Chronicling the paths that 26 men took as they attempted to slip into the United States via the desert in May 2001, you know from the start that 14 will not make it. That 14 will die under the relentless Arizona sun, and that 12 men will barely survive. As Urrea builds up to their ordeal in the desert, you continue with trepidation, afraid of what you’ll learn, but knowing that it’s a story that needs to be told and read. You’ll be overwhelmed by the humanity and inhumanity of the U.S.-Mexican border. A question will pop up, hopefully pop up, if you’ve never asked it of yourself before: why are the border policies so goddamn stupid?

Urrea doesn’t attempt to answer the crucial question he’s provoked but, in his excellent prose, he humanizes the struggles of the men who wanted, in reality, very simple things: one summer’s worth of work to fix the roof of a house, and maybe get new furniture for a wife; tuition and uniforms for children; money that supports a baby coming in October. Nothing extraordinary, but made all the more difficult by disappearing jobs in Mexico: being laid off from the Coca-Cola plant, the coffee business going belly up; beans and tortillas soaring to American prices—people unable to afford even the most basic, most campesino of meals. Imagine, the Mexican consul in Calexico, Rita Vargas, muses, if the price tag for getting 13 of the 14 dead men back to Mexico, valued at $68,000, had been invested instead in their villages?

By the same token, the Border Patrol, so feared and reviled by those trying to cross, ridiculed by both the left and the right, are given greater understanding The Devil’s Highway. As Urrea says in a 2004 interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, “I had a classic Latino, liberal view of those guys as fascists and oppressors of my people.” I won’t lie—I hold the same kind of trepidation. It’s so easy to look at these guys on the border, chasing down people, and think: evil. You don’t stop to think that, in addition to just doing their jobs, they’re also trying to save people. I think it’s fair to say that most Border Patrol agents do not want people to die in the desert, cooked alive by a merciless sun. The Border Patrol in Wellton, Ariz., literally sprang into action to save those 12 men. They were, and remain, disgusted by the guides who abandoned the men, taking their money before they left. Instead of the abusive automatons of the U.S. government that I’m wont to see, Urrea introduces me to the human compassion these men hold for those they apprehend, those they rescue, those they find dead.

And then, the surviving coyote who led 25 men into the desert and abandoned them to die. Jesus Antonio Lopez Ramos, aka Mendez, sentenced to 16 years in prison after pleading guilty to 25 smuggling counts. But at 19, how much do you know about the desert? At 19, beyond the money, how much is bravado that keeps you going, stupidly leading men to their deaths? How much is heat-induced insanity? Urrea describes the process of the body’s failure as it enters each stage of hyperthermia—it is terrible to read what a body can go through before death. Like the 25 other men, you have to remember that Mendez was experiencing it, too. And you’re just as expendable as the migrants—if you’re lost in the Arizona desert, the big bosses in Mexico will just hire a new coyote. You can’t excuse the role that Mendez played in this tragedy, but you can reach a level of empathy—he’s also a pawn in the greater workings of the U.S.-Mexico border policy. Even as he sits in prison, people are crossing into the Arizona desert right now; today, people could die from heat exposure, nearly 11 years after the Yuma 14 tragedy.

As difficult as it is to read, The Devil’s Highway is an indelible account of life on the border. It is, for better or for worse, a part of American and Mexican history that needs telling and retelling. That is it one of the Tucson Unified School District’s banned books is absolutely ridiculous—it is a silencing of not only the conditions that lead people to dare that merciless trek, but of the men and women who work hard on each side of the border to save lives. The Devil’s Highway reveals the absurdity of the policies, in both countries, that leads to this kind of tragedy—yes, it does provoke anger.  But it also tells the story of everyone involved—Border Patrol agents, migrants, coyotes, consuls, etc.—with compassion and empathy that reflects back onto the reader. It is a story, first and foremost, about people. Everyone is given a chance at a voice; everyone is given a chance at understanding. For TUSD to shutter these stories is criminal.

A lit friend introduced me to Urrea late last year; I’m chagrined to have discovered him so late, but delighted that such a voice exists in Latino-American literature, pushing these important stories into view. All I can do, in this small blog, in a dusty corner of the Internet, is thank him from the bottom of my heart for writing what needs to be written—these are stories that, even as a Mexican American, I don’t know, I couldn’t know, having been raised in Michigan in comfort and security. It’s humbling, it’s eye-opening, it’s necessary. I so hope to meet him one day and thank him in person.

A strong, strong recommend. In addition, check out Bill Moyers interviewing Urrea earlier this month—like The Devil’s Highway, Urrea’s interview left me speechless and, at some points, in tears.

Onto the book list:

Finished:

1) In Search of the Rose Notes by Emily Arsenault
2) The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides
3) Unpublished Novel
4) Before the End, After the Beginning by Dagoberto Gilb
5) Paradise Park by Allegra Goodman
6) Unpublished Novel
7) The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson
8) The Flowers by Dagoberto Gilb
9) The Last Dragonslayer by Jasper Fforde
10) Faith by Jennifer Haigh
11) The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman
12) Unpublished Novel
13) The Fates Will Find Their Way by Hannah Pittard
14) Unpublished Non-Fiction
15) Swamplandia! by Karen Russell
16) Zone One: A Novel by Colson Whitehead
17) So There! by Nicole Reid
18) The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
19) Last Night at the Lobster by Stewart O’Nan
20) In the Breeze of Passing Things by Nicole Reid
21) The Devil’s Highway: A True Story by Luis Alberto Urrea

Re-read:

Empty

Currently Reading:

1) Winter King: Henry VII and the Dawn of Tudor England by Thomas Penn

Waiting To Be Read (Already Purchased, Got as Gifts, Borrowed from My Husband or Otherwise Accessible without the Use of Funds, But Not an Assurance That I Will Read These Before I Buy More Books):

1) The Zookeeper: A Novel by Alex MacLennan
2) The Lost Books of the Odyssey: A Novel by Zachary Mason
3) The Hummingbird’s Daughter by Luis Alberto Urrea
4) Ghost Writers: Us Haunting Them, Edited by Keith Taylor and Laura Kasischke
5) Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything by Joshua Foer
6) 11/22/63 by Stephen king
7) The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Euginedes
8) What It Is Like to Go to War by Karl Marlantes
9) The Hand That First Held Mine by Maggie O’Farrell
10) State of Wonder by Ann Patchett
11) An Uncommon Education by Elizabeth Percer
12) The Last Town on Earth by Thomas Mullen
13) The Revisionists by Thomas Mullen
14) The Wilding by Benjamin Percy
15) Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates
16) Saints at the River by Ron Rash
17) The Unforgiving Minute: A Soldier’s Education by Craig M. Mullaney

©2012 Sonnet 87. All Rights Reserved. Originally published by WordNerd for Sonnet87.com. This post cannot be republished without express written permission.

WordNerd: The moral is: when in doubt, fly back to Detroit.
IP: *pause* Honey, sometimes there are fates worse than death.

The comment made me burst out laughing (it is a testament both to Next and to IP’s very non-Michigander take on Detroit), but I’m still reeling from just how powerful and poignant Next is. I take a look at the book cover and it still leaves me a little breathless. I amazed by the sheer bravery that Hynes displayed in writing this book—this took balls, people, given the climate of the times that we live in. It took balls, and because of that it’s not surprising to me that this book is highly under-appreciated. It is, in my opinion, a carefully wrought literary masterpiece that deserves more recognition and acknowledgment since it truly represents the fears, hopes and bewildering nature of our times. Beyond the themes and how it deals with contemporary life, it’s just well written, period. With this novel, Hynes sped past brilliant satirist into the realm of genius. Yes, I went there. I liked Next that much, and I can’t wait to have a new Hynes novel sitting on my shelf (though I still need to read The Wild Colonial Boy).

And it really irks me that someone I recommended it to didn’t enjoy it because she didn’t “get” Kevin. I mean, really? What was that about stepping into the lives of others and seeing things through their lens that I mentioned when I began these posts looking back at the book list? It’s meant to be uncomfortable, you’re not meant to understand everything, you’re not meant to adore Kevin every single step of the way. You’re meant to wonder why his life is the way it is, you’re supposed to wonder if he’s made the right choices, if he’s making the right choices, and you’re supposed to reflect on whether or not he’s living a life that’s truly being lived. And yes, you’re meant to be scared and horrified and absolutely terrified by the ending. It’s supposed to make you sick and make you recoil. And you’re then meant to derive some sort of hope from it.

Geez! Get it together, people.

(Okay, sorry: I just get annoyed when people request book recommendations, but what they really mean is: recommend some chick lit or an easy series like Twilight!)

And there, there you have it: six posts that look back on the book reviewer named WordNerd. Here’s hoping I move the 2012 book list beyond one entry!

June 27, 2011: Just Whoa: The Book List

©2012 Sonnet 87. All Rights Reserved. Originally published by WordNerd for Sonnet87.com. This post cannot be republished without express written permission.

Lavinia

Here I’ll stop the analysis and appeal to anyone who may have read any of Le Guin’s other works—where do I start if I want to get to know her better as a novelist? I know she has written series; I’m usually not a fan of series, particularly fantasy, but I’m willing to give them a shot given Le Guin’s enormous talent. What about her story collections, poetry, her critical works? Are there any you would recommend that I start with? Any that are absolute must-reads? Her body of work seems tremendous to me—she is prolific and I feel I need a guide to get me started down the right path (kind of like IP did for me with Stephen King).

Lay it on me, Le Guin fans. (And if you are kind enough to comment and your comment doesn’t show up, that’s because it went to moderation; I’ll release it as soon as I get back from vacation!)

February 21, 2010: Myth and a Woman I Sing: The Book List

©2012 Sonnet 87. All Rights Reserved. Originally published by WordNerd for Sonnet87.com. This post cannot be republished without express written permission.

But not this time. Oh hell no, not this time.

My review is scathing; the book rubbed me the wrong way, and I wasn’t shy about taking it to task for being the misogynistic tripe that it is (a trait it shares with the Millennium series!). You could say I raked it over the coals—and based on the hits that review got in the days following its posting, I caught the attention of its publisher, possibly the author, and (if the second thing is true) possibly some of his friends. No one commented, but my post shot around New York City like a magic bullet, ping-ponging this way and that. I have no idea what people thought or said, but that post was hot for a few days in that corner of the publishing world. That was also chuckle-worthy.

IP maintains that the book wasn’t that bad. I just say that we’ll misfire when it comes to recommending books to each other once in a while (for example, Lauren Groff’s The Monsters of Templeton—oh, how IP hates that novel and Willie Upton!). As it stands, IP is wary of Arcadia and Delicate, Edible Birds; by the same token, I will never touch another book by Hely again.

October 4, 2009: The Bad Ones Are More Fun: The Book List

©2012 Sonnet 87. All Rights Reserved. Originally published by WordNerd for Sonnet87.com. This post cannot be republished without express written permission.

The magic of 1776 was how engaging it was, and how easily I could slip into the battlefields, the tension, the worry of 1776 as the colonies declared their independence and struggled to unyoke themselves from Britain’s rule. American history has never been that fascinating to me, at least in the grade-school context; what I learned is probably on par with what the Tucson Unified School District would love, and given that I saw no players who looked like me, I felt that American history never really represented me. At least not until I got to college and realized that American history isn’t just white history (you listening, TUSD?).

Nevertheless, you say, 1776 is still a story about people who didn’t look like you, who don’t represent you in the grand story of the U.S. Very true, I rejoin, but McCullough’s gift is his ability to make his take on history human. Washington and his ilk go from gods to mere mortals with foibles in McCullough’s book, and really, that’s the point: Washington may have come first, but he definitely wasn’t perfect. He made errors, he miscalculated, and he still, alongside others, managed to gain independence for the United States. Wow. Imagine that—failing and still being a success. When all you’re taught about American history is the success in it all, you’re losing out on a lot of lessons about perseverance and the value in failure. McCullough helps us find those lessons again.

April 11, 2008: Hans Sprungfeld Knew the Truth: The Book List

©2012 Sonnet 87. All Rights Reserved. Originally published by WordNerd for Sonnet87.com. This post cannot be republished without express written permission.

Of particular interest are the modifications to prayers and writings that recognize Henry VIII’s first queen, Catherine of Aragon, and their daughter, Mary I. At the time, I wondered why it was that kingly authority was enough for people to modify their Book of Hours to reflect the current political climate—was the threat of inspection so great that even something as supposedly person as a Book of Hours need be modified? But of course, thinking about it, it’s obvious: printed material was highly suspect and could be inflammatory; just think of the idea of trying to print an English Bible. Couldn’t happen that easily. It speaks less to comprising religious beliefs—it’s about fearing the monarchical government that would do any and all to have its will recognized.

A fascinating study in the personal lives of the medieval and Renaissance laity. I still recommend it to this day (and would re-read, if I didn’t already have so much on my plate).

January 15, 2008: Marginalia without Highlighters: The Book List

©2012 Sonnet 87. All Rights Reserved. Originally published by WordNerd for Sonnet87.com. This post cannot be republished without express written permission.

Reading fiction is important. It is a vital means of imagining a life other than our own, which in turn makes us more empathetic beings. Following complex story lines stretches our brains beyond the 140 characters of sound-bite thinking, and staying within the world of a novel gives us the ability to be quiet and alone, two skills that are disappearing faster than the polar icecaps.

I also read to support authors. I read because, as Patchett implies in an earlier paragraph, the kind of media attention that reading does get is misdirected. It’s aimed at works that are not literary, that do not allow you to slip into another life—mostly because the lives that you could slip into in those works fall under wish fulfillment, not understanding another’s situation, one that could be very, very real in today’s world. The works that get the buzz are not tough to understand, nor analyze, nor are they truly speaking to the world we live in; they are entertainment, pure and simple, they are distractions. There’s nothing wrong with reading distractions—but let’s not pretend they’re actually saying something.

And finally, I read because I want to write. And I want to write the type of literature that Patchett is discussing above, the type that she writes. I don’t want to write a Hunger Games, a Twilight, hell, even a Harry Potter (though I do think that Harry Potter has themes that can run deep and makes use of history, social inequality and language to educate). I want to write something significant. I want to write something that explores, most likely, what it means to be a Latina/o in the United States. And I want to do it on a level that explores what I’ve experienced as a Latina in the U.S., because I’ve yet to see it in print.

With that, I introduce the theme for Sonnet 87 while I’m away on vacation—the best of the book lists. Please note: this doesn’t mean that the featured books were the best, just that they’re among the stronger entries from that particular year (we’ll zoom from 2006 to 2011 in six weekdays, m’dears).

We start with my review of Carlos Ruiz Zafón’s The Shadow of the Wind, a book that I would still term as lovely, lovely. What’s truly engaging about this book is the language and atmosphere; Ruiz Zafón uses it to terrific effect, giving the reader a sense of the oppression, fear and lingering hope that existed in Francoist Spain. Using a library and a cherished book as a gateway into mystery, the book channels that fear and oppression in 1945 Barcelona and lands it squarely on the protagonist’s shoulders. In trying to find the author of a book he so loves, Daniel is plunged into a world that his family may not survive. It is brilliantly written, and was followed up a prequel (which was, alas, not as strong).

My review of the book isn’t that sophisticated; it was the start of the book list, and literary analysis was a skill I was just starting to utilize again. You’ll see a progression, a gaining in confidence, as the years (days) pass. But for now, enjoy me saying that this book inspires me to write. And me saying that I love a book but not really saying why!

June 13, 2006: The The Hope of Having Pen and Voice Returned: The Book List

©2012 Sonnet 87. All Rights Reserved. Originally published by WordNerd for Sonnet87.com. This post cannot be republished without express written permission.

Launched at the end of freaking April.

I totally have a good reason for that! Really!

It’s, err, uh …

You see, um …

Uh, yeah. Well, I do have a good excuse—I have been reading, and I have been writing book reviews—just not for Sonnet 87. Real me has had her reviews published and has, on one occasion, hobnobbed (online and briefly, at least) with a Pulitzer Prize finalist. Real me has a lot of work to do when it comes to book reviews—not only writing them, but editing them, too. Real me and real IP have made a lot of literary-minded friends lately, and real me is enjoying it very much. Real me and real IP are making efforts to attend more literary events, which has meant talking to authors we admire, which has meant learning that authors can be a really, really cool bunch (did I tell you that real IP met the Pulitzer Prize finalist? and that said finalist was awesome? and then real IP sent real me a picture of the author’s signature on the nominated book, which we had just purchased weeks before? and that real me was insanely jealous?). That means that WordNerd me doesn’t have too much time to write reviews that aren’t published under real me’s name. What can you do?

Squeeze some time out of the day, somehow, and get a review going for Sonnet 87, finally posting a book list (warning: much shorter than last year’s so far thanks to above duties, a new work schedule, and less commuting time in which to read—and you’ll see that my to-read list is quite ridiculous)! And, while I’m on vacation, re-introduce my intrepid reader(s?) to some of my favorite reviews from past book lists.

So which book to review of the ten eligible books?

Eeny, meeny, miny, moe…

Aha! How about The Fates Will Find Their Way by Hannah Pittard (chosen mostly because it’s the last book I read that I can actually discuss)?

Fates begins with the disappearance of Nora Lindell on Halloween night. The narrators of the book, a group of men (the novel is told in the first-person plural) who grew up with Nora, are held in sway and fascination with her—both before and after her disappearance. She is pretty, popular, and the theories surrounding her disappearance abound. Did she really get into a car with a stranger at the bus stop, as one boy claims to have seen? And what happened to her if she did get into the car? Did the stranger drive her to the airport, where a stewardess who claimed to have seen her mistook her for a fellow stewardess? Was Nora murdered? Did Nora make it out to Arizona, where she had twins (courtesy of one of the boys), married an older Mexican gentleman who loved her dearly and demanded nothing of her, gave her another child, and let her go without protest when she felt the need to move on? Was she in Mumbai during the 2008 (I believe) bombings, losing her female lover to the blasts, a glimpse of her caught on TV by one of her former classmates?

The novel is about something that everyone does—we make up stories about the people in our lives we may or may not see again. We invent different adventures for them that take them through the places where we think they know they have gone. In a sense, such imagining is an escape—the men live ordinary lives, not of quiet desperation, but lives the mirror their parents: children, birthday parties, wives who don’t understand the fascination with Nora nor her sister Sissy, parents who are growing older before their eyes. Through Nora, the men are able to invent different paths taken, other roads followed. Through Nora they remain somewhat young and fanciful.

Pittard’s use of scene and setting is particularly effective, as are the accompanying emotions that each is meant to evoke—we can feel the heat of the Arizona sun and the cooling effects of a pool, both used to chase away, or at least hold at bay, sadness and uncertainty; we can picture the awkward boys, gathered in a basement where they talk about Nora, sex, school, baffled by the idea that one of their friends could simply disappear; we can see the men, worrying for their children since they remember what it’s like to be a child, and to confront the dangers that Nora may have faced. We feel their need to give Nora a story beyond a cold, possibly violent death in the woods a few counties over. And we are ultimately resigned to not knowing her fate, just as the narrators will never know.

Where Fates falters is in its use of the first-person plural narrative. As the novel progresses, some of the men do begin to emerge, but for the most part they all fade, slipping in and out of focus like shades in Hades, with their features fuzzy and their individuality not altogether evident. As their stories are told, in bits and pieces, it’s difficult to remember when they were mentioned previously, what we might already know about them, and why this new tidbit might be significant. How many tell the story? I’m not sure—even if I were to go page by page, writing down the names, I can’t be certain I wouldn’t miss one, or that there aren’t unnamed men on the periphery, also inventing a life for Nora that was, most likely, unlived.

Yet, I recommend it. It’s a beguiling, eloquent debut novel. I’ve been told it mirrors The Virgin Suicides in theme and narration—I’ve yet to read Jeffrey Eugenides’ first novel, though I have read his others—so if you’ve read that, comparisons will probably abound. However, Pittard is an emerging, engaging voice.

I’m eager to see what she brings to the literary table next.

Onto the book list:

Finished:

1) In Search of the Rose Notes by Emily Arsenault
2) The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides
3) Unpublished Novel
4) Before the End, After the Beginning by Dagoberto Gilb
5) Paradise Park by Allegra Goodman
6) Unpublished Novel
7) The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson
8) The Flowers by Dagoberto Gilb
9) The Last Dragonslayer by Jasper Fforde
10) Faith by Jennifer Haigh
11) The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman
12) Unpublished Novel
13) The Fates Will Find Their Way by Hannah Pittard

Re-read:

Empty

Currently Reading:

1) Winter King: Henry VII and the Dawn of Tudor England by Thomas Penn
2) Unpublished Non-Fiction

Waiting To Be Read (Already Purchased, Got as Gifts, Borrowed from My Husband or Otherwise Accessible without the Use of Funds, But Not an Assurance That I Will Read These Before I Buy More Books):

1) The Zookeeper: A Novel by Alex MacLennan
2) The Lost Books of the Odyssey: A Novel by Zachary Mason
3) Zone One: A Novel by Colson Whitehead
4) The Hummingbird’s Daughter by Luis Alberto Urrea
5) Ghost Writers: Us Haunting Them, Edited by Keith Taylor and Laura Kasischke
6) The Devil’s Highway: A True Story by Luis Alberto Urrea
7) Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything by Joshua Foer
8) 11/22/63 by Stephen king
9) The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Euginedes
10) Swamplandia! by Karen Russell
11) What It Is Like to Go to War by Karl Marlantes
12) The Hand That First Held Mine by Maggie O’Farrell
13) State of Wonder by Ann Patchett
14) An Uncommon Education by Elizabeth Percer
15) So There! by Nicole Reid
16) In the Breeze of Passing Things by Nicole Reid
17) The Last Town on Earth by Thomas Mullen
18) The Revisionists by Thomas Mullen
19) The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
20) The Wilding by Benjamin Percy
21) Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates
22) Saints at the River by Ron Rash
23) The Unforgiving Minute: A Soldier’s Education by Craig M. Mullaney

©2012 Sonnet 87. All Rights Reserved. Originally published by WordNerd for Sonnet87.com. This post cannot be republished without express written permission.

“You’re making the biggest mistake of your life.”

(To which IP rejoined, later on that day: “Excuse me? Second biggest.”)

But I digress.

I remember giving a tight smile and kind of tuning out the rest of what he was saying. A colleague later assured me that even that was said out of love. I kind of rolled my eyes (internally) at that thought, but it didn’t get to me too much. After all, what’s life without risks?

As my current job has turned out to be less than stellar, and as I’ve begun the job hunt anew, those words have come back to me, and in moments of true desperation (like when I’m nitpicked and I end up doing things I left the other place to avoid), I sometimes wonder if it wasn’t a mistake after all. Certainly not the biggest I could commit (“Exactly,” says IP), but maybe I made the leap a little soon. Maybe?

But then I stop myself and say: I made the best decision I could with the information I had available to me at the time. No matter my experience with HR, my now-old boss at the new place seemed like a reasonable person to work for, it was a writing job (for Pete’s sake!) and it was an opportunity to finally move beyond the tediousness of events and process. I couldn’t know that a re-org would throw me right back into those tasks that I abhor so much, or that I’d end up with a new boss other than the one who hired me—and said new boss would drive me nuts until he/she decided to leave the company. I couldn’t know that there was an internal conflict for my job and that I’d end up in a situation where, honestly, no one really likes me. Had I known all that? Yeah, I probably wouldn’t have taken the job. Point is, I didn’t and couldn’t know. So the risk was taken, the dice didn’t roll out completely in my favor, but I’m making moves to, uh, move. What else can I do? But to say that it was a mistake? Would be completely inaccurate.

You can never anticipate what will come your way should you stay or should you go (now). And if I had stayed? I would be out of a job in T-minus two weeks.

Why?

Because the agency client refused to renew the contract under which we all worked.

I am not shocked. In fact, I’m shocked that the VP was shocked. Well, not really. He kind of felt entitled to the contract.

I feel awful that my friends are losing their jobs, but the president and VP earned this—after all the years of neglecting their employees, throwing them to the agency dogs and enjoying the money the contract brought in, they’re being called to the carpet for their mismanagement. That they didn’t grow and diversify the business is painfully obvious—they stuck to the agency like a chupacabra sticks to a goat. That they failed to garner the respect of the agency personnel they needed to impress is blatant—by saying “Yes!” all the freaking time, by never putting boundaries and acting like an actual business that demanded to be treated like an equal, they were ridden hard and then put up wet.

They counted on advocacy from one agency ally—and now they’re blaming said agency ally for their demise. But the fact of the matter is, they didn’t assert themselves. They didn’t break free from the agency ally and go to the leadership, saying “This is what we do and we do it well. And this is what we won’t do—respect our employees.” But no, it was always a “Yes, ma’am” attitude that didn’t lead to appreciation, just derision.

Instead, it was a matter of giving the agency what they wanted, when they wanted it, so they could keep the money. Honestly, they sacrificed their integrity and their employees for the sake of a few bucks, and then failed to make any connections or inroads with the leadership. I personally believe it boils down to more than just “feds hate contractors.” I think it boils down to “feds hate smarmy contractors who have no self-respect and then believe they have a right to the taxpayer’s dollar.”

Like I said before, you can never know what the future will hold. But the chickens are coming home to roost for my former employer. Again, I feel terrible for my friends (and the one friend who was cheated out of the potential for unemployment when the smarmy VP told her he was downgrading her to his personal assistant who had to be at his beck and call—or she could walk). Only one has managed to successfully extricate themselves from this precarious position—as it is, my former employer is keeping the failure to re-up a new contract a (badly-kept, I might add) secret from the employees, and nearly all of them are still in what I can only term denial. But I can’t help thinking that this was inevitable for the company. The president and VP can deny it all they want, but they’ve ended up in the only spot they could be given their actions.

When I started there, they told me I was part of a burgeoning empire, that I was part of a core team that’d be chilling on a yacht five years down the road.

Well, it’s six years down the road and I don’t own a yacht. But at least I’m not in the water, drowning.

The terrible part is that they’re taking some good people with them.

©2012 Sonnet 87. All Rights Reserved. Originally published by WordNerd for Sonnet87.com. This post cannot be republished without express written permission.

And it’s also time for our playoff slogan reveal … which isn’t really a playoff slogan reveal because it’s the same slogan they’ve been using all year:

It’s More Than Hockey.

Eh. Wings, you can do better.

Being a follower on Twitter and on Facebook, I know that the Red Wings organization as a whole is pretty community-minded, and they go out of their way to showcase their outreach. It’s a great thing—I’m in an organization whose whole mission is built on helping people, and philanthropic attitudes from a corporation, which the Detroit Red Wings are, is a good thing to see. That, and the Wings seem to love Michigan as much as Michigan loves them. Gotta admire that.

But the slogan could’ve been a little bit more motivating when it came to the playoffs, in my humble opinion. Especially since, when it’s about the Stanley Cup, it’s just about playing good hockey, period.

And, as Forrest Gump once said, that’s all I have to say about that.

And now it’s time for … drum roll, please …

Playoff slogan recap time! Red Wings slogans since the 1990s (Cup years in bold—snarky commentary mine and mine only):

• 94: Paint the Town Red (Cute, eh?)
• 95: A Call to Arms (Al the Octopus rocks)
• 96: I Want Stanley (Thinking about the song still makes me want to sing)
• 97: Get Up! (And cheer for your 2007 Stanley Cup Champions!)
• 98: Raise Your Hands (Ditto—also a sweep of the Washington Caps!)
• 99: Are You Ready? (I think my sister pointed out that McBane from The Simpsons says this at one point in the series; however, the Wings were asking us if we wanted a three-peat—we said yes and we didn’t get it)
• 00: Bring It On Home (Tried, didn’t work)
• 01: Get Your Red On (The Nationals were using this as their slogan a few years back; are they now? I don’t know, I go to Nationals Stadium to hang out with friends, not watch baseball; please)
• 02: Let ‘Em See Red (Playing Carolina in the Finals really created a blur of red, but the northerners rightfully triumphed)
• 03: Red Storm Rising (Lame)
• 04: Turn on the Red Light (Also lame)
• 05: No Slogan—DAMN LOCKOUT!
• 06: Bring It! (Um . . . yeah)
• 07: Join the Red Wave (Yay for Wings players being inundated in cranberry juice!)
• 08: Are You In? (Guys, c’mon)
• 09: The Beard Is Back (Just kind of not right, you know?)
• 10: No Fear. No Excuses. No Mercy. No Limits. (This I like)
• 11: Don’t Miss a Moment. (I also liked this)
• 12: It’s More Than Hockey (Sigh … are you guys even trying?)

And off we go! May the best team win (and hopefully that is the Wings, but you never know with the playoffs) and may all the Caps fans crowding up Metro Center take my damn advice from 2010: walk to the damn Verizon Center.

I leave you with an awesome commercial from the 2010-2011 season. Why? Because it’s hilarious and I need to include some Ozzie here:

©2012 Sonnet 87. All Rights Reserved. Originally published by WordNerd for Sonnet87.com. This post cannot be republished without express written permission.