Month: June 2010

Revealing:

"The price of flawed policy"
"Operation Mini Cast Lead"
"Fiasco on the High Seas"
"Seven idiots in the cabinet"
"A failure any way you slice it"

David Grossman writes a heartfelt, nuanced cri de coeur:

How insecure, confused and panicky a country must be, to act as Israel acted! With a combination of excessive military force, and a fatal failure to anticipate the intensity of the reaction of those aboard the ship, it killed and wounded civilians, and did so – as if it were a band of pirates – outside its territorial waters. This assessment does not imply agreement with the motives, overt or hidden, and often malicious, of some participants in the Gaza flotilla. Not all its people are peace-loving humanitarians, and the declarations of some of them regarding the destruction of the state of Israel are criminal. But these facts are simply not relevant at the moment: such opinions do not deserve the death penalty.

Israel's actions are but the natural continuation of the shameful, ongoing closure of Gaza, which in turn is the perpetuation of the heavy-handed and condescending approach of the Israeli government, which is prepared to embitter the lives of a million and a half innocent people in the Gaza Strip, in order to obtain the release of one imprisoned soldier, precious and beloved though he may be; and this closure is the all-too-natural consequence of a clumsy and calcified policy, which again and again resorts by default to the use of massive and exaggerated force, at every decisive juncture, where wisdom and sensitivity and creative thinking are called for instead.

And somehow, all these calamities – including Monday's deadly events – seem to be part of a larger corruptive process afflicting Israel. One has the sense that a sullied and bloated political system, fearfully aware of the steaming mess produced over the years by its own actions and malfunctions, and despairing of the possibility to undo the endless tangle it has wrought, becomes ever more inflexible in the face of pressing and complicated challenges, losing in the process the qualities that once typified Israel and its leadership – freshness, originality, creativity.

Well, the bearish part of Provincetown anyway:

More work by Marc Johns here and here. And yes, the fish is a role model.

A reader writes:

Your reader wrote:

“Playing by the rules, I post and scour Monster and Career Builder to no avail, not even an interview.  When I see a job that particularly fits my skills, I break the 'rules' and contact the employer directly and consistently.”

I feel for the guy, but he should break the rules more often. Having been unemployed myself for months, I understand the frustration.  But having worked in career counseling for a few years, I know how to look for a job.  Most people don’t, and would do better if they did.

Don’t waste too much time with job boards unless you are someone with a very specific technical skill looking for a job that requires that skill.  Do contact employers directly and consistently, and contact them before they have job openings.  The old nostrum that “if a job is posted, it’s been filled” is generally true.

The reality is that 80% of jobs are filled via personal connections and relationships.  It really is like high school; people hire people they know and like.  Think of everyone you know, even your worthless brother in law, as a potential connection to a job, either directly or indirectly.  Your resume should be the last thing an employer sees, because the first thing they should see is you in person.  People should do the following:

1. Figure out what it is you want to do and where you’d like to work.  Do some web research to identify desirable employers.

2. Ask everyone you know if they know anybody at the places you want to work; if not, do some more research on places like their websites and Linked In to identify key hiring managers at those places.  Whether or not they have a job opening is irrelevant.

3. Get on the phone and call them, or send them a personal note or email—don’t ask for a job, but say you are exploring career options and would like to learn about their company and what they do there.  Flatter them by asking for advice—people love to talk about themselves.

4. Cultivate the new relationship, and ask for more referrals.  Eventually one of two things will happen:  you will hit upon someone getting ready to post a job opening that they will consider you for, or one of the people you met with will think of you the next time they have a job opening and call you back.

5. Try freelance consulting—it can lead to new connections and even jobs.  It forces you to “market” and “brand” yourself.

The Beeb has a helpful summary of what we know.

Gorgona, Panama, 5.12 pm

D.B. Grady profiles Michael Yon:

Yon's outlook [on the war in Afghanistan] is bleak. "Even if the President commits more forces [next year], they will not be effective until 2012.  By that time, more allies likely will have peeled off, requiring us to commit even more forces to cover down. We lost crucial time in building the Afghan National Police and Afghan National Army and so forth, and today we are paying the price. This is not to mention that the Afghan government is sorry at best and criminal at worst."

He concludes, "The trajectory of this war leaves a sick feeling in my stomach.  It's as if I've watched a space shuttle liftoff while sitting at launch control, with full knowledge that it will abort to the Indian Ocean. We are trying to reach orbit with insufficient fuel."

McArdle is basically where I am:

This morning a bunch of people are trying to defend Israel by saying that the protesters attacked first.  No, they didn't.  Boarding someone's ship in international waters is an attack.  To put it another way, how many of the people mounting this defense would criticize Israeli sailors if they attacked a bunch of armed Palestinians who were airdropping, one by one, onto their ship, after firing tear gas grenades in to soften them up?

Mike Allen gets the scoop.

This is remarkable:

Senior ministers have been sharply critical of the fact that the decision to seize control of the flotilla to Gaza was made after two meetings of the forum of seven senior ministers but without official deliberation by the inner cabinet, the body that has the authority to approve military actions of this scale.