January 2003

Another Reason to Restrict TV Viewing

29 Jan 2003 / PE

In a local “headless torso” case, two boys were arrested for killing their mom, then cutting off her head and hands to hinder identification of the body, a trick they picked up from watching “The Sopranos.”

This is why I don’t allow a lot of TV viewing at my house . . .


The Ultimate Morale Booster

25 Jan 2003 / The Programmer

Cybersex and so-called virtual affairs on the Internet are the all the buzz among professionals who study spouses who stray.

But the truly fertile ground for dangerous emotional attachments outside marriages is much more conventional: the workplace.

— USA Today, “Infidelity reaches beyond having sex”, Jan. 8, 2003
Overfriendly boss

The Programmer reflects that perhaps sex in the workplace is a good indicator of employee morale:

I remember my first job, I worked on some great teams and great projects. I also had liaisons with a secretary and a senior systems analyst (quite a coup for a junior programmer).

A married operations manager kind of came on to me, but she had a crisis of conscience at the last minute.

Currently, I work in a low-morale workplace — a low-morale industry, for that matter — no one has any emotional connection with one another, and I get no sex at all.

Of course, I’m married now, but even among my unmarried colleagues, no one really has that ‘I just got laid’ spring in their step on a regular basis.

Thus spoke The Programmer.

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Depressing Job Posting of the Week

25 Jan 2003 / The Programmer
Razor wire fence

For reasons that I can’t quite articulate, phrases like this in a job posting really depress me:

Time management and data organization skills are also required.

What kind of world are we living in where that sort of thing has to be explicitly specified in a job description?

Aren’t time management and data organization skills pretty much required for daily life, outside of, say, a jail or a mental asylum?

Thus spoke The Programmer.

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I Have a Dream (2003 Edition)

21 Jan 2003 / Hostile Witness

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where my memory is honored by a full slate of NBA basketball games . . .”

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Rent Hikes Cause Homelessness?

19 Jan 2003 / Hostile Witness

I read a story in Time magazine about a family in Columbus, OH, evicted from their apartment and living in a homeless shelter because they couldn’t afford a rent hike on the apartment.

The husband was unemployed at the time; the wife was a pizza delivery driver. Both are high-school dropouts and they have three kids.

The lesson here, according to Time:

All it takes sometimes is a sudden rent hike to push a working family into a shelter.

Continue reading Rent Hikes Cause Homelessness?


The Forer Effect

19 Jan 2003 / Hostile Witness

Psychologist B.R. Forer found that people tend to accept vague and general personality descriptions as uniquely applicable to themselves without realizing that the same description could be applied to just about anyone. Consider the following as if it were given to you as an evaluation of your personality.

Continue reading The Forer Effect

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Teachers Making a Difference

8 Jan 2003 / Hostile Witness

Good or bad? It doesn’t say.

OC Family’s Special Annual “10 Teachers Making a Difference” issue is out . . .

Continue reading Teachers Making a Difference


Ask HW: Why Aren’t There More Black Head Coaches in the NFL?

6 Jan 2003 / Hostile Witness

The conventional wisdom on this is that black coaches are hired on merit, while white coaches are hired by racists.

Continue reading Ask HW: Why Aren’t There More Black Head Coaches in the NFL?