10:59 – This morning, I’m doing laundry and my other usual Saturday tasks while Barbara continues with her annual Deep Clean. She’s working downstairs this morning. This afternoon and tomorrow we’ll do kit stuff. She’s off work Monday for the holiday, but has commitments for most of that day. Right now, she’s building 48 small parts bags for the chemistry kits.
During the relatively slow period through the end of April, I want to focus our kit efforts on getting as much as possible of the labor-intensive stuff complete to make it possible to knock out finished kits quickly during the summer and autumn rush. That’s mostly labeling and filling containers. So, after we finish building all of the kits we can with what’s currently in stock, the next step is to label and fill 60 sets of chemistry kit containers, followed by 30 sets each of biology kit and forensic science kit containers. That gives us some breathing room, which we’ll use to label (but not fill) more sets of containers. In addition to finished goods inventory, I’d like to start July with at least 300 labeled container sets for the chemistry kits, 150 for biology kits, and 90 for forensic science kits, with at least half of them filled.
30-degree heat wave up here today and brisk winds blowing snow around. Deep Clean on the kitchen today.
And exactly 59.5 years old, could last another forty years or another forty seconds, no one knows, LOL.
My Dad sent this to me this morning, any truth to it?
“It appears to me that we should join the current hysteria and suggest the evidence shows that all registered Democrats should be confiscated.”
“We know who they are – they’re registered!”
“Why is it that those who steal guns, who then go and kill movie goers and children in school have never been a conservative NRA member?”
“Ft Hood -Registered Democrat – Muslim”
“Columbine -Too young to vote; both families were registered Democrats and progressive liberals”
“Virginia Tech -Wrote hate mail to President Bush and to his staff – Registered Democrat”
“Colorado Theater -Registered Democrat; staff worker on the Obama campaign; Occupy Wall Street participant; progressive liberal”
“Connecticut School Shooter -Registered Democrat; hated Christians”
“Common thread is that all of these shooters were progressive liberal Democrats. INTERESTING…,isn’t it?”
Sounds fairly plausible.
On Salon the other day (Salon is a hard-left/liberal/Dem online rag) a person put forth the proposition that in order to save the nation and humanity, it would be best to start exterminating conservatives.
And on FaceBook there has been growing realization among conservatives there that we are becoming more radically polarized in this country and that there is just no talking to, or possibility of reasoned, rational discourse with, the other side. As I have said here before and elsewhere, half the country is outraged at where the country is at today, and the other half is outraged at their outrage.
I would add, however, that the conservative side possesses the vastly larger proportion of firearms and ammunition, combat veterans, and cops.
And those trained and practiced to use the firearms they possess.
Motorola is another once fine company, ruined by top execs. They were a major provider for the telekom industry—transmitters for the phone companies, in addition to cell phones, walkie-talkies, and all that,—but my friend at the phone company says they dumped Motorola quite a few years back because their stuff crapped out all the time and needed many man hours of attention to keep working. So Siemens is now king of them all, he says.
Anyway, my Motorola PEBL phone is now 6 years old, and suffers from sporadic weirdness. Sometimes it does not ring—or even tell me someone called (nothing new added to the list of recent calls, even though someone left a voicemail), but sends them instead, directly to the VM. The phone is so basic, it does not possess the capability to reject calls or use different rings for different people, so the problem is nothing like me somehow classifying the call as one that should not get through (I wish I could block calls). Since I returned to the US, I have been on pay-as-you-go, and my usage has slowly crept up to an average of $77/mo. That, coupled with the problems in the phone itself, has caused me to look around.
So I’m switching carriers and getting a smartphone. It’s a Samsung Galaxy S3 and just arrived yesterday. I’m like a little kid waiting for Xmas, as I cannot activate the new phone yet, because there are still several hours on the old account, and switching immediately would cause me to lose all that time, and with cell phones, time is money.
These smartphones are damned big. The Galaxy S3 is essentially the same size as the very first cell phone I owned, an Ericsson that would work in both the US and with GSM signals in Europe. The PEBL was small enough that it easily fit into the watch pocket of my pants. I guess if I accommodated the Ericsson, I can make do with the S3, but it is going to take some getting used to. In any event, I will be finding out come late next week.
Best thing about this switch is that my monthly expenses will be going down by about $30/mo, and I will be getting Internet access that I have not previously had. It pays to check around occasionally, where money is involved.
I’ve seen online reviews that give the S3 glowing reports/grades. I will be in the market shortly myself for a new phone as my current very basic model is starting to crap out on me. Let us know the blow by blow, Chuck, as you get it going.
I ain’t looking to play games on it or surf the web but would be nice to check email, newsfeeds, and otherwise just really basic phone, maybe with Evernote on it, since I have it on this Ubuntu machine via WINE.
During Nixon’s time, the country was probably 60% conservative. During Bush 43, this dropped to 52%. Now we are at 48% conservative and still trending down slowly.
And the House is negotiating with the President over a budget that is $1.2T to $1.0T deficit in spending. People actually believe that we can spend this kind of deficit forever with no consequences. Rush calls these people low information voters. I do not know if he came up with the term but it is fairly accurate IMHO.
I am wondering if we will hit 40% conservative. That may coincide with the point of massive unemployment and massive deficit spending ($2T to $3T deficit/year). At that point the government will be desperate for revenue, seizing 401Ks and IRAs for the “new” government retirement program. Or, will the pendulum swing back at some point? Despair is a sin but I think not.
My Dad carries an S3. He likes it a lot but it is a battery burning dude.
I carry a Motorola Bionic tied to Verizon. Great phone but expensive service with wifi hotspot ($110/month).
So how many people are off for Monday? My staff and I are working! Gotta pay thems taxes so they can redistribute them to poor people.
I’d like to have Monday off but I don’t think the boss would like it.
A couple of years ago I switched from an Australian company called Optus to a local Canberra company called TransACT. I’d been on a $19/month plan but had frequently gone over $30/month while making very few calls. Optus also used the stick approach – pay-online-each-month-via-our-complicated-online-system or we’ll slug you $2 extra. Transact gave me a new phone, charged $29/month and even on months where I make a lot of calls I never go over. And they use the carrot approach: I pay automatically – one time setup and get $2 off. A real no brainer.
During the changeover the Optus rep asked if there was anything they could do to get me to stay. I didn’t know where to start.
Lynn wrote:
“And the House is negotiating with the President over a budget that is $1.2T to $1.0T deficit in spending.”
Haven’t you heard? The trillion dollar platinum coin will solve everything!
We got our first contract cell phones in, IIRC, 1989. We stayed on contract phones for 10 or 12 years and then switched over to pay-as-you-go phones at $0.10/minute. On 1 November of last year, Boost Mobile doubled their rates to $0.20/minute. I bought a clamshell phone from PlatinumTel at $0.05/minute. When the airtime on Barbara’s Boost Mobile phone ran out last month, we let the Boost Mobile phone die and I gave her my PlatinumTel phone, which she’s very happy with.
With all the stuff going on with her parents over the last month, she’s been using that phone much more heavily than usual. Even so, I just added more airtime yesterday, and found she’d used only about $10 worth of airtime in the last month.
PlatinumTel sells only refurbished phones, and which models they offer varies from day to day. Ever since I gave Barbara my clamshell I’ve been keeping an eye on which models they have available. I’m still waiting for them to offer a clamshell. Once they do, I’ll order a replacement for myself.
No coverage available for poor ol’ OFD up here on the frontier with PTel. Only games around for us seem to be Verizon and AT&T. But I haven’t really researched this yet. We’ve had Verizon for the cells and Fairpoint for the landline and internet for several years now and zero complaints. Costly, though.
I am dropping Verizon in April of this year and going with Straightalk. Unlimited voice, text and data. Coverage is more than good enough. I will be replacing my Droid with an IPhone 5. I want the IPhone as it will integrate with my IPad quite nicely. I will also be able to buy a nano sim when I am in Europe in May and have a phone while in Europe.
The Galaxy is a more capable phone in my opinion. But the features that is has that the IPhone does not have, or work better than the IPhone, are features that I will not use. Integration is more important. The size of the IPhone is also not quite as large as the Galaxy which is not a deal breaker. The cost of the devices is about the same.
Going with prepaid I can break even on the initial high cost of the phone in 13 months. I keep a phone for more than two years so anything beyond the 13 months is just money saved.
Straighttalk uses AT&T network so anywhere there is AT&T I will have coverage. Verizon is CDMA and AT&T is GSM (or is it the other way around?). Verizon phones will not work in Europe. Other than that I have had zero complaints against Verizon as the service has been really good. My son is with Straighttalk on AT&T and he has had no issues.
The landscape is changing. My telecom friend says everyone worldwide will be G4/LTE within 2 years—maybe faster. Europe is still predominantly GSM, but Deutsche Telekom now has an LTE network, so my Galaxy will work with them when I am there. G4 is finally the first protocol that everyone has agreed on. My own feeling is that the change will accelerate, and force old technology out, requiring people with old phones to upgrade. The IDEN network has already been virtually shut down, and CDMA will be next. The phone companies are not warning anyone of this; it just happens and when you go into the store or call, they tell you they have shut down systems that affect you, and that is why you cannot make calls on your old cellphone anymore.
Daughter has an iPhone 4 and claims it changed her life from her previous do-nothing Nokia. She works in graphics at retail stores, and can send pictures of her work for approval while at the location, instead of having to bring pictures back for approval, then having to make another trip to the location to change/implement it. Another of the reasons I am changing is that there are 3 of us that manage things at the radio project remotely when things go wrong, and that requires a smartphone. Wish this technology had existed decades ago, but it sure is good to be alive while it’s here. I have noted before that it is dead certain that if iPods had existed when I was still in secondary school, I would definitely have flunked out. As it was, my mind seriously challenged my concentration by playing songs over and over in my head with no sound source around. Somehow, I managed to focus more on the work at university, but by then I was working in my chosen industry, not just imagining it.
Lynn McGuire says:
During Nixon’s time, the country was probably 60% conservative. During Bush 43, this dropped to 52%. Now we are at 48% conservative and still trending down slowly.
Frankly,—and I know you won’t want to hear it,—I blame Republicans for their own loss of conservative voters and for literally destroying the conservative movement. They have allowed themselves to be co-opted by the far right-wing nutcases, and that is not where the majority of people’s sentiments lay. If you follow Noam Chomsky at all, he really seeks out and digests study data of voter sentiment, and I trust his analysis of research implicitly—he is the only one who seems to usefully analyze data these days.
Bottom line is that Democrats are more center these days than Republicans—and if you are not in the center, you have not got a chance. Health care is a good example. Something over 80% of Americans want health care fixed, available and affordable for everyone. What have Republicans done? Objected to anything and everything that came along, and refused to do a thing to bring us closer to other Western and advanced Asian countries, where everyone has a health card and access to healthcare if they need it. Heck, every time I set foot in a doctor’s office, it costs me $85 (much more if they do an EKG), regardless of the fact I am now on Medicare and pay a couple hundred a month for additional private insurance (more additionally, actually, than I paid per month for ALL my healthcare insurance in Germany–which FULLY covered ALL heath expenses except drugs and those were super-cheap compared to the US, including covering eyes and teeth that Medicare and my private supplement does not). Between last month and this month, I will have been in a doctor’s office 6 times because they are experimenting with changes to my medication and must check the results every other week. Thus that $85 a visit adds up to significant money when one is almost retired and bringing in just above a poverty level wage. So Nobama comes along and does SOMETHING, regardless of whether you like it or not, and moves ahead on an issue American voters think is important, while all Republicans do is complain. Reverse Nobama Care? Not a snowball’s chance with the electorate. Thus, as Chomsky points out, it is not surprising that Nobama gets re-elected. Who wants do-nothing conservatives running the country, who are way too far right of center?
Conservatives are not ever going to be a factor in American life again if their politicians don’t quit bitching and get to work doing something. They are not even effective, articulate, or consistent opposition to Nobama. My gawd, Carly Fiorina would do a better job than John Boehner, and you know what I think of her. I have pointed here to the voting record of people elected on the Tea Party coattails, and the majority have voted the opposite of what they promised. That is doing conservatives a world of harm, and it IS noticed by voters. No wonder people are no longer interested in what conservatives are offering. Hopefully, it will benefit Libertarians, who actually do what they promise, once in office.
Lynn McGuire says:
So how many people are off for Monday? My staff and I are working! Gotta pay thems taxes so they can redistribute them to poor people.
Legal profession does not work on any holiday, mainly because the courts are closed, so I will be observing. One thing I noticed is that Europeans take holidays much more seriously than Americans. My own feeling is that is due to the fact that European holidays coincide with religious observances, which US holidays do not. I believe that gives people a double cause to take the day off—aside from their blue laws, which often prohibit business and store openings. Easter was one of my favorite times of the year, because it was a four-day weekend stretching from Good Friday through Easter Monday. Stores were open only on Saturday.
ML King day has never been treated as a real holiday, IMO, and I believe that is because of holdover race issues. I remember when it was first instituted, older white people around me openly claimed they would never observe that day, because ‘no holiday should be named after a black man.’ Of course, racism is still alive and well in Tiny Town, where you can count the number of blacks on one hand. Fortunately, young kids don’t go along with that, and things are much better in Indy, which has always been a well-integrated city.
Personally, after experiencing holidays in Germany, I would like to see the blue laws return which forced closings. It is not good for body or mind to ignore downtime with family. And Germany’s 6 weeks of vacation is just about right.
“The phone companies are not warning anyone of this; it just happens and when you go into the store or call, they tell you they have shut down systems that affect you, and that is why you cannot make calls on your old cellphone anymore.”
What a country! (there, fixed that for ya!)
And just for the record; I do not consider guys like Boehner, the Tea Party clowns, the RINOs, or the so-called ‘extreme-right-wing’ people in the Stupid Half of the War/Money Party to be genuine conservatives.
Patrick Buchanan, the late Sam Francis, the late Joe Sobran, American historian Clyde Wilson, the folks at Chronicles magazine and the Rockford Institute, are genuine conservatives.
“I would like to see the blue laws return which forced closings. It is not good for body or mind to ignore downtime with family. And Germany’s 6 weeks of vacation is just about right.”
Agreed!
Frankly,—and I know you won’t want to hear it,—I blame Republicans for their own loss of conservative voters and for literally destroying the conservative movement. They have allowed themselves to be co-opted by the far right-wing nutcases, and that is not where the majority of people’s sentiments lay.
There are two kinds of conservatives: social and fiscal. My father is a social conservative and I am a fiscal conservative. Somehow, the social conservatives co-opted the Republican party in the 1990s. The fiscal conservatives got tossed under the bus. I blame Newt Gingrich.
The fiscal conservatives are in full charge here in Texas. I hope that they manage to stay in power and they are doing well even as Texas transfers to minority majority in the next couple of years. Otherwise we will follow the rest of the states down the spending rat-hole quickly. Every time of these idiots campaigns on a state income tax, their other party members (both sides) take them out to the whipping shed. I figure that we are least 10 years away from having a state income tax here. Do it for the children!
Health care is a good example. Something over 80% of Americans want health care fixed, available and affordable for everyone.
Me too. I would love to stop writing that $6,000 check each month for health insurance for me and my employees.
How are you going to pay for this level of service? Are you willing to pay an extra $5.00/gal gasoline and diesel tax? That is how England, France and Germany pay for their excess health care costs. TANSTAAFL! Do it for the children!
Personally, after experiencing holidays in Germany, I would like to see the blue laws return which forced closings. It is not good for body or mind to ignore downtime with family. And Germany’s 6 weeks of vacation is just about right.
Having been stuck in Germany on a Sunday evening looking for diesel on the autobahn, I did not properly appreciate the stations closing at 4pm. I learned my lesson that night and had a very kind motorist take me to the hidden station 10km off the autobahn so I could buy a gallon of diesel to take back to my car. Never again did I let my tank get below the halfway point with all their crazy retail laws.
Why not 9 weeks of vacation a year? 12 weeks? 15 weeks?
I have to admit, I would like 6 weeks of vacation each year. But, who would service my customers those extra 3 to 4 weeks a year? It is none of the government’s business how many holidays (9 per year), vacation days (10 to 15 based on service) and sick days (up to 7 per year) that I give my employees. I already have hundreds of labor laws and taxes that I have to comply with and I have a small business. I shudder to think what the 25 employee and 50 employee businesses are going through.
I am a radical fiscal conservative and a moderate, mostly live-and-let-live social conservative, insofar as my traditionalist Roman Catholic beliefs allow.
And I still want them six weeks of vay-cay. If the Euros in the northern tier can manage nicely with their economies and industries, then I don’t see why we can’t also, and liberate ourselves from at least some of the tired old Calvinist/Puritan DNA in our system.
OFD reflects my view. I lived for nearly 10 years with the customs and laws in Germany, and frankly, found them preferable to what we have here. And they figured out how to schedule people and work so stuff got done and people still had their 6 weeks of vacation. As the German saying goes, “plan your work then work your plan,” and somehow it all gets done with 6 weeks of vacation for everyone in that plan. And Germany has had an enviable economy throughout its history. Germans are every bit the workaholics Americans are, but the main difference is that they demand and value their time off—work hard, play hard. They do not believe it is healthy to not have down time away from work, and most people I knew had their vacations planned—and often paid for—2 to 3 years in advance. And they live longer than Americans do, so who can say it is not a better way?
I can imagine that not finding a gas station that was open was a shock, but again, I fault that mistaken American ideal that the whole world operates the same way we do—and ought to. When we first arrived in 2001, ALL stores, including groceries were open only until 5:30pm, except on Thursdays when most stayed open until 8:00pm. Restaurants were—and still are—open from noon to midnight. Saturdays, stores were open from 8:00 or 9:00am to 1:00pm. Everybody made do with that. But Americans were shocked by it. What? I can’t jump in the car and go to Walmart or Kroger at 2:00am and get a loaf of bread and some peanut butter?
As the years progressed, stores stayed open later—groceries until 7:00pm, and the big retail stores until 8:00pm on weekdays. Saturday hours were extended until 5:00pm most everywhere except banks and government services. One thing about the Germans (and other Europeans) is that they will not tolerate small unneeded expenses. Just as many businesses and restaurants there will not accept credit cards unless the bill is €100 or more, manufacturers like Siemens will use free Linux in their modems/routers instead of paying M$ or someone else $2 a unit for a proprietary OS. That $2 is a deal-breaker for them. Neither will they keep stores open during hours when they are not profitable. Walmart and Kroger may figure it is worth it to lose money all night long, but you won’t find the Europeans wasting money like that.
The other thing Americans always found intolerable is that many government offices—and even places like insurance agents and real estate offices—were not open to the public except on certain days. The place where I needed to go to get my driver’s license was only open on Tuesday and Wednesday. No other days. Some offices were only open a few hours a day, and those hours were often not consistent through the week. Employees were still working on the closed days, but just not doing the work of interfacing with the public.
Regarding paying for it, I think America is not tackling the right end of this. Instead of trying to figure out how to come up with huge funds to finance our existing medical system costs, and throwing up hands saying it’s impossible, let’s figure out how to cut those costs to match what Germany’s—and the rest of Europe’s—are. Instead of paying doctors hundreds of thousands a year, let’s pay them what tenured teachers in the US make. As I have mentioned several times before, my doctor daughter in-law makes the equivalent amount to a tenured teacher in Germany, not hundreds of thousands. That gross overpaying nonsense needs to stop. No doctor anywhere in the world makes the incredibly outrageous sums US doctors do. Same goes for CEO’s. As I have pointed out here before, the Financial Times did a study just before the financial collapse. CEO pay compared to average employee pay was 12x in Japan, 11x in Germany, 411x in the US.
As far as I know, Germany’s healthcare is funded directly, not through ancillary things like fuel taxes. The overwhelming bulk of it is paid by citizens and their employers. Granted, it ain’t cheap. Most Germans told me that half their income went to healthcare and taxes, and they lived on the other half. My healthcare was not that high, but less than I pay now for supplemental insurance—and I STILL have to pay out of pocket money! As I have noted before, Germany somehow funds a strong middle-class—almost everyone in Berlin earns between €45,000 and €65,000/yr. Rents in Berlin are almost half of what they are in a typical US big city, like Indianapolis, Cincinnati, St. Louis, etc. So it does not cost as much to live. Fresh food is also cheaper—both in groceries and restaurants. I pay as much for a crappy lunch in Tiny Town as I paid for something like a fabulous and generous Thai or Indian lunch in Berlin. A Döner Kebap (similar to a Gyro) was €1.50; a Subway sandwich was half there what I pay here for the exact same thing—and the Subway bread there is better than here.
Fuel here is still cheaper, but as I have maintained, our way of personal transportation for everyone is going to collapse. Already is, as it is perfectly clear around Indiana that we cannot afford to maintain the roads necessary for personal transportation to be viable. No country is rich enough to provide what it takes for personal-transportation-for-everyone to be viable, and the days that this country was rich enough to support it are clearly coming to an end—or already over. Big problem is that we COMPLETELY dismantled the public transportation infrastructure, along with the neighborhood retail system that supports a public transportation infrastructure. Going to be interesting to see how that one plays out, but my guess is that a LOT of people are going to be left without personal transportation while the 15 years or more to re-establish a system of mass transit transpires. But that’s a whole ‘nother topic.
I think necessities like petrol stations on the autobahn should be open 24×7 but I don’t need to go grocery shopping at 3 AM, which I used to be able to do here in Oz for a while a few years back.
I also like my time off. I get 4 weeks a year annual leave, until recently I also took a hit on my salary to “purchase” an extra 8 weeks per year. I also get 13 weeks long service leave every 10 years. I used to work overtime in the Eighties and Nineties, now I don’t. I want my free time to be free and I don’t need the dough.
A doctor in Adelaide I know was telling my sister she gets $1000 for a two hour shift on weekends. I couldn’t believe it. Even I’d be tempted by that amount of dough, if it was scheduled. I don’t like being called in though. I was called at 4.20 AM on Saturday morning for a computer related problem. The usual guy was uncontactable so I was the one they called. Five hours at double time was no recompense for wrecking my Saturday.
I am willing to listen, learn and adopt whatever ideas that are working for Germans and other Europeans if they can be made to work here, but without the constant micromanaging by Our Nanny the Almighty State which has become our lot here. Everything the State touches turns to shit, sooner or later.
But I fear, and rightly so, that most of my fellow Americans have no inkling of how things work in Europe, nor do they care. If it happens outside this country, they couldn’t care less, other than whatever sensationalist crap the media puts in front of them.
One quick example: the news sources here suck rocks. We are lied to constantly, and when they’re not lying, they’re trying to sell us junk we don’t need at exorbitant prices manufactured by Red Chinese slave labor. So I mention on another infamous and huge ‘board’ that I find the news rendered by such as Russia Today and Al Jazeera more reliable, interesting and accurate than what we can find in our own country. Well—-you would have thought I’d just advocated public child molestation and murdered my grandmother on the city hall steps. Faced with this kind of willful and jingo ignorance, I have nought but despair, which I know is a sin. (a combat vet of three U.S. wars and I was accused of being a KGB agent!)
So let me get this straight, greg down under; you get three months a year off now, and every ten years you get six months off. You bloomin sybarite! Wait till my fellow Calvinist Puritans hear about this outrage!
From May I’ll be getting 12 months a year off… 🙂
Exactly right on both the news front and the American non-interest in anything that is not strictly American. God forbid anyone outside of the USA should have a good idea that we could use. I have mentioned here before that I was shocked to learn in Volkshochschule that the European view is that Europeans invented the automobile, the telephone, and the television significantly before Americans did. Americans just figured out how to commercially exploit those inventions when the Europeans struggled with that.
I learn more useful news about America from European news sources than American these days. But that is no surprise, as newspapers are dying an horrible death. The Indianapolis newspaper is now edited in Louisville. No wonder they miss half the news the TV stations report.
Although I push the limits here, I cannot speak my mind with people around me, EXCEPT with the few who have lived abroad for some years. People get really livid when they are confronted with the concept that the US may not have a corner on the good life. Bureaucracy takes time and 3 trips on each issue in Germany, but life is FAR more of a hassle in the US than when I was living in Berlin. Life was fun, there; it ain’t here. And those who I run into who have recently returned from years of living in Europe, say the same thing. A young couple who recently returned from several years living in the UK, specifically because she was pregnant and the grandmother wanted to be around when the child was born, said if they knew how difficult things were going to be here, they would have moved the grandmother to England.
Love it or leave it, ha, ha, and the rich have been leaving in droves for the last few years. Gee, they must know something. Or, like Chuck in Tiny Town, have lived abroad for a while and know the score: the Universe does not revolve around America and so-called American exceptionalism, a dangerous notion. We need to ditch Wilsonian ideas of enlightened democratic empire and fix the mess at home, and if we can steal some ideas from the Euros, or God forbid, the Asians, let us get about it forthwith.
The mythological facade is beginning to crumble around the edges….
Oh, there’s nothing imaginary about American Exceptionalism. It’s just that right now it’s under the yoke of an oppressive government.
When I read Chuck and OFDs comments on American exceptionalism I am debating what to say. I will agree that the notion of American exceptionalism as some kind of mythical or supernatural thing is without merit. But ordinary Americans used to be free to do exceptional things.
Just as an example, Dr. Richard K. Bernstein has rewritten the book on how to treat diabetes. He voraciously devoured all the information he could because he was literally sick and tired of listening to his doctor telling him his health problems had nothing to do with his diabetes. So he experimented on a human subject (himself) and found out what worked better than his doctor’s advice. By monitoring his blood sugar, splitting his daily insulin injection into multiple shots and changing his diet he got consistently normal blood sugar readings. Strangely all his health problems vanished.
Even though he accomplished all these things, nobody would listen to him. After years of being completely ignored, he gave up and decided to go to medical school. Today, diabetics routinely test their blood sugar, and give themselves multiple (smaller) insulin injections per day. Bernstein’s diet advice to minimize the consumption of carbohydrates is still largely ignored.
I may be wrong, but I don’t see Richard Bernstein’s story happening in Europe. I’m not sure if it still could happen in the United States. In fact with Obamacare, I’m wondering if Bernstein’s unconventional diet will be prohibited because it is non-standard.
From the Wiki:
“American exceptionalism is the proposition that the United States is different from other countries in that it has a specific world mission to spread liberty and democracy.”
I vehemently and strenuously disagree with this mission, as stated.
“Although the term does not necessarily imply superiority, many neoconservative and American conservative writers have promoted its use in that sense.[4][8] To them, the United States is like the biblical “shining city on a hill,” and exempt from historical forces that have affected other countries.”
This is where I have been hearing it for many years now, and again, I strenuously and vehemently object to this idea. Our “shining city on a hill” (stolen from John Winthrop’s bloviating) is now Detroit. Then we have the giant can of worms that was “Manifest Destiny.” And Princeton professor Woodrow Wilson, followed by Pharaohs Roosevelt I and II.
Point taken, however, that whatever good it may have once meant, it is now under the onerous yoke of a corporate fascist oligarchy. Point also taken, from Dave B., on the Bernstein story extrapolated to the larger national scene now; I also seriously doubt whether he or anyone else could replicate his experience again. As I do that of my late dad, who was a senior supervising mechanical engineer who never graduated from high school. What he did now requires from the guild at least a Master’s and preferably a doctorate.
I don’t have a problem with Sunday shopping or 24/7 grocery stores. While I might not need to buy groceries at 3AM, perhaps shift workers do? I once bought diapers (for my kids, Greg, not for me!) at 2 AM, and was very, very, VERY glad to have that option!
I remember my mother complaining about this when I was young. She worked 9-5 Monday through Friday, and since the grocery stores closed at 6 pm weekdays and all day Sunday, she had only Saturday to buy groceries for the next week. My local grocer is open 8AM to 10PM, and they’re pretty steady all night. The WalMart in town tried 24/7, but didn’t get the customer base and went back to their previous schedule (same as the grocer).
Who would have known that OFD was in reality a deep, deep cover mole for the KGB? Old Farmer Davynsky, huh?
However, I quite agree with Al-Jazeera and Russian news stations as being a better source for news than the Canadian and American stations.
“However, I quite agree with Al-Jazeera and Russian news stations as being a better source for news than the Canadian and American stations.”
And now, having already been outed as a deep-cover KGB mole myself, Bill from BC outs himself, too!
Приятно снова видеть вас, товарищ, мы вместе будем бороться с революцией!
I didn’t know you spoke Bulgarian with a Montenegrin accent.
As agent-warriors for Mother Russia we are called upon to communicate the revolution in all parts of the world, you running-dog capitalist lackey!
On a tenuously related note, I see that the Google honcho Schmidt visited North Korea recently with his daughter and they were a little nonplussed by the staged bullshit that those dick-heads specialize in, LOL. Mission Not Accomplished, if it meant the opening up and evolution of the place…
I thought of my great uncle on my mom’s side who was a patent lawyer. I’m not sure of the family history, but I don’t think he ever went to law school. I believe he read the books and took the exam, and passed. I don’t even know if he went to college.
Or of my paternal grandfather, who in his mid forties decided to take the GED. I don’t know if he ever went to high school. My aunt kept offering to help him study for it. He ignored her advice and took the test without studying. He passed the first time.
It was that way until pretty recently in North Carolina. Anyone could take the bar exam. No requirement for attending law school. If you passed, you passed. Also until pretty recently, judges in North Carolina didn’t have to be attorneys. I wish it were still that way. In fact, I wish attorneys were prohibited from becoming judges. Or elected officials of any sort.
In fact, I wish attorneys were prohibited from becoming judges. Or elected officials of any sort.
Seconded on attorneys prohibited becoming elected officials. All in favor say aye?
yeah, aye.
Here in the northern frontier state of Vermont you can still “read law,” i.e., study with a mentor lawyer and then take the bah at some point. Although we do have a law skool, where the big concentration is “environmental law.”
AYE!
Or as they say in the old country, DA!
Ja!
Indiana, Illinois, and Ohio all allowed one to take the bar without law school until recently. Of course, old Abe Lincoln, who destroyed the Republican party, never attended law school but passed whatever the test was back in those days—if they even had one.
Comically (or maybe not) a friend of a friend in Indy went to law school, never finished, but just started practicing. He did pretty well, so I am told. Even his wife did not know he never graduated or took the bar. Something went wrong somewhere, he was investigated, and landed in jail for a few years.
Personally, I don’t think law school should be a prerequisite to become a lawyer. I have a friend who taught himself law after taking a handsome early retirement from Lucent, which is likely why they never amounted to much. He writes briefs for attorneys, and has done pro-se work for his favorite charity, of which he was a part, so he could actually represent them. I have read his briefs and they are outstanding. Why should he have to go to law school? He told me that in his state he would have to go through all 3 years of law school and graduate to be eligible to take the bar.
I do not think schooling should be required for any profession that tests for qualification—except maybe medical. No lives are at stake in the law; only souls.
“…old Abe Lincoln, who destroyed the Republican party…”
Um, how did he do that when he died in 1865 and the Republican Party was doing quite nicely well into the 1990s?
The walking dead, carrying the same name as before.
Some of the licensing requirements for certain occupations don’t make sense. To cut hair, someone needs over a year of training on average. To be an emergency medical technician requires much less training.
bgrigg says:
I don’t have a problem with Sunday shopping or 24/7 grocery stores. While I might not need to buy groceries at 3AM, perhaps shift workers do? I once bought diapers (for my kids, Greg, not for me!) at 2 AM, and was very, very, VERY glad to have that option!
I am not advocating blue laws for anything but holidays. If a business like Walmart wants to stay open 24 hours so they can lose money during the overnight—that should be their choice. But conversely, I do not think anyone should be forced to stay open longer than they deem necessary, nor should Americans get upset when they find the rest of the world is not willing to stay open into the wee hours to lose money.
We had a K-Mart in Tiny Town until just before I moved back. The woman who managed it was a family friend (everybody knows everybody here). They stayed open until 9:00pm every night but Sunday. She said they lost money staying open that late on every night except Friday. The store was packed on Friday nights, but it was also their biggest shoplifting night.
On the other hand, there is an office supply store in Tiny Town that closes at 4:00pm. Well, they will never get business from me, because I do my work day first, then buy stuff after hitting the post office just before the 5:00pm pickup. Last summer, I thought I would shop at that store to buy a couple things after the PO run. That’s when I found out they closed at 4:00pm. Not only did *I* find that out, but so did another person who came up to the door to read the ‘closed’ sign at the same time as me. While we were both commenting on the early closing, a woman who works at the bank 2 doors down passed by on the way to her car and saw us. “He does deliveries at 4:00,” she said. Okay. Over to Walmart with me.
I really don’t understand this whole discussion. We don’t and shouldn’t get to say when a business chooses to be open. That’s a business decision. We can vote with our dollars, certainly, if we don’t like the hours a particular business chooses to be open, but otherwise why should we have anything to say about it?
Also, Wal*Mart didn’t get where it is by being stupid. If keeping the store open 24 hours is profitable for them, they’ll do it. Otherwise, they won’t. I don’t care what they do. I buy most things on-line nowadays anyway. Stuff we buy locally is never urgent, other than possibly medications. We plan ahead for most of our local purchases. Most of those we do on Costco runs, and Barbara goes to the supermarket and drugstore every week or two for perishables, prescriptions, and so on.
And why should we have blue laws at all, on holidays or otherwise? Your holiday may be my work day, and vice versa. If you’re concerned about the employees, well, they don’t have to work there if they don’t like the hours they have to work.
The everybody knows everybody here thing is something I still haven’t gotten used to about Smallville. Actually it’s more everybody knows everybody but me. I had to call somebody out to look at our furnace earlier this winter. I left a message for the guy since it was over the weekend. He called back Monday morning asking if we still needed service. We did, so I had to tell him where I live and who I was. I should have had my wife call instead. Might have even gotten faster service. Maybe not, since they might not know my wife’s new last name. New as in she just got married in 2007.
And why should we have blue laws at all, on holidays or otherwise? Your holiday may be my work day, and vice versa. If you’re concerned about the employees, well, they don’t have to work there if they don’t like the hours they have to work.
Exactly.
BTW, back when I was a junior engineer at Morgan Creek Steam Electric Station, we were told many times that the labor laws did not apply to us white hats. Usually when I was working 6 days per week, 12 hours per day. Straight salary. Got alternate weekends off though!