Tag Archives: government

Your True Colours Come Shining Through

Posted on by • Tagged , , , , , , , , • Leave a comment

A word of thanks to those who provide the backbone of civil society – safety/peace officers, firefighters, petrol/gas/power/water/sewer/phone/road/refuse utility workers, postal/delivery employees, hospital/first aid crews – and in emergencies, the many volunteers who go above and beyond their comfort zones to aid those in need.

Crises are part of everyday life and we respond the best way we can.

My wife and I saw that yesterday when we stopped at the local baseball stadium named after a former mayor, Joe Davis, where local restaurants had donated food being cooked free for the community, with donations taken up for a local charity; Gigi’s Cupcakes handed out free samples for a donation to the Red Cross; and many stores operated with a full complement of employees on-hand to provide them an income during tough economic conditions.

Speaking of which, in the George W. Bush and now the Obama presidential years, as millions of jobs have been added to the employment roster, are we in the U.S. truly seeing not only a loss of “good” jobs to low-wage countries/regions, but a dragging down of the living wage for the majority of Americans?

In other words, as an investor, if I want to maximise my profits, would it make sense for me to invest in a company employing workers who are offered no benefits other than an hourly wage?

I’m putting aside social responsibility at this point and looking solely at the benefits I derive from living with people around me who, for no one reason, are happy to find any job offered to them rather than create their own companies/legal business entities, or manage an investment portfolio that works for them.

While Obama and Trump and all the other political pundits jab each other jovially in hopes of getting the attention of potential voters in the 2012 U.S. legislative/executive election (as well as increase advertising revenue which hopefully translates into higher earnings for entertainers and the producers/agents they work for), I wonder about the truth.

What types of aircraft and from whom is India buying them?

While the rich get richer in an easy-to-make-money global economy, what value is rhetoric?

Is there such a thing as a safe investment?

If the U.S. government lives primarily off the backs of workers whose living wage is less than livable, what about those who live off the U.S. government – are we on an upward or downward spiral?

As long as other governments and NGOs rely on the U.S. as the world’s nonimperialistic police/military force, we’ll be okay?

And after it’s no longer okay, then what?

Questions, questions, questions…

My service to the community is small – while regularly paying taxes via sales, investments or income (except in cases like Amazon.com online purchases, it seems – a good reason to buy locally), and donating to charities I and/or my wife deem worthy, I recently gave platelets to the Red Cross via apheresis on Tuesday.  Is it time to give whole blood again or schedule another apheresis appointment?

This is the only moment I have in which to live.  How I choose to live it with you is in the guise of a regular guy – the Wandering Wonderer, the Invisible Hermit – doing my part to help us live together in relative peace and quiet…the loud 7250 watt generator in the driveway notwithstanding (thanks to City Lumber).

A final thanks to Lowe’s, Huntsville Stars baseball team organisation, Little Paul’s BBQ, Publix, Mapco and Walmart for their service during the regional power outage.

Our prayers, positive thoughts and meditation to those in need and those serving them during the emergency crisis in this part of the North American continent; also to those in wartorn regions of the world; and the woman I saw who stopped on the side of the road to help a turtle get to the other side with the chicken that didn’t know why it was there.

The mirror in the mirror is staring back at me

Posted on by • Tagged , , , , , , , , • Leave a comment

I step away from the Committee and look what happens. They’ll just have to wait.

Yes, this country’s governmental legislative leaders are caught in a vise of shrt-trm visions.

On one hedged bet, revive the economy with government bloat.

On another, restore solvency to prevent disaster.

To whom/what are your leaders most loyal?

In a global economy, any entity can legally line your representative’s retirement account with golden threads.

Does a country really matter to a person like me with investments spread around the world that leech like a parasite the profitable skin off workers’ backs?

If you don’t care to follow your representative around 24 hours a day to see what that person is doing to save your country from going bankrupt, who will?

How secure is my stock portfolio if my country isn’t?

Buy your beer with your interest, not your principal.

What are your principal principles?

To think the way I do requires few friends, unfortunately, because my thoughts are fanned out and filled with impossible-to-resolve contradictory sub/cultural belief structures.

My wife is the only person I trust and with whom I trust myself.

All else is illusion to match my literary output to a global social structure we call reality.

Long ago I grew bored with the interplay of ordinary lives in a social structure we call the workplace.

Another Monday of rehashing weekend sporting events with coworkers. Another joke about Wednesday being hump day. Another comment that Friday gets us two days closer to Monday once again.

How many friends and family members have reminded me that life within our species is essentially the art of small talk?

And so, here I am, the primary caregiver for my mother in-law who needs the comfort food of small talk more than anything else to ease her general starvationlike condition of loneliness.

She’s eating up all the attention she gets at the skilled nursing facility right now, supplemented by visits from her hometown church and neighbourhood friends who are like family to her.

She has commented more than once that she must be boring me.

She is a sophisticated smalltown lady with proper manners and a relatively clear mind for a 93.5 year young person.

Basically most everything that I am not.

I am a clever suburbanite with contriteness and a fuzzy set of thoughts at almost 49, old in mind if not in body.

She thinks like an aristocrat while I think like a … well, like whatever strikes me as funny.

To hear her break down family/friend backgrounds by social class and economic job category would add great character studies to a Jane Austen novel of the 21st Century.

She needs a home healthcare person from the equivalent of a smalltown upper middle class family of the 1920s and 1930s, if I read her thoughts correctly, or one used to working for such a family. Preferably one who is licensed, bonded, insured and not on the skids.

Definitely not a guy like me who’s willing to sacrifice friends and acquaintances for the sake of barter exchange efficiency and a good joke, hopefully one that is innovative, inventive and funny.

Maybe my mother in-law is right and the desophisticated, unthrifty habits of modern American living is the country’s undoing.

Some people are born into upper/middle class and some wouldn’t know a good classy lifestyle if it was given for them to live frugally but wealthily. Some become academic snobs.

The Torrents of Spring

Posted on by • Tagged , , , , , , , • Leave a comment

“No patient or staff food to be kept in refrigerator. (please help keep our kitchen clean)” – sign on wall posted next to Coca-Cola dispensing machine.

Where the cost of living is low, one can afford to not worry about whether kitchen visitors can read.

Do we sing the songs that speak our thoughts or our emotions?

Should the labels “thought” and “emotion” represent separate concepts?

What is hidden inside a box labeled as a Douwe Egberts coffee dispensing machine?

What is taedium vitae?

Do you understand the effects of the profit motive on your actions?

You see, I find myself at the usual center of two lines of warriors: the defense budget cutters and the social services budget cutters.

If either side “wins,” I win and lose.

My household budget depends on both.

My investment portfolio will roll with the punches.

Newspapers tell me about a group or groups of people in Libya – “Help us!” they shout over the political maneuverings of the U.S. government of the people, by the people and for the people.

As a simple man, I ask myself who is the maker of the wooden basket full of snacks provided for hospital patient families.

A virtual horn of infinite plenty.

What is the difference between real artificial flavour and the “real taste” of its zero calorie equivalent?

Which is better, “original” or “new and improved,” and which one is better for me?

Just because you can pack more people into an arena doesn’t mean the product is any better, just that the owner(s) and investor(s) are spreading fixed costs across a larger portion of the population.

…where was I?…

…hmm…diverted by Kenny at the Rogersville PO (thanks for the U.S. Civil War and evergreen stamps, btw) for a trip to Eidson to get some Ronald Reagan stamps, purple heart stamps and golden ring stamps, breathing in the view from mountain top twisty roads…

Has Shirley Begley claimed a dog named Bella as a dependent on her 2010 taxes? Rita Richardson won’t say but she did share the story of a Japanese lady who made the origami gift of love hanging in the rural post office.

Was it Brenda who kindly brought the Ingraham clock?

Thanks to Peggy for the delicious boiled custard! I’m spoiled!

Thanks to Joe Price for stopping by.

There is, in conversation, a level of understanding, corresponding to our number of experiences, to which we adjust regularly, willingly or not.

Clearing the cache

Posted on by • Tagged , , , , , , , , , • Leave a comment

A nod to Jim and Jennifer (nee Goodman) Kaplan (congrats on surviving your 16-year old daughter’s first prom!), Gary Clark, Helen Howie, Connie Vaughn, Governors Drive Cleaners/Laundry and Alterations, Triad Properties Corporation, ADS Corporation, Intergraph, David Young, Katie and her new hobby of golf, Adam and his fun on the Atari 2600, wedding caterers everywhere, harpists, florists, canoe makers, topiary growers, independent Ocoee River raft companies, mountain biker manufacturers, chair/tent rental companies, the Alabama legislature for preserving Forever Wild, Anne taking Maggie on her first college visits, Barry with the wife and kids at Kiowah, and the happy people celebrating a wedding at Monte Sano Lodge yesterday (to the few of you who looked like your personality was adrift, out to sea, out of order, off the job, down but not out, a wallflower looking for a secret admirer: I empathise – it may help for you to know that you are not alone).

After researching the business model of examiner. com and talking to one person who wrote for the website, I sure wonder how we determine what any one person’s art/craft is worth, both from the perspective of a business owner employing others to produce their special art/craft and as a craftsman myself.

Is a minimum wage simply a means to protect people from their own deflated self image of what they’re worth?

How many times have you negotiated with a prospective employee about salary and fringe benefits?

How many times have you won?

How many times have you lost?

At different levels of the hiring process, did you both win and lose?

How often was it really a “win-win” situation?

What is your M.O. and what do you think it’s worth?

If your investments increased 14% last quarter, would you consider that a good three months or not so good?

If Caterpillar leaves Illinois, who benefits?

Lead-acid or Li-Ion – which battery is in the future for your primary means of transportation?

Or do you have something else completely new in mind?

Illinois state politics – does your loyalty pay?

Posted on by • Tagged , , , , , , , • Leave a comment

Funny, had to share this link about Illinois politics because, when I read it, a banner ad showed a book about the Daley Legacy.

Not that I’m making a connection between the news article and past/current local/state/national politics tied to Chicago, of course…

The ambient temperature has warmed up.  See you tomorrow.

Let’s get ready for dancin’ in loops and crashin’

Posted on by • Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , • Leave a comment

While Clarence Thomas proves he has cajones, even if his decision sends chills through the populations of innocent prisoners, striking another blow for the protection of lawbreaking law enforcers, let’s put aside petty squabbles and look where the real fun revs its engines.

For instance, the rumble in this part of the Tennessee Valley.

I’m told the International Crimes Tribunal is considering using Mossad to kidnap and extradite a person who may or may not live in Florida to stand trial for inciting the murder of UN personnel.

Wait, there’s an update.  The International Crimes Tribunal convened, using emergency measures to hand down a quick ruling because the tribunal has no need to follow any parliamentary procedure or protect the individual’s right to a fair trial – the person in question has been convicted in absentia of heinous crimes against humanity.  The ICT will announce the extent of punishment at a later date.  Remember, there’s only a reward for delivering a live specimen to ICT for meting out Clarence Thomas’ style beatings when asking for an immunity form.  How does the saying go, “the hospital, not the morgue”?

Bounty hunters are now competing with Mossad and the Revolutionary Guard to get the most bang for the buck.

As opposed to deer hunters, who’re always trying to get the most buck for the bang!

I’m told that Salman Rushdie is celebrating, now that his literature’s effect on the Muslim world is nothing in comparison to the latest news.  Julian Assange feels like he’s off the hook for now, too.

What is a long-form birth certificate and does it have anything to do with a person’s ability to get reelected?

Do you have the ability to move the human population in a direction that serves no one and everyone at the same time?

If you did, would you destroy tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of trees in order to pay a simple $50 in court?

If laws have no meaning, why are you pretending that morals and ethics exist?

If morals and ethics don’t exist, why do states of energy naturally attract each other into specific formations?

My network is older than me and will outlast me.  It’s not me you have to concern yourself with; it’s the members of my network who have no qualms about imaginary ideas like morals/ethics and make things go bump in the night that legends and myths have taught you to fear.

Most importantly, when we’re through with them, you are the ones who have to deal with de/reprogramming the brainwashing we perfected in order to achieve our megagoals for your sake as a species, not as individuals.

You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here!

Jeffrey Immelt can kiss my American…

Posted on by • Tagged , , , , , , , • Leave a comment

…assistant, who, like Suzy Wetlaufer, wants to write a book with Immelt about the recent successful business practices of GE.

Speaking of connecting the dots, here are three for you today:

  1. Why you should see any Woody Allen movie,
  2. Was a Versace model mentioned in “Whatever Works“?, and
  3. Was a Versace model killed in a hit-and-run?

What is compassionate capitalism and does it have anything to do with the Concours d’LeMons (and yes, I am an owner of a 1962 Dodge Lancer, thank you very much for asking)?

A nod to Scott at Red Robin (with a hello to the woman wearing sunglasses at night) and Chelsea at Kinesthetic Cue.  Can’t wait to see Joe do a little Greek dancing for us, a sure cure for the blues of any sort.  Gotta remember the name of the Goodyear tire guy in Madison who’s learning more advanced dancing techniques with his wife.

Reminder to self: need to check out the MediaShift Idea Lab’s story on Shelbyville.

By the way, the diplomatic corps is looking for any ol’ obscure God-fearing Koran burner to send on a goodwill tour of Afghanistan.  The UN will provide security.

My prayers to those who stir up anger in crowds – may you find peace in your thoughts that you share with others instead of fomenting violence and killing.

Does equal opportunity have a cost/benefit analysis component, and if so, should the ADA and EEOC rules reflect this fact?

This is your April Fool’s Day entry for the day – take it for what it’s worth and all I’ve got time to write about.  I’ve an alien ship waiting to pick me up and take me on a tour of munitions factories around the world it plans to beam up and take to Planet X-Post Fractal before my species overcrowds itself and uses weaponry to thin the herd, randomly destroying important parts of the superbrain.