Dave Alpert: I Know Where You’re Going with That

You’ve all heard me rant about how mountain climbers are selfish bitches disguised as fitness enthusiasts.  Well, guess what?  The selfish bitches struck again!  Again, climbers got stranded–in the dead of winter–on Mt. Hood in Oregon.  This time, they didn’t die.

According to the article:

The three, two women a man and a man in their 30s, were fed hot food and given warm clothing before being led down the mountain with their dog, a black Labrador named Velvet.

Personally, I’m interested in whether they were slipped a bill for their Happy Meals and the can of Alpo they ate.  And maybe another bill for the rescuers… And another bill for the use of the rescue vehicles… And another bill for all the gas…  And I wish they’d send me their addresses, so I, too, can send a bill for the time it took for me to read about their dumb climber asses.

Oh, and let’s not forget poor Velvet the dog.  According to this article, the three climbers used the dog as a heat source:

Searchers credited the group’s rescue to two things — Velvet, a black Labrador mix who provided warmth as the three climbers huddled under sleeping bags and a tarp, and the activation of an emergency radio beacon the size of a sunglasses case that guided them to the group.

Thank goodness the rescuers found these climbers quickly.  Otherwise, I fear we would have had to read about Velvet being used as a food source as well.

And why aren’t climbers required to buy some sort of climbing insurance–a fund that would pay for rescues??  Or better yet, why can’t we just let them DIE???

I love the fact that Hillary Clinton is running for president.  I’m a fan–a big Bill fan and I think that Hillary would make a fine president.  I have to wait and see the final roster of candidates and hear some speeches before I commit, but I’m not unhappy that she has entered the race.  That being said, Hillary should spend more time watching crappy movies from the late 90s.  If she did, she probably wouldn’t have chosen  a campaign strategy using the buzz word “conversation.”  Bawk… conversation, conversation.

In the movie Primary Colors, Governor Jack Stanton played by John Travolta makes a run for president.  He’s plagued by his inability to keep it in his pants.  Sound familar???  In the movie, one of his campaign workers played by Kathy Bates says of him, “He’s poked his pecker in some sorry trash bins.”  A Southern governor womanizer running for president… hmmm….  But this is not the connection I’m trying to make.

In the movie, Governor Fred Picker played by Larry Hagman takes over as Stanton’s opponent when the other candidate dies on the campaign trail.  Picker’s strategy is to hold a “conversation” and makes significant gains in the polls until it comes out that as governor, he was a cocaine snorting, gay-lover-having adulterer.  He drops out.  Come on, Hillary!  Watch movies that are based on your life and don’t use the same campaign slogan as the gay druggie.  You may lose some votes in “middle America”, and by that I mean the part that’s in the middle of the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.

It was two years ago (at about the same time I’m writing this post) that the POPstick St. Valentine’s Day Massacre went down.  Every employee in this small but well respected interactive firm was brought into the middle of our office space by Fenway Park and told that most of the company would be laid off.  While in and of itself, that’s quite a story, it isn’t the story

The news was delivered by Danny Kastner, straight off of his crushing defeat as a reality show contestant on season 3 of The Apprentice.  And, the layoff was in the form of a reality game that could have only come from the fertile imagination of a network TV gameshow loser.  Dan stood before us with a large stack of manila envelopes, and we were told that everyone in the company was going to get a packet.  Some would receive a “letter of retention”, others a “letter of separation”.  (As on TV presidential debates, applause were to be held until the end.) 

As Dan went to call the first name, he looked and said, “There are no names on these envelopes!”  A voice from the back of the room shouted, “Pass them out anyway!  It doesn’t matter.”  Apparently, David Wagner, our COO and lawyer by trade, had written the names in such small mouse type on the large envelopes that Dan couldn’t find them.  Most of us were laid off, and the vast majority without any severance whatever.  I was fortunate to get less than a month and a half’s salary as severance (after 5 years with the company).

While I found Wagner to be entirely despicable as a human being and the type of start up executive clearly out to maximize his profits at the expense of the company’s worker bees, I couldn’t help but admire the way he came out of this horrible situation a winner.  He had a contract with serverence packages reminiscent of the ones being criticized in the news today where even with utter failure to achieve his responsibilities as a corporate executive, he would earn major bonuses.  Moreover,  he managed to move to an executive position in another company despite the fact that he, the VPs and Danny K ran a profitable business with clients like Microsoft and LYCRA into the ground.

If there is a silver lining to this story, it is that most of us came out better than we started.  I, for one, learned a lot in my five years working with Dan.  And the layoff allowed me to finish my CD and start a new band.  Nevertheless, I’ll never be able to look at Valentine’s Day in the same way again!

Okay.  I guess as a Boston blogger I’m compelled to weigh in about yesterday’s viral marketing success story.  First, I’ll just get my point of view out of the way.  No.  The police didn’t overreact.  Yes. The TV network and marketing agency should be held accountable.  No.  The two shmucks they got to put up the signs shouldn’t have been the ones arrested.  But yes.  They are shmucks for acting so pompous and unapologetic in light of the problems they caused.  Yes.  Unless Turner is ordered to donate all the show’s proceeds to Homeland Security, they are still going to be the big winners in all this.  How’s that?

To my first point, who are all these bomb expert citizens that keep blabbing their mouths off about how the devices were CLEARLY not bombs?  It just goes to show that we Americans still have a long way to go in being prepared for a world in which this country isn’t immune to acts of terror.  If this were Bagdad or Beirut or Beersheva, there wouldn’t be idiots going around thinking it is such a joke. 

I lived in Israel for a few years and one of the first things I learned was to be conscious of seeing what they call a chefetz chashood (suspicious object).  I remember walking up to the bus stop near my apartment to catch a bus to the university.  The bus stop had been cleared and a police officer with a bullhorn screamed at me to get back.  The police robot blew up what turned out to be a kid’s backpack.  That being said, no one that was inconvenieced at the bus stop snickered and said, “Anyone could see that was a sponge bob backpack.”  In the 1970s, the PLO used to plant bombs in Israel that looked like packs of cigarettes or childrens’ toys.  Who cares that these devices (planted under bridges) look like litebrites?  In countries where there is a history of bomb attacks, citizens know to look for suspicious objects; in Israel, this vigilence has saved MANY lives. 

To my other points, I don’t care to elaborate.  I’m sick of this topic already.  In 2007, you still can’t scream “fire” in a crowded theater… or can you?

UPDATE (2/2): I live in Boston, traveled in and out of the city yesterday and this event didn’t affect me at all.  I don’t understand these people around the world laughing at Boston for “shutting down” and “overreacting”.  Did I miss something?  Here’s what the Boston police commissioner had to say about the chronology of events… (Seems pretty reasonable to me.) Message from Boston Police Commissioner.