OK, THAT Does It For Me

Muslim…Schmuslim—They’re Mostly Primitive Idiots
(But We’re A Population Of Sophisticated Fools)

Have you been watching the “lamestream” media meltdown over the “Muhammed Cartoon” fiasco?

The whole thing has been like some slow motion train wreck or car crash where you WANT to close your eyes and make it go away, but the story just keeps on replaying over and over as media giants like CNN and the BBC look more retarded and unprofessional by the minute.

I think that the Washington Times editorialist Diana West said it best this week:

Not that we admit it: We dress up our capitulation in fancy talk of "tolerance," "responsibility" and "sensitivity." We even congratulate ourselves for having the "editorial judgment" to make "pluralism" possible. "Readers were well served... without publishing the cartoons," said a Wall Street Journal spokesman. "CNN has chosen to not show the cartoons in respect for Islam," reported the cable network. On behalf of the BBC, which did show some of the cartoons on the air, a news editor subsequently apologized, adding: "We've taken a decision not to go further... in order not to gratuitously offend the significant number" of Muslim viewers worldwide. Left unmentioned is the understanding (editorial judgement?) that "gratuitous offense" leads to gratuitous violence. Hence, fear — not the inspiration of tolerance but of capitulation — and a condition of dhimmitude.

How far does it go? Worth noting, for example, is that on the BBC Web site, a religion page about Islam presents the angels and revelations of Islamic belief as historical fact, rather than spiritual conjecture (as is the case with its Christianity Web page); plus, it follows every mention of Mohammed with "(pbuh)," which means "peace be upon him"—"as if," writes Will Wyatt, former BBC chief executive, in a letter to the Times of London, "the corporation itself were Muslim."

Now, for me, here is the kicker.

Not only did most of these cartoons appear in the Danish newspaper in September or October last year, but World Net Daily reports that the Egyptian newspaper Al Fagr printed the exact same cartoons four months ago, durring the holy Muslim Ramadan holiday, and not a single peep of public protest was heard.

The blog Freedom For Egyptians has more details and published this image from the October 17, 2005 edition:



I don't know about you, but I've seen all I need to see and heard all I need to hear about this total non-story.

Once again, most of the professional journalists and so called business people running our nation's (and the world's) newspapers and TV stations have proven themselves to be partisian, morally bankrupt, idieolically challenged imbecils incapable of logical thought processes.

Like the words to the country song say: “if you don’t stand for something…you’ll fall for anything…”

And The Winner Was...

Little 'ole ME

The internet, without the mat, and at a 5x4 size doesn't do my work justice, but here is the basic image (click on the pic to enlarge):






The gentleman in the middle of the photo with his hand over his heart is my great, great grandfather Webb--circa 1890-1900. The little boy over his right shoulder is my great grandfather--father of my lovely grandmother Bessy Rogers that celebrated her 93rd birthday last Christmas.

The gentlemman playing the Creek Indian is in fact a real Indian that I photographed along with the two British soldier "re-enactors" that attended an event at Ft. King George in Darien, Georgia last fall after I had entered the competition.

All of the translucent black and white images of the people are superimposed via computer software over a color background photo of an open gravesite at Ft. Frederica, located just down the road from our home here on St. Simons Island.

Several people commented that, viewed from distances over ten feet, the image truely has a "ghostly" appearance.

That was my intention all along.

Imagine that???

News Flash...Second Place (UPDATED)

I Did It!!!!!


About 6:00 PM this evening Mr. Bryan Thompson, the Mayor of Brunswick, handed me a $250 check and a nice Certificate honoring my entry taking second place (The Heritage Award) in the Golden Isles Arts and Humanities Association's "Coastal Heritage Exhibit" running tonight through April 1st over at the historic Ritz Theater.

Needless to say that you could have tipped me over with a feather.

We're going out to celebrate and I'll have more to say later.

11:00 PM UPDATE...

It's later now, and we're home after having a few drinks down in "the village" and spending some time attempting to let what I've accomplished sink into my thick skull.

I am still in shock.

My little 16” x 20” unframed photo effort beat a marvelous watercolor painting in a 3'x4' frame that was for sale for over $4,000. My little Photoshopped photo beat all but one oil painting or photograph by artists that have spent years refining their craft.

You see, I've been a digital photographer and self proclaimed Photoshop expert for only about five years now, and the term “expert” is only loosely applied in self-edifying moments like NOW.

BUT...you know what?

I honestly believe that it was my writing--the background statement that I submitted with my entry--that moved me into a position to take second place in this art exhibit.

My composite photo was pretty good in my opinion, but it was my "mission statement" that got me across the finish line ahead of all but one of the other contestants.

Many artists took work that they had already completed and tried to coordinate it with a written message that tied it to coastal Georgia’s history. Some did in fact produce new original work based on this year’s Coastal Heritage Exhibit’s stated requirements, but their writing fell short in stating their message.

I, on the other hand, carefully reviewed the competition’s theme and produced my artwork and written message as a complete, unified package. I spent nearly 1/3 of my time writing and editing the theme description of my artwork, and I honestly believe that I have been rewarded for my extra efforts.

They said two pages—I gave them two FULL pages of words. Call me lucky or call me tenacious, you have no idea what this minor success means to me.

After my recent horrendous theater failures (what I like to call "political nightmares"), I was seriously considering going back to spending my time farting, belching, playing ancient Roman sailing tunes with my hands stuck in my armpits, all the while drinking beer, chewing on my #2 pencil erasers, watching “Girls Gone Wild” videos and carving lewd replicas of female body parts out of faded pieces of driftwood and construction debris.

Instead, now I'm recharging my camera battery and looking forward to firing up Adobe Photoshop in anticipation of the next competition.

Now would you smile and say "Cheese", please?

Click.....

Delta Union Pilots Vote

Our (Travel) Future Is In Their Hands


First there was Eastern...




Then there was Pan Am (one of my favorites)



And now...DELTA?



All the victims of UNIONS...Pilots unions, to be specific.

God help us all...

Me And My Big Mouth

Actually...I Let My Fingers Do The Talking


Back in 2004, when we moved from Atlanta to St. Simons, I wrote a letter to the editor of the local newspaper, The Brunswick News. The week we moved in, the letter was published in the paper and one of my neighbors walked up, handed me a copy, and said something to the effect of "boy, you don't waste any time getting involved...do you?"

It was my first effort to communicate with the "powers what be" at any level other than bitching about my business license to Cobb County or yelling at customer service reps with the phone company or at Sears and Roebuck.

Since that day, I have become a regular contributor to the “letters to the editor” section, regularly write to my state representatives and US Congressmen, and engage in spirited E-mail debates with nationally published scientists and authors.

It’s amazing the response that an intelligently worded, non-insulting missive will elicit.

Captain Ed over at Captains Quarters has had just such a debate with the Washington Post’s Anne Applebaum over the response of Conservative bloggers regarding the Islamic Muslim “cartoongate” issue.

Anne takes issue that Right Wing bloggers seem to be defending the freedom of the press to publish these “offensive” cartoons, while we lampooned Newsweek magazine when they published the false “Koran flushed down the toilet” story last year.

Although I fail to see the equality of the comparison of publishing an unverified accusation of wartime misbehavior as “NEWS” with the publication of an “editorial CARTOON”, I still wholeheartedly support Miss Applebaum’s right to write an EDITORIAL—as long as she gets her facts correct.

Where Anne went wrong in her editorial was in misrepresenting the Conservative bloggers as a monolithic bloc that all think and say the same things, the same way.

Continuing my audacious trend of writing to important people in high places, I tendered the following correspondence to Miss Abblebaum this morning via E-Mail:



Dear Anne,

I want to take this opportunity to thank you for taking the time to engage Captain Ed over at Captain’s Quarters in a rational, intelligent debate regarding the recent “Muslim Cartoon” upheaval. It is refreshing to have a professional journalist of your stature step out from behind the newsprint pages and speak directly to the issues that we address daily here on the internet.

Further, the fact that your work is clearly identified as an “op-ed” piece rather than a “hard news” story certainly entitles you to express your own viewpoint, regardless of whether or not Captain Ed and I entirely agree with what you have to say. The blogosphere frequently laments gross examples of newspapers and TV networks blurring this (the op-ed/news) distinction on a wholesale basis.

In the interest of full disclosure, I admit that I’m somewhat biased in that I am a long time fan, follower, and correspondent with Captain’s Quarters and I find him to be sincere and even handed in his coverage of worldwide issues. I, like Captain Ed, am a conservative blogger, although I operate on a MUCH smaller scale and have many, many fewer readers than Mr. Morrissey enjoys. Politically I admit that I’m more of a Libertarian than a Republican, but I find myself identifying with the Right more than the Left on most issues, most of the time.

An important point that I would like to make here (or possibly reiterate on the Captain’s behalf) is that the blogosphere is not a monolithic block of monkeys typing on keyboards in their pajamas every evening. Bloggers like Captain Ed and the lawyers over at Powerline operate with fairly obvious ideologies, but without pre-approved agendas.

The logical development of their arguments and footnoting of their work via the inclusion of “links” to the source material makes their product extremely consumable to non-professional journalists like myself that have the luxury of being able to spend six or eight hours each day reading news and researching our work for inclusion on our own blogs.

If you will spend the time reading, I think that within the “Right Wing” side of the Blogosphere you will often find dissent and variation of opinion—although sometimes subtle—with Michelle Malkin, and John Hinderaker, and “Little Green Footballs,” and my little blog, What I’d Liked To have Said, often having common themes, but also pursuing the issue(s) at different levels with very different points of view.

Being an engineer by education, I tend to address issues like gasoline prices and “Global Warming,” not from an entirely political standpoint, but rather from a technical standpoint. You’d be surprised the number of ‘experts” that a little blogger like myself can get an e-mail interview with in the development of a story. As you probably know, the internet facilitates almost instantaneous “expert” status to someone like me that wants to take the time to spend a few days doing “Google searches” and that actually has the knowledge and education to understand the information that can be found online.

Yes, I also editorialize in my writing.

Yes, I get lazy sometimes and just parrot what Captain Ed or “The Hindrocket” says in my own words, BUT…believe me when I say that we (bloggers) are all watching each other and we will not tolerate intellectually dishonest or patently fraudulent words to stand unchallenged. We will eat our own and smile with faces stained with blood and feathers when and if the time comes.

Blogging, in its purest form, is suffering from its own popularity and the entry of “mainstream” elements into the blogosphere. I guess that it is a case of “if you can’t beat them—join them” or something.

Co-operative blogs like Huffington’s Post and Glenn Reynolds’s new right-wing “Pajama’s Media” conglomerate have been widely lampooned as all of us “have-not” bloggers watch some of the old line “big dog” bloggers try to parlay their success into a decent paycheck. It would appear to me and many of my peers that both efforts are spectacular failures to date, and that they have sold their souls to the devil in the process of becoming more mainstream and organized.

I think that blogging and earning substantial financial remuneration are ALMOST always incompatible. Money is worse than any editor, in that it changes your ability to say what you really want to say. When you are charged with writing editorial content like you are in your position at the Washington Post, I want you to feel free to say whatever is on your mind and let the chips fall where they may—just be sure to say that your writing is an editorial, not a news story.

You always do.

In closing, I encourage you to continue your excellent efforts and again engage us here in “the new media” when the time comes. I wish that you wouldn’t limit your opinion based on following the “big bloggers,” however.

Try clicking on some of the “links” on the sidebars of “Powerline” and “Captain’s Quarters” and go see what the architects and engineers with a few thousand readers each month are saying. You might be surprised at the quality and content of the writing that is going virtually unnoticed.

Remember the old question…”if a tree falls alone in the forest, does it make a sound?”

Best Regards,

Virgil Raymond Rogers, III
St. Simons Island, Georgia

Would Cindy Sheehan Please Phone Jimmy Carter?

The Blind Leading The Blind (Or The Insane)





Never mind, you're both hopeless...

Would Jimmy Carter Please Phone Home?

His Doctor Called, And His Prescription Has Expired

Would Hillary Clinton Please Phone Home?

Oh, Never Mind...

I Was Well Hung (Excuse The Pun)

And The Jury Wasn't (Hopefully)...


Just in case you were wondering, I made it to the theater with my print this morning in time for the "Coastal Heritage" Jury to give it a good going over.

I'm taking the rest of the day off.

Best Laid Plans...

Sheeeesh!


Sorry, but as my regular readers know, the blogging has been suffering the past few days due to our travel down to the Orlando area for a long weekend.

Our hosts had just moved into their new home in the past month and there was only one DSL connection working in the entire house—that being one in the kitchen , serviced by only a 6’ cable.

Laying on my back on the sofa for hours on end while reading the news and writing was out of the question since I had to share said sofa with three other adults, three teenaged girls, and two very active miniature Dachshund’s.

After a pleasant four day visit, we set out to make our return trip back here to the island, arriving in time to pick up my 16” x 20” print of the photo I made being exhibited at the Ritz Theater’s “Coastal Heritage” exhibit that opens this Friday.

I had originally scheduled to pick up the print last Friday afternoon, but Murphy’s Law took over when the Photo Shop ran out of the Matte paper stock I wanted. As a result, they were delayed printing until Monday afternoon while we were out of town, finishing in plenty of time for me to drop it by the frame shop on Wednesday morning to be mounted and matted.

I was a little nervous about making the Wednesday submission deadline, but they assured me by telephone on Monday afternoon that they had the paper and that the print would be waiting for me when we arrived back in town.

Wrong…AGAIN.

When I walked in the Photo Shop door at 4:15 PM today the owner slapped himself on the head and admitted that he had forgotten to make the print. To make matters worse, Pat called me on my cell phone and told me that I had a voice message from the Gallery asking that I deliver my entry today, not Wednesday, because the Judges couldn’t jury the competition any other time but Wednesday morning.

I was suddenly losing my mind. I had forty hours of time working with Photoshop editing five layers of images, I had known about the deadlines since early December, and now I had new shortened deadlines, no print, no mounting, no mat, and no frame.

Fortunately, the printer shoved my image ahead of everything else they were doing and had it in my hands by 5:15. I then called my angel the owner, Tina over at the frame shop, and she agreed to wait past their regular 5:30 closing time and mount and mat my print by 9:15 AM Wednesday morning.

I have to pick it up then and rush it across town to the Ritz Theater in time for it to be hung for the 10:30 Jury.

Wish me luck…

Next time I’ll start this process a MONTH early.

It's Pittsburgh

And I called it...

We watched the Superbowl with some of Pat's family in Orlando, Florida this evening.

Everyone but me in attendance had spent most of their life living outside Pittsburgh, cheering for the Steelers.

My personal interest was the Georgia Tech connection through Offensive coordinator Ken Whisenhunt who played defense and filled in as back-up quarterback in GT's 1980 3-3 tie with #1 Notre Dame. My friends Rusty and Grant and I will never forget that day, because Tech ended the season 1-9-1 in coach Bill Curry's first season as head coach.

I love great football, and it is so rarely played at a professional level--college ball almost always exceeding that of the so-called professional game every day, every minute.

Super Bowl Forty was a Great Game!

Fake Muslim Anger

I guess that for me it is hard to understand the current outrage in the Muslim world over a few cartoons originally published in Danish newspapers back in October last year and reprinted recently in virtually every publication in the world including right here on this blog last week.

Just in case you missed it, here is the image of Muhammad again:

(Please feel free to kick your cat or beat your wife or burn your house down if it will make you feel better)

After all, we here in the US have been subjected to GOVERNMENT FUNDED artistic stupidity like representations of Jesus Christ, nailed on the cross, suspended in a jar of Urine. Remember this image paid for by the National Endowment for the Arts?



A photo of Andres Serrano’s so called “art” sold at Christies Auction house in NY for $105,000 back in 2000.

Based on the Islamic model, I find it interesting that all of the members of the Primitive Baptist and Pentecostal Churches didn’t grab up their Bibles, Rattlesnakes, and cousins sisters wives, and pour out into the streets here in the US, “speaking in tongues” in irreverent protest.

Now two Jordanian newspaper editors have been fired from their jobs and ARRESTED after publishing some of the cartoons along with editorials defending the work and calling for calm in the Muslim community.

Jihad Momani and Hisham Khalidi are accused of insulting religion under Jordan's press and publications law.

Mr Momani was fired from the weekly Shihan after reproducing the cartoons - originally printed in Denmark - which have caused a global storm of protest.

One of the cartoons depicts Muhammad as a terrorist. Any images of the Prophet are banned under Islamic tradition.

'Abuse of freedom'
Mr Momani's arrest came earlier on Saturday, a day after Jordanian King Abdullah condemned the cartoons as an unnecessary abuse of freedom of speech.

Mr Momani's paper, Shihan, had printed three of the cartoons, alongside an editorial questioning whether the angry reaction to them in the Muslim world was justified.

"Muslims of the world be reasonable," wrote Mr Momani.

"What brings more prejudice against Islam, these caricatures or pictures of a hostage-taker slashing the throat of his victim in front of the cameras or a suicide bomber who blows himself up during a wedding ceremony in Amman?"

The Danish and Norwegian Embassies in Damascus Syria were stormed and set on fire yesterday.

The same thing happened to the Danish Embassy in Beirut Lebanon this morning.

What the news media doesn’t bother to tell you while flashing images of wild eyed towel head clad morons burning the Danish flag on the streets of the Gaza strip is that the “offensive” cartoons were actually published last October, and only became an issue recently when presented to the Muslim faithful by a few Imams in order to stir up trouble.

The complained-of cartoons first appeared in October; they have provoked such fury only now.

As reported in this newspaper yesterday, it turns out that a group of Danish imams circulated the images to brethren in Muslim countries. When they did so, they included in their package three other, much more offensive cartoons which had not appeared in Jyllands-Posten but were lumped together so that many thought they had.

It rather looks as if the anger with which all Muslims are said to be burning needed some pretty determined stoking. Peter Mandelson, who seems to think that his job as European Trade Commissioner entitles him to pronounce on matters of faith and morals, accuses the papers that republished the cartoons of "adding fuel to the flames"; but those flames were lit (literally, as well as figuratively) by well-organised, radical Muslims who wanted other Muslims to get furious. How this network has operated would make a cracking piece of investigative journalism.

Now the BBC announces that the head of the International Association of Muslim Scholars has called for an "international day of anger" about the cartoons. It did not name this scholar, or tell us who he is. He is Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi. According to Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London, Qaradawi is like Pope John XXIII for Catholics, "the most progressive force for change" in the Muslim world.

Yet if you look up Qaradawi's pronouncements, you find that he sympathises with the judicial killing of homosexuals, and wants the rejection of dialogue with Jews in favour of "the sword and the rifle". He is very keen on suicide bombing, especially if the people who blow themselves up are children - "we have the children bomb". This is a man for whom a single "day of anger" is surely little different from the other 364 days of the year.

See, the so called religious leaders in the Islamic Muslim world realize two things. First that their followers are STUPID, and secondly, that they are easily manipulated.

IDIOTS...

Peer Pressure

Is No One Immune???





'Nuff Said...

Hey...All You Towel Heads...Listen Up...

Add My Name To Your Jihad List

I've heard that there is a bit of a stir going on over in Europe and the Middle east over some political cartoons depicting the Muslim Prophet Muhammed. The towel heads (table cloth heads, dune goons, et. al.) have their thongs in a bunch because they say that it is blasphemy to depict their holiest prophet in any way in drawing.

Since their beloved original "Weird Beard" died before there were any Polaroid cameras, I guess that we can only speculate as to what he looked like.

Is this him?



If you're offended, then please feel free to add ME to your personal Jihad list, and come on down here to St. Simons Island. I have a couple of 30-06 rifle rounds I'd like to personally deliver to you.

Be sure to bring your catcher's mitt (and possibly some body armor,) because they'll be moving rather quickly...

In Memory Of My (Former) Co-workers...

Yes, I'm sometimes a mean, pompus, uncaring bastard...
(and I'm prone to calling a spade a spade)

On The Third Day…Instead Of Rising From The Dead

I Went Home Early...


OK, after taking yesterday off, I decided to go back into the “Valley of the Shadow of Death” and follow up on some loose ends to my “Day Labor” story. As I previously mentioned, I had serious concerns about the safety factors involved in this jobsite in their rush to make an impossible deadline, and today my worst fears were realized.

After making the early morning trek across the causeway again, I found myself dispatched on a “high paying” ($7.00/hr) concrete chipper job working with an electrical contractor. So good so far—higher pay for standing in a few places all day making dust and concrete chips.

Due to circumstances that occurred on Tuesday relating to being responsible for a bunch of “crack heads” and otherwise unsavory non-voters, I elected to drive myself back to SSI and catch the bus solo to the Cloister jobsite.

I got lucky and almost stepped on the little guy that was my boss as soon as I walked into the building. After identifying myself, I was then “towed” around the building as he went about his morning rounds, watched him deliver a good “butt chewing” to five foremen, and finally he unceremoniously delivered me to a position outside the front entrance of the hotel where I was expected to spend the next 8 hours.

The “rocket scientist” (and I use that term loosely) that was in charge of my life and my paycheck today insulted me and my lunch within the first fifteen seconds I was in position to go to work.

The first words out of his mouth were something to the effect of “hey you, climb up here”—the words being delivered from a rack of scaffolding six feet off of the ground. He was impatient as I looked for somewhere to stash my lunch bag, and once I had climbed up on the scaffolding he proceeded to point to a line drawn with a magic marker on a raw concrete wall and said something like “chisel this out 1” wide…1” deep.” Then he pointed to an “X” on the adjacent wall and said to drill a 1” hole here, all the way through (about 22” of concrete.)

He then climbed down off of the platform and disappeared as another guy uncoiled an extension cord and thrust a 30 pound electric chipper onto my scaffolding board. For those non-construction “laymen” and “laywomen” (no pun intended) out there, by an “electric concrete chipper” I actually mean a small handheld “jackhammer.” It consists of a big electric motor with an 18” chisel “bit” sticking out of the front end of it.

The idea is to hold the “chipper” against the solid concrete wall and push on it with your body weight and arms while it eats away at the hard material. I am pleased to admit that I made it through the cutting of a 1” wide x 1” deep trench in my concrete beam about three feet long in about 45 minutes. I am sorry to admit that I am now deaf in my right ear and have concrete coated lungs and sinuses as a bonus prize.

I was elated.

My hearing will probably return to it’s normal poor levels, but I will probably die of silicosis next year, because my highly paid employers did not have hearing protection and a respirator mask available for use by their two low paid “day laborers.”

This situation is actually against the law based on OSHA regulations, but I’m probably one of three people on the entire jobsite that actually cares about or even knows this fact.

While I was making cement dust, my fellow “day laborer” was supposed to be hoisting a 30 pound heavy duty electric drill with an 18” long, 1” diameter concrete bit over his head and drilling through an adjacent 20” thick concrete beam. This amazing feat was supposed to be accomplished while standing atop a 10’ fiberglass ladder.

My co-worker gave up before I did this morning, since the giant drill kept trying to toss him off of the aforementioned ladder while in the heat of drilling about 2” deep into the concrete over a period of one half hour.

When my co-worker complained about the difficulty of his task and his safety concerns, our so-called “supervisor” suggested that he ask me to do the drilling, thereby risking my life and safety rather than his own. Meanwhile, I was freaking out working on my personal rickety scaffolding since I only had one 24” wide scaffolding board to stand on.

I also took command of the giant drill and managed to force the bit about 4" into my designated piece of concrete before I realized that it was going to twist my arms into a human knot if I didn't get a more stable place on which to stand while conducting my drilling operations.


When break time came at 9:15 AM, I waited for a half hour to speak with our “boss man”, but when he never showed up in the work area I made an executive decision (something usually outside the scope of responsibilities of average "day laborers")and excused myself for the day's employment, had a security guard call a shuttle bus, and I carried my Redneck Ass home for the day.

On my way out of the property, I had to wait a half hour due to a traffic delay relating to an Ambulance and Fire Truck that had responded to help some poor slob that had broken his ankle in a fall.

"There go I, but for the grace of God," I thought to myself.

You see, “Safety” isn’t just a slogan, and good safety isn’t had by “accident.”

Safety is a conscious decision to look at what you are trying to accomplish, and spend the time and money to get the manpower, equipment, and training to do the task.

Macho combined with ignorance equal death and injury. I prefer "mucho" dinero for "minimal" macho--something apparently not found in the "day labor" business.

When it is all said and done, throwing cheep labor, insufficient tools, and lack of supervision at a given project just ends up injuring or killing people, breaking materials and tools, and ruining someone’s Mother’s day.

I, personally, like it when my Mother is happy at the end of the day.

The Plot Thickens

I Just Can’t Leave “Well Enough” Alone


My recent work as a “Day Laborer” has been a very interesting experience—AND, it has given me an idea. Follow along with me for a few minutes, if you will, while I tell you about it.

Last spring I had the grand idea of doing a story on the issue of “Port Security.” To this end I made an online application for a permit to do sub-contractor work at the Port of Brunswick, Georgia, using the PROPOSED name of a new construction company I had reserved with the Georgia Secretary of State.

Notice that I said “PROPOSED company”, because I hadn’t actually incorporated the company—I have just reserved the name for future use.

Any way…I filled out the form, and low and behold within a couple of days I received an E-Mail confirming my authorization to enter the Port of Brunswick premises. All I had to do to start standing around within inches of ships and their shipments was stop by the guard shack with my photo ID and get my own identification badge made.

WHAT A JOKE!

My company doesn’t actually exist, yet I have approval to enter the Port of Brunswick.

SO MUCH FOR HOMELAND SECURITY.

Now fast forward to my adventures this week.

You would not BELIEVE the number of private security personnel that they have on the new Cloister Hotel Complex jobsite. There are security people everywhere—outside--wandering around directing delivery truck traffic and acting like they are watching out for malcontents and misbehavior.

There is, however, a simple flaw in their security effort, and I have to digress to make my explanation. This hotel facility is a replacement for a building originally built in the early 1900’s.

A whole bunch of famous, and sometimes even really important people have stayed at the Cloister over the years. Former President George HW Bush and his wife Barbara Honeymooned there back in the dark ages, and celebrities of every genre continue to call Sea island home for days if not months every year.

Now here is my fragile security angle.

All a terrorist has to do TODAY is work a few days as a “day laborer,” paying attention to what is going on regarding security like I have. Once they have learned the security procedures, then they can march right into this complex wearing a hard hat and safety glasses and have complete, unfettered access to almost any space in the building—carrying a toolbox full of radio controlled pipe bombs or Anthrax or almost any other thing they care to bring into the building.

The hotel is scheduled to open next month, but I say that they are actually looking at May or June, and rumor has it that they are sold out at $700 minimum per night for the next two years. Mr. Jones (the owner) would freak over one minor incident caused by some solo malcontent, and an organized effort could actually cause an international incident.

As a result, it is frightening to me that there is no identification requirements to enter this jobsite. All you have to do is show up in the contractor parking lot looking like a contractor and the Sea Island bus will pick you up and deliver you to the front door of the hotel construction site--AT NO CHARGE!

As a comparison, almost every single major industrial jobsite I have worked on in the past required that you qualify for and display a parking permit for your vehicle if you parked on their property and more importantly, that you receive and at all times wear a special photo identification while working.

You could not walk or drive onto their property without your ID, and all they were usually worried about was industrial espionage and the resulting theft of trade secrets, not terrorism.

No such measures are required at Sea Island’s Cloister complex.

I’m thinking about pissing everyone off and doing some further writing about these issues and delivering the results to the local newspapers.

Talk about stirring up a hornet’s nest…but I'm afraid that I can't resist the opportunity to stir the pot up here a little more...

(look for the film on the eleven o'clock news)

Even More Government Stupidity

If the Opossum Fits…Let Them Wear It


Check out this story:

OWEGO, NY--Possessing a possum without a permit puts people at peril.

That's according to New York's environmental conservation laws, which say it's illegal to possess wild animals without a state permit.

A Binghamton-area couple found that out after they had rescued a baby opossum they found in their back yard.

Tina and John Laskowski of Owego were hauled into court after a state conservation officer was tipped off that the couple had adopted the tiny marsupial a few months ago.

They named the injured opossum Webster and nursed him back to health.
Webster was turned over to an animal rehabilitator when the couple was charged with possession of small game without a permit.

A town justice found the animal-lovers guilty and sentenced them to an unconditional discharge.

State wildlife officials say wild animals can carry diseases and even little critters can become aggressive as they grow older.

I’m sorry, ladies and gentlemen, but I have to say that this is a perfect example of how our government, at a local, state, and national level, is COMPLETELY off of track and has lost their bearings in the sea of life.

WHAT BUSINESS IS IT OF THE GOVERNMENT THAT THESE PEOPLE FOUND A BABY OPOSSUM IN THEIR BACK YARD AND DECIDED TO KEEP IT, RATHER THAN LETTING IT DIE SO THAT THE NEIGHBORHOOD CATS OR THE ANTS COULD EAT IT?

I say that the Government should butt the Hell out of these situations.

We had this cat when I was a kid—her name was Twinkle. She was an excellent kitty, but she did what kitty’s did and lurked around the yard and caught things like Chipmunks and other stuff.

The thing about Twinkle was that she just caught the little critters and played with them. She didn’t quite have the instinct to actually kill them upon capture. We would see her with her latest “toy” animal and just take it away from her and release it most of the time.

I remember this one time when we caught her after she had wrestled a Chipmunk around and hurt its leg and so we took her hostage away from her and kept it in a box in our garage until it recovered from the encounter, then we let it go.

We didn’t actually try to handle it or keep it in our bedrooms or pants pockets, we just let it rest and when it started bouncing off of the walls we let it go.

Under NY law, the police could have come to my parent’s home and wrote them a ticket or even hauled my father off to jail over saving a little Chipmunk’s life.

Fortunately, when I was a kid in our little town in southern Alabama, we went to church with the local Sheriff and I know that when he wasn’t hunting and fishing, he was out looking for real criminals instead of screwing around worrying about people coming to the rescue of so-called “dangerous” wild animals.

Would everyone in New York and New England please get a grip on life?

Please?

Second Day Laboring

This Is NO WAY To Make A Living…


I was out of the condo and back on the Torrez Causeway again early yesterday morning, but not quite as early as my first morning as a “Day Laborer.” You see, all of us “Day Laborers” lucky enough to get a “return ticket” enjoy the luxury of avoiding the 5:30 AM rush at the front door of the office, and this morning I’m one of those employees.

With a large cup of McDonald’s coffee in one hand and my lunch bag in the other, I walked in the door of the Day Labor office about 6:00 AM. My immediate reaction was one of panic, because none of the other three members of my previous day’s crew was present, even though we were all given the opportunity to return to the same Sea Island jobsite this morning.

By six fifteen, I find myself still sitting alone in the sea of other potential employees. I really was beginning to think that I had arrived late and the other three men had already been dispatched without me.

Oh my God, was I facing a day working in large seafood stained tanks?

Finally I saw a familiar face as one of my co-workers arrived, sleepy-eyed, at about twenty after six. One down—two to go, but at least I was going back to work for the cabinet company and not digging ditches or removing fish scales from some unidentified apparatus.

The previous day’s work had been tedious, but also extremely simple and not that physically demanding, so I was looking forward to mindlessly spending my time wandering from point to point to point while our supervisor struggled to keep us busy.

Due to the day’s high employment demand, there weren’t enough people to go around, but by 7:35 I was headed out the door with my three man group’s ticket one hand and my car keys in the other. I had been assigned only one new replacement employee instead of two, but in one day I had already graduated to group leader and driver. Then, at the last minute, as we were walking out the door, our fourth guy from the previous day arrived, so I got him added back to our ticket and we waited briefly while he received his hardhat and safety glasses.

The subsequent “four grown men in a Ford Mustang” trip back across the causeway was uneventful, as was the fifteen minute bus ride to the job site. We checked in with our employer by 7:15 AM, and by 9:30 I found myself having walked nearly a mile and having carried hundreds of pounds of material around the building.

What a difference a single day makes in the “Day Labor” business. It would seem that our supervisor, realizing that he had a good crew the previous day, had done a little planning on our behalf—with the idea of making up for the light work loading of the previous day.

All I can say is...I WORKED MY ASS OFF YESTERDAY.

From the third floor Presidential Suite to the basement wine cellar, we dismantled and relocated scaffolding, delivered giant wooden cabinets to the installing craftsmen, and generally huffed and puffed, grunted and groaned, and earned EVERY DAMN PENNY of the luxurious minimum wage we were being paid.

Perhaps the most fun part of the day was when, at about the two thirds point of loading an open 20’ trailer with surplus wood molding, our supervisors’ supervisor came out and had a “shit fit” when he discovered that a previous group of “day laborers” had intermixed needed materials with the surplus materials in the exercise of moving said materials outside the building.

Being cheep and assumed to be stupid, we were forced to partially unload the trailer as the Union professional spun around like a tornado in the middle of our neatly staked piles. Our previously neatly organized lumber looked like the makings of a good bonfire stack when he was finished, but at $5.75 per hour they apparently didn’t mind paying us to reorganize and reload everything once the suspect items were removed.

Being a middle aged former “office boy” and part time construction worker, needless to say that by noon I was tired, and by 3:00 PM I was ready to admit defeat and ask to be allowed to go home early.

But I didn’t, and my determination was rewarded when we were allowed to leave early, at 4:00 PM, with a two hour bonus on each of our paychecks. Whoop de doo--an extra eight bucks or something like that. This is a hard reality to swallow for a guy used to billing myself out to clients for $75 per hour in the "good old days."

When I finally managed to stumble back into the Day Labor office about 4:45, I couldn’t care less what I was paid, or even if I was paid, as long as I could be on the road back home by 5:00.

I walked in the door here at our condo at 5:30 with a check for an ENTIRE Forty Nine Dollars and fifty four cents in my hand--a magnificent ten hours pay for twelve total hours expended.

My feet hurt, my legs were tired, my shoulders ached, and I had two skinned knuckles and a bruised hand. I had also partially turned one ankle tripping over stone scraps discarded by a Mexican mason crew outside our back door.

My summary of my self-imposed, excellent Day labor adventure is as follows.

This is MOST DEFINITELY no way to make a living, BUT...I think that every high school Freshman should have to spend a couple of days doing what I've done the past two days.

I belive that, given the experience, that 99% of the kids would stay in high school, and many might graduate from collage Summa Cum Laude as a result.

Speaking from experience, Day Labor can also be quite dangerous. Besides being physically demanding, the jobsite conditions I witnessed are fraught with hazards, not by design, but by the shear numbers of employees and disciplines of work that are occurring concurrently.

While the Day Labor administrators attempt to apply lip service to safety, as in all avocations the key to safety is up to the individual, and many if not most of the people employed in the Day Labor pool don’t have a clue.

When I first went in to fill out an application package a couple of weeks ago in anticipation of writing this story, I filled out six or eight pages of forms including medical and employment history, and then was asked to sign off on an infinite number of disclaimers and waivers—one indicating that I had received a Safety Manual.

As of today I’ve still never seen anything resembling a Safety Manual.

I never said a word, but I was horrified at the conditions in the ballroom on both days, with people working obliviously on the floor on projects while at the same time FOUR different scissors lifts motored around in our midst, holding workers forty feet in the air while they painted the ceiling of the room.

On the industrial jobsites that I’ve run in the past, I’m used to cordoning off the work area and FORBIDDING pedestrian traffic and work to be done on the ground under and adjacent to the overhead work.

Imagine the lift operators making a mistake, running into a chandelier or bumping into something on the floor, and causing the entire lift to overturn. Anyone on the ground in the path of the falling lift would be seriously injured or killed. Any items accidentally spilled or dropped from the lift could also cause injury, in spite of the hardhats and safety glasses worn by all employees.

Yesterday I almost had the fingers on my left hand broken (if not cut off) in the unorganized spastic haste of my supervisor and one of my co-workers while moving a mechanical materials-lift from an outside courtyard into the building. It was actually my own idea how to get it back in the building, but once I tendered the plan I then lost all control in the normal stampede and dust storm of activity typical of “day laborer” operations. A savings of five minutes nearly cost me my fingers, and what was even more hideous was that since I didn’t say anything, no one else even noticed.

What really killed me about working day labor wasn’t the low pay, but rather it was the assumption of stupidity and untrustworthiness (probably well deserved and earned by other less enthusiastic and capable workers other than myself) that I had to endure.

I’m used to being assigned a task in my work life, and then planning and executing the intricate details. In spite of knowing that I had signed up for the program, I found being directed from point to point, from task to task, by someone well intended, but yet quite my intellectual inferior, to be quite frustrating.

We were forced to redo fully 25% of the tasks we accomplished, simply because of poor planning, augmented by the low cost of our employment efforts.

Although I had previously managed half-million dollar construction contracts and dozens of employees and subcontractors, I personally had never resorted to hiring anyone from a day labor pool and as a result I had no idea what to expect from either side of the bargain.

Regarding the start of the second day, it was clear that virtually everyone had spent nearly every single penny they had earned the day before partying. One of my coworkers didn’t bother to show up at all, and the two that did show up admitted that they were both broke when they got there. One guy brought a home made lunch, while the other would have gone hungry if I hadn’t loaned him two dollars. His promise of paying me back at the end of the day turned into stalling tactics because he said that he couldn’t get his check cashed because he had left his ID at home.

I think that that's OK, however.

I know now that I’ve done my good deed for the week--feeding the hungry, sorta like Jesus did.

Day Laboring

My Own Social Experiment


The drive over the Torrez Causeway is very quiet at this hour on a Monday morning. It’s actually an almost solo adventure at 5 AM. The same is true of downtown Brunswick—the streets being strangely absent of pedestrians and vehicles.

Arriving downtown on the waterfront, I parked our Ford Mustang out of sight down Newcastle Street, hid my wallet under the passenger seat, and hurried along wearing what I call my “yard clothes” including my old steel toed work boots, a faded bandanna on my head, with only my ID, a credit card, and a few business cards in my jeans pocket.

I arrive in front of the Day Labor Temp office at 5:15 AM and a half-dozen men have already gathered, even though the doors don’t actually open until 5:30. As I slowly pace around the sidewalk surveying the crowd, various figures continue to emerge on bicycles and on foot from the gloomy shadows down the street, and a few individuals and groups drive up in autos to park along the curb out front.

About 5:30, as I’m peering through the glass front door of the office, a Blue pickup pulls up behind me and everyone suddenly scrambles to form a line at the front door, openly debating who arrived when and in what order. Surprised by the commotion, I casually wander out of the way of the stampede and drop into the line about where I belonged in the “arrival hierarchy.”

No one complained about my position.

The front door was unceremoniously unlocked and the men quietly filed into the building and formed lines in front of two windows—the “return” window for those working again for the same employer, and the “first time” window for those not lucky enough to be asked back to a jobsite and for people like me that hadn’t worked before.

I had intentionally not shaved for several days, left my flowing hair hanging shaggily out from underneath my bandanna, and I kept my mouth shut as I printed my name on the sign up sheet. I then took a position on one of the five home-made wooden benches in the lobby, leaned back against the wall, and watched as the events unfolded.

I was intent on experiencing a typical day in the life of someone working as a “day laborer.” (This posting is actually Part 1 of my first draft of a freelance human interest article I am writing for publication.)

Although the office opened at 5:30 AM, job assignments did not begin until 6 AM so the first 45 minutes are spent jostling for position in the process. Over the next thirty minutes after the doors open, more new prospective employees arrive, and just before the 6 AM milestone a flood of men and even a few women arrive, boisterously greeting each other and debating their prospects for the day.

To my surprise, almost half seemed to have return opportunities already lined up, even though some lamented that they did not want to be sent back to the same employer

Strangely absent were any Hispanics—the entire group was composed of African Americans and Whites. I found this detail odd since Glynn County has over 9,000 Hispanics in our 78,000 population. Perhaps I’ve tripped over an interesting demographic detail in my first hour “under cover?”

The 6:00 rush began with a half dozen regulars being assigned to a job working on the Colonel’s Island docks. Next came a flurry of assignments of small groups of three and four men going to various jobsites—all return opportunities.

By 6:15 the first non-return job calls are announced, and my name wasn’t among them. I already have an hour invested in the process, not to mention the commute time from St. Simons.

A group of women are sent to the hospital for a post construction clean up job and other groups of two men are dispatched with their assignment “sheets” in hand. One very large gentleman is sent to a local seafood company to work cleaning out the inside of large tanks. Besides wondering how he’ll ever fit through the manway entrance of a storage tank, I’m also desperately hoping that my new employment opportunity, if and when it comes, doesn’t involve uncooked seafood and the inside of any tanks containing same.

I’ll probably decline and go home if it does.

Finally, and much to my surprise, about 6:30 my name was called, along with that of three other men, and I was instructed to approach the window. “Would you mind working for a wood cabinet company out on Sea Island as a laborer today” she asked. Not yes, but HELL yes…I replied (OK, not really, but I was SO relieved that no seafood tanks were in my future.)

By 6:45 I was climbing into a little KIA 4-door with three total strangers and my loaned hard hat and safety glasses in preparation of blasting back across the Torrez Causeway to a construction employee parking area on St. Simons. I could just see my name in the newspaper in the accident description.

From there shuttle busses lumbered the additional four miles across Sea Island Causeway, past the Island’s guard shack, and onto the multi hundred million dollar construction site of the Jones family’s new five-star Cloister Resort complex.

We reported to work in the new hotel ballroom by 7:30 AM—total time invested 2-1/2 hours.

After some initial standing around while the foreman got his bearings with his crew that had arrived a half hour earlier, we were instructed to find brooms and go to work “sweeping” the bare concrete floor of the ballroom.

Reality sank in—I was employed as “grunt” for the minimum wage of $5.75 per hour.

I’ve never made minimum wage in my entire life, but they were paying me for my hands and back, not my brain--not exactly my strongest attributes.

My crew and I raised a dust storm for about two hours, having to live with only two brooms and one dustpan. We took turns sweeping and moving boxes and other crap out of the way, and we probably removed a half dozen bushel baskets of sawdust and other crap out the back door to the dumpster.

(I’m going to break away from my narrative of how the day went now to write about the ending…but let me tell you that I was “busted” by noon when my employer—the cabinet company foreman—figured out that I wasn’t the average day laborer. I’ll also spoil the ending and mention that the Union guys want to hire me as a full time employee…)

Jumping ahead…

We arrived back at the employment office about 3:30, and by 3:45 PM I emerged from the building in possession of a check for 9 hours of work—actually costing me 11.5 hours of my life by the time I returned home.

My total-take home earnings?

$43.65 after taxes.

The sad thing is that I’m luckier than many day laborers, because I have my own transportation if I need it and I have a bank account. None of my three co-workers had bank accounts, so they had to pay 5%-10% of their meager earnings to the liquor store or check cashing establishment conveniently located just down the street from the office.

Want to park your bicycle inside the storage room of the office rather than leaving it outside on the bike rack at risk of vandalism or theft? Pay a $2 fee.

Don’t have a car and need a ride to a job site? Pay a $5 fee each way.

Need a drug test for employment? Pay yet another fee.

And so goes another day in the life of a “Day Laborer.”

You can see how a person working truly in the “laborer” category can find themselves going home with only a little over $30 after giving up nearly 12 hours of your life each day.

My observations indicate that the day labor pool consists primarily of people that can’t or won’t bother to show up for work each day. Several obviously had substance abuse problems. A couple of people were down right frightening to look at.

These aren’t kids either.

Many, unfortunately, are in their thirty’s and forty’s—some even appeared to be in their 60’s—and most have virtually no marketable skills other than the desire to show up every now and then and slave away for eight or ten hours.

F.Y.I. I’m going to work a few more days this week “incognito” in order to gain more story background on my fellow workers and to see how the Union employment angle plays out. Then again, I may get busted out by the employment agency because they might not like me writing about their operations. I asked the Union guys to keep my secret after I admitted who I really was, but you never know...

Heck, I might just take them up on their offer and take a shot at doing some commercial woodwork just for fun and the experience since my Dad left us a wonderful woodshop that he built over in Alabama prior to his death in 1996.

Wish me luck…