Posts Tagged ‘Misbehavior’

21 items.

Whistleblower

by Seraphine Khorana on March 17th, 2011
Posted In: Comics
Whistleblower

A whistleblower is one who exposes wrongdoing in their workplace. Things don’t usually go well for whistleblowers. They get branded as “troublemakers” by their employers, or worse. Canadian Duncan Edwards reported a strip club breach of security by his Defence Minister employer and was fired for his diligence. Iranian doctor Ramin Pourandarjani died of “salad poisoning” shortly after reporting the use of torture against political prisoners by his government. Christoph Meili, the bank guard who reported the destruction of Holocaust victim’s savings records by UBS bank, had to be given political asylum in the United States after Swiss authorities attempted to arrest him. Being a whistleblower is not an easy decision to make.

Even if I thought that our printers killed baby seals, I would not be a whistleblower. The Bernards, for generations, have silenced whistleblowers. It’s how we made all our money.
Quotation from television character Andy Bernard on The Office

It was a crisis of conscience. I had to be cognizant of what could happen to my family as well as to me. I was confident I wouldn’t be able to get a job in a corporation again, certainly not in the insurance industry.
Quotation from Wendell Potter, former executive at Cigna

P.S. My heart goes out to the people of Japan in the wake of this week’s earthquake, tsunami and nuclear melt-down. Don’t give up!

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The Llama Sutra

by Seraphine Khorana on September 19th, 2010
Posted In: Comics
The Llama Sutra

“Beeeeee” said the llama. That is very good advice. Just be.

The wife should always avoid the company of female beggars, female buddish mendicants, unchaste and roguish women, female fortune tellers and witches.
Quotation from Vatsyayana, Kama Sutra (Aphorisms on Love) “When love becomes intense, pressing with the nails or scratching the body with them is practised on the following occasions: On the first visit; at the time of setting out on a journey; on the return from a journey; at the time when an angry lover is reconciled; and lastly when the woman is intoxicated.”

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Naked Lady

by Seraphine Khorana on August 26th, 2010
Posted In: Comics
Naked Lady

This is the season of Naked Lady lilies in northern California. They grow the flower stem first- the leaves only come later after the flower has bloomed.

“The pervasive theme is rebellion.” Laurel Thatcher Ulrich begins her new book, “Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History,” struggling to explain — understand — the appeal of an aside she made in the spring 1976 issue of an academic journal, a comment that has become a popular slogan printed on T-shirts and coffee mugs and bumper stickers, usually without her permission and often without attribution.
Quotation from Kathryn Harrison, We’re No Angels, Sunday Book Review (The New York Times) Much of what is characterized as female “misbehavior” is a matter of voice — of a woman insisting she be heard, paid not only attention, but also the respect due a being as fully human and necessary as a man.

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Spy vs. Spy

by Seraphine Khorana on July 13th, 2010
Posted In: Comics
Spy vs. Spy

It was recently revealed that Russian spies posing as “ordinary” Americans were arrested. They lived in happy surburban homes. They sent messages to their handlers using invisible ink. They posted images on the internet with secret, coded texts hidden in them. They had “American” children. One alleged spy, Anna Chapman, was a “demure, divorced 28-year-old who said she founded an online real estate company worth $2 million.” They were, in short, “normal” Americans, which is probably what gave them away.

Jessie Gugig, 15, said she could not believe the charges, especially against Mrs. Murphy. “They couldn’t have been spies,” she said jokingly. “Look what she did with the hydrangeas.”
Quotation from In Ordinary Lives, U.S. Sees the Work of Russian Agents by Scott Shane and Charlie Savage (The New York Times)

“She said they were from Canada.”
Quotation from Lila Hexner, who lived next door to one of the spies.

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Mind Your Surroundings

by Seraphine Khorana on June 18th, 2010
Posted In: Comics
Mind Your Surroundings

The tragic oil “spill” in the Gulf of Mexico continues. BP CEO Tony Hayward’s congressional hearing this week was a disappointment. I wanted him to tell Congress that BP takes every precaution to prevent accidents like this. I wanted to hear that safety and protecting the environment is as important to him as profits. After all, Mr. Hayward was appointed in 2007 to “clean up” BP after the Texas City refinery fire of 2005 and the Prudhoe Bay pipeline spills that occured the following year. But instead of changing the penny-pinching corporate culture of BP, he cut expenses and eliminated 7,500 jobs.

Does America’s rightous indignation make you feel uncomfortable? It does me. Two months ago, we were angry at Goldman Sachs. BP is just the villain du jour. The underlying problem is we– as a society– tolerate expediency over having to make difficult choices. Too many of us think it’s ok to use torture as a tool in the war against terrorism. Why do Republicans and Democrats point fingers at each other rather than fix the health care system or Social Security? Where is the indignation over having 300,000 homeless children in California?
Doing the right thing proactively is always less costly and painful than damage control after something bad happens.

Far From Gulf, a Spill Scourge 5 Decades Old (The New York Times) “The Niger Delta, where the wealth underground is out of all proportion with the poverty on the surface, has endured the equivalent of the Exxon Valdez spill every year for 50 years.”

Be inspired by: The Excitement is Building (on Habitat for Humanity) “Everyone is pretty ordinary. No divas or superstars. But together we make a very big difference.”

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Water is Water is Water

by Seraphine Khorana on May 26th, 2010
Posted In: Comics
Water is Water is Water

Water is water is water. Until you mix it with oil. Water and oil do not mix, and that’s a lesson we are learning again and again… and again.
The 10-million gallon Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska 21 years ago isn’t even in the top 30 oil spills of all time. Remember when Iraq opened the spigots on several Kuwaiti oil tankers in 1991? That spill topped 520 million gallons. A rig in Mexico collapsed in 1980 and spilled 30,000 gallons of oil into the ocean every day for a year. Bigger oil spills have occurred in France, Russia, Angola, Canada, Italy and in the Persian Gulf.
The BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill on America’s Gulf coast is “officially” leaking 5,000 gallons a day, but “Steven Wereley, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at Perdue University, told the House Energy and Commerce Committee that by his calculations… the spill appears to be closer to 72,000 barrels per day–or more than 3 million gallons” of oil per day.
Tomorrow, the Deepwater Horizon will become the second worst oil spill in history. There is no good news in this.
My wish is that we could turn oil into water and let fishes be fishes.

The world’s five largest publicly traded oil companies [are] on track to earn more than $100 billion before year’s end. Yet, at the same time that Big Oil’s bottom line is going up, so are Americans’ energy costs.
Quotation from Allyson Schwartz

I hear one message- don’t blame me.
Quotation from Sen. John Barrasso, Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. (BP blames Transocean Ltd. and Transocean Ltd. blames BP… or maybe it was Halliburton Inc. Some blame the Republicans while others blame President Barack Obama)

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Promiscuous Women / Divine Retribution

by Seraphine Khorana on April 21st, 2010
Posted In: Comics
Promiscuous Women / Divine Retribution

If I can’t blame YOU, who else is there to blame?

Father Wages Court Battle Against Funeral Protests “Military deaths are the work of a wrathful God who punishes the United States for tolerating homosexuality.” (ABC News)

Why Is Pat Robertson Blaming Haiti? “The [Haitian earthquake] was divine retribution for a pact with the devil.” (Time Magazine)

Disabled Kids are God’s Punishment for Abortion “God is taking “vengeance” on parents who have had abortions by making their other children disabled.” (CBS News)

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Subprime Cookies

by Seraphine Khorana on April 16th, 2010
Posted In: Comics
Subprime Cookies

“What’s in the cookie batter?” she wanted to know. “Lots of sugar,” he said. “Just remember I’m not responsible if you don’t like them.”

Goldman Sachs charged with fraud by SEC “These charges are far more severe than anyone had imagined,” and suggest Goldman teamed with “the leading short-seller in the industry to design a portfolio of securities that would crash,” said John Coffee, a securities law professor at Columbia Law School in New York. (Reuters)

Abacus Allowed Goldman to Shuffle Mortgage Risk Like Beads “The SEC said that Goldman Sachs created and sold Abacus 2007-AC1 without disclosing that hedge fund Paulson & Co. helped pick the underlying securities and also bet the CDO would default. Paulson was proved correct, and his hedge fund eventually turned a $1 billion profit and CDO investors lost a similar amount, according to the SEC.” (Bloomberg)

The product was new and complex but the deception and conflicts are old and simple. Goldman wrongly permitted a client that was betting against the mortgage market to heavily influence which mortgage securities to include in an investment portfolio, while telling other investors that the securities were selected by an independent, objective third party.
Quotation from SEC Enforcement Director Robert Khuzami

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Virgin Mary

by Seraphine Khorana on April 7th, 2010
Posted In: Comics
Virgin Mary

I think the bartender was flirting.

I am not a sexy woman. I’m not beautiful. I’m not a sex kitten. I don’t flirt with people, yet I’ve been tagged more of a sex symbol than women who truly are– and I that’s solely because I don’t reveal too much. People are curious.
Quotation from Shirley Manson

I like my women like I like my coffee… covered in bees!
Quotation from Eddie Izzard

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The Courtship Ceremony

by Seraphine Khorana on March 16th, 2010
Posted In: Comics
The Courtship Ceremony

Face it: Wooing is out, Woo Woo is in. Courtship in America ended somewhere between the time the television shows The Brady Bunch and The Love Boat were cancelled.

One good idea would be to invite the Pisces lady to your home to show her your aquarium. You should start your seduction process when she is engrossed in seeing fishes in your aquarium. Give her a kiss on the shoulders and this will automatically lead her to your bedroom.
Quotation from “Seduction by Sun Signs” (TheSecretsofSeduction.com)

A tall well-built woman with good
reputation, who can cook frogs
legs, who appreciates a good fuc-
schia garden, classical music and tal-
king without getting too serious.
But please only read lines 1, 3 and 5.
Quotation from a Personal Ad (DateHookup.com)

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A Pinch for Good Luck

by Seraphine Khorana on March 6th, 2010
Posted In: Comics
A Pinch for Good Luck

Dear Mr. [******]
Thank you for your letter of March 3, 2010. I appreciate your concern regarding my personal life. No, I do not have financial stress, nor issues with job loss, medical problems, divorce or “other life events” that have impacted my ability to repay my auto loan with your company. I appreciate your generous offer to assist with budgeting, restructuring and/or consolidating my finances. That is very kind of you. But at present, I do not have any of those problems. *Knock on wood*
I think you lost my auto payment that was sent to you on February 25, 2010. You see, I have you on an automatic payment schedule through Billpay, so the payments are sent to you automatically each month. To date, that has never been a problem.
I guess you did not consider that maybe you might have lost my check someplace? Did you look behind your desk? Perchance, you credited my payment to somebody else’s account? Is it still in your in-box awaiting processing?
If you cannot find my check, please let me know and I will send you another one. ASAP.
Sincerely, Sera

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Fountaingrove Winery: Part 1

by Seraphine Khorana on February 6th, 2010
Posted In: Comics
Fountaingrove Winery: Part 1

The Fountaingrove Winery was established in 1875 in Sonoma County (California) by Thomas Lake Harris. Harris believed he was chosen by God to grow grapes and to make rare wine “filled with the divine breath.” He also believed himself to be immortal. The winery became home to the Brotherhood of the New Life, a “cult” that believed God is bisexual and that each person has a counterpart in heaven. Harris expected complete surrender from his disciples, including the surrender of all their their material wealth to him. He was eventually, perhaps predictably, forced to leave the winery after a sordid sexual scandal. When he died in 1906, his followers earnestly declared he was only “sleeping.” The winery closed in 1934. A fire destroyed about half of the remaining ruins in 1991. Today, the winery is mostly visited by local teens who like to get loaded and spray colorful graffiti.

Give me a severely dilapidated building, some broken bottles and cryptic graffiti, and I’m pretty much mentally and emotionally revitalized.
Quotation from Gabe Meline, The Fountaingrove Winery

Although the sun shone high and strong, I got a serious case of the heebie jeebies. I kept expecting to see ragged, misty faces looking at me through the cracked window panes. I love that feeling.
Quotation from Leilani Clark, Ghosts in Our Midst

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You Have A Good One

by Seraphine Khorana on January 11th, 2010
Posted In: Comics
You Have A Good One

“You have a good one” is akin to saying “Have a Nice Day.”
Isn’t it ironic that “A Good One” is also a congratulatory phrase used when someone tells a “Good Joke?”

Men are most apt to believe what they least understand.
Quotation from Michel Eyquem, Of Cripples

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Random Testing

by Seraphine Khorana on December 26th, 2009
Posted In: Comics
Random Testing

It’s the day after Christmas. This is also a time when family violence increases. People are together more, amid the additional stresses of holiday spending and often alcohol. Don’t allow it in your life, or in the lives of your loved ones. Domestic violence is NOT acceptable, even at Christmas.

Call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 (SAFE) if you need help or shelter.

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It Smells Delicious…

by Seraphine Khorana on November 27th, 2009
Posted In: Comics
It Smells Delicious…

“I’m doing you a favor,” she said.

She is too kind and fond
Ever to grieve me,
She has too pure a heart
E’er to deceive me.
Poem by Padraic Colum, Maire My Girl

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My Story (and I’m sticking to it)

by Seraphine Khorana on November 17th, 2009
Posted In: Comics
My Story (and I’m sticking to it)

I sometimes can’t remember what I did yesterday, much less a week ago. Somebody in a crosswalk walked in front of me as I was driving- what was he wearing? What did I eat for lunch? Where did I lay my glasses? I don’t consider myself stupid, but why can’t I remember?

People are overly optimistic about the accuracy of their retrieved memories, probably because most errors have little practical consequence and go unnoticed. Given the confidence in their own memory accuracy, people have too much faith in the accuracy of eyewitnesses. Memory has a multitude of quirks and inaccuracies that creep into its everyday operation.
Quotation from Marc Green, Phd, Eyewitness Memory is Unreliable

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The Great Pumpkin’s Path of Awakening

by Seraphine Khorana on October 28th, 2009
Posted In: Comics
The Great Pumpkin’s Path of Awakening

The Great Pumpkin was Alone. He thought “I am One. I want to become Many.” This single thought caused a Vibration, which eventually became Sound (“Om”), which prompted all Creation. Empty furrows–the space between vibrations– begat more Pumpkins, which represent the dream state of all consciousness.
A Pumpkin at rest is Perfect Bliss. Therefore, carve a pumpkin at your own risk.

Creating a Devil Pumpkin Using Kerosene-Soaked Toilet Paper (ExtremePumpkins.com)

“Who is it knocking in the night,
That fain would enter in?”
“The ghost of Lost Delight am I,
The sin you would not sin,
Who comes to look in your two eyes
And see what might have been.”
Poem from Theodosia Garrison

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Fashion Faux Pas – The Muumuu

by Seraphine Khorana on September 27th, 2009
Posted In: Comics
Fashion Faux Pas – The Muumuu

It was Al Bundy on the television show Married With Children that ruined it. He burned into the American consciousness the impression that only fat women wear muumuus. In reality, the muumuu is comfortable to wear in hot weather because it hangs loosely from the shoulders, much like the roomy Hawaiian shirt for men.

I don’t want to look like a weirdo. I’ll just go with a muumuu.
Quotation from Homer Simpson, The Simpsons

I hate the supermarket. I always wind up in the two-thousand-items-or-less aisle behind some ugly lady in a muumuu and curlers.
Quotation from Al Bundy, Married With Children

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The Corporate Dunce Chair

by Seraphine Khorana on March 9th, 2009
Posted In: Comics
The Corporate Dunce Chair

The number of unemployed people increased to 12.5 million in February, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. Additionally, another 2.3 million people are “marginally attached” to the labor force, meaning they have stopped looking for work, or are so discouraged that they believe no jobs are available to them.

Rothschild said you should buy when there’s blood in the streets. Yesterday, there was enough [blood] to cater Dracula’s daughter’s wedding.
Quotation from Art Cashin, UBS Director of Floor Operations

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Nobody’s Perfect (but me)

by Seraphine Khorana on August 19th, 2008
Posted In: Comics
Nobody’s Perfect (but me)

When we ask “what can I do to make others like me more,”
what we’re really saying is “can I make myself a better person?”
Others can act as mirrors, but change comes from within.

Next time you feel like it’s just one of those days
When you just can’t seem to win
If things don’t turn out the way you plan,
Figure something else out
Don’t stay down, try again, yeah
Nobody’s Perfect, no no, nobody’s perfect
Lyrics from Hannah Montana, Nobody’s Perfect

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Thought Control vrs. The Runaway Mind

by Seraphine Khorana on May 16th, 2008
Posted In: Comics
Thought Control vrs. The Runaway Mind

We say stupid things. Judgment runs away from us.
In a flash of adrenalin, all considered thought scurries,
leaving us to wonder: “Could I have handled that better?”

“It’s not like I cry all the time, but when the frustration peaks
& I’ve reached my limit, the tears just come. It is embarrassing
& I feel like such a failure for not being able to hold it in.”
Comment from Passionate_One

“My way is to seize an image that moment it has formed in my mind,
to trap it as a bird and to pin it at once to canvas. Afterward I start
to tame it, to master it. I bring it under control and I develop it.”
Quotation from Joan Mira

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