Peter Hansen Smear Campaign

I hate Peter Hansen. Who is PeterHansen? Someone that I dearly hate.

This Paranoid Android...

...just about lost his marbles at Radiohead on Sunday. Instead of getting it all off my chest here, someone else pretty much summed it up for me. This Brightest Young Things blog just about nails it (the pics are pretty good, but they don't really capture the awe-inspiring stage set-up or the catastrpohic weather around us). I would only add a couple of notes. My drive was more like 12 hours from North Carolina, not a measely 3 hours from DC. I had no rain gear to speak of to deal with the torrential down pour. Thanks to my friend Liz's parents, I procured a bright yellow rain jacket that kept the top half of my body completely dry. The bottom half — in board shorts and rainbow sandals — was a different story. My rainbows will take a few weeks to dry out I think. Last, I was dissappointed when Thom Yorke's shot at Capital Hill (something to the effect of "Whats up with those people on Capital Hill? They really fucked it all up, didn't they?) evoked near silence from the crowd. I could only imagine what the response would have been in a place like Seattle or San Fran — or the entire West Coast.

So begins the week of concerts and graduation:
Sunday - Radiohead
Tuesday - Black Keys
Wednesday - Once OK Twice
Thursday - Cut Copy
Friday -Graduation

War on Drugs Update - SoCal Up to no Good

Silly frat kids - This is a fascinating tale of idiocy coming out of San Diego State University. 96 people were arrested, $100,000 worth of drugs were seized, as well as 4 guns, from the Theta Chi fraternity after an undercover drug bust. Best line of the article, "They weren't picky about who they sold to," he said, alleging that undercover officers would simply call them and say, " 'Hey, I heard you deal. Will you sell to me?' "And they did." Frat nerds + drug dealing = extraordinary studity every time. I remember a story from when I was at UCLA that some kid in a fraternity was dealing drugs when no one in his house even knew. That is, until 2 guys showed up at his door with sawed-off shot guns, tied him up and robbed him blind in the light of day.

And a few more stories from south of the border. It appears that the hit-squad division of one of the largest drug cartels in the Gulf region, Los Zetas, is recruiting new employees (might not be a bad place to start looking for us job seeking graduates). And they are doing it in a particularly brazen way...by hanging huge banners and posting signs around border towns that they are hiring. The signs offer food, training, health care and education for families, and good pay (up to $5,000 per week). Unfortunately, it seems that they are looking for ex-military and military deserters, so I may not qualify. They even list phone numbers for interested parties to contact, which the authorities believe are legit.

And about 2 weeks ago, a shootout between rival drug gangs left 15 people dead in the streets of Tijuana(the article says 13, but 2 more have since died). The article can't actually pinpoint exactly who was involved, but speculations range from gang vs. gang, gang vs. informants, and gang vs. undercover police.

What both articles point to is that the surging brazenness and violence coming from the Mexican drug industry is a direct response to increased efforts on the part of the Mexican military (with U.S. money and advice) to fight back against the drug cartels. In times of extreme irony I like to invoke song lyrics. Wilco's song War on War goes...

Its a War on War
Its a War on War
Its a War on War
Its a War on War

Your gonna lose
You have to loo-oo-oo-oose
You have to learn how to die-ie-ie
If you wanna-wanna stay alive

No Calls Please

Job hunting sucks. It is especially dauting at the moment when it seems like every company in the world is in a holding pattern, waiting for the tides to change; winds to change direction; economic funk to blow over...Take it from my friend Orion who has been looking for a job since January.

After months of fruitless efforts, I sympathize with the May 08 graduates. Here I thought I would have a leg up on the competition, graduating in December, but I find myself in the rat race with the rest of you all.

Network, network, network…you won’t find your job on Monster.com. Well I have to say, I have exhausted all of my networking connections, made some new acquaintances, ye they see to have expired as well. No luck there.

I searched through a list of over 3,000 non-profits in DC Metro area of which I found about a dozen with posting openings I felt to be qualified for. This is of course, after going through my short list of ‘dream’ organizations I want to work for. Yet as you may have guessed, no of them have offered me a job let alone want to interview me. What do I do next when they all explicitly state: “no phone calls, we will contact qualified candidates for interviews”…so much for the idea of follow ups and persistence.

The problem is I can’t find anyone one to pay me part time while I wait for the big offer. I am listed with 3 temp agencies, and I have received 4, one day assignments in 2 months. I am overqualified to work in retail or my other dream job, at a beer distributor; and the banks don’t want me to be a teller either because a Masters in International Relations doesn’t prove I can add or it’s because I don’t speak Spanish.

I think once I get a job, I am going to go around to a bunch of the places that would rather employ high school that won’t show up for work and ask for my resume back.

-Orion Wenczel


Some research published in Businessweek says that not only are this years grads screwed this year, but if we take lesser jobs now, we will have lesser jobs and make less money for the rest of our lives.

I'm thinking its time to travel.