest. I categorize jobs into a few basic categories. The "Been There, Done That, and don't ever want to do that again." These are the jobs I've absolutely hated: food service, hotel housekeeping, retail sales. Then there is the 'Haven't been there and won't go there." These jobs are those which heavily involve tasks I know I don't like or that I find repugnant for any number of reasons. I hate driving and do it only because, without public transportation, I have to. I hated receiving telephone calls from people trying to sell me something they thought I simply couldn't do without. So telephone sales is out. I have at a couple of times in my life been on the receiving end of calls from collection agencies. It has left, even after several years, a bad taste. I won't persecute someone else as I was once persecuted. Unfortunately too many jobs are in these areas.

I have seen a couple of postings in the "Sounds Interesting--let's explore the possibility" until they say their ideal candidate must haves specific degrees or other credentials, or must have 5+ year of experience, or must be able to lift 40 lbs. repeatedly. I recently switched to 25 lb. bags of cat litter because the 40 lb. bags every month were too much. That is also why hotel housekeeping and the cleaning services are out. I know how hard that can be on you physically. I was ten years younger when I did that job and I still remember how my back, knees and feet ached. I have done a lot of different jobs but none continuously for that long so the kind of experience they want I don't have. Degrees I have but usually not in the field thy want.

The process of job hunting has changed somewhat also. I noticed some of the changes since the last time I was looking. My last job I got through the newspaper want ads. Since then the jobs section has gotten skimpier and skimpier. My local newspaper serves a four county area with several good sized cities but even the Sunday paper almost never has more than four pages--less than half what it was even five years ago. The last jobs I applied for were on-line. I have seen no one and heard from no one concerning these jobs. I only found out about them because in one case a friend found out from a friend of theirs or because I do business with the firm and saw the sign on the building. Most of the businesses in my area just hang out such signs or put them or their marquees. They don't advertise in the papers or with the employment agencies.

This is something of an EXPERIMENT. I feel like Bilbo at the end of the Return of the King--quite ready for a new adventure. Having just had another birthday (not one of the big ones with the 0 on the end or one marking another quarter century but substantial nonetheless) and having lost a job when my employer went out of business at almost the same time, I need something new. I will see where this will lead me.

I read omnivorously though not systematically. I do needlework of various kinds. And I grouse about politics and current events. I take my political independence a step farther than Will Rogers who, as a Democrat, was not a member of an organized political party. I am not committed to any party, however well (or poorly) organized.