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)
Thursday, February 02, 2006
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?
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?
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
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.
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.
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
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…
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…
Monday, January 30, 2006
I Want One
The MK-19 40 MM Grenade Launcher
All of you anti-gun freaks and gun control nuts need to hit your back button on your browser or close your eyes or squint or something because I'm gonna talk weapons for a minute here.
I watched FOX News "War Stories" segment featuring Col. Oliver North this evening, and I fell in love with one of these:
The only thing is that 350 grenades is a pretty good amount of tonnage for one minute of firing. I'd need a handtruck or a wheelbarrow or something to haul my ammunition in.
Better yet, I'd go out and get myself a new Ford Mustang, and after making a few modifications it would look like this...
That aught to solve my problem with the moronic drivers here on the island. I'd give you one warning shot, and if you keep it up acting like an asshole, then I'd personally see to it that your driving privileges were revoked...
PERMANENTLY
All of you anti-gun freaks and gun control nuts need to hit your back button on your browser or close your eyes or squint or something because I'm gonna talk weapons for a minute here.
I watched FOX News "War Stories" segment featuring Col. Oliver North this evening, and I fell in love with one of these:
after watching it expedite a few swarthy Terrorist Bastards on their way to visit with Allah and their hundred Virgins or whatever.
It's the MK-19 40 mm Grenade launcher, and I WANT ONE. It can fire up to 350 grenades per minute at ranges up to 2200 meters. Mounted on a swivel tripod or a swivel mount on a truck or Humvee, a knowledgable Marine operator can lay out a "spread pattern" of five or ten grenades that will make your life miserable if you manage to come into his sights.
Foomp Foomp Foomp Foomp Foomp = 5 grenades in the air.
Wham Wham Wham Wham Wham = those same 5 grenades exploding 200 yards away.
The targets in this evenings footage were three towel headed Iraqi "Insurgents" trying to light a truck bomb that failed to explode by tossing "molitov cocktails" into it. The poor bastards never had a chance, because they were dead Dead DEAD once the US Marines got a bead on their stupid Jihadist asses.
The only thing is that 350 grenades is a pretty good amount of tonnage for one minute of firing. I'd need a handtruck or a wheelbarrow or something to haul my ammunition in.
Better yet, I'd go out and get myself a new Ford Mustang, and after making a few modifications it would look like this...
That aught to solve my problem with the moronic drivers here on the island. I'd give you one warning shot, and if you keep it up acting like an asshole, then I'd personally see to it that your driving privileges were revoked...
PERMANENTLY
Sunday, January 29, 2006
They Can’t Be Serious
Stupid Is As Stupid Does…
As I’ve said many times before here on the blog, I don’t have any kids. Never have, never will.
I am, however, in my second childhood, and I’ve probably learned more in the past ten years than I did in the first thirty-six because my “education” taught me more about how to learn than it instilled in me a bunch of “facts and figures.”
That’s what is wrong with our education system today. Rather than teaching kids how to learn and where to look for information, the teachers and school systems are judged by their ability to teach our young citizens an ever shrinking database of information intended to allow them to pass a few tests on their way to a lifetime of mediocrity.
Then many of the products of our glorious public education system…you know…GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS…proceed to spend their days wallowing in ignorance and stupidity while voting themselves into positions on the public dole—positions including paid leave, retirement, medical benefits, and even higher wages while they actually are never putting in an honest days effort with any skills that their employers can use.
I guess that the Devil is in the details…
In the fall of 2004 I wrote about govenment teachers outlawing the use of RED INK in grading papers in the classroom—because the red ink affected the poor little school-children’s “self esteem.”
Instead they started using purple ink.
I think that I feel better already.
Now the Brit’s have had another epiphany…if the smart kids would just stop raising their hands in order to answer questions in class…all of those poor little red ink stained school children’s self esteem will be FURTHER ENHANCED.
I’m so happy for them all...
LONDON -- Pupils in an East London school have been banned from raising their hands to answer questions in class because their teachers fear it leads to feelings of victimization.
“No hands up" notices have been posted in every room at the Jo Richardson comprehensive school in Dagenham, as a reminder that the teachers will decide who should answer. The principal, Andrew Buck, said it is always the same children who wave their arms in the air, while the rest of the class sits back. When teachers try to involve less-adventurous pupils by choosing them instead, that leads to feelings of victimization.
Mr. Buck believes that it can also cause panic in children who are picked but do not know the answer while others around them are straining to give it. To spare the embarrassment of those who do not know the answer, the school uses a "phone a friend" system, allowing one child to nominate another to take the question instead.
God help us...
As I’ve said many times before here on the blog, I don’t have any kids. Never have, never will.
I am, however, in my second childhood, and I’ve probably learned more in the past ten years than I did in the first thirty-six because my “education” taught me more about how to learn than it instilled in me a bunch of “facts and figures.”
That’s what is wrong with our education system today. Rather than teaching kids how to learn and where to look for information, the teachers and school systems are judged by their ability to teach our young citizens an ever shrinking database of information intended to allow them to pass a few tests on their way to a lifetime of mediocrity.
Then many of the products of our glorious public education system…you know…GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS…proceed to spend their days wallowing in ignorance and stupidity while voting themselves into positions on the public dole—positions including paid leave, retirement, medical benefits, and even higher wages while they actually are never putting in an honest days effort with any skills that their employers can use.
I guess that the Devil is in the details…
In the fall of 2004 I wrote about govenment teachers outlawing the use of RED INK in grading papers in the classroom—because the red ink affected the poor little school-children’s “self esteem.”
Instead they started using purple ink.
I think that I feel better already.
Now the Brit’s have had another epiphany…if the smart kids would just stop raising their hands in order to answer questions in class…all of those poor little red ink stained school children’s self esteem will be FURTHER ENHANCED.
I’m so happy for them all...
LONDON -- Pupils in an East London school have been banned from raising their hands to answer questions in class because their teachers fear it leads to feelings of victimization.
“No hands up" notices have been posted in every room at the Jo Richardson comprehensive school in Dagenham, as a reminder that the teachers will decide who should answer. The principal, Andrew Buck, said it is always the same children who wave their arms in the air, while the rest of the class sits back. When teachers try to involve less-adventurous pupils by choosing them instead, that leads to feelings of victimization.
Mr. Buck believes that it can also cause panic in children who are picked but do not know the answer while others around them are straining to give it. To spare the embarrassment of those who do not know the answer, the school uses a "phone a friend" system, allowing one child to nominate another to take the question instead.
God help us...
You're Gonna Miss Us When We're Gone
I heard a sound bite on TV tonight that went right past me, finally soaking in after I looked up from the computer in shock.
It said something like that the United States was graduating 60,000 engineering students each year, while China and Korea were putting out 500,000 people with technical degrees.
THIS IS A BIG PROBLEM...AT LEAST IT COULD BE.
Take a look at this chart I found on the internet this morning:
Notice that nearly 40% of Korean grads are in Science and Enginerering?
Notice that nearly 1/3 of all Science and Engineering grads are WOMEN in these foreign countries?
Notice that the good ole' USA is fourth from last in the ranking, only coming in ahead of Hungary, Norway, and Poland?
Interestingly enough, China and India are omitted from this chart for some reason, but I'm sure that they would be near the top if listed.
This is a disgrace, in my considered Redneck opinion.
I know that these figures are based on percentages of graduates, not numbers of graduates, but I think that it is very telling that US college students prefer to study English and Journalism over "rocket science."
Being a professional "Rocket Scientist", and getting on up there in age and lacking motivation to solve the world's problems, I'm afraid if this trend continues, as my title says...
"You're Gonna Miss Us When We're Gone..."
It said something like that the United States was graduating 60,000 engineering students each year, while China and Korea were putting out 500,000 people with technical degrees.
THIS IS A BIG PROBLEM...AT LEAST IT COULD BE.
Take a look at this chart I found on the internet this morning:
Notice that nearly 40% of Korean grads are in Science and Enginerering?
Notice that nearly 1/3 of all Science and Engineering grads are WOMEN in these foreign countries?
Notice that the good ole' USA is fourth from last in the ranking, only coming in ahead of Hungary, Norway, and Poland?
Interestingly enough, China and India are omitted from this chart for some reason, but I'm sure that they would be near the top if listed.
This is a disgrace, in my considered Redneck opinion.
I know that these figures are based on percentages of graduates, not numbers of graduates, but I think that it is very telling that US college students prefer to study English and Journalism over "rocket science."
Being a professional "Rocket Scientist", and getting on up there in age and lacking motivation to solve the world's problems, I'm afraid if this trend continues, as my title says...
"You're Gonna Miss Us When We're Gone..."
Don’t Say I’m Not Fair And Balanced
At Least I Try To Be
Anyone that has spent any time reading this blog knows that I love to pick on the “dead tree” media.
You know—the legacy print newspapers like the NY Times and the LA Times which are some of my favorite targets. Both newspapers have suffered substantial losses in circulation in the past year and each have announced major reductions in their staff in recent weeks.
The NY Times apparently has become so aggravated with the attacks on their editorial writers by the Blogosphere that last year the resorted to hiding Paul Krugman, Maureen Dowd, and Thomas L Friedman behind a $50 subscription fee charged just to read their poorly formulated ramblings in the Times online edition.
My Blog Idol Captain Ed over at Captains Quarters stated that the “subscription fee” was equivalent to a “prescription fee” for him because by not wanting to pay the $50, he was able to avoid losing his mind, thereby avoiding insanity, while reading the nonsensical ravings of the Times far left liberal editorials.
I agree wholeheartedly.
You can imagine my surprise and shock when I actually AGREED with something printed in this morning’s edition of the LA Times.
I’m going to take the liberty of printing the entire editorial here because I believe that you need to read it.
Hitching a free ride with the U.S.
By Michael Mandelbaum, MICHAEL MANDELBAUM is the author of "The Case for Goliath: How America Acts as the World's Government in the 21st Century," from which this article is adapted.
THE WIDELY differing reactions to Iran's drive for nuclear weapons among the countries of the world present a paradox: Those in greatest jeopardy from such weapons seem willing to do the least to stop it. This apparently illogical situation illustrates the most important and least appreciated feature of 21st century international relations: the remarkable role of the United States.
It is the U.S. that has taken the lead in trying to block Iran's nuclear ambitions, calling attention to Tehran's violations of its nuclear agreements, insisting on referring these violations to the United Nations for sanctions and hinting that a U.S. military attack on Iran's nuclear facilities is a genuine possibility. Even if Iran does acquire nuclear weapons, however, it will not have the capacity to launch a direct attack on the U.S.
On the other hand, the governments of Iran's Arab neighbors, which the Iranian regime has termed illegitimate and has tried in the past to subvert, have remained virtually silent about Tehran's nuclear program.
The Western Europeans (whose territory Iran could strike), while expressing disappointment that their diplomatic efforts to rein in the Iranian nuclear program have failed, proclaim their opposition to the use of force for this purpose.
And Russia, which is also within striking distance of Iran and is fighting a Muslim insurgency in Chechnya — to which the Iranian regime, a notorious sponsor of terrorism, could some day supply nuclear materials — is balking at seeking a U.N. reprimand of Tehran.
The reason for this odd pattern of behavior is that the United States has come to assume wide responsibility for ensuring international security and global prosperity. In particular, it is the U.S. that has taken the lead in pursuing two goals that benefit all other countries and that the Iranian nuclear program threatens: limiting the spread of nuclear weapons and ensuring a steady supply of oil from the Middle East.
THESE ARE NOT the only tasks the United States carries out that benefit others. The U.S. military presence in Europe and Asia forestalls nuclear and conventional arms races between and among the countries there, and it creates the political confidence necessary for trade and investment to flourish. The American dollar is the world's most widely used currency. The United States supplies the largest and most open market for exports, access to which is vital for the well-being of other countries. In fact, the U.S. provides to other countries some, although not all, of the services that governments typically furnish to their own citizens. The U.S. has come to function as the world's government.
To be sure, the U.S. did not deliberately seek this role; it gradually grew out of American policies during the Cold War. Nor has the rest of the world ever officially approved this global American role. And the United States has never set out with the intention of furnishing benefits to others. The international initiatives it undertakes are designed to serve American interests. This they do — Iranian nuclear weapons would make the world a more dangerous place for the U.S., as well — but they also serve the interests of other countries.
Yet other countries do not acknowledge the benefits they receive from the United States because that could raise the question of why they don't pay more of the costs of supplying these benefits. No government would lightly abandon such a "free ride." So it is in the case of Iran's nuclear program.
Other governments know that the efforts to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons may fail, and that in that case they will be less secure. Yet even this prospect is unlikely to induce them to pay higher costs and run greater risks to achieve this goal, and for a familiar reason. The Arabs, the Europeans and the Russians have a country they believe they can count on to contain a nuclear Iran should that be necessary: the United States.
Amen Brother…I couldn’t have said it better myself.
I've been saying all along that the liberal and socalist peacenicks in this country, along with the rest of the world community, have the luxury of bitching and complaining at every turn--criticizing everything we do--calling us bullys, while and the same time enjoying relative security and prosperity at OUR EXPENSE.
The dumbassed Canadians and the backward Mexicans have virtually no military, and as a result they have no EXPENSES associated with operating a military, because they know that the US will not tolerate any incursion into their borders because of the indirect threat to our own security.
Just let some insurrection break out involving something besides swords or pistols and see how much good the Canadian Mounties will do you in a pinch.
I pisses me off that Mexican President Fox stands idly by, even encouraging his residents (11 million of them to date) to violate our borders and enter our country illegally. He knows that his economy is going to need the cash and they can't produce the jobs domestically.
Meanwhile, the Canadians invade our little island and most of Florida every winter and the first thing they do is run to the doctor and dentist to obtain medical services that their lovely socialized medical program fails to deliver to them in their frozen homeland.
And yet John sKerry and sHrillary Clinton and most of the elite liberals continue to beat us over the head with the Canadian and European socialist models of government as being superior to our own REPUBLIC.
That's right...we're a REPUBLIC, not a Democracy, dammit, why don't any of you people remember that simple fact?
I'm ready for us to stop walking softly, and start carrying an even bigger stick around the world...
Anyone that has spent any time reading this blog knows that I love to pick on the “dead tree” media.
You know—the legacy print newspapers like the NY Times and the LA Times which are some of my favorite targets. Both newspapers have suffered substantial losses in circulation in the past year and each have announced major reductions in their staff in recent weeks.
The NY Times apparently has become so aggravated with the attacks on their editorial writers by the Blogosphere that last year the resorted to hiding Paul Krugman, Maureen Dowd, and Thomas L Friedman behind a $50 subscription fee charged just to read their poorly formulated ramblings in the Times online edition.
My Blog Idol Captain Ed over at Captains Quarters stated that the “subscription fee” was equivalent to a “prescription fee” for him because by not wanting to pay the $50, he was able to avoid losing his mind, thereby avoiding insanity, while reading the nonsensical ravings of the Times far left liberal editorials.
I agree wholeheartedly.
You can imagine my surprise and shock when I actually AGREED with something printed in this morning’s edition of the LA Times.
I’m going to take the liberty of printing the entire editorial here because I believe that you need to read it.
Hitching a free ride with the U.S.
By Michael Mandelbaum, MICHAEL MANDELBAUM is the author of "The Case for Goliath: How America Acts as the World's Government in the 21st Century," from which this article is adapted.
THE WIDELY differing reactions to Iran's drive for nuclear weapons among the countries of the world present a paradox: Those in greatest jeopardy from such weapons seem willing to do the least to stop it. This apparently illogical situation illustrates the most important and least appreciated feature of 21st century international relations: the remarkable role of the United States.
It is the U.S. that has taken the lead in trying to block Iran's nuclear ambitions, calling attention to Tehran's violations of its nuclear agreements, insisting on referring these violations to the United Nations for sanctions and hinting that a U.S. military attack on Iran's nuclear facilities is a genuine possibility. Even if Iran does acquire nuclear weapons, however, it will not have the capacity to launch a direct attack on the U.S.
On the other hand, the governments of Iran's Arab neighbors, which the Iranian regime has termed illegitimate and has tried in the past to subvert, have remained virtually silent about Tehran's nuclear program.
The Western Europeans (whose territory Iran could strike), while expressing disappointment that their diplomatic efforts to rein in the Iranian nuclear program have failed, proclaim their opposition to the use of force for this purpose.
And Russia, which is also within striking distance of Iran and is fighting a Muslim insurgency in Chechnya — to which the Iranian regime, a notorious sponsor of terrorism, could some day supply nuclear materials — is balking at seeking a U.N. reprimand of Tehran.
The reason for this odd pattern of behavior is that the United States has come to assume wide responsibility for ensuring international security and global prosperity. In particular, it is the U.S. that has taken the lead in pursuing two goals that benefit all other countries and that the Iranian nuclear program threatens: limiting the spread of nuclear weapons and ensuring a steady supply of oil from the Middle East.
THESE ARE NOT the only tasks the United States carries out that benefit others. The U.S. military presence in Europe and Asia forestalls nuclear and conventional arms races between and among the countries there, and it creates the political confidence necessary for trade and investment to flourish. The American dollar is the world's most widely used currency. The United States supplies the largest and most open market for exports, access to which is vital for the well-being of other countries. In fact, the U.S. provides to other countries some, although not all, of the services that governments typically furnish to their own citizens. The U.S. has come to function as the world's government.
To be sure, the U.S. did not deliberately seek this role; it gradually grew out of American policies during the Cold War. Nor has the rest of the world ever officially approved this global American role. And the United States has never set out with the intention of furnishing benefits to others. The international initiatives it undertakes are designed to serve American interests. This they do — Iranian nuclear weapons would make the world a more dangerous place for the U.S., as well — but they also serve the interests of other countries.
Yet other countries do not acknowledge the benefits they receive from the United States because that could raise the question of why they don't pay more of the costs of supplying these benefits. No government would lightly abandon such a "free ride." So it is in the case of Iran's nuclear program.
Other governments know that the efforts to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons may fail, and that in that case they will be less secure. Yet even this prospect is unlikely to induce them to pay higher costs and run greater risks to achieve this goal, and for a familiar reason. The Arabs, the Europeans and the Russians have a country they believe they can count on to contain a nuclear Iran should that be necessary: the United States.
Amen Brother…I couldn’t have said it better myself.
I've been saying all along that the liberal and socalist peacenicks in this country, along with the rest of the world community, have the luxury of bitching and complaining at every turn--criticizing everything we do--calling us bullys, while and the same time enjoying relative security and prosperity at OUR EXPENSE.
The dumbassed Canadians and the backward Mexicans have virtually no military, and as a result they have no EXPENSES associated with operating a military, because they know that the US will not tolerate any incursion into their borders because of the indirect threat to our own security.
Just let some insurrection break out involving something besides swords or pistols and see how much good the Canadian Mounties will do you in a pinch.
I pisses me off that Mexican President Fox stands idly by, even encouraging his residents (11 million of them to date) to violate our borders and enter our country illegally. He knows that his economy is going to need the cash and they can't produce the jobs domestically.
Meanwhile, the Canadians invade our little island and most of Florida every winter and the first thing they do is run to the doctor and dentist to obtain medical services that their lovely socialized medical program fails to deliver to them in their frozen homeland.
And yet John sKerry and sHrillary Clinton and most of the elite liberals continue to beat us over the head with the Canadian and European socialist models of government as being superior to our own REPUBLIC.
That's right...we're a REPUBLIC, not a Democracy, dammit, why don't any of you people remember that simple fact?
I'm ready for us to stop walking softly, and start carrying an even bigger stick around the world...
Saturday, January 28, 2006
Right Brain—Left Brain
Or Possibly…No Brain?
OK, I feel like saying something ugly this morning.
I’ve spent much of the past two years on a desert island—intellectually and philosophically—as I have done my volunteer work in the theater here in the Golden Isles.
The clues that there could be problems and conflict were delivered early and often, but being the tolerant, self-effacing fool that I am, I chose to ignore these signs of dissent in the interest of broadening my horizons.
I can now authoritatively make the following proclamations, and nothing anyone can say will change my mind:
99.9% of the people involved in “Community Theater” are pompous, self-indulgent, ungrateful, mindless idiots that live and die to get their lumbering carcasses and unspectacular faces on the stage in public, at any cost.
The other 0.1% of the “community theater” volunteers are ignorant, yet often highly talented people like me, who are just passing through, providing solid ground and traction as the star wanna-be’s stumble toward their place in the spotlight.
These people, what I call “theater geeks,” act as their own judge, jury, and executioner in the comical drama of their little theater worlds, and the death sentence can be earned in a variety of ways. Thus far I’ve managed to stumble upon two methods.
The first method is rather classic, and it is a well know faux pas in many organizations like private businesses and even church.
Theater Rule #1:
Never, never ever, make the “powers what be” look bad. Your success is their failure, no matter how much your efforts advance the progress of the theater as a whole.
I worked for a year with The Island Players Theater Company here on St. Simons Island, and in that time I managed to piss off everyone that had ever built a set for their productions. They did everything that they could to derail my own efforts, including demanding that I employ the worst incompetent volunteers they could muster, and finally boycotting entirely my construction efforts on Agatha Christie’s “The Mousetrap.”
When I completed the Mousetrap set essentially by myself, expending 350 hours of my time on the effort, they then omitted my name from the playbill and program. I had season ticket holders calling me and telling me that my work was the best they had ever seen in a show, but the “powers what be” were unable to stomach that I—a mere amateur, a man with NO PRIOR THEATER EXPERIENCE—could build sets better than a bunch of ham fisted retired schoolteachers and pawn shop owners. These people, wearing shiny new steel toed boots, crisp leather tool aprons, and brandishing expensive cordless screwdrivers, were about as effective at set construction as I would be going to the Super Bowl stadium wearing a football uniform.
Do you get my drift?
I lasted through one additional set construction effort working for a shallow, ungrateful woman that called herself a producer, under the auspices of another modest woman who had “designed and built sets for twenty years and always won the ‘best set’ award”, and once again when the playbill came out they mysteriously omitted my name as assistant set designer and set construction chief.
“Oh…so sorry, it was an oversight…”
After several other incidents, upheavals, and intentional slights, I assessed my position, and chose to cut my losses last March by terminating my relationship with TIP.
Thereafter I looked across the Torrez Causeway to the mainland and greener pastures, so to speak.
There are two community theater opportunities in Brunswick—The Ritz Theater, and the CAPE Theater.
I wrote about and displayed pictures of the elaborate set I designed and constructed for Charles Dickens “A Christmas Carol” here on this blog last December. My experience with the show’s director Heather and the producer Rob couldn’t have been more positive. They outlined the schedule and my tasks, I produced what we needed, the show was a GREAT success.
I’d actually pay money to work with them at the Ritz again.
My soul was healed, and my enthusiasm for the theater January 1st was at an all time high.
Unfortunately, I didn’t make it out of the month of January with the same attitude because, you see…
I WAS FIRED FROM A VOLUNTEER SET CONSTRUCTION JOB YESTERDAY! (and I was the only person working on the set.)
Yes indeed, Ladies and Gentlemen, the silly bitch running the “You’re A Good Man Charley Brown” dinner theater got her thong in a bunch (or her boxers in a bunch—who knows?) and sent me an E-mail yesterday morning telling me to return the theater’s tools and supplies I had been dragging around in my car’s trunk for a month because “I obviously didn’t intend to honor my commitments to the CAPE Theater.”
WTF?
Needless to say I was shocked, but I’ve also developed the attitude that I’m not going to grovel in order to be ALLOWED to work for free.
And what was the hideous crime that I was guilty of that caused me to receive the “Theater Death Sentence”? It’s quite simple, actually…I violated Theater Rule #2 (see below)
Theater Rule #2:
Never, never ever, ignore a female theater geek when she stomps her little (or humongous) foot and demands that you do something “right now.”
You see, I had a little bout with a chest cold for a couple of weeks this month, and instead of completing the set on the unrealistic original schedule that “theater geek lady” had planned for me (but not discussed with me), I was working on a schedule that would have the set components completed in the actual order as the cast needed them, finishing this week—over a week before the show opened February 3rd.
My drop dead date was last Thursday, and I had easily beat the date by finishing Snoopy’s doghouse on Tuesday, with only a little painting and final details to address. Then “theater geek lady” decided that she didn’t like the size of the dog house (something we had discussed in detail prior to construction) and she wanted me to cut it down in size. No PROBLEM, except that the modifications required re-cutting virtually every single board in the structure. Really, it was no problem—just let me revise my drawings and calculations and I’ll knock it out for you, I replied.
Problem is, I couldn’t get it done on Thursday because I spent Thursday afternoon getting a battery installed in the Mustang and by the time I got to the church the building was locked up and I didn’t have a key.
Pesky details aside, when I checked e-mail on my way out the door Friday morning to go finish the set, I learned that I was fired. I even gave the woman a chance to allow me to finish yesterday, but all she could do was rant about how I had their stuff and demand that I return it by noon, else they wouldn’t reimburse me for materials I had paid for out of MY wallet.
Being the insidious incompetent that I am, I notified her that she could keep my $40 and consider it to be my LAST donation to CAPE theater in money or time, and that I would return the tools and materials to the church by noon. By “the church” I meant the Methodist Church where the play was actually being produced, not the Presbyterian Church where I had built the set.
Then she started bitching because I would not return the tools and lay them at her feet, presumably so that she could browbeat me in person and then kiss and make up. "So Sorry" crazy "theater geek lady" but "this Homey don't play that kiss and make up shit..."
I had the tools inside the Methodist Church by noon, and I trust that the CAPE theater will have a WONDERFUL production.
As a post script analysis, I realized that I had yet again actually violated another theater rule in this process:
Theater Rule #3
Never, never ever, let the theater geeks know that you could care less about ever getting your lumbering carcass and face on their stage.
You see, getting your lumbering carcass and face on stage is what the theater is all about, at least down here on the Georgia coast. NOTHING else matters. People pimp each other back and forth, diddling around behind the scenes, waiting until it's their turn to be on stage.
It doesn't matter if you can actually ACT or DANCE or SING--you get to be on stage by kissing ass and earning your place in the spotlight doing all of the crap that needs doing.
Those pesky auditions are just a formality--most of the good parts are already taken no matter how good you do reading for a part. I've seen great singers and exceptional actors turned away, never to return again, simply because the theater geeks "owed" themselves or someone a part in a play. Tit for Tat, once you sell your soul to the devil, you become one of "THEM."
I refuse to be one of "THEM."
Seriously, it would appear that once you make it to a certain level in the hierarchy, you can then sit on your larels bashing all of the new volunteers while you impatiently wait until your turn comes up to bore an audience to death with a mediocre performance.
F**K the Theater and most of the “Theater People.”
Who the hell do they think they are anyway?
OK, I feel like saying something ugly this morning.
I’ve spent much of the past two years on a desert island—intellectually and philosophically—as I have done my volunteer work in the theater here in the Golden Isles.
The clues that there could be problems and conflict were delivered early and often, but being the tolerant, self-effacing fool that I am, I chose to ignore these signs of dissent in the interest of broadening my horizons.
I can now authoritatively make the following proclamations, and nothing anyone can say will change my mind:
99.9% of the people involved in “Community Theater” are pompous, self-indulgent, ungrateful, mindless idiots that live and die to get their lumbering carcasses and unspectacular faces on the stage in public, at any cost.
The other 0.1% of the “community theater” volunteers are ignorant, yet often highly talented people like me, who are just passing through, providing solid ground and traction as the star wanna-be’s stumble toward their place in the spotlight.
These people, what I call “theater geeks,” act as their own judge, jury, and executioner in the comical drama of their little theater worlds, and the death sentence can be earned in a variety of ways. Thus far I’ve managed to stumble upon two methods.
The first method is rather classic, and it is a well know faux pas in many organizations like private businesses and even church.
Theater Rule #1:
Never, never ever, make the “powers what be” look bad. Your success is their failure, no matter how much your efforts advance the progress of the theater as a whole.
I worked for a year with The Island Players Theater Company here on St. Simons Island, and in that time I managed to piss off everyone that had ever built a set for their productions. They did everything that they could to derail my own efforts, including demanding that I employ the worst incompetent volunteers they could muster, and finally boycotting entirely my construction efforts on Agatha Christie’s “The Mousetrap.”
When I completed the Mousetrap set essentially by myself, expending 350 hours of my time on the effort, they then omitted my name from the playbill and program. I had season ticket holders calling me and telling me that my work was the best they had ever seen in a show, but the “powers what be” were unable to stomach that I—a mere amateur, a man with NO PRIOR THEATER EXPERIENCE—could build sets better than a bunch of ham fisted retired schoolteachers and pawn shop owners. These people, wearing shiny new steel toed boots, crisp leather tool aprons, and brandishing expensive cordless screwdrivers, were about as effective at set construction as I would be going to the Super Bowl stadium wearing a football uniform.
Do you get my drift?
I lasted through one additional set construction effort working for a shallow, ungrateful woman that called herself a producer, under the auspices of another modest woman who had “designed and built sets for twenty years and always won the ‘best set’ award”, and once again when the playbill came out they mysteriously omitted my name as assistant set designer and set construction chief.
“Oh…so sorry, it was an oversight…”
After several other incidents, upheavals, and intentional slights, I assessed my position, and chose to cut my losses last March by terminating my relationship with TIP.
Thereafter I looked across the Torrez Causeway to the mainland and greener pastures, so to speak.
There are two community theater opportunities in Brunswick—The Ritz Theater, and the CAPE Theater.
I wrote about and displayed pictures of the elaborate set I designed and constructed for Charles Dickens “A Christmas Carol” here on this blog last December. My experience with the show’s director Heather and the producer Rob couldn’t have been more positive. They outlined the schedule and my tasks, I produced what we needed, the show was a GREAT success.
I’d actually pay money to work with them at the Ritz again.
My soul was healed, and my enthusiasm for the theater January 1st was at an all time high.
Unfortunately, I didn’t make it out of the month of January with the same attitude because, you see…
I WAS FIRED FROM A VOLUNTEER SET CONSTRUCTION JOB YESTERDAY! (and I was the only person working on the set.)
Yes indeed, Ladies and Gentlemen, the silly bitch running the “You’re A Good Man Charley Brown” dinner theater got her thong in a bunch (or her boxers in a bunch—who knows?) and sent me an E-mail yesterday morning telling me to return the theater’s tools and supplies I had been dragging around in my car’s trunk for a month because “I obviously didn’t intend to honor my commitments to the CAPE Theater.”
WTF?
Needless to say I was shocked, but I’ve also developed the attitude that I’m not going to grovel in order to be ALLOWED to work for free.
And what was the hideous crime that I was guilty of that caused me to receive the “Theater Death Sentence”? It’s quite simple, actually…I violated Theater Rule #2 (see below)
Theater Rule #2:
Never, never ever, ignore a female theater geek when she stomps her little (or humongous) foot and demands that you do something “right now.”
You see, I had a little bout with a chest cold for a couple of weeks this month, and instead of completing the set on the unrealistic original schedule that “theater geek lady” had planned for me (but not discussed with me), I was working on a schedule that would have the set components completed in the actual order as the cast needed them, finishing this week—over a week before the show opened February 3rd.
My drop dead date was last Thursday, and I had easily beat the date by finishing Snoopy’s doghouse on Tuesday, with only a little painting and final details to address. Then “theater geek lady” decided that she didn’t like the size of the dog house (something we had discussed in detail prior to construction) and she wanted me to cut it down in size. No PROBLEM, except that the modifications required re-cutting virtually every single board in the structure. Really, it was no problem—just let me revise my drawings and calculations and I’ll knock it out for you, I replied.
Problem is, I couldn’t get it done on Thursday because I spent Thursday afternoon getting a battery installed in the Mustang and by the time I got to the church the building was locked up and I didn’t have a key.
Pesky details aside, when I checked e-mail on my way out the door Friday morning to go finish the set, I learned that I was fired. I even gave the woman a chance to allow me to finish yesterday, but all she could do was rant about how I had their stuff and demand that I return it by noon, else they wouldn’t reimburse me for materials I had paid for out of MY wallet.
Being the insidious incompetent that I am, I notified her that she could keep my $40 and consider it to be my LAST donation to CAPE theater in money or time, and that I would return the tools and materials to the church by noon. By “the church” I meant the Methodist Church where the play was actually being produced, not the Presbyterian Church where I had built the set.
Then she started bitching because I would not return the tools and lay them at her feet, presumably so that she could browbeat me in person and then kiss and make up. "So Sorry" crazy "theater geek lady" but "this Homey don't play that kiss and make up shit..."
I had the tools inside the Methodist Church by noon, and I trust that the CAPE theater will have a WONDERFUL production.
As a post script analysis, I realized that I had yet again actually violated another theater rule in this process:
Theater Rule #3
Never, never ever, let the theater geeks know that you could care less about ever getting your lumbering carcass and face on their stage.
You see, getting your lumbering carcass and face on stage is what the theater is all about, at least down here on the Georgia coast. NOTHING else matters. People pimp each other back and forth, diddling around behind the scenes, waiting until it's their turn to be on stage.
It doesn't matter if you can actually ACT or DANCE or SING--you get to be on stage by kissing ass and earning your place in the spotlight doing all of the crap that needs doing.
Those pesky auditions are just a formality--most of the good parts are already taken no matter how good you do reading for a part. I've seen great singers and exceptional actors turned away, never to return again, simply because the theater geeks "owed" themselves or someone a part in a play. Tit for Tat, once you sell your soul to the devil, you become one of "THEM."
I refuse to be one of "THEM."
Seriously, it would appear that once you make it to a certain level in the hierarchy, you can then sit on your larels bashing all of the new volunteers while you impatiently wait until your turn comes up to bore an audience to death with a mediocre performance.
F**K the Theater and most of the “Theater People.”
Who the hell do they think they are anyway?
A Cold Day In Hell
How Stupid Do They Think We Are?
It seems that the poor Iranian government is lamenting the lack of direct flights between Tehran and the United States:
Iran has asked the United States to allow direct flights between the two countries after a break of more than two decades, a senior civil aviation official said on Thursday.
The request comes as the United States and its European Union allies are pressing for the Islamic Republic to be reported to the United Nations Security Council where it could face possible sanctions for its nuclear program.
"We sent a letter to the relevant American officials on Wednesday, announcing Iran's willingness to resume direct flights," Nourollah Rezai-Niaraki, head of Iran's Civil Aviation Organization, told state television.
He said the decision to make the request was taken by hardline Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad due to demand from the large Iranian community living in the United States.
"They have repeatedly complained about wasting time and losing their baggage on connecting flights," the official said.
Can they possibly be serious?
Does Mahmoud Ahmadinejad honestly believe that US citizens are going to allow non-stop direct flights from a terrorist country to land on our shores?
Notice I mention “US citizens” when I reference my guess as to the odds of this happening—the POLITICIANS at the FAA are the unknowns in this equation.
I have an idea.
Let’s allow direct flights, one way, from the US to Tehran, then load the airliner with crash test dummies wired with explosives set to explode on landing.
Sort of our own “reverse Jihad”, if you know what I mean…
It seems that the poor Iranian government is lamenting the lack of direct flights between Tehran and the United States:
Iran has asked the United States to allow direct flights between the two countries after a break of more than two decades, a senior civil aviation official said on Thursday.
The request comes as the United States and its European Union allies are pressing for the Islamic Republic to be reported to the United Nations Security Council where it could face possible sanctions for its nuclear program.
"We sent a letter to the relevant American officials on Wednesday, announcing Iran's willingness to resume direct flights," Nourollah Rezai-Niaraki, head of Iran's Civil Aviation Organization, told state television.
He said the decision to make the request was taken by hardline Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad due to demand from the large Iranian community living in the United States.
"They have repeatedly complained about wasting time and losing their baggage on connecting flights," the official said.
Can they possibly be serious?
Does Mahmoud Ahmadinejad honestly believe that US citizens are going to allow non-stop direct flights from a terrorist country to land on our shores?
Notice I mention “US citizens” when I reference my guess as to the odds of this happening—the POLITICIANS at the FAA are the unknowns in this equation.
I have an idea.
Let’s allow direct flights, one way, from the US to Tehran, then load the airliner with crash test dummies wired with explosives set to explode on landing.
Sort of our own “reverse Jihad”, if you know what I mean…
Friday, January 27, 2006
Sitting Around With Our Thumb Stuck Somewhere…
Is that what YOU want us to do?
Things are getting VERY interesting in the Middle East these days. The Hamas victory in the Palestinian election yesterday presents some unique problems for Israel and US foreign policy.
Hurray, they had “democratic” elections, some people might say.
Yeah, RIGHT.
All this proves is that these people, the so-called “Palistinians,” approve of terrorism and the prospect of the annihilation of Israel—a stated goal of the Hamas party in the past.
You do know that Hamas is funded primarily by Iran, don’t you?
When you vote terrorists into office to represent you, I believe that you should fully expect to die the same death as your terrorist leaders. If I had my way they would all spend eternity glowing in the dark recesses of hell drinking oil rather than ice water.
If we keep on fighting among ourselves here stateside and pansy assing around with a touchy-feely limited projection of force in the Middle East, we’re all going to turn on the 6 AM news one morning and see a mushroom cloud rising out of Jerusalem and smoke rising out of NY City subway tunnels adjacent to collapsed bridges over the Hudson.
As for me, I’ll be sitting at the pool saying “told you so…”
Things are getting VERY interesting in the Middle East these days. The Hamas victory in the Palestinian election yesterday presents some unique problems for Israel and US foreign policy.
Hurray, they had “democratic” elections, some people might say.
Yeah, RIGHT.
All this proves is that these people, the so-called “Palistinians,” approve of terrorism and the prospect of the annihilation of Israel—a stated goal of the Hamas party in the past.
You do know that Hamas is funded primarily by Iran, don’t you?
When you vote terrorists into office to represent you, I believe that you should fully expect to die the same death as your terrorist leaders. If I had my way they would all spend eternity glowing in the dark recesses of hell drinking oil rather than ice water.
If we keep on fighting among ourselves here stateside and pansy assing around with a touchy-feely limited projection of force in the Middle East, we’re all going to turn on the 6 AM news one morning and see a mushroom cloud rising out of Jerusalem and smoke rising out of NY City subway tunnels adjacent to collapsed bridges over the Hudson.
As for me, I’ll be sitting at the pool saying “told you so…”
Funny, Or Just Plain Sad?
Here...You Decide...
These guys were definately funny...BUT
What do we call THESE guys?
These guys were definately funny...BUT
What do we call THESE guys?
Thursday, January 26, 2006
Say What?
More Liberal Media Bullshit
Maybe I’m just a bit cranky this evening…
Maybe I’m just picking nits here…
Or maybe I’m seeing a severe case of a double standard. Check this story out:
Bradenton, Florida--An angry father who marched into a classroom and punched a teacher's assistant in the face said Wednesday he was protecting his 15-year-old daughter, who had accused the man of inappropriately touching her.
Dave F. Swafford, 42, was charged with felony battery on a school employee after he hit the 35-year-old aide in front of a class full of students at Lakewood Ranch High School near Bradenton Tuesday morning, authorities said. He was also named "Father of the Year" by a local radio station for his actions.
"I'm not real proud of what I did," Swafford told The Associated Press Wednesday. "You have to protect your children, and my daughter does not lie to me."
Because of the allegation, the school placed the assistant on paid leave Tuesday, school district spokeswoman Margi Nanney said. He has not been charged, but sheriff's spokesman Dave Bristow said deputies are investigating.
The man has been employed by the school district since 1999 and has a clean personnel record, Nanney said. His primary job is "time-out" teacher, overseeing in-school suspension. His name is being withheld by the AP because he has not been charged.
WTF?
Since when has the Associated Press ever even THOUGHT of withholding the name of any conservative or Libertarian or Republican accused of any possible legal infraction because the individual had not been formally charged with a crime?
Can you say never?
Accused of illegal wiretapping?
Stop the presses...
Accused of campaign finance fraud?
Rewrite the headlines...
Accused of having a big up-front payment on a book deal while serving as a US Representative(when NY Senator Clinton ends up doing the EXACT same thing a few years later with no repercussions)?
Lose your seat in the US House of Representatives...
Yet they (the Associated Press) somehow elects to respect the privacy of this alleged pervert, a grown 35 year old man putting his hands on teenaged girls, because he hasn’t been formally CHARGED WITH A CRIME.?
See, many liberals are perverts...many liberals love perverts...some liberals encourage you to stick body part A into someone elses body part B, regardless of age, sex, religion, or national origin, and then when your affected body part starts to rot and fall off, the stupid assed compassionate liberals then come to MY DOOR and demand that that I pay to buy the drugs to keep your body part from falling off.
I say that you should keep your body parts out of places they don't belong, else face the consequences, in the PRIVACY of your own home...a place that liberals live and die to defend, at least as long as they can't take your home away from you and give it to a developer to build a hotel or marina in order to increase the tax base--in that case, all deals are off.
Have at it folks...go forth and multiply (and divide, and add, and subtract, and differentiate, and integrate...whatever) just keep your hand and your politicians hands out of my wallet and off of MY property, dammit.
Why doesn’t the AP crawl over to Tom Delay, Newt Gingrich, and Dick Cheney and offer their sincerest apology for dragging their name through the mud for months if not years prior to any formal charges being tendered?
Yeah, I thought so…
AHHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.....clunk (the sound of me falling out of my chair)
Maybe I’m just a bit cranky this evening…
Maybe I’m just picking nits here…
Or maybe I’m seeing a severe case of a double standard. Check this story out:
Bradenton, Florida--An angry father who marched into a classroom and punched a teacher's assistant in the face said Wednesday he was protecting his 15-year-old daughter, who had accused the man of inappropriately touching her.
Dave F. Swafford, 42, was charged with felony battery on a school employee after he hit the 35-year-old aide in front of a class full of students at Lakewood Ranch High School near Bradenton Tuesday morning, authorities said. He was also named "Father of the Year" by a local radio station for his actions.
"I'm not real proud of what I did," Swafford told The Associated Press Wednesday. "You have to protect your children, and my daughter does not lie to me."
Because of the allegation, the school placed the assistant on paid leave Tuesday, school district spokeswoman Margi Nanney said. He has not been charged, but sheriff's spokesman Dave Bristow said deputies are investigating.
The man has been employed by the school district since 1999 and has a clean personnel record, Nanney said. His primary job is "time-out" teacher, overseeing in-school suspension. His name is being withheld by the AP because he has not been charged.
WTF?
Since when has the Associated Press ever even THOUGHT of withholding the name of any conservative or Libertarian or Republican accused of any possible legal infraction because the individual had not been formally charged with a crime?
Can you say never?
Accused of illegal wiretapping?
Stop the presses...
Accused of campaign finance fraud?
Rewrite the headlines...
Accused of having a big up-front payment on a book deal while serving as a US Representative(when NY Senator Clinton ends up doing the EXACT same thing a few years later with no repercussions)?
Lose your seat in the US House of Representatives...
Yet they (the Associated Press) somehow elects to respect the privacy of this alleged pervert, a grown 35 year old man putting his hands on teenaged girls, because he hasn’t been formally CHARGED WITH A CRIME.?
See, many liberals are perverts...many liberals love perverts...some liberals encourage you to stick body part A into someone elses body part B, regardless of age, sex, religion, or national origin, and then when your affected body part starts to rot and fall off, the stupid assed compassionate liberals then come to MY DOOR and demand that that I pay to buy the drugs to keep your body part from falling off.
I say that you should keep your body parts out of places they don't belong, else face the consequences, in the PRIVACY of your own home...a place that liberals live and die to defend, at least as long as they can't take your home away from you and give it to a developer to build a hotel or marina in order to increase the tax base--in that case, all deals are off.
Have at it folks...go forth and multiply (and divide, and add, and subtract, and differentiate, and integrate...whatever) just keep your hand and your politicians hands out of my wallet and off of MY property, dammit.
Why doesn’t the AP crawl over to Tom Delay, Newt Gingrich, and Dick Cheney and offer their sincerest apology for dragging their name through the mud for months if not years prior to any formal charges being tendered?
Yeah, I thought so…
AHHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.....clunk (the sound of me falling out of my chair)
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
Blaa Blaa Blaa
The Insanity Continues
H U R R A Y for the politicians…they’re on the ball again today.
I feel safer already.
The TV cameras were rolling, and themoronic compassionate concerned sound bites were flowing like water:
West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin urged the federal government on Tuesday to follow his state's lead and come up with new protections for coal miners.
"I never want to tell another child that I'm not sure if Daddy has enough air," Manchin said. "I don't want to tell another wife that we haven't found him yet but that we're still looking."
Hey Governor Joe, I have an answer to the problem of ensuring “daddy having enough air” in the future.
Why don’t the politicians like you just shut the hell up and stop sucking all of the air out of the room whenever there is a photo op.
Better yet, let’s just close down all of the coal mines, stop buying oil from foreign sources, and all move back into caves and get our heat and light from candles made from animal fat…no…wait a minute…PETA has a problem with that idea also.
Oops, I guess if we start living in caves we’ll have to follow federal and state mining regulations by default, won’t we?
Now let me see...where did I put my SCSR (Self Contained Self Rescuer)?
And another thing--where the heck did the name “Self Contained Self Rescuer” come from any way?
I smell government influence in there somewhere in the naming process.
If I were in charge of naming a device that you carry with you that supplies emergency oxygen while you’re working miles underground, I would probably call it something like “FRESH AIR” or “OH SHIT, I DON’T WANT TO DIE AIR.”
Maybe not...
Continuing reading along in the news story:
Deputy Labor Secretary Steven Law said federal officials were reviewing sweeping mine safety legislation Manchin pushed through the West Virginia Legislature on Monday. That legislation was triggered by the deaths of 14 miners in recent weeks at two West Virginia mines.
Another miner also was killed in a roof collapse at a Kentucky mine Jan. 10. Law said the Bush administration was moving "very expeditiously with our own review of any additional changes or provisions that we need to include through the regulatory process."
Law said the federal review included consideration of emergency safety rules that could be put in place quickly. Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., said immediate action should be taken by the mine agency to put extra breathing devices in the mines. "Now, we will do that by law if we have to," Rockefeller said.
You tell ‘em Jay…you legislative “studmuffin.” Get out your pointy legislative stick and give them all a good poking.
Federal law requires miners to carry oxygen packs that provide about an hour's worth of air. There is evidence that some of the 12 miners killed in the Jan. 2 Sago mine accident used their oxygen devices, yet it took rescuers more than 40 hours to bring the victims above ground.
The mine agency has just launched a review of the oxygen packs used by underground coal miners after previously withdrawing a Clinton-era proposal that would have studied the devices and possibly led to new rules governing their use.
The West Virginia legislation requires the stockpiling of breathing devices for trapped miners, better tracking of miners underground and faster emergency responses.
Ok, I‘ll try to forget the emotion here in this story for a moment, if I can, and do the math to find out what it would have taken to have saved the lives of those 12 miners killed in the January 2 accident.
12 miners x 40 hours x 1 hour of air per oxygen pack = 480 oxygen packs
That seems simple enough at first glance, but I’ve done a little checking and these things cost over $500 EACH.
We’re talking $ 250,0000 worth of oxygen packs—$22,500 per miner.
Next question...
Where are the politicians and government rocket scientists going to tell the mine owners to put their new quarter million dollar “Self Contained Self Rescuers”?
At the very end of the mine?
In the middle of the shaft?
How about lining the walls of the mine every 25 feet with a giant stockpile of SCSR’s?
The next thing you know the mine unions will be bitching because the mines have to lay off employees to offset the cost of the new SCSR's.
Another problem is that SCSR’s are inherently HIGHLY flammable, you know?
Some consist of small bottles of pure oxygen like SCUBA divers use. Other’s operate on the same principal as the oxygen canisters they use in airliners.
Remember that ValueJet DC-9 that caught fire and nose dived into the Everglades outside Miami back in the mid 1990’s. That fire and subsequent loss of life was caused when an oxygen canister ignited in a cargo hold under the cockpit and set some used tires on fire.
So won’t that be a wonderful solution to mine safety, filling mines with flammable (and potentially explosive) bottles of oxygen or canisters of oxygen producing chemicals positioned so that they are in convienant reach of every miner, every second of the workday.
The Government, under President Clinton, took a shot at studying the various models of SCSR’s that were on the market, and found that they all are not created equal. Some models barely deliver an hour’s worth of oxygen, while others will last beyond four hours if the wearer is at rest rather than running for their life or trying to dig themselves out of a cave-in.
Having worked heavy construction myself (but not in a mine), I guarantee you that the miners aren't wearing their SCSR's right now because everything you have to carry and strap on your body ends up being a pain in the ass while you're trying to do your job. I spent years wandering around jobsites with a hardhat, safety glasses, wearing steel toed boots and a full body safety harness, and let me tell you that it is a poor fashion statement at best and an actual encumberance to performing your work tasks at worse.
I actually feel sorry for the WV Governor because he is basically forced to jump on this stupid bandwagon by the MEDIA, and if he dared to utter facts and figures like I've been spouting over the past two days he would be crucified in print.
Ditto for the mine owners and officials.
I said this before, and I'll say it again:
MINING SAFETY IS AT A RECORD HIGH, WITH INJURIES AND DEATH AT A RECORD LOW.
We don't need further government meddling in the process.
It's just that simple...
H U R R A Y for the politicians…they’re on the ball again today.
I feel safer already.
The TV cameras were rolling, and the
West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin urged the federal government on Tuesday to follow his state's lead and come up with new protections for coal miners.
"I never want to tell another child that I'm not sure if Daddy has enough air," Manchin said. "I don't want to tell another wife that we haven't found him yet but that we're still looking."
Hey Governor Joe, I have an answer to the problem of ensuring “daddy having enough air” in the future.
Why don’t the politicians like you just shut the hell up and stop sucking all of the air out of the room whenever there is a photo op.
Better yet, let’s just close down all of the coal mines, stop buying oil from foreign sources, and all move back into caves and get our heat and light from candles made from animal fat…no…wait a minute…PETA has a problem with that idea also.
Oops, I guess if we start living in caves we’ll have to follow federal and state mining regulations by default, won’t we?
Now let me see...where did I put my SCSR (Self Contained Self Rescuer)?
And another thing--where the heck did the name “Self Contained Self Rescuer” come from any way?
I smell government influence in there somewhere in the naming process.
If I were in charge of naming a device that you carry with you that supplies emergency oxygen while you’re working miles underground, I would probably call it something like “FRESH AIR” or “OH SHIT, I DON’T WANT TO DIE AIR.”
Maybe not...
Continuing reading along in the news story:
Deputy Labor Secretary Steven Law said federal officials were reviewing sweeping mine safety legislation Manchin pushed through the West Virginia Legislature on Monday. That legislation was triggered by the deaths of 14 miners in recent weeks at two West Virginia mines.
Another miner also was killed in a roof collapse at a Kentucky mine Jan. 10. Law said the Bush administration was moving "very expeditiously with our own review of any additional changes or provisions that we need to include through the regulatory process."
Law said the federal review included consideration of emergency safety rules that could be put in place quickly. Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., said immediate action should be taken by the mine agency to put extra breathing devices in the mines. "Now, we will do that by law if we have to," Rockefeller said.
You tell ‘em Jay…you legislative “studmuffin.” Get out your pointy legislative stick and give them all a good poking.
Federal law requires miners to carry oxygen packs that provide about an hour's worth of air. There is evidence that some of the 12 miners killed in the Jan. 2 Sago mine accident used their oxygen devices, yet it took rescuers more than 40 hours to bring the victims above ground.
The mine agency has just launched a review of the oxygen packs used by underground coal miners after previously withdrawing a Clinton-era proposal that would have studied the devices and possibly led to new rules governing their use.
The West Virginia legislation requires the stockpiling of breathing devices for trapped miners, better tracking of miners underground and faster emergency responses.
Ok, I‘ll try to forget the emotion here in this story for a moment, if I can, and do the math to find out what it would have taken to have saved the lives of those 12 miners killed in the January 2 accident.
12 miners x 40 hours x 1 hour of air per oxygen pack = 480 oxygen packs
That seems simple enough at first glance, but I’ve done a little checking and these things cost over $500 EACH.
We’re talking $ 250,0000 worth of oxygen packs—$22,500 per miner.
Next question...
Where are the politicians and government rocket scientists going to tell the mine owners to put their new quarter million dollar “Self Contained Self Rescuers”?
At the very end of the mine?
In the middle of the shaft?
How about lining the walls of the mine every 25 feet with a giant stockpile of SCSR’s?
The next thing you know the mine unions will be bitching because the mines have to lay off employees to offset the cost of the new SCSR's.
Another problem is that SCSR’s are inherently HIGHLY flammable, you know?
Some consist of small bottles of pure oxygen like SCUBA divers use. Other’s operate on the same principal as the oxygen canisters they use in airliners.
Remember that ValueJet DC-9 that caught fire and nose dived into the Everglades outside Miami back in the mid 1990’s. That fire and subsequent loss of life was caused when an oxygen canister ignited in a cargo hold under the cockpit and set some used tires on fire.
So won’t that be a wonderful solution to mine safety, filling mines with flammable (and potentially explosive) bottles of oxygen or canisters of oxygen producing chemicals positioned so that they are in convienant reach of every miner, every second of the workday.
The Government, under President Clinton, took a shot at studying the various models of SCSR’s that were on the market, and found that they all are not created equal. Some models barely deliver an hour’s worth of oxygen, while others will last beyond four hours if the wearer is at rest rather than running for their life or trying to dig themselves out of a cave-in.
Having worked heavy construction myself (but not in a mine), I guarantee you that the miners aren't wearing their SCSR's right now because everything you have to carry and strap on your body ends up being a pain in the ass while you're trying to do your job. I spent years wandering around jobsites with a hardhat, safety glasses, wearing steel toed boots and a full body safety harness, and let me tell you that it is a poor fashion statement at best and an actual encumberance to performing your work tasks at worse.
I actually feel sorry for the WV Governor because he is basically forced to jump on this stupid bandwagon by the MEDIA, and if he dared to utter facts and figures like I've been spouting over the past two days he would be crucified in print.
Ditto for the mine owners and officials.
I said this before, and I'll say it again:
MINING SAFETY IS AT A RECORD HIGH, WITH INJURIES AND DEATH AT A RECORD LOW.
We don't need further government meddling in the process.
It's just that simple...
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
Federal Mine Safety?
Baah Humbug...
I’ve watched with amusement these past few weeks as the politicians have preened for the TV cameras and the media has done somersaults and back-flips over the horrors of corporate greed and the need for additional government intervention in the mining industry.
I heard Senior West Virginia Senator Robert “Pretty Pretty” Byrd in a sound bite on TV yesterday lamenting that it took 11 HOURS for the searchers to even start looking for the men killed in the latest ccident.
Does anyone honestly believe that KKK Byrd would have gone running into a smoke filled mine in his younger days while the fire was still burning to save two of his co-workers?
I think that Senator Byrd needs to have his med’s adjusted—better yet, I wish that the people of West Virginia would just do the right thing and take a risk on replacing Senator Rockefeller’s counterpart in the US Senate before Byrd petrifies in office…
Don’t get me wrong here because I agree that it is a horror that fourteen souls have been lost in coal mine accidents in recent weeks, but I also assert that these brave gentlemen chose to accept the risk and higher pay associated with mining work over getting shot in the head by some low-life bastard while employed selling beer and lottery tickets and earning the lower pay as a convienance store clerk.
Being a veteran of heavy industrial construction, I think that I bring a certain insight to this pity party that the average news reader lacks in doing the analysis. I’m going to tell you a couple of things about safety as it relates to mining and heavy construction.
Let me preface my comments by stating that I believe that the Imperial Federal Government of the United By-God States of America has no constitutional business getting involved in the intricate details of mining safety.
It’s just that simple.
Adams and Jefferson didn’t write “life, liberty, and a really, really safe coal mining job” into the constitution anywhere as far as I can read.
It’s not Washington’s business beyond where we already are today with all of the unenforceable pansy assed OSHA (Occupational Safety Health Administration) regulations that are already out there.
Face it, Labor laws and OSHA regulations already say that you can’t hire 12 year old boys, hand them a burlap sack and a machete, then send them out to climb coconut trees to harvest coconuts in Miami.
OSHA’s meddling generally doesn’t stop accidents and loss of life—it’s only when the management and employees of a company exercise what could be considered common horse-sense while working that accidents are prevented and lives are saved.
OSHA is usually relegated to wandering in after the fact, placing blame, and then extracting a TAX, in the form of a MONETARY FINE, then they disappear over the horizon until the next calamity occurs.
Actually, since mining poses a unique risk, mines have to conform to yet another layer of government intervention, MSHA (the Mine Safety and Health Administration) division of the US Department of Labor. MSHA jumps in and busybodies around, but on the whole they have actually done a good deal of good since former Georgia Governor and Socialist Dictator loving Ex-President Jimmy “smile when you say that” Carter started the organization in 1978.
Mining historically has placed a premium on “Brawn” over “Brains”, but being an idiot and complete dumbass will get you killed in a mine (or any construction site) in an instant. Further, with the advances over the past fifty years utilizing automation to cut and remove the minerals from the ground, miners have been forced to go from “pick and shovel” handlers to machine operators.
Of course the unions have had yearly conniption fits as machines and automation have reduced the number of humans required to cut and remove a ton of coal, but injuries and fatalities have declined at an even greater rate than the reduced employment would have predicted.
By the way, if PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) was around 100 years ago, our grandparents would probably have all frozen to death due to a lack of coal because the mules and horses used to pull the ore carts out of the mines would have been put out to pasture and hand fed sugar cubes and apples every day. Fortunately, electrically powered conveyors replaced the animal pulled cars and that national disaster was averted
I could ramble on for another ten pages, but instead just take a look at this page on the MSHA website that puts this all into perspective for me—sorta a “Cliff Notes” for mine safety:
OK, let’s take a look at the data before your eyes glaze over…
In 1900 there were 448,581 miners and 1,489 deaths, a rate of 3.31 deaths per 1000 miners.
Then move on to mining employment’s peak year in 1923 when 862,536 miners were wandering around under the ground, there were 2462 deaths—a rate of 2.85 deaths per 1,000 miners.
Keep looking…
1929? 3.34 deaths per thousand miners
1939? 1.99
1949? 1.20
1959? 1.43
1969? 1.52
1979? 0.55
1989? 0.41
1999? 0.31 deaths per thousand miners
In 2004, the most recent year in which final statistics are reported, there were 108,734 miners digging holes in the ground, but only 28 deaths—a rate of .26 deaths per 1,000 miners.
SEE THAT?
Mining deaths have dropped from 3.31 per 1000 miners in 1900 to 0.26 per 1000 miners in 2004...
A 305% DECREASE...GASP...GURGLE...PANT...HASSLE...
OH MY GOSH…IT CAN’T POSSIBLY BE TRUE…
NO *&%$# WAY….UHHHH UHHHH
Mining is supposed to be dangerous as hell they tell us.
That’s what the newspapers and TV reports say, right?
"WE NEED NEW LAWS" says the WV Governor and Old Man
Byrd.
MINERS NEED NEW PROTECTIONS…
I thought that the media and our Congress was telling us that mining companies, supported by the E-V-I-L Republican party and supervised by “Bush Appointees” is supposed to be throwing innocent Democrats from West Virginia into a endless deadly pit…an Abyss from which they run a substantial risk of never returning from each day when they don their hardhats and carry their little lunch buckets full of “Twinkees” into the damp darkness.
YOU STILL DON'T GET MY POINT?
Here it is, in a nutshell:
This is total, unadulterated media induced hysteria and political BULLSHIT.
(taking a big breath and checking my pulse)
Now...go out and find something really worth worrying about...
I’ve watched with amusement these past few weeks as the politicians have preened for the TV cameras and the media has done somersaults and back-flips over the horrors of corporate greed and the need for additional government intervention in the mining industry.
I heard Senior West Virginia Senator Robert “Pretty Pretty” Byrd in a sound bite on TV yesterday lamenting that it took 11 HOURS for the searchers to even start looking for the men killed in the latest ccident.
Does anyone honestly believe that KKK Byrd would have gone running into a smoke filled mine in his younger days while the fire was still burning to save two of his co-workers?
I think that Senator Byrd needs to have his med’s adjusted—better yet, I wish that the people of West Virginia would just do the right thing and take a risk on replacing Senator Rockefeller’s counterpart in the US Senate before Byrd petrifies in office…
Don’t get me wrong here because I agree that it is a horror that fourteen souls have been lost in coal mine accidents in recent weeks, but I also assert that these brave gentlemen chose to accept the risk and higher pay associated with mining work over getting shot in the head by some low-life bastard while employed selling beer and lottery tickets and earning the lower pay as a convienance store clerk.
Being a veteran of heavy industrial construction, I think that I bring a certain insight to this pity party that the average news reader lacks in doing the analysis. I’m going to tell you a couple of things about safety as it relates to mining and heavy construction.
Let me preface my comments by stating that I believe that the Imperial Federal Government of the United By-God States of America has no constitutional business getting involved in the intricate details of mining safety.
It’s just that simple.
Adams and Jefferson didn’t write “life, liberty, and a really, really safe coal mining job” into the constitution anywhere as far as I can read.
It’s not Washington’s business beyond where we already are today with all of the unenforceable pansy assed OSHA (Occupational Safety Health Administration) regulations that are already out there.
Face it, Labor laws and OSHA regulations already say that you can’t hire 12 year old boys, hand them a burlap sack and a machete, then send them out to climb coconut trees to harvest coconuts in Miami.
OSHA’s meddling generally doesn’t stop accidents and loss of life—it’s only when the management and employees of a company exercise what could be considered common horse-sense while working that accidents are prevented and lives are saved.
OSHA is usually relegated to wandering in after the fact, placing blame, and then extracting a TAX, in the form of a MONETARY FINE, then they disappear over the horizon until the next calamity occurs.
Actually, since mining poses a unique risk, mines have to conform to yet another layer of government intervention, MSHA (the Mine Safety and Health Administration) division of the US Department of Labor. MSHA jumps in and busybodies around, but on the whole they have actually done a good deal of good since former Georgia Governor and Socialist Dictator loving Ex-President Jimmy “smile when you say that” Carter started the organization in 1978.
Mining historically has placed a premium on “Brawn” over “Brains”, but being an idiot and complete dumbass will get you killed in a mine (or any construction site) in an instant. Further, with the advances over the past fifty years utilizing automation to cut and remove the minerals from the ground, miners have been forced to go from “pick and shovel” handlers to machine operators.
Of course the unions have had yearly conniption fits as machines and automation have reduced the number of humans required to cut and remove a ton of coal, but injuries and fatalities have declined at an even greater rate than the reduced employment would have predicted.
By the way, if PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) was around 100 years ago, our grandparents would probably have all frozen to death due to a lack of coal because the mules and horses used to pull the ore carts out of the mines would have been put out to pasture and hand fed sugar cubes and apples every day. Fortunately, electrically powered conveyors replaced the animal pulled cars and that national disaster was averted
I could ramble on for another ten pages, but instead just take a look at this page on the MSHA website that puts this all into perspective for me—sorta a “Cliff Notes” for mine safety:
OK, let’s take a look at the data before your eyes glaze over…
In 1900 there were 448,581 miners and 1,489 deaths, a rate of 3.31 deaths per 1000 miners.
Then move on to mining employment’s peak year in 1923 when 862,536 miners were wandering around under the ground, there were 2462 deaths—a rate of 2.85 deaths per 1,000 miners.
Keep looking…
1929? 3.34 deaths per thousand miners
1939? 1.99
1949? 1.20
1959? 1.43
1969? 1.52
1979? 0.55
1989? 0.41
1999? 0.31 deaths per thousand miners
In 2004, the most recent year in which final statistics are reported, there were 108,734 miners digging holes in the ground, but only 28 deaths—a rate of .26 deaths per 1,000 miners.
SEE THAT?
Mining deaths have dropped from 3.31 per 1000 miners in 1900 to 0.26 per 1000 miners in 2004...
A 305% DECREASE...GASP...GURGLE...PANT...HASSLE...
OH MY GOSH…IT CAN’T POSSIBLY BE TRUE…
NO *&%$# WAY….UHHHH UHHHH
Mining is supposed to be dangerous as hell they tell us.
That’s what the newspapers and TV reports say, right?
"WE NEED NEW LAWS" says the WV Governor and Old Man
Byrd.
MINERS NEED NEW PROTECTIONS…
I thought that the media and our Congress was telling us that mining companies, supported by the E-V-I-L Republican party and supervised by “Bush Appointees” is supposed to be throwing innocent Democrats from West Virginia into a endless deadly pit…an Abyss from which they run a substantial risk of never returning from each day when they don their hardhats and carry their little lunch buckets full of “Twinkees” into the damp darkness.
YOU STILL DON'T GET MY POINT?
Here it is, in a nutshell:
This is total, unadulterated media induced hysteria and political BULLSHIT.
(taking a big breath and checking my pulse)
Now...go out and find something really worth worrying about...
Monday, January 23, 2006
I’m Feeling Arty Farty
Channeling My Inner Shakespeare, Michael Angello, and da Vinci
Geez, I’m glad my old guy friends from high school and college can’t see me now, else they’d give me a load of crap for the way I’m spending most of my time these days.
I’d might just have to put on a flannel shirt, go get in an old pickup truck, drive out to the woods, and shoot at something…AFTER having a couple of chili dogs with extra onions for lunch with a can of warm Budweiser beer.
Looking back over the past few days, my life barely resembles the way I spent my time twenty years ago, or even ten years ago. Of course my recent crappy health has dictated me taking up writing and other less-physical avocations other than standing on my feet 12 hours a day like I did back when the industrial construction business occupied most of my professional time.
Friday night we went to a “world music” concert at Brunswick’s historic Ritz Theater. The show featured a group called Dromedary—two well traveled guys from Athens, Georgia—that play a bunch of different styles of music from all over the world.
No vocals, just stringed instruments like the Peruvian Charango, a small 10 stringed guitar type instrument traditionally made using the shell of an armadillo for the body. In addition to the Spanish Guitar, they also played the Turkish Cumbus, the Appalachian Dulcimer, and the Mandolin.
Andrew’s and Rob’s music was exceptional, and I was disappointed that there was only about a half-house crowd of people that had the sense to try out something a little different in the way of entertainment.
I half expected someone to yell out “DO FREEBIRD” midway through the show because we live in the midst of a population of people that primarily eat food that you can put catsup on—why should their music be any different?
Any whooooo, they had a reception afterward at a bookstore across the street from the theater and we had the opportunity to meet the artists, buy a CD, and get their autograph.
On other fronts, I’ve previously mentioned that I have to get a 16”x20” print made of one of my photographs to be shown in February and March in the Coastal Heritage Art Exhibit. I’ve been procrastinating on the final frame selection for my entrée, and I have to submit my biography by this week for inclusion in the Exhibit program.
Since this is my first ever art show, I’m having trouble making my bio longer than 20 words. Right now it looks something like this:
“Virgil has been alive since 1959 and likes to use his camera when he’s not sleeping…”
I hope I’ll be struck with some inspiration in the next few days. I hate honking my own horn, although I’m told that I do a mean braggadocio in the presence of lovely ladies after a few Jack Daniels.
Maybe that’s the solution…
Finally, this set I’m building for CAPE Theater's Dinner Show “You’re A Good Man Charley Brown has been kicking my ass for the past three weeks. I never knew how hard it could be to build a “cartoon” set for a cast of adult actors playing children in a play. EVERYTHING has to be scaled up to look bigger than life, yet it has to be light weight so that the actors can move it on and off stage between acts and during the performance.
No 4x4’s and ¾” plywood, I’m working with 2x4’s and foam sheets varying from ½” to 2” thick. I’ve got little foam “BB's” blowing everywhere in the space I’m building in.
I bet I have 30 hours in design time doing drawing and sketching ideas, the hardest part being making it look “cute”, not “cheesy”—those definitions being primarily in the eye of the beholder.
Schroeder’s baby grand piano and Snoopy’s dog house are by far the hardest set pieces I have yet to finish, having already completed the school bus, Lucy’s Psychiatric Booth, and Sunday’s project—the “Kite Eating Tree.”
I'm also reading a script now, trying to develop my own version of the character "Piney" in John Patrick's play "A Bad year For Tomatoes" that will open in early May at the CAPE theater.
My rendition, if they actually cast me in the part, will be a cross between Billy Bob Thornton's character in the movie "Slingblade" and "Andy Griffeth's" Ernest T. Bass--with a little of "Green Acres" Mr. Haney thrown in for good measure.
I haven't acted in a play in almost two years, having protrayed the character Hanibal in John Patrick's "A Curious Savage" in the Spring of 2004. (The picture of me here on the blog comes from that play.)
In that production I portrayed a self-committed mental patient that thought that he could play the violin--but he couldn't.
Talk about a part fitting like a glove...
It was my first acting experience since the sixth grade, but it got me hooked on working in the theater and I've designed and built six sets in the past 22 months.
Me...ACTING...go figure.
Regarding my writing other than blogs, my two book projects are lagging badly, primarily due to neglect. I have the Novel outlined, some character development work done, and the first chapter written, and I've been staring at it almost continuously for the past six months, wishing that it would write itself.
No such luck so far.
If it were easy, everyone would be on the NY Times bestseller list, you know?
My cookbook, "The Redneck Gourmet" is much further along, having had several positive responses from publishers, but it is up to me to get the final copy together and most importantly, GET SOME NICE PICTURES OF MY FOOD, because people apparently won't buy cookbooks without PICTURES OF FOOD included in them.
Really, you can write a recipe that includes tree bark, dirt, honey, and a little salt, and if you publish it beside a pretty picture of a nice fat tenderloin steak and some asaparagus--people will buy a copy of your book and toss it out on their coffee table.
I, personally, being a cook, don't buy "coffee table" cookbooks and I'm not trying to write one either. Although "folksy" and descriptive, I intend my book to be used as a guide for actual cooking, mainly for one or two couples, but my publisher tells me that I have to get pictures for the book to sell, so I am.
Fortunately we've met a number of people here on St. Simons and Sea Island that have fantastic kitchens. Kitchens that cost more than my first house did, and we're talking about me catering some intimate dinners in return for the opportunity to make photographs.
Most of these rooms are full of things like Vulcan Ranges and Subzero Refrigerators. Some of these ranges have gas burners with enought BTU's to lift a hot air balloon off the ground. I'm thinking that I'll do most of my cooking here in the condo and reserve the final assembly for my host's home because working in a strange kitchen can wreck havoc with the preparation of my otherwise familiar recipes.
I just hope that I can attain the quality and taste in front of an audience that is typical of these recipes that I've worked so hard developing and learning at home. Wish me luck.
That about wraps things up on the home front here, other than my usual committment to regular blogging, which, with any luck, will continue unabated through the young year.
I don’t know if it is the left side or the right side of my brain that I’m using right now, but it’s getting a surprisingly good workout after years of prior neglect.
Now where’s my warm beer and catsup bottle…
Geez, I’m glad my old guy friends from high school and college can’t see me now, else they’d give me a load of crap for the way I’m spending most of my time these days.
I’d might just have to put on a flannel shirt, go get in an old pickup truck, drive out to the woods, and shoot at something…AFTER having a couple of chili dogs with extra onions for lunch with a can of warm Budweiser beer.
Looking back over the past few days, my life barely resembles the way I spent my time twenty years ago, or even ten years ago. Of course my recent crappy health has dictated me taking up writing and other less-physical avocations other than standing on my feet 12 hours a day like I did back when the industrial construction business occupied most of my professional time.
Friday night we went to a “world music” concert at Brunswick’s historic Ritz Theater. The show featured a group called Dromedary—two well traveled guys from Athens, Georgia—that play a bunch of different styles of music from all over the world.
No vocals, just stringed instruments like the Peruvian Charango, a small 10 stringed guitar type instrument traditionally made using the shell of an armadillo for the body. In addition to the Spanish Guitar, they also played the Turkish Cumbus, the Appalachian Dulcimer, and the Mandolin.
Andrew’s and Rob’s music was exceptional, and I was disappointed that there was only about a half-house crowd of people that had the sense to try out something a little different in the way of entertainment.
I half expected someone to yell out “DO FREEBIRD” midway through the show because we live in the midst of a population of people that primarily eat food that you can put catsup on—why should their music be any different?
Any whooooo, they had a reception afterward at a bookstore across the street from the theater and we had the opportunity to meet the artists, buy a CD, and get their autograph.
On other fronts, I’ve previously mentioned that I have to get a 16”x20” print made of one of my photographs to be shown in February and March in the Coastal Heritage Art Exhibit. I’ve been procrastinating on the final frame selection for my entrée, and I have to submit my biography by this week for inclusion in the Exhibit program.
Since this is my first ever art show, I’m having trouble making my bio longer than 20 words. Right now it looks something like this:
“Virgil has been alive since 1959 and likes to use his camera when he’s not sleeping…”
I hope I’ll be struck with some inspiration in the next few days. I hate honking my own horn, although I’m told that I do a mean braggadocio in the presence of lovely ladies after a few Jack Daniels.
Maybe that’s the solution…
Finally, this set I’m building for CAPE Theater's Dinner Show “You’re A Good Man Charley Brown has been kicking my ass for the past three weeks. I never knew how hard it could be to build a “cartoon” set for a cast of adult actors playing children in a play. EVERYTHING has to be scaled up to look bigger than life, yet it has to be light weight so that the actors can move it on and off stage between acts and during the performance.
No 4x4’s and ¾” plywood, I’m working with 2x4’s and foam sheets varying from ½” to 2” thick. I’ve got little foam “BB's” blowing everywhere in the space I’m building in.
I bet I have 30 hours in design time doing drawing and sketching ideas, the hardest part being making it look “cute”, not “cheesy”—those definitions being primarily in the eye of the beholder.
Schroeder’s baby grand piano and Snoopy’s dog house are by far the hardest set pieces I have yet to finish, having already completed the school bus, Lucy’s Psychiatric Booth, and Sunday’s project—the “Kite Eating Tree.”
I'm also reading a script now, trying to develop my own version of the character "Piney" in John Patrick's play "A Bad year For Tomatoes" that will open in early May at the CAPE theater.
My rendition, if they actually cast me in the part, will be a cross between Billy Bob Thornton's character in the movie "Slingblade" and "Andy Griffeth's" Ernest T. Bass--with a little of "Green Acres" Mr. Haney thrown in for good measure.
I haven't acted in a play in almost two years, having protrayed the character Hanibal in John Patrick's "A Curious Savage" in the Spring of 2004. (The picture of me here on the blog comes from that play.)
In that production I portrayed a self-committed mental patient that thought that he could play the violin--but he couldn't.
Talk about a part fitting like a glove...
It was my first acting experience since the sixth grade, but it got me hooked on working in the theater and I've designed and built six sets in the past 22 months.
Me...ACTING...go figure.
Regarding my writing other than blogs, my two book projects are lagging badly, primarily due to neglect. I have the Novel outlined, some character development work done, and the first chapter written, and I've been staring at it almost continuously for the past six months, wishing that it would write itself.
No such luck so far.
If it were easy, everyone would be on the NY Times bestseller list, you know?
My cookbook, "The Redneck Gourmet" is much further along, having had several positive responses from publishers, but it is up to me to get the final copy together and most importantly, GET SOME NICE PICTURES OF MY FOOD, because people apparently won't buy cookbooks without PICTURES OF FOOD included in them.
Really, you can write a recipe that includes tree bark, dirt, honey, and a little salt, and if you publish it beside a pretty picture of a nice fat tenderloin steak and some asaparagus--people will buy a copy of your book and toss it out on their coffee table.
I, personally, being a cook, don't buy "coffee table" cookbooks and I'm not trying to write one either. Although "folksy" and descriptive, I intend my book to be used as a guide for actual cooking, mainly for one or two couples, but my publisher tells me that I have to get pictures for the book to sell, so I am.
Fortunately we've met a number of people here on St. Simons and Sea Island that have fantastic kitchens. Kitchens that cost more than my first house did, and we're talking about me catering some intimate dinners in return for the opportunity to make photographs.
Most of these rooms are full of things like Vulcan Ranges and Subzero Refrigerators. Some of these ranges have gas burners with enought BTU's to lift a hot air balloon off the ground. I'm thinking that I'll do most of my cooking here in the condo and reserve the final assembly for my host's home because working in a strange kitchen can wreck havoc with the preparation of my otherwise familiar recipes.
I just hope that I can attain the quality and taste in front of an audience that is typical of these recipes that I've worked so hard developing and learning at home. Wish me luck.
That about wraps things up on the home front here, other than my usual committment to regular blogging, which, with any luck, will continue unabated through the young year.
I don’t know if it is the left side or the right side of my brain that I’m using right now, but it’s getting a surprisingly good workout after years of prior neglect.
Now where’s my warm beer and catsup bottle…
Sunday, January 22, 2006
A PLAN
Poolside Blogging
When the weather turns to almost 80 degrees before the end of January, I can't be expected to not want to start hanging out at the pool--it's less than half a football field away down the street. The only thing is that, while sitting at the pool, I currently don't have an internet connection.
As a result of this unacceptable deficiency, I’ve done a little research and found out that I CAN extend my wireless network from my master bedroom, all the way down the street to the swimming pool, so that I can wireless blog poolside this summer.
Imagine everyone’s excitement, raptly checking back here to this site dozens of times each day to read as I live blog the progress of a load of ribs being slow cooked on the Webber Kettle while the blender serves up frozen libations poolside.
I could receive comments telling me when to put on suntan lotion and I could upload and post digital photos if the owners of any good looking bathing suits happen to show up poolside. Actually, I think that I'll reserve that pain for my own eyes since the majority of our population here seems to be somewhere nearing the age of 100. We do get an occasional vacation renter during the summer that is a little easier on the eyes and camera lens.
Any wayyyy, it is possible--poolside blogging, that is...we DO have the technology to accomplish such a feat.
Here is all I need to do:
1. Drill a 2” hole in the roof of the building.
2. Evoke the wrath of the “Condo Nazis.”
3. Patch 2” hole in roof.
4. Buy one of these, a 2.4 GHz 14 dBi Backfire Wireless LAN antenna. I get sexually excited just thinking about owning one, and it only costs about $25
6. Then I load up my laptop, sunglasses, towels, suntan lotion, a nice fat vodka and cranberry, and flip flop my way down the street.
When the weather turns to almost 80 degrees before the end of January, I can't be expected to not want to start hanging out at the pool--it's less than half a football field away down the street. The only thing is that, while sitting at the pool, I currently don't have an internet connection.
As a result of this unacceptable deficiency, I’ve done a little research and found out that I CAN extend my wireless network from my master bedroom, all the way down the street to the swimming pool, so that I can wireless blog poolside this summer.
Imagine everyone’s excitement, raptly checking back here to this site dozens of times each day to read as I live blog the progress of a load of ribs being slow cooked on the Webber Kettle while the blender serves up frozen libations poolside.
I could receive comments telling me when to put on suntan lotion and I could upload and post digital photos if the owners of any good looking bathing suits happen to show up poolside. Actually, I think that I'll reserve that pain for my own eyes since the majority of our population here seems to be somewhere nearing the age of 100. We do get an occasional vacation renter during the summer that is a little easier on the eyes and camera lens.
Any wayyyy, it is possible--poolside blogging, that is...we DO have the technology to accomplish such a feat.
Here is all I need to do:
1. Drill a 2” hole in the roof of the building.
2. Evoke the wrath of the “Condo Nazis.”
3. Patch 2” hole in roof.
4. Buy one of these, a 2.4 GHz 14 dBi Backfire Wireless LAN antenna. I get sexually excited just thinking about owning one, and it only costs about $25
6. Then I load up my laptop, sunglasses, towels, suntan lotion, a nice fat vodka and cranberry, and flip flop my way down the street.
Oh, did I mention bringing the power supply for backup? Since Pat telecommutes, we can probably sublet the condo and just live in the pool house this summer...well maybe not.
This would be so cool, I'm going to do it...check back in about March to see my progress....
V I C T O R Y
I'm the King of WEP Encrypted Networks
Yes, I, your lovely political/cooking blogger and self proclaimed rocket scientist, now have a functioning three computer network operating on two floors of our condo building.
Amazingly enough, we have a pretty good signal strength at the peremeter, even though the wireless router is located 75' feet away on the opposite end of the unit from two of the PC's.
I personally, always have a good signal because I refuse to work where there isn't one, even if I have to lay in the floor or stand on my head with my feet resting against the wall.
I also figured out that the problem all along was that I had outsmarted myself when I did the original router installation. For some reason they actually expect all of those things which you tell your router to actually MEAN SOMETHING when you give your answers.
Being the sly devil that I am, I forgot that I had limited the number of users on the network to three (Pat's notebook PC #2 & #3, in and out of the docking station, and my notebook PC #1.)
When I tried to install my neighbor's desktop on the network, the router apparently got confused and tangled my IP address and MAC address up in the process of assigning the new machine one of each. It then refused to recognise either machine from then on because there were too many machines looking for the internet.
The good news is that in this process I learned that my security strategy works...
DAMN I'M GOOD.
But it took me a month and one half to figure out what to do to make my security allow me to use my own network...
DAMN I'M STUPID.
Of course I can blame the misplaced software CD as a mitigating circumstance.
Next, being the machocist that I am, I'm looking forward toscrewing up further expanding our little computer empire with the addition of a wireless print server to handle my big 13"x19"format HP printer and our little HP multifunction machine.
Then, if I get through that process, does anyone know of a way to shoot our wireless signal 50 yards down the street to the pool deck so I can blog poolside this summer?.
It was 79 degrees here today, and I don't want to have to make a choice between writing and my suntan...
Yes, I, your lovely political/cooking blogger and self proclaimed rocket scientist, now have a functioning three computer network operating on two floors of our condo building.
Amazingly enough, we have a pretty good signal strength at the peremeter, even though the wireless router is located 75' feet away on the opposite end of the unit from two of the PC's.
I personally, always have a good signal because I refuse to work where there isn't one, even if I have to lay in the floor or stand on my head with my feet resting against the wall.
I also figured out that the problem all along was that I had outsmarted myself when I did the original router installation. For some reason they actually expect all of those things which you tell your router to actually MEAN SOMETHING when you give your answers.
Being the sly devil that I am, I forgot that I had limited the number of users on the network to three (Pat's notebook PC #2 & #3, in and out of the docking station, and my notebook PC #1.)
When I tried to install my neighbor's desktop on the network, the router apparently got confused and tangled my IP address and MAC address up in the process of assigning the new machine one of each. It then refused to recognise either machine from then on because there were too many machines looking for the internet.
The good news is that in this process I learned that my security strategy works...
DAMN I'M GOOD.
But it took me a month and one half to figure out what to do to make my security allow me to use my own network...
DAMN I'M STUPID.
Of course I can blame the misplaced software CD as a mitigating circumstance.
Next, being the machocist that I am, I'm looking forward to
Then, if I get through that process, does anyone know of a way to shoot our wireless signal 50 yards down the street to the pool deck so I can blog poolside this summer?.
It was 79 degrees here today, and I don't want to have to make a choice between writing and my suntan...
Saturday, January 21, 2006
Unemployment Rate Down…
In spite of Government Stupidity
They APPARENTLY had some good news down in Florida this week:
TALLAHASSEE, Florida's unemployment rate dropped a fraction to 3.3 percent in December, a 30-year low.
State labor officials said Friday that's down three-tenths of one percent from November.
Officials said the December jobless rate is lowest among the nation's ten most populous states.
Florida leads those states in creating new jobs, as well. The state added more than 248,000 jobs last year.
Those increases occurred as Florida increased its minimum wage last May to a dollar more than the federal minimum wage.
Some critics had predicted the increase would cut jobs.
Actually, assuming that that the 3.3% number is correct, the employment rate is quite amazing, because at first glance it would appear that extra people are actually moving to the state of Florida because of the recent higher minimum wage. At least that’s what the media and the government wants you believe.
I guess that it could be true, but it’s not a given.
I don’t think it's true myself.
You see, as anyone that has taken a class in economics knows, an unemployment rate of about 5% is actually considered “full employment” by economists. Of course the newspaper reporters either don’t know this fact or pathologically fail to mention it when they lament the national average unemployment rate being at 5.5% right now.
Any way, the so called “economic experts” are said to use the 5% number because they know that at any given time there are people that are not in the labor force, but not because of evil “Republican greed” or “Bush’s tax cuts for the rich.” Rather, they are voluntarily out of the labor force—people like pregnant women, people that are sick/injured, persons moving between jobs of their own will, or those that otherwise just don’t want to work at the moment.
I wrote about unemployment and the issue of "Living Wages" in 2004 when I first started blogging, and I want to bring up a couple of the same things again here in light of Florida’s high employment rate and the recent override of the Maryland Governor’s veto of a law requiring Wal-Mart to pay higher health insurance benefits.
Mainly, what I have to say on this subject is this:
THE GOVERNMENT CAN’T LEGISLATE ECONOMIC PROSPERITY.
That’s right, no matter what you FEEL in your juicy little heart, and no matter what your lard assed local and national politicians tell you while standing on the campaign stump, 99 percent of the economic success of this country has been accomplished IN SPITE of the government....not BECAUSE of the government.
What the government actually does best most of the time is impede economic prosperity, and when the owners of private industry finally manage to get ahead, the government is quite happy to step in and not only try to take credit for the success, but it also takes its big fat slice of the profit—RIGHT OFF OF THE TOP.
The government’s impediment to business development takes many forms. For instance, just to start a business requires things like a buying a business license, paying intangible taxes on office and manufacturing equipment, paying incorporation fees, etc.
By demanding that a new business owner come up with the funds before or shortly after going into business, the government is in effect demanding their share of the owner’s profit, UP FRONT, before the owner has actually even earned one thin dime.
Next, when the business OWNER gets things rolling for himself and actually needs some employees, the government again comes riding to the rescue and tells the owner how much his employees are worth, classically in the form of a minimum wage.
Now the State Government of Maryland, under the auspices of the AFL-CIO is telling business owners in the state (at least one business owner—the shareholders of Wal-Mart) how much their employees’ health insurance should cost.
I know that Wal-Mart is really relieved to have that burden lifted off of their shoulders…
NOT!
It’s a good thing that I’m not in Sam Walton’s shoes today (oops, I guess in that case that I’d be dead…but any how…) because based on Maryland’s new law there would be at least 10,000 new unemployed people in the state after I closed my stores and told them to kiss my sweet hairy derrière.
Is some invisible villain holding a gun to the Wal-Mart employees’ heads forcing them to work at the Wal-Mart stores?
No.
Can anyone tell me how the hell it makes sense for the government to be telling Wal-Mart what its health insurance package should look like?
The key to this issue is the union’s involvement.
Various unions have been trying to organize Wal-Mart employees since old Sam hired his first dozen employees, but they’ve been unsuccessful to date. For some funny reason the majority of the Wal-Mart EMPLOYEES have yet to make their own decision to support unionization.
Since the unions can’t make the employees vote for them, they’ve decided to get their allies—the Democratic party—to legislate their agenda for them.
Everyone is going to end up losing in the long run, unless they are very lucky. Besides that, since companies don't really pay taxes and benefit costs, all the Maryland state legislature is actually doing is raising consumer prices in the state of Maryland. It's yet another case of income redistrubution, no matter how they try to define it to the voters.
Ridiculously high cost benefit packages including wages, insurance, and retirement are currently breaking the financial spines of airlines like Delta, US Air, and United. They have already caused the demise of Eastern and Pan Am, not to mention dozens of smaller airlines that have fallen by the wayside under their employees’ contribution to the cost of their operations.
Likewise, there are rumblings at auto makers General Motors and Ford about similar issues of retirement benefit and health insurance costs causing the possibility of their own bankruptcy filings later this year.
And what is the common denominator in the potential insolvency of these giant companies?
UNIONS, and union employee compensation demands.
Going back to my original point now…Florida’s low unemployment rate is certainly good news for their population, BUT…
allowing the minimum wage advocates and the government bureaucrats to take credit for the numbers is a complete farce.
Florida has accomplished their economic boom, IN SPITE of government meddling, and I GUAR-AN-DAMN-TEE YOU that, as soon as the economy takes a downturn, the higher minimum wages will be a huge liability to Florida employers.
It will end up costing people their jobs, and owners their businesses.
Of course the government and the wage advocates will blame everyone but themselves in that event--and of course, whoever is sitting in the US President's office at that time.
Someone will then suggest that they raise taxes to pay increased unemployment benefits...yeah, THAT will solve things...
I guess that the old adage “make hay while the sun shines” might be the best policy there in the “Sunshine State” today.
They APPARENTLY had some good news down in Florida this week:
TALLAHASSEE, Florida's unemployment rate dropped a fraction to 3.3 percent in December, a 30-year low.
State labor officials said Friday that's down three-tenths of one percent from November.
Officials said the December jobless rate is lowest among the nation's ten most populous states.
Florida leads those states in creating new jobs, as well. The state added more than 248,000 jobs last year.
Those increases occurred as Florida increased its minimum wage last May to a dollar more than the federal minimum wage.
Some critics had predicted the increase would cut jobs.
Actually, assuming that that the 3.3% number is correct, the employment rate is quite amazing, because at first glance it would appear that extra people are actually moving to the state of Florida because of the recent higher minimum wage. At least that’s what the media and the government wants you believe.
I guess that it could be true, but it’s not a given.
I don’t think it's true myself.
You see, as anyone that has taken a class in economics knows, an unemployment rate of about 5% is actually considered “full employment” by economists. Of course the newspaper reporters either don’t know this fact or pathologically fail to mention it when they lament the national average unemployment rate being at 5.5% right now.
Any way, the so called “economic experts” are said to use the 5% number because they know that at any given time there are people that are not in the labor force, but not because of evil “Republican greed” or “Bush’s tax cuts for the rich.” Rather, they are voluntarily out of the labor force—people like pregnant women, people that are sick/injured, persons moving between jobs of their own will, or those that otherwise just don’t want to work at the moment.
I wrote about unemployment and the issue of "Living Wages" in 2004 when I first started blogging, and I want to bring up a couple of the same things again here in light of Florida’s high employment rate and the recent override of the Maryland Governor’s veto of a law requiring Wal-Mart to pay higher health insurance benefits.
Mainly, what I have to say on this subject is this:
THE GOVERNMENT CAN’T LEGISLATE ECONOMIC PROSPERITY.
That’s right, no matter what you FEEL in your juicy little heart, and no matter what your lard assed local and national politicians tell you while standing on the campaign stump, 99 percent of the economic success of this country has been accomplished IN SPITE of the government....not BECAUSE of the government.
What the government actually does best most of the time is impede economic prosperity, and when the owners of private industry finally manage to get ahead, the government is quite happy to step in and not only try to take credit for the success, but it also takes its big fat slice of the profit—RIGHT OFF OF THE TOP.
The government’s impediment to business development takes many forms. For instance, just to start a business requires things like a buying a business license, paying intangible taxes on office and manufacturing equipment, paying incorporation fees, etc.
By demanding that a new business owner come up with the funds before or shortly after going into business, the government is in effect demanding their share of the owner’s profit, UP FRONT, before the owner has actually even earned one thin dime.
Next, when the business OWNER gets things rolling for himself and actually needs some employees, the government again comes riding to the rescue and tells the owner how much his employees are worth, classically in the form of a minimum wage.
Now the State Government of Maryland, under the auspices of the AFL-CIO is telling business owners in the state (at least one business owner—the shareholders of Wal-Mart) how much their employees’ health insurance should cost.
I know that Wal-Mart is really relieved to have that burden lifted off of their shoulders…
NOT!
It’s a good thing that I’m not in Sam Walton’s shoes today (oops, I guess in that case that I’d be dead…but any how…) because based on Maryland’s new law there would be at least 10,000 new unemployed people in the state after I closed my stores and told them to kiss my sweet hairy derrière.
Is some invisible villain holding a gun to the Wal-Mart employees’ heads forcing them to work at the Wal-Mart stores?
No.
Can anyone tell me how the hell it makes sense for the government to be telling Wal-Mart what its health insurance package should look like?
The key to this issue is the union’s involvement.
Various unions have been trying to organize Wal-Mart employees since old Sam hired his first dozen employees, but they’ve been unsuccessful to date. For some funny reason the majority of the Wal-Mart EMPLOYEES have yet to make their own decision to support unionization.
Since the unions can’t make the employees vote for them, they’ve decided to get their allies—the Democratic party—to legislate their agenda for them.
Everyone is going to end up losing in the long run, unless they are very lucky. Besides that, since companies don't really pay taxes and benefit costs, all the Maryland state legislature is actually doing is raising consumer prices in the state of Maryland. It's yet another case of income redistrubution, no matter how they try to define it to the voters.
Ridiculously high cost benefit packages including wages, insurance, and retirement are currently breaking the financial spines of airlines like Delta, US Air, and United. They have already caused the demise of Eastern and Pan Am, not to mention dozens of smaller airlines that have fallen by the wayside under their employees’ contribution to the cost of their operations.
Likewise, there are rumblings at auto makers General Motors and Ford about similar issues of retirement benefit and health insurance costs causing the possibility of their own bankruptcy filings later this year.
And what is the common denominator in the potential insolvency of these giant companies?
UNIONS, and union employee compensation demands.
Going back to my original point now…Florida’s low unemployment rate is certainly good news for their population, BUT…
allowing the minimum wage advocates and the government bureaucrats to take credit for the numbers is a complete farce.
Florida has accomplished their economic boom, IN SPITE of government meddling, and I GUAR-AN-DAMN-TEE YOU that, as soon as the economy takes a downturn, the higher minimum wages will be a huge liability to Florida employers.
It will end up costing people their jobs, and owners their businesses.
Of course the government and the wage advocates will blame everyone but themselves in that event--and of course, whoever is sitting in the US President's office at that time.
Someone will then suggest that they raise taxes to pay increased unemployment benefits...yeah, THAT will solve things...
I guess that the old adage “make hay while the sun shines” might be the best policy there in the “Sunshine State” today.
