The virus sweeping the nation...
I saw something on PBS last night (more on that later) which caused me to do some looking around and I came across this Pulitzer winning series from the Los Angeles Times - it’s really worth a read:
Wal-Mart gives. And Wal-Mart takes away.
From a small-town five-and-dime, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has grown over 50 years to become the world’s largest corporation and a global economic force.
It posted $245 billion in sales in its most recent fiscal year — nearly twice as much as General Electric Co. and almost eight times as much as Microsoft Corp. It is the nation’s largest seller of toys, furniture, jewelry, dog food and scores of other consumer products. It is the largest grocer in the United States.
Wal-Mart’s decisions influence wages and working conditions across a wide swath of the world economy, from the shopping centers of Las Vegas to the factories of Honduras and South Asia. Its business is so vital to developing countries that some send emissaries to the corporate headquarters in Bentonville, Ark., almost as if Wal-Mart were a sovereign nation.
The company has prospered by elevating one goal above all others: cutting prices relentlessly. U.S. economists say its tightfistedness has not only boosted its own bottom line, but also helped hold down the inflation rate for the entire country. Consumers reap the benefits every time they push a cart through Wal-Mart’s checkout lines.
Yet Wal-Mart’s astonishing success exacts a heavy price.
By squeezing suppliers to cut wholesale costs, the company has hastened the flight of U.S. manufacturing jobs overseas. By scouring the globe for the cheapest goods, it has driven factory jobs from one poor nation to another.
Wal-Mart’s penny-pinching extends to its own 1.2 million U.S. employees, none of them unionized. By the company’s own admission, a full-time worker might not be able to support a family on a Wal-Mart paycheck.
Jun 15, 2005
Jun 14, 2005
Reflections on business past...
The first of them arrived at 3 a.m. By daybreak some 4,000 were huddled in the deep January freeze. By 7:30, 10,000 men had gathered at the entrance to the Highland Park, Mich., factory, hoping for a job at a wage that sounded too good to be true.
But it was true. The previous morning, Henry Ford had lingered near a window while his treasurer read a statement to reporters: “At one stroke, [Ford] will reduce the hours of labor from nine to eight” and offer its workers “five dollars per day”—more than twice the prevailing wage of $2.34.
The 1914 announcement hit America like a thunderclap. The Wall Street Journal accused Ford of “an economic blunder if not crimes.” But Ford’s motives were neither socialist nor utopian. Ever since his assembly lines had lurched into motion the year before, he simply could not keep workers. Turnover of 370% required hiring almost 50,000 people a year just to maintain a workforce of 14,000. Putting $5 in a worker’s pocket, Ford hoped, would do more than reward him for grueling and mind-numbing work.
Seems to me that this is a lesson which American businesses would be wise to relearn.
An interesting article on the Fortune website on the best and worst calls in business history.
The first of them arrived at 3 a.m. By daybreak some 4,000 were huddled in the deep January freeze. By 7:30, 10,000 men had gathered at the entrance to the Highland Park, Mich., factory, hoping for a job at a wage that sounded too good to be true.
But it was true. The previous morning, Henry Ford had lingered near a window while his treasurer read a statement to reporters: “At one stroke, [Ford] will reduce the hours of labor from nine to eight” and offer its workers “five dollars per day”—more than twice the prevailing wage of $2.34.
The 1914 announcement hit America like a thunderclap. The Wall Street Journal accused Ford of “an economic blunder if not crimes.” But Ford’s motives were neither socialist nor utopian. Ever since his assembly lines had lurched into motion the year before, he simply could not keep workers. Turnover of 370% required hiring almost 50,000 people a year just to maintain a workforce of 14,000. Putting $5 in a worker’s pocket, Ford hoped, would do more than reward him for grueling and mind-numbing work.
Seems to me that this is a lesson which American businesses would be wise to relearn.
An interesting article on the Fortune website on the best and worst calls in business history.
Jun 9, 2005
Poetry corner...
Some beautiful words on a site with humanistic text including words from some of the San People:
The wind does thus when we die, our (own) wind blows; for we, who are human beings, we possess wind; we make clouds, when we die. Therefore, the wind does thus when we die, the wind makes dust, because it intends to blow, taking away our footprints, with which we had walked about while we still had nothing the matter with us. And our footprints, which the wind intends to blow away, would otherwise still lie plainly visible. For, the thing would seem as if we still lived. Therefore, the winds intends to blow, taking away our footprints.
Some beautiful words on a site with humanistic text including words from some of the San People:
The wind does thus when we die, our (own) wind blows; for we, who are human beings, we possess wind; we make clouds, when we die. Therefore, the wind does thus when we die, the wind makes dust, because it intends to blow, taking away our footprints, with which we had walked about while we still had nothing the matter with us. And our footprints, which the wind intends to blow away, would otherwise still lie plainly visible. For, the thing would seem as if we still lived. Therefore, the winds intends to blow, taking away our footprints.
Dia!kwain, San People
Look for this...
Saw this documentary on PBS last night (channel 13 here in New York) which is being rerun on Saturday morning at 7:30am. Even if you can’t get up it’s worth taping (or Tivo-ing as I imagine I’m dating myself).
By collecting blood samples from thousands of men living in isolated tribes around the world and analyzing their DNA, 34-year-old geneticist Spencer Wells and his colleagues discovered that all humans alive today can be traced back to a small tribe of hunter-gatherers who lived in Africa 60,000 years ago.
Well, as I said the documentary was fascinating and it sparked a great story idea for me which I spent some time last night doing some research online for. During my browsing, I came across a something which struck me as so horrific in scope, it was sickening. If you ever wonder why there are problems in regard to race relations take a look at this jewel of history and make your own decision:
THE LIFE AND TIMES OF SARA BAARTMAN is the fascinating story of this Khoi Khoi woman who was taken from South Africa, and then exhibited as a freak across Britain. The image and idea of “The Hottentot Venus” swept through British popular culture. A court battle waged by abolitionists to free her from her exhibitors failed.
In 1814 she was taken to France, and became the object of scientific and medical research that formed the bedrock of European ideas about black female sexuality. She died the next year. But even after her death, Sara Baartman remained an object of imperialist scientific investigation. In the name of Science, her sexual organs and brain were displayed in the Musee de l'Homme in Paris until as recently as 1985.
Saw this documentary on PBS last night (channel 13 here in New York) which is being rerun on Saturday morning at 7:30am. Even if you can’t get up it’s worth taping (or Tivo-ing as I imagine I’m dating myself).
By collecting blood samples from thousands of men living in isolated tribes around the world and analyzing their DNA, 34-year-old geneticist Spencer Wells and his colleagues discovered that all humans alive today can be traced back to a small tribe of hunter-gatherers who lived in Africa 60,000 years ago.
Well, as I said the documentary was fascinating and it sparked a great story idea for me which I spent some time last night doing some research online for. During my browsing, I came across a something which struck me as so horrific in scope, it was sickening. If you ever wonder why there are problems in regard to race relations take a look at this jewel of history and make your own decision:
THE LIFE AND TIMES OF SARA BAARTMAN is the fascinating story of this Khoi Khoi woman who was taken from South Africa, and then exhibited as a freak across Britain. The image and idea of “The Hottentot Venus” swept through British popular culture. A court battle waged by abolitionists to free her from her exhibitors failed.
In 1814 she was taken to France, and became the object of scientific and medical research that formed the bedrock of European ideas about black female sexuality. She died the next year. But even after her death, Sara Baartman remained an object of imperialist scientific investigation. In the name of Science, her sexual organs and brain were displayed in the Musee de l'Homme in Paris until as recently as 1985.
Jun 8, 2005
Some fun for you...
I came across this strip and thought I would pass along the link to the artist’s website - it’s definitely worth a look and the strip is lots of fun: Danielle Corsetto’s Girls With Slingshots
I came across this strip and thought I would pass along the link to the artist’s website - it’s definitely worth a look and the strip is lots of fun: Danielle Corsetto’s Girls With Slingshots
Jun 4, 2005
The Propaganda War on retirement benefits...
I’m sure everyone has heard lately about ‘The Discussion’ about Social Security. The system is broke, there won’t be enough to pay out benefits, it’s the looming crisis our nation faces and so on and so on and so on...
It has long been accepted as truth that government workers get good benefits and job security in lieu of high salaries, but over the years the gap between public and private employee paychecks seems to have narrowed. It’s hard to come by perfect comparisons, since government numbers for the private sector include lower-wage industries like retailing, which pull down the averages, but overall, public-sector workers look to be getting a pretty good deal. In 2004 average salary for a public worker was $49,275 compared with $34,461 for everyone else, according to the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI).
I’ve been seeing a lot of ink lately about employee benefits. Specifically, employee retirement plans which seem to have fallen out of vogue these days.
Executives at Delta and elsewhere in the airline industry—not to mention at similarly legacy-cost-plagued companies like U.S. Steel and GM—are doubtless closely watching the United deal, which could serve either as a potential bargaining tool to use with unions, or as another inducement to try Chapter 11 themselves. American Airlines, the largest U.S. carrier, has said it will keep its pension plans but is concerned about No. 2 United gaining a financial advantage; Delta is currently making plenty of noise about Chapter 11, even as two Georgia Republican Congressmen are currently pushing House legislation to let airlines spread out payments for defined-benefit pension plans and spread the shortfalls over 25 years instead of the current four. And certainly the United deal adds some spice to baby-boom-in-the-python retirement debates from Social Security to, well, the PBGC, now running its own $23 billion deficit. Will retirement/health plan bailouts be our new S&L crisis?
It seems like everytime I turn around these days, employee benefits are the bane of our society - medical benefits, retirement benefits - these things are just hurting perfectly good companies and the American people! We need to wake up folks! We’ve got to do something about these shiftless, lazy bastards who expect to get these benefits! Unfortunately sarcasm does not translate through the keyboard easily.
So, along with the current discussion about Social Security, we are also facing a time when the responsibility for pensions and retirement plans are shifted onto the American Worker.
Now, what I fail to understand (and if someone can explain the logic of this to me) is how the increasing disparity between the average worker’s salary and benefits and that of a company’s top management can continue to be justified. Everytime I turn around, it seems companies are paying a price for bad decisions made by the people in charge but, instead of getting a reduction in pay - they get huge bonuses in the form of stock options and buyouts.
So, now companies are looking at ways to get out from under their obligations via Chapter 11 while simultaneously our government has made it harder for individuals to declare bankruptcy. Can anyone say, “Class Warfare?”
...more to come.
I’m sure everyone has heard lately about ‘The Discussion’ about Social Security. The system is broke, there won’t be enough to pay out benefits, it’s the looming crisis our nation faces and so on and so on and so on...
It has long been accepted as truth that government workers get good benefits and job security in lieu of high salaries, but over the years the gap between public and private employee paychecks seems to have narrowed. It’s hard to come by perfect comparisons, since government numbers for the private sector include lower-wage industries like retailing, which pull down the averages, but overall, public-sector workers look to be getting a pretty good deal. In 2004 average salary for a public worker was $49,275 compared with $34,461 for everyone else, according to the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI).
I’ve been seeing a lot of ink lately about employee benefits. Specifically, employee retirement plans which seem to have fallen out of vogue these days.
Executives at Delta and elsewhere in the airline industry—not to mention at similarly legacy-cost-plagued companies like U.S. Steel and GM—are doubtless closely watching the United deal, which could serve either as a potential bargaining tool to use with unions, or as another inducement to try Chapter 11 themselves. American Airlines, the largest U.S. carrier, has said it will keep its pension plans but is concerned about No. 2 United gaining a financial advantage; Delta is currently making plenty of noise about Chapter 11, even as two Georgia Republican Congressmen are currently pushing House legislation to let airlines spread out payments for defined-benefit pension plans and spread the shortfalls over 25 years instead of the current four. And certainly the United deal adds some spice to baby-boom-in-the-python retirement debates from Social Security to, well, the PBGC, now running its own $23 billion deficit. Will retirement/health plan bailouts be our new S&L crisis?
It seems like everytime I turn around these days, employee benefits are the bane of our society - medical benefits, retirement benefits - these things are just hurting perfectly good companies and the American people! We need to wake up folks! We’ve got to do something about these shiftless, lazy bastards who expect to get these benefits! Unfortunately sarcasm does not translate through the keyboard easily.
So, along with the current discussion about Social Security, we are also facing a time when the responsibility for pensions and retirement plans are shifted onto the American Worker.
Now, what I fail to understand (and if someone can explain the logic of this to me) is how the increasing disparity between the average worker’s salary and benefits and that of a company’s top management can continue to be justified. Everytime I turn around, it seems companies are paying a price for bad decisions made by the people in charge but, instead of getting a reduction in pay - they get huge bonuses in the form of stock options and buyouts.
So, now companies are looking at ways to get out from under their obligations via Chapter 11 while simultaneously our government has made it harder for individuals to declare bankruptcy. Can anyone say, “Class Warfare?”
...more to come.
Clean hands...
The big news last week was the revelation of the identity of Deep Throat to be Mark Felt a former FBI agent (my money had been on Al Haig). It was a dramatic turn of events, accompanied by interviews and comments by everyone from Bob Woodward himself to Henry Kissinger to Robert Redford.
However, before running off and declaring Felt a hero, there are some matters which should be carefully reviewed:
The article said the family believed Felt should get credit for his involvement in the case while he was alive and quoted Joan Felt as saying that the family should be a part of any financial gains from the revelation.
cnn.com
____
But David Gergen, who was Nixon’s speechwriter during the Watergate era, said in a telephone interview yesterday that Felt “was no innocent. Until we understand his motivations we ought to be a little cautious.”
Boston Globe
____
FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover died shortly before the Watergate break-in. Felt himself had hopes that he would be the next FBI director, according to the Post, but President Nixon instead appointed an administration insider, assistant attorney general L. Patrick Gray, to the post.
Associated Press
____
Gray was never confirmed as FBI director, and in 1973 William D. Ruckelshaus was nominated to replace him. Felt clashed repeatedly with his new boss and left the bureau later that year, well before Nixon was to leave office.
In 1978 he was indicted, along with Edward G. Miller, for nine illegal break-ins in New York and New Jersey carried out in 1972 and 1973.
Washington Post
____
W. Mark Felt always denied he was Deep Throat. “It was not I and it is not I,” he told Washingtonian magazine in 1974.
Seattle Times (running Washington Post story)
____
Felt had a storied career at the bureau, one that also had its share of controversy.
A jury found him guilty in 1980 of violating civil rights by authorizing warrantless searches at homes of friends and relatives of left-wing fugitives during the early 1970s. President Reagan pardoned him, along with another former FBI official convicted in the case.
Associated Press
____
Felt served as an honorary pallbearer at Hoover’s funeral.
Immediately upon his death, Hoover’s secretary for five decades, Helen W. Gandy, began destroying his files with the approval of Felt and Gray. She turned over twelve boxes of the “Official/Confidential” file to Felt on May 4, 1972. This consisted of 167 files and 17,750 pages, many of them containing derogatory information. Felt stored them in his office and Gray told the press that afternoon that “there are no dossiers or secret files. There are just general files and I took steps to preserve their integrity.” Felt earlier that day had told Gray, “Mr. Gray, the Bureau doesn’t have any secret files” and to prove it had taken Gray to Hoover’s office. They found Gandy boxing up papers. Felt said Gray “looked casually at an open file drawer and approved her work,” though Gray would later deny he looked at any thing. Gandy retained Hoover’s “Personal File” and destroyed it. When Felt was called to testify in 1975 by the U.S. House about the destruction of Hoover’s papers, he said “There's no serious problems if we lose some papers. I don’t see anything wrong and I still don’t.”
Wikipedia.org entry on the life and career of Felt
____
So, consequently while Mark Felt is in the process of being canonized with very little digging you find Felt was:
Those last two items - the break-ins/wiretaps and destruction of evidence are what bought down the Nixon Administration. Doesn’t sound to me as if Felt could in any way be considered the defender of civil liberties for this country. Sounds more like there was a power play going on between two branches of government which were way out of control. There aren’t any heroes here, only a bunch of shadowy villains breaking laws and running roughshod over the constitutional rights of the American people. I never thought I would see the day when one of J. Edgar Hoover’s pals would wind up being embraced by the left - these are strange days indeed.
The big news last week was the revelation of the identity of Deep Throat to be Mark Felt a former FBI agent (my money had been on Al Haig). It was a dramatic turn of events, accompanied by interviews and comments by everyone from Bob Woodward himself to Henry Kissinger to Robert Redford.
However, before running off and declaring Felt a hero, there are some matters which should be carefully reviewed:
The article said the family believed Felt should get credit for his involvement in the case while he was alive and quoted Joan Felt as saying that the family should be a part of any financial gains from the revelation.
But David Gergen, who was Nixon’s speechwriter during the Watergate era, said in a telephone interview yesterday that Felt “was no innocent. Until we understand his motivations we ought to be a little cautious.”
FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover died shortly before the Watergate break-in. Felt himself had hopes that he would be the next FBI director, according to the Post, but President Nixon instead appointed an administration insider, assistant attorney general L. Patrick Gray, to the post.
Gray was never confirmed as FBI director, and in 1973 William D. Ruckelshaus was nominated to replace him. Felt clashed repeatedly with his new boss and left the bureau later that year, well before Nixon was to leave office.
In 1978 he was indicted, along with Edward G. Miller, for nine illegal break-ins in New York and New Jersey carried out in 1972 and 1973.
W. Mark Felt always denied he was Deep Throat. “It was not I and it is not I,” he told Washingtonian magazine in 1974.
Felt had a storied career at the bureau, one that also had its share of controversy.
A jury found him guilty in 1980 of violating civil rights by authorizing warrantless searches at homes of friends and relatives of left-wing fugitives during the early 1970s. President Reagan pardoned him, along with another former FBI official convicted in the case.
Felt served as an honorary pallbearer at Hoover’s funeral.
Immediately upon his death, Hoover’s secretary for five decades, Helen W. Gandy, began destroying his files with the approval of Felt and Gray. She turned over twelve boxes of the “Official/Confidential” file to Felt on May 4, 1972. This consisted of 167 files and 17,750 pages, many of them containing derogatory information. Felt stored them in his office and Gray told the press that afternoon that “there are no dossiers or secret files. There are just general files and I took steps to preserve their integrity.” Felt earlier that day had told Gray, “Mr. Gray, the Bureau doesn’t have any secret files” and to prove it had taken Gray to Hoover’s office. They found Gandy boxing up papers. Felt said Gray “looked casually at an open file drawer and approved her work,” though Gray would later deny he looked at any thing. Gandy retained Hoover’s “Personal File” and destroyed it. When Felt was called to testify in 1975 by the U.S. House about the destruction of Hoover’s papers, he said “There's no serious problems if we lose some papers. I don’t see anything wrong and I still don’t.”
So, consequently while Mark Felt is in the process of being canonized with very little digging you find Felt was:
- – part of Hoover’s inner circle at the FBI.
— was pissed at being passed over for the top spot at the FBI after Hoover’s death.
— had no problem with unauthorized wiretaps and break ins as long as it was him determining who was on the receiving end of such violations of civil rights.
— didn’t think there was anything wrong with the destruction of sensitive papers or evidence as long as he was determining what got shredded.
Those last two items - the break-ins/wiretaps and destruction of evidence are what bought down the Nixon Administration. Doesn’t sound to me as if Felt could in any way be considered the defender of civil liberties for this country. Sounds more like there was a power play going on between two branches of government which were way out of control. There aren’t any heroes here, only a bunch of shadowy villains breaking laws and running roughshod over the constitutional rights of the American people. I never thought I would see the day when one of J. Edgar Hoover’s pals would wind up being embraced by the left - these are strange days indeed.
Jun 2, 2005
Looking forward to it...
A married couple (Pitt and Jolie) are getting bored with their quiet domestic life. What they don't know, however, is that they're both assassins, secretly hopping the world and killing for hire. But their separate lives are about to collide when each finds out their next target is their own spouse.
Admit it, they’re both like the best looking people on the planet, if your a woman you want to see him and if your a guy you want to see her. I’m looking forward to it.
A married couple (Pitt and Jolie) are getting bored with their quiet domestic life. What they don't know, however, is that they're both assassins, secretly hopping the world and killing for hire. But their separate lives are about to collide when each finds out their next target is their own spouse.
Admit it, they’re both like the best looking people on the planet, if your a woman you want to see him and if your a guy you want to see her. I’m looking forward to it.
Jun 1, 2005
The thief in the night...
I have a healthy cynicism when it comes to government. We’re lucky in this country because we live in a free society but, each day in very subtle ways all around us hard-won civil liberties are being sacrificed under the guise of making us safer...
More than 100 surveillance cameras have been quietly filming Brooklyn subway stations over the past two weeks, according to a state legislator who used MTA funds to place them in his district.
Notice how it’s being done quietly, no signs letting you know. Doesn’t make you any less likely from being a victim of a crime, just means they’ll be able to show it on a Fox special some day.
Here’s the capper I read about in the paper today, this is absolutely chilling...
Locations for cameras have not yet been finalized but areas likely to be targeted for surveillance include Manhattan’s Herald Square, Times Square and 125th Street in Harlem as well as busy thoroughfares in the city’s other boroughs.
The primary goal of the program would be to drive down crimes such as assaults and robberies, a police source said, adding that extra scrutiny in high-profile areas could also be a deterrence to terrorism.
“The plan to install 400 surveillance cameras around the city has all the earmarks of Big Brother and puts us even closer to becoming an all-out surveillance society,” NYCLU Executive Director Donna Lieberman told Reuters in a telephone interview.
“Video surveillance is tempting as a quick fix to all our problems, but it isn’t,” she said. “As a society we want to prevent crime and that can be better done by officers on the street, not with cameras.”
And of course as a follow up there’s this article:
Big Brother is not new to the Big Apple - where housing developments alone boast about 3,000 of the city’s 3,200 public cameras - but the news has civil-liberties activists fearing the possibility of privacy infringement.
Public housing developments aren’t any safer because of cameras. The people who are going to commit crime aren’t going to let a little thing like being caught on camera stop them (there’s this little thing called a mask dumb asses). No, the people who do play by the rules just had their life intruded upon yet again - 1984 is coming, just a little bit late and a little at a time.
I have a healthy cynicism when it comes to government. We’re lucky in this country because we live in a free society but, each day in very subtle ways all around us hard-won civil liberties are being sacrificed under the guise of making us safer...
More than 100 surveillance cameras have been quietly filming Brooklyn subway stations over the past two weeks, according to a state legislator who used MTA funds to place them in his district.
Notice how it’s being done quietly, no signs letting you know. Doesn’t make you any less likely from being a victim of a crime, just means they’ll be able to show it on a Fox special some day.
Here’s the capper I read about in the paper today, this is absolutely chilling...
Locations for cameras have not yet been finalized but areas likely to be targeted for surveillance include Manhattan’s Herald Square, Times Square and 125th Street in Harlem as well as busy thoroughfares in the city’s other boroughs.
The primary goal of the program would be to drive down crimes such as assaults and robberies, a police source said, adding that extra scrutiny in high-profile areas could also be a deterrence to terrorism.
“The plan to install 400 surveillance cameras around the city has all the earmarks of Big Brother and puts us even closer to becoming an all-out surveillance society,” NYCLU Executive Director Donna Lieberman told Reuters in a telephone interview.
“Video surveillance is tempting as a quick fix to all our problems, but it isn’t,” she said. “As a society we want to prevent crime and that can be better done by officers on the street, not with cameras.”
And of course as a follow up there’s this article:
Big Brother is not new to the Big Apple - where housing developments alone boast about 3,000 of the city’s 3,200 public cameras - but the news has civil-liberties activists fearing the possibility of privacy infringement.
Public housing developments aren’t any safer because of cameras. The people who are going to commit crime aren’t going to let a little thing like being caught on camera stop them (there’s this little thing called a mask dumb asses). No, the people who do play by the rules just had their life intruded upon yet again - 1984 is coming, just a little bit late and a little at a time.
May 31, 2005
Taming the Tiger...
As I get deeper into the whole Tiger experience, I find dashboard to be a step back to the earlier days of the Mac when you could customize your whole computing experience, which of course is a good thing. Check it out for yourself:
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/dashboard/
As I get deeper into the whole Tiger experience, I find dashboard to be a step back to the earlier days of the Mac when you could customize your whole computing experience, which of course is a good thing. Check it out for yourself:
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/dashboard/
“It’s me! It's me!”
I don’t begrudge the police anything (I have several friends and neighbors who are officers) but, it’s stories like this that prove we need to keep from blindly surrendering our rights for the illusion of safety...
An undercover narcotics cop was cuffed, beaten and punched by his own back-up team during a buy-and-bust operation in Queens last year, according to a $15 million lawsuit filed last week.
Officer Carlton Foster, who is black, claims in his suit that several white cops who had worked with him before hadn't been trained properly and, as a result, beat him up before recognizing him.
I don’t begrudge the police anything (I have several friends and neighbors who are officers) but, it’s stories like this that prove we need to keep from blindly surrendering our rights for the illusion of safety...
An undercover narcotics cop was cuffed, beaten and punched by his own back-up team during a buy-and-bust operation in Queens last year, according to a $15 million lawsuit filed last week.
Officer Carlton Foster, who is black, claims in his suit that several white cops who had worked with him before hadn't been trained properly and, as a result, beat him up before recognizing him.
More from Bizarro world...
You know the old saw about opinions (and a**holes). I’m reading the story below and I’m thinking... great. A company tries treating people well and wind up getting boycotted for their trouble.
This is the whole bugaboo I’ve got with the ‘religion thing.’ Isn’t this the same thinking used to justify flying planes into the sides of buildings?
Whatever happened to live and let live?
A conservative Christian group launched a boycott against Ford Motor Co. Tuesday, saying the second-largest U.S. automaker has given thousands of dollars to gay rights groups, offers benefits to same-sex couples and actively recruits gay employees.
“From redefining family to include homosexual marriage, to giving hundreds of thousands of dollars to support homosexual groups and their agenda, to forcing managers to attend diversity training on how to promote the acceptance of homosexuality... Ford leads the way,” American Family Association chairman Donald Wildmon said in a statement.
Ford responded that it respects its customers and employees.
Every time I wind up in a discussion about THE LORD (there should be an accompanying thunderclap there, folks) with a person genuinely concerned about my salvation and saving my immortal soul, I find myself in a bit of a disconnect...
I’ve never had the audacity to possibly think I could speak for a supreme being (if there is one). Further, I find it hard believing even the most well-meaning and devout among us can say with 100% certainty they’re correct in the tenets of their belief system. There’s no theorem I know of which can be presented concretely proving a position in these things - one of the reasons it’s called faith no doubt.
faith
1. Confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing.
2. Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence. See Synonyms at belief. See Synonyms at trust.
3. Loyalty to a person or thing; allegiance: keeping faith with one's supporters.
4. often Faith Christianity. The theological virtue defined as secure belief in God and a trusting acceptance of God's will.
5. The body of dogma of a religion: the Muslim faith.
6. A set of principles or beliefs.
So, when I hear someone say (for example), “God is my biggest fan” or something like ”God wants us to (fill in the blank),” I have a tendency to switch out the word ‘God’ for the pronoun ‘I’ in these instances because I find it the height of self-aggrandizing behavior.
It’s because I’ve been around people a lot of my life who seem to equate going to worship as justification for some really bad behavior or as a way of managing to take an attitude of superiority towards others. When you look a bulk of history, you come to realize a lot of really nasty stuff has been done in God’s name, the kind of thing makes me a even more wary.
As for these people with the ‘Direct Connect,’ if it works for them, if it brings them comfort... hey I’m all for it. Just show me the same respect for my beliefs and we’ll get along fine. What’s that phrase, oh yeah... we’re all God‘s children.
Actually made me have some respect for Ford of all things.
You know the old saw about opinions (and a**holes). I’m reading the story below and I’m thinking... great. A company tries treating people well and wind up getting boycotted for their trouble.
This is the whole bugaboo I’ve got with the ‘religion thing.’ Isn’t this the same thinking used to justify flying planes into the sides of buildings?
Whatever happened to live and let live?
A conservative Christian group launched a boycott against Ford Motor Co. Tuesday, saying the second-largest U.S. automaker has given thousands of dollars to gay rights groups, offers benefits to same-sex couples and actively recruits gay employees.
“From redefining family to include homosexual marriage, to giving hundreds of thousands of dollars to support homosexual groups and their agenda, to forcing managers to attend diversity training on how to promote the acceptance of homosexuality... Ford leads the way,” American Family Association chairman Donald Wildmon said in a statement.
Ford responded that it respects its customers and employees.
Every time I wind up in a discussion about THE LORD (there should be an accompanying thunderclap there, folks) with a person genuinely concerned about my salvation and saving my immortal soul, I find myself in a bit of a disconnect...
I’ve never had the audacity to possibly think I could speak for a supreme being (if there is one). Further, I find it hard believing even the most well-meaning and devout among us can say with 100% certainty they’re correct in the tenets of their belief system. There’s no theorem I know of which can be presented concretely proving a position in these things - one of the reasons it’s called faith no doubt.
faith
1. Confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing.
2. Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence. See Synonyms at belief. See Synonyms at trust.
3. Loyalty to a person or thing; allegiance: keeping faith with one's supporters.
4. often Faith Christianity. The theological virtue defined as secure belief in God and a trusting acceptance of God's will.
5. The body of dogma of a religion: the Muslim faith.
6. A set of principles or beliefs.
So, when I hear someone say (for example), “God is my biggest fan” or something like ”God wants us to (fill in the blank),” I have a tendency to switch out the word ‘God’ for the pronoun ‘I’ in these instances because I find it the height of self-aggrandizing behavior.
It’s because I’ve been around people a lot of my life who seem to equate going to worship as justification for some really bad behavior or as a way of managing to take an attitude of superiority towards others. When you look a bulk of history, you come to realize a lot of really nasty stuff has been done in God’s name, the kind of thing makes me a even more wary.
As for these people with the ‘Direct Connect,’ if it works for them, if it brings them comfort... hey I’m all for it. Just show me the same respect for my beliefs and we’ll get along fine. What’s that phrase, oh yeah... we’re all God‘s children.
Actually made me have some respect for Ford of all things.
May 30, 2005
TV and me...
So, I’m flipping channels today - 40 something channels and nothing on, you know the deal. Anyway, I come across an old time staple: I Dream of Jeannie. As I sit there for a second or two looking at the show, it occurs to me just how much things have changed.
First off, there was apparently a big to-do at the time about showing Barbara Eden’s belly button (if you can imagine). Of course, today we are in a time when showing her belly button certainly wouldn’t be much of a problem - we’d probably see butt crack if anything.
Still, as uptight as that may sound (the belly button thing) can you imagine the uproar over the show’s premise today? I can easily see groups out in protest and up in arms about the very concept of “Jeannie.” I imagine the protests would be along the lines of it being demeaning to women or disrespectful of Arab culture. Think about it, is it really that hard not to see that happening? To get Jeannie on the air today, you’d probably have to do one of two things: One, Major Nelson would have to be a women and Jeannie (Genie) would have to be a man or two, Major Nelson would be a man and Jeannie would be a man as well but he’d be gay.
Now, if somehow this should come to pass, I’m going out to find a lawyer and you saw it here first.
How about Hogan’s Heroes? Maybe we could update that for the Vietnam War? Naw, they probably wouldn’t buy that.
And of course, if you’re reading this and I’ve offended your delicate sensibilities - I apologize.
So, I’m flipping channels today - 40 something channels and nothing on, you know the deal. Anyway, I come across an old time staple: I Dream of Jeannie. As I sit there for a second or two looking at the show, it occurs to me just how much things have changed.
First off, there was apparently a big to-do at the time about showing Barbara Eden’s belly button (if you can imagine). Of course, today we are in a time when showing her belly button certainly wouldn’t be much of a problem - we’d probably see butt crack if anything.
Still, as uptight as that may sound (the belly button thing) can you imagine the uproar over the show’s premise today? I can easily see groups out in protest and up in arms about the very concept of “Jeannie.” I imagine the protests would be along the lines of it being demeaning to women or disrespectful of Arab culture. Think about it, is it really that hard not to see that happening? To get Jeannie on the air today, you’d probably have to do one of two things: One, Major Nelson would have to be a women and Jeannie (Genie) would have to be a man or two, Major Nelson would be a man and Jeannie would be a man as well but he’d be gay.
Now, if somehow this should come to pass, I’m going out to find a lawyer and you saw it here first.
How about Hogan’s Heroes? Maybe we could update that for the Vietnam War? Naw, they probably wouldn’t buy that.
And of course, if you’re reading this and I’ve offended your delicate sensibilities - I apologize.
It takes one to know one?
This jewel was passed along by Brian, does it mean you have to be an a**hole to be interested in a**holes?
“These are the actual certifying general surgery board questions with correct answers, guaranteed to improve your test score,” the auctioneer wrote in August 2004. “A friend of mine failed this written exam, paid the $100 sitting fee and flew to Philadelphia to review his test. ... Why take the chance at failing, getting a year behind your peers...? Get an advantage now!”
Craig Edward Amshel, a rectal specialist from St. Augustine, Fla., failed the 2002 exam. But, as was the practice at the time, he was later allowed to review his test, alone, at the board’s offices in downtown Philadelphia for several hours.
Makes one wonder about the qualifications of people who are poking around down there, doesn’t it?
This jewel was passed along by Brian, does it mean you have to be an a**hole to be interested in a**holes?
“These are the actual certifying general surgery board questions with correct answers, guaranteed to improve your test score,” the auctioneer wrote in August 2004. “A friend of mine failed this written exam, paid the $100 sitting fee and flew to Philadelphia to review his test. ... Why take the chance at failing, getting a year behind your peers...? Get an advantage now!”
Craig Edward Amshel, a rectal specialist from St. Augustine, Fla., failed the 2002 exam. But, as was the practice at the time, he was later allowed to review his test, alone, at the board’s offices in downtown Philadelphia for several hours.
Makes one wonder about the qualifications of people who are poking around down there, doesn’t it?
The more things change...
You notice, you never hear about women being addicted to internet porn. I just point it out because we are in denial in this country about attitudes towards sex and the sexes. If you don’t think that is the case, next time you hear a story about the teacher (female) who married her student - just swap out the genders and think about how the same story comes across (I also happen to like how the writer uses the gender neutral descriptor, “one partner” below when in fact there are no incidents of females cited).
There are many reasons couples break up, but a new, and increasingly common, one is that one partner becomes obsessed with Internet pornography. Now that porn is so easy to watch at home or at work, many men are spending enough time and energy on it that they drive their female partners to end the relationship. In fact, Internet porn has so changed American relationships that in a 2003 survey of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, more than half said the Internet played a “significant role” in divorces in the past year, and that online porn contributed to half of these cases. Once upon a time, a woman’s greatest fear was a good-looking, buxom blonde. These days, her greatest fear is thousands of them.
You notice, you never hear about women being addicted to internet porn. I just point it out because we are in denial in this country about attitudes towards sex and the sexes. If you don’t think that is the case, next time you hear a story about the teacher (female) who married her student - just swap out the genders and think about how the same story comes across (I also happen to like how the writer uses the gender neutral descriptor, “one partner” below when in fact there are no incidents of females cited).
There are many reasons couples break up, but a new, and increasingly common, one is that one partner becomes obsessed with Internet pornography. Now that porn is so easy to watch at home or at work, many men are spending enough time and energy on it that they drive their female partners to end the relationship. In fact, Internet porn has so changed American relationships that in a 2003 survey of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, more than half said the Internet played a “significant role” in divorces in the past year, and that online porn contributed to half of these cases. Once upon a time, a woman’s greatest fear was a good-looking, buxom blonde. These days, her greatest fear is thousands of them.
May 28, 2005
The incredible warranty...
The last week or so I’ve been doing the upgrade thing to the equipment I have around here. This is something I’ve put off for as long as I could but now I am left with no choice. It’s part of the process of getting all the ducks in a row - setting up the equipment the way I want it and upgrading everything too.
Well, I installed Tiger on my G4 dual which was very straightforward... and then the problems began.
Everytime Apple plugs their latest and greatest, they usually haven’t worked out all the kinks (as evidenced by all those ‘little’ 40 and 50mb maintenance releases). So, I installed Tiger and then all of a sudden I had a Tiger by the tail!
The machine would start up and a screen would come up telling me I had to restart.
Gggggrrrrreeeaaaaatttttttt.
Either I got the screen telling me very nicely I had to restart or I simply got a prompt up on screen. In the back of my mind, I hear the voice telling me that this was the inevitable outcome of upgrading and I wince.
I look around the piles of detritus which have clustered near my desk and among them I find a forgotten treasure. Suddenly, I am very thankful of my inclination to hoard. The book Mac OSX The Missing Manual is a godsend as I find the resources to begin troubleshooting my problem. In short order after thumbing through the index I am launching directly into terminal and entering the commands to run a disk check. All my results come back okay so, it’s more reading to see if I can discover the cause of my problem.
A bit later I am pulling cards out of the machine in a logical sequence trying to isolate the offending piece of hardware. At last, I discover the two memory chips I purchased way back when don’t play nice with the new big cat on the block. So, I pull them and now the tower is running with a less than awesome 128mb of RAM but, it’s booting up.
Somewhere in the back of my mind I’m remembering something about a lifetime warranty that comes with the memory. I dive into the mountains of paper I’ve saved and come across the packing slip/receipt from my memory purchase surprised it is dated ’01 (have four years really passed?!). I go online and find the vendor’s site, nose around for awhile, generally upset at the prospect of having to shell out money I don’t currently have for replacement chips.
On the odd chance there really is something like a lifetime warranty, I call the vendor and have a long discussion with one of their salesmen.
And... there is a lifetime warranty!
And... I’m not the only person who has been having these problems with Tiger (much to the consternation of chip vendors) as the memory checks it runs at startup cause a heap freeze and it’s a fairly common occurrence.
So the surprise of the day is the chips I purchased four years ago can be returned and the vendor will send out replacement parts within 48 hours! Simply amazing!
More on this after everything is done but I will plug the people Coast to Coast Memory at 18004memory.com
The last week or so I’ve been doing the upgrade thing to the equipment I have around here. This is something I’ve put off for as long as I could but now I am left with no choice. It’s part of the process of getting all the ducks in a row - setting up the equipment the way I want it and upgrading everything too.
Well, I installed Tiger on my G4 dual which was very straightforward... and then the problems began.
Everytime Apple plugs their latest and greatest, they usually haven’t worked out all the kinks (as evidenced by all those ‘little’ 40 and 50mb maintenance releases). So, I installed Tiger and then all of a sudden I had a Tiger by the tail!
The machine would start up and a screen would come up telling me I had to restart.
Gggggrrrrreeeaaaaatttttttt.
Either I got the screen telling me very nicely I had to restart or I simply got a prompt up on screen. In the back of my mind, I hear the voice telling me that this was the inevitable outcome of upgrading and I wince.
I look around the piles of detritus which have clustered near my desk and among them I find a forgotten treasure. Suddenly, I am very thankful of my inclination to hoard. The book Mac OSX The Missing Manual is a godsend as I find the resources to begin troubleshooting my problem. In short order after thumbing through the index I am launching directly into terminal and entering the commands to run a disk check. All my results come back okay so, it’s more reading to see if I can discover the cause of my problem.
A bit later I am pulling cards out of the machine in a logical sequence trying to isolate the offending piece of hardware. At last, I discover the two memory chips I purchased way back when don’t play nice with the new big cat on the block. So, I pull them and now the tower is running with a less than awesome 128mb of RAM but, it’s booting up.
Somewhere in the back of my mind I’m remembering something about a lifetime warranty that comes with the memory. I dive into the mountains of paper I’ve saved and come across the packing slip/receipt from my memory purchase surprised it is dated ’01 (have four years really passed?!). I go online and find the vendor’s site, nose around for awhile, generally upset at the prospect of having to shell out money I don’t currently have for replacement chips.
On the odd chance there really is something like a lifetime warranty, I call the vendor and have a long discussion with one of their salesmen.
And... there is a lifetime warranty!
And... I’m not the only person who has been having these problems with Tiger (much to the consternation of chip vendors) as the memory checks it runs at startup cause a heap freeze and it’s a fairly common occurrence.
So the surprise of the day is the chips I purchased four years ago can be returned and the vendor will send out replacement parts within 48 hours! Simply amazing!
More on this after everything is done but I will plug the people Coast to Coast Memory at 18004memory.com
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