of job descriptions
The terms, “Excellent Opportunities” and “Comprehensive Benefits Package”…
these do not mean what you think they mean.
Opportunity and Benefit for whom?
of - “and why did you move here?”
a recent exchange after I posted:
MAP: This Would Be Why The U.S. Isn’t Really Considered A ‘Grown-Up’ Country
which raised the titular question.
“There are some good things about Universal Healthcare, but, certainly in the UK, there are problems. Perhaps approaching it from the position of not having will make for a better system. But the costs of procedures and the way insurance companies behave really needs to be addressed.
You know where you are here. To much chicanery behind the scenes over there. If you spent Sunday afternoon watching old black and white films - as we did in the UK - and watched as the likes of Andy Griffith or Jimmy Stewart uncover nefarious deeds by the rich guy that was trying to buy up the town and all the land, you are well prepared. I just wish more people would open their eyes and see the ‘Emperors’ are standing there ‘stark-bollock-naked’
In the run up to the 2010 General Election in the UK they had a televised debate for the three party leaders in the style of the US Presidential Debates.
What I thought worked much better was the one-on-one interviews with Jeremy Paxman. Two chairs on a strip of carpet. A little side-table for a glass of water. No distractions apart from lights for the pillars in the background. No audience to play to. No opponent to interrupt or to be interrupted by, no opponent to lead the response or berate. No opportunity for cheat-sheets.
The leader would be asked a question, and he answered. Simple.
OF POLITICS or rather OF MY POLITICS
If you know me and see on Facebook, you know I can get over-involved in the politics of of the Nation I am making home. You may even have noticed a theme occurring here. How did I get here, how did I arrive at my somewhere in between Nelson Mandela and the Dali Lama left-of-centre social-liberal place in the very broad politically diverse melting-pot that is the United states of America. After all, aren’t we supposed to swing to the right as we age?
I have not compromised my likes or tastes to conform to ‘norms’, and I am always relieved and amused when I see others my age who have not contrived to be something different, even when wearing a suit. I have seen a few former contemporaries who have dressed-up and shed their former selves so completely that even their facial features lie. Worse still are those, so unhappy with where they came from they have spent their lives shifting from one facade to another - one minute, pinning a picture of a TVR cut from a magazine to a cork-board as inspiration to sell AMWAY product to anyone that asks, ‘what’s that?’, the next, pouring over a heavy tome on the use of a computer and understanding the internet in order to embrace the new technology behind the cash registers.
I feel I was both lucky and unlucky to have been somewhat insulated from the real world. Apart from a lack of serious ‘political’ discussion, we didn’t have 24hr news so there was little time for in depth analysis. I don’t only think it would have messed my head up and turned me into an angry young man, but it would have pitted me against my father; likely once too many times. Sadly, what I didn’t know was, at the time, reading the Daily Mail was only one place above sitting by a playground and behaving in an inappropriate manner. Perhaps if I had left home and fended for myself instead of slipping comfortably into co-habitation and marriage I would have been more aware of what was going on. The students coming out of university were disaffected and shocked that a degree in sociology or business studies didn’t automatically mean they had a job with a five-figure salary; following any and all causes that were anti-Thatcher, anti-American and pro-revolutionary; listening to the Smiths and anything on an independent label; apologists for their middle class upbringings. There was no compromise in the world, no coming together. The more one side clung to an ideal, the more the other side strove to find an even more opposite stance. And because that stance was being shouted from student unions and disaffected students who hadn’t really found themselves, I chose not to pay too much attention. And in Wales, most of ‘our’ friends were from well-to-do families; they were either uninterested in the plight of anyone else or were far to ernest in their tie-dye and incense ambience. There were voices on both sides that were reasonable and more to the point, realistic. But they were lost in the miasma of socio-political conflict; faint background noise to those of us not wanting to take sides and get on with our lives by moving forward without baring grudges.
OF POLARIZATION AND HYPOCRISY
The past few weeks have given me a lot of reasons to despair for the future.
I suppose it all really kicked of with the Chick-Fil-A debacle.
There were a few reasons this got me angry. The obvious intolerance of the owner. The possible back lash that would more likely affect the people behind the counter, some of whom, perhaps many of whom may not share the owners views or opinions. There were the comments from the media and public for and against. Then of course there was the response from the ‘Conservatives’ that resulted in the day of support and the counter response from the ‘Liberals’.
This is all pretty obnoxious, especially as the more one side reacts, the more the other counter-reacts, polarizing both sides even more and leaving the folk behind the countering the middle.
But that isn’t what I find the most offensive or divisive.
This all kicked off because the owner donates loads of money, the profits gained from his stores and the franchises, to right-wing Christian groups. The workers have no real say in who the company donates money to, unlike, say a business that polls its workers on which charity or charities and good causes they will donate money to or support.
No. the workers, many of whom are on minimum wage and many who are on not much more have no choice.
Or better wages.
In Florida a Team Member is on $7.27/hr, a team leader $9.94 (figures from Glassdoor).
Most fast food franchises and operations offer that sort of wage. It’s easy to say they can work somewhere else if they don’t like it but many of these Team Members are students and the hours suit them.
But the money that goes to ‘Politics’ is what really, really bothers me. The amount of money donated by business people, rich people and the party faithful is crazy. The Tampa Bay Times gave some figures for political donations since June.
http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/national/national-and-state-campaigns-in-florida-raked-in-128-million-in-one-week/1248126
Money, no doubt donated by people who are against tax increases. People who will make grand, pious gestures; donate money and make a point of telling people they do, people who want to adopt AIDS babies from Africa or orphans from the Communist Soviet Bloc*
People who, by the same token do not want their tax money to help the less fortunate here. People who assume all the poor deserve their lot because they are lazy or stupid or ungodly. Or of Anglo-Saxon decent.
People who whilst calling themselves Christian, seem to forget, “Love they neighbor” or “Do unto others…” or “to give and not to count the cost”, or ‘Blessed are the meek”. Words spoken by the very Christ that gives their beliefs a name.
Instead we get the presumptive first lady stating that she and her husband ‘love tithing‘ and that it brings tears to their eyes.
*I know there is no Communist Soviet Bloc, but seriously, one of those dipsticks referred to it recently.
of why is fox ‘news’ so bothered by african-americans?
A tennis player does a few-second dance routine and a gymnast wears the same costume her team-mates wear. Yet they are both called out by FOX. Would it be churlish to suggest it has more to do with, oh, I don’t know, their ancestry?
And the 110 meter hurdler… will they suggest that because she clenched her fist on winning her heat, that she is a member of the Black Panthers?
of your god
Usually, I have no problem with your god or gods, regardless of the name you know them by. I have no issue in ‘believing’ in a ‘god’, just probably not in the way many people who give their god or gods a name do.
It is the religion and interpretations I have issue with.
Mormons baptizing murdered Jews, Amish break-away sects cutting each other’s beards and hair; reprehensible, obnoxious, stupid…
That said, if you feel that it is OK to treat one of your god’s or gods’ creatures this way to send a message to a man who believes differently to you, then I you, or your god or gods.
of driving in the rain
after my earlier comments on moron drivers elsewhere, I gotta say this to the arse-wipes I came across this afternoon during our downpour…
seriously? no head or tail lamps? I know it may not be mandatory, but come one, common sense should just give you a little hint that when it gets a dark and the rain really comes down you want to be seen. Well don’t you?
And speaking of lights, how about some turn signals and checking to see what is going on before you cross three lanes without warning to avoid the pond on the side of the road. This isn’t Winterhaven where it is “close-your-eyes-one-two-three-TURN!!!”
And by the same token, if someone signals and starts to move into a gap, don’t be a douche and speed up to fill the space.
Mostly SUV (usually large, white Lincolns and Buicks as well as Nissan Rogues Jeep drivers. Think they are invincible. and above other drivers. Which is a great example for kids, like the sixteen year-old who lost control and rolled his at the weekend. And it is drivers of Corollas and Camreys, who realize their cars are a pile of crap and don’t care. And Taurus drivers. At least those were the ones that really stuck out, and do so on a regular basis.
briefly.
Santorum; $2million in debt.
Gingrich; $4.3million in debt.
Romney; tax returns extension.
And they claim they can fix the Nation’s economy?
