Happy MLK Day

Shakespeare’s Sister today reposts one of the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Jr’s best speeches in honor of the holiday. There’s not a man or a woman alive today who’s as good a speaker as he was. We have some gifted speakers, no doubt, but none with quite the combination of fire and poetry as he.

It’s a fun game to conjure up a ghost from our past and ask, “What would So-And-So think about today’s world?” I’m not foolish enough to put words into MLK’s mouth, but I’m pretty sure he would not be happy with the world today.

But the important thing is that Dr King was not a pessimist. Look at that speech again. Those are the words of someone who deeply believes that tomorrow will be better than today. If in 1963, Dr King could look at an America deeply racist and divided, and see a better future, then we here in 2005, with so many gains made since that day, should be able to see a brighter future too.

I Bet David Irving Will Keynote

Because I’d be willing to bet his crackpot theories would be a perfect fit at this little bash:

Iran said Sunday it would sponsor a conference to examine the scientific evidence supporting the Holocaust, an apparent next step in hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s campaign against Israel and a move likely to deepen Tehran’s international isolation.

Ahmadinejad already had called the Nazis’ World War II slaughter of 6 million European Jews a myth and said the Jewish state should be wiped off the map or moved to Germany or the United States.

UPDATE: Whoops, I didn’t realize Irving was currently in prison in Austria.

How Gift Cards Don’t Get Spent

Sorry I’ve been silent these past couple of days. No new photos for cat blogging, and I don’t have much to say on what’s going on in Washington.

I’m also realizing, now that Scott and I are, for the first time in several years, both on a weekday work schedule, how much that impacts your ability to get things done. Instead of my being able to run errands on weekday off hours, leaving the weekends for more enjoyable things, we have to cram the to-do list into those hours when everyone else is trying to get through their to-do list as well. It’s a bit of an adjustment.

Yesterday, for example, we went up to San Francisco for an event at the SPCA. After that, we decided to run a couple of errands. For example, I have a low-value Best Buy gift card I wanted to use, and there’s one a block away from the SPCA. So we go, and have some fun wandering around and looking at various stuff. We made fun of the insanely expensive TVs, looked at some speaker systems for the iPod, and checked out the software and DVDs. Eventually I made a selection and we headed for the cash register. At which point we discovered 15 to 20 people were on line ahead of us.

“Forget it,” I said. “I’m not waiting on that line just for this.” And we left.

This isn’t meant to be some sage observation about business, because I’m not sure what the point here is. Is is that Best Buy is not doing so well and thus is trying to skimp on cashiers or that Best Buy is doing really well even in the post-Xmas slow times? I don’t have the data to come to a conclusion either way.

At any rate, the computer game I’ve been thinking about buying remained unbought, and we moved on to Costco.

Awwww

The NY Rangers’ Cup-winning season of 1994 is a long time away, but the memories are still sweet.

Mark Messier, who led the New York Rangers in 1994 to their first Stanley Cup in 54 years, had his No. 11 jersey retired on Thursday in an emotional celebration at Madison Square Garden.

Surrounded by many of his teammates from that Stanley Cup winning team, members of his family and the Cup itself, Messier watched as his No. 11 banner was slowly lifted to the rafters to the strains of Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy.”

His was the fourth jersey ever retired by the Rangers, joining Rod Gilbert (No. 7), Eddie Giacomin (No. 1) and Mike Richter (No. 35), the goalie on the ’94 championship team.

I’m lucky enough to have seen all 4 of those excellent players at The Garden. I wonder who will be the next Ranger to join their company.

Scars

So today was Day #4 at the internship. I’ve spent most of my time so far working solo, putting together a strategy document for marketing one aspect of the newest version of the product. I submitted the completed memo to my supervisor, and had a few hours of down time while I waited for him to read & respond to it.

Since I’m still new at the job, I didn’t really know what the protocol was — should I ask for more work, start working on a project I’d mentioned in the first paper, or wait for feedback on my first work product? My supervisor was in and out of meetings and I didn’t want to bother him. Unsure, I fell back on self-reliance. I did some research, read over some internal documents, and started jotting notes and ideas for other possible projects.

This worked for a couple of hours. But after lunch, I started to feel worried. The other intern, who started the day after I did, was working busily away on two different projects, talking to people, asking questions. I was sitting there, working by myself, and feeling a bit isolated. Dark thoughts descended. I started wondering whether maybe, despite what I’d been told when I was hired, they didn’t really plan on keeping both of us? Perhaps this first week was some sort of weeding out process to see which of us was the better hire and the other one would be quietly let go? Was my lack of new tasks some sort of signal? Had I blown it already? For two more hours, I alternated between paranoia and telling myself I was being an idiot.

These last 4 years have been pretty rough in a lot of ways, but I didn’t realize how deep the scars had gone until today. Once upon a time, I trusted what managers told me and would have welcomed a few hours of slack time. Now, I’m both more cynical and more insecure.

Finally, just as I was starting to think that maybe I ought to wash out my coffee mug (the one personal item I’ve brought to the office) and make sure it was clean, dry, and ready to go in case today really was my last day, an email from my supervisor popped into my mailbox, telling me what a great job I had done and would I present my ideas to the rest of the marketing staff in 30 minutes.

I had to read the e-mail twice before the relief set in.

Hopefully I won’t let my insecurities get the better of me next time.