Scribe-ls

Thank you Fox 31 for presenting lively news.  I watch other stations now and then, but find that it's just not the same.  There is something more personal about your coverage, plus you were the only ones to stream the fabulous feat of the guy jetting across the Royal Gorge.  To me, that was BIG NEWS, as it's symbolic of the American can-do spirit alive and well with all its hopes and dreams.  My co-workers and I took a few minutes to watch the coverage at my desk, holding our breaths and praying silentlty that Eric Scott and his dream would fly across the Gorge unscathed - and it happened!  Thanks to Fox 31, we got to see it as if we were there. 

My nerves rattle every time I hear about big businesses cutting wages or laying off staff because profits are not at projected levels.  Wait a rotten, stinking minute.  You're making a profit, that should be enough.  It's not like small business, where the profit is what mom-n-pop live on; the executives and other fat cats are living mighty well, thank you very much, before profit is even arrived at! 

If you're making enough to pay any kind of dividend after setting aside for future needs, what's the beef?  Investors rankling for more money than they're getting?  What, exactly, is wrong with a sane 3 to 5%?  Oh, yeah, that's right, chubby dividends boost trading; we're talkin' fast money, pal.  Garbage.  Easy come, easy go.  Speed kills.  Let's put our feet back on the dirt and do right.  Retain jobs and retain an economy before China, Mexico and the Middle East buy the whole country cheaply.  Otherwise, we'll be thinking these were the good old days as we struggle in a new culture. 

When did it become uncool to speak plain, American English?  In re-reading my own post I see that I used the word "bistro."  Forget that.  It's r-e-s-t-a-u-r-a-n-t.  Maybe even c-a-f-e.  Better, d-i-n-e-r. 

Part of our economic problem is that we've become so engulfed in trying to live the life fantastic, to emulate what used to be called the jet-setters, that we've backed ourselves into corners trying to pay for it and it's causing a pain in the economic muscle.  We're responding to that pain by tightening our purse strings as we cower in the corners like scared misers, which only worsens the situation. 

It dawned on me that if we get back to acting like Americans, instead of trying to emulate "Euro" this and "Euro" that, we'll bring about a resurgence in our culture and economy.  Rather than pursuing hoity-toity ideals of "designer" goods and "upscale" dining, we need to return to something best expressed in the Wizard of Oz by Dorothy:  "Me?  Why, I'm just a plain old girl from Kansas!" 

There's nothing wrong with wanting good quality, but let's get real. Impractical prices, expensively ambient stores and glossy images don't necessarily indicate quality, nor does something being from or resembling something from Europe.  We forget they've their share of shysters, too.

If a product is good, it'll stand on its own.  We don't need gilded bulldroppings, we need goods and services providing value and usefulness commensurate with their prices and you can find those in some of the humblest places.  I remember from childhood and old folks' musings that this is the way we were and it worked.  America was strong. 

Let's regroup and let it be the way we are. 

How long is it going to take and how bad must it be before the business world reacts naturally to the economic climate?  I'm not an economist and am sure I'll be shredded as a result of this post because it strays far from the current conventions. 

Instead of trying to keep prices unnaturally low by stealthily reducing product sizes and boldly cutting staff sizes, I believe business should respond exactly oppositely in a measured manner and let the Federal Reserve go apopleptic.   Rather than aggravate and feed the situation by laying off people who then cannot afford to buy anything or keep what they've got, why not honestly maintain, or nearly so, product standards, raise prices and raise wages?  Maintain levels of primary purchasing by producing product to the usual standards; reducing primary purchases just causes contractions at the supplier level.  The result is more unemployed or wage-cut people who can't spend while the remainder is starkly afraid to.

This false anti-inflationary activity is making the problem worse.   Yeah, yeah, uncontrolled inflation is a nasty monster, but I intuit that the economy reacts like a muscle - if we tense up, the cramp will only get worse and take longer to fade.  Let's loosen it up and bravely spend a little.  EVERYONE. 

Fine, make your statements, but make them on your own time.  When you force your ideas on people it's propagandizing and that makes you no better than the ordinary fascist pig. 

If this was to have been a paid performance, payment should be withheld because Ms. Marie didn't perform the national anthem, the Star Spangled Banner, as agreed. 

There is a time and place for making statements, for expressing one's thoughts, never is it on someone else's dime or by deceit.  As much as we all have a right to expression, others also have a right to opt out from partaking of it and Ms. Marie denied that to many.  While being graced with a thrilling musical talent, Ms. Marie appears to have gotten short shrift in the other graces. 

http://www.myfoxcolorado.com/myfox/pages/Business/D
etail?contentId=6666980&version=1&locale=EN-US&layoutCo
de=TSTY&pageId=4.5.1

The link is to a Fox News story about riots in South Korea over the go-ahead by their government to import American-produced beef.  Not just little, teensy, riots, but humdingers with thousands of people. 

I find it amazing that just about anywhere else, people feel some sort of loyalty to locally produced foods at least.  Here, we take just about anything from anywhere and don't say boo as long as we can go get it for sub-par prices at the big box or the dollar store.  Then we pine for the ranchers and farmers who give up and become developers.  We're all nuts.

The brown bag printed with the National Association of Mail Carriers logo and instructions for joining in their food drive on May 10 sat on my counter all week, being moved here and there for food prep and cleanup.  I'd look at it sometimes balefully, thinking, yeah, right, load up the bag!  As if I'm not spending enough!  As if we're not cutting back!  Yet, I couldn't bring myself to throw it out and kept shuffling it from here to there. 

Hearing an interview with a food bank user on NPR yesterday didn't help my ambivalence at all.  In their effort to illustrate the effects of the economy on the middle class by interviewing a middle-class mother using a food bank in Iowa, they instead gave me yet another reason to feel disgust with my "classmates" and hesitate in sharing.  The words of  the woman interviewed impressed me that she was using the food bank to supplement groceries so she wouldn't have to spend so much on food and inconvenience a two-income lifestyle now challenged by the recession, not to supplement otherwise insufficient food to adequately feed her family.  It made me angry.  When I give food that I buy with my hard-earned money (sometimes stripping my own pantry of back-ups) to the food bank, I am expecting that it will feed people who would otherwise go hungry, not somebody who doesn't want to give up non-necessities like sports for the kids, movies, cable TV, professional haircuts, soft drinks, and so forth. 

So I stood in front of my pantry this morning, thinking about that interview and feeling quite a bit grumpy about the whole idea of setting out my back-ups for the mail carriers' drive.  I went and picked up the bag, thinking to throw it out or use it to stack newspapers for recycling, but simply could not do either.  In spite of the jerks out there abusing the food banks, there are many more people who do truly need the food and my not giving will make the impact of the jerks all the worse.  Thin, wan mothers who feed the kids first.  Old men with $25 left over out of their pension after paying rent and medical costs.  Teens with addict parents.  So, into the bag went most of my backups and a heartfelt prayer for the well-being of whoever gets them and the mail carrier who will deliver them. 

It's all over the news how the rising food prices are altering the way people shop for groceries.  I'll say!  I go less often and have reverted to more home cookin', but in batches large enough to cover two or three days with some creative re-use.  Red chili with beans on Sunday, chili casserole on Monday, freeze the last and bring it out Friday night for chili-mac with some added canned tomatoes.  It's better tasting and better for us.  We do still splurge here and there on our favorite meal of good bread (more often a homemade loaf - it only takes about 45 minutes), a finer cheese, olive oil for dipping and a fruit or cold vegie that goes with. Even so, we're still buying "purer" foods - less of the convenience stuff that is laden with excess sodium, sugars and bad fat (canola oil is a bad fat - ask my tummy).  In effect, at dinner we know what's in it. 

We're also buying either cheaper branded cleaning supplies or more effective, if costly, ones.  The new Clorox naturals cost a lot, but go very far and do a great job.  Sun laundry detergent is just as effective as Tide if you wash a little bit longer. 

Thrift isn't always buying the cheapest:  it's getting the most value for your money.  It's $10 for cruddy frozen pizza versus $10 for a couple of pounds of ground bison, some generic canned tomatoes and a handful or two of dried beans for chili for two or three meals.   I'm oddly grateful for the return to humility.

This one can't stop herself.  My sympathy to her poor cuckolded (again) husband.

Teacher Accused of Sexual Assault in Jail for Violating Parole

Parole officers were checking on another male parolee last week, when they knocked on the door and found McCandless in his bed.

As a sex offender, she was required to get permission before having sex with anyone.

The parolee was not her husband or the 17-year-old Brighton Charter school student she's accused of getting drunk and molesting on a class field trip back in 2006.

I am a part-time Hartsel-er and boy am I ever mad about the bison kill-off.  How in the name of all that's good could anyone go out and hunt down livestock, killing more than they wanted to take for food and leaving the rest to rot?  Having a small chunk of land in the area, I understand the damage errant livestock can wreak on your property - knocking down fences, stomping and chomping struggling seedlings and pooping as close to human habitation as possible as if to say "so take that!" 

The answer is definitely not to let a bunch of so-called sportsmen come in and start shooting up the neighbor's livelihood.  The rural legal system is quite familiar with these livestock-damage cases and has the power to enforce payment by the livestock owner for damage done.  I hope to bloody hell the parties at fault here get the whole damned library thrown at them, if the locals don't kick their sorry buns first.

Merry Christmas.  Someone said it to a bigwig at my office and they got the response "we can't say that here."  Never mind that the place is adorned with all the usual fripfrap associated with...shhh....Christmas!  Has it been forgotten that the green of the trees and garlands signifies Life, the red decorations represent the Blood of Christ and the sparklies harken the Gifts of the Kings? 

I love the commercial aspect of Christmas-it's fun and people do think outside their own skins a bit.  Yet that shouldn't be all there is.  It bothers me that some want to have it both ways - politically correct greeting-squashing while displaying symbols long associated with the religious reason behind the season because it stirs up revenue-generating motivations. 

I'm not offended by others' Channukah wishes or Kwanzaa wishes.  I'm not offended that some people believe in nothing and wish only to be left alone.  What is offensive is the touchy, tetchy can't hear somebody else's beliefs ideal that's of no value except to squeeze joy out and shoehorn apprehension in.  Listen:  joy is GOOD!   

To all the PC people out there:  grow up, grow a skin and get some manners.  If someone wishes you well in relation to their beliefs or just because it's the season, accept the good intention, say "thank you" and move on.  Nobody is trying to convert you to anything but something less of a sourpuss, okay? 

Posted as headlines, on Fox:

Raids Begin in Anna Nicole Smith Probe - more gossip than news "page eight"

Lawsuits Possible From Va. Tech Shooting - we expected that, money from mayhem is nothing new these days "page two"

Simpson Case Co-Defendant to Enter Plea - okay, this yet another celebrity done bad case has been milked for all it's worth "page six "

5 Trucks Burn in California Freeway Tunnel - Yike!  But top national news?  Was it an act of terrorism? "page two"

Maybe I'm in a serious mood...

This isn't about the toss-up over Bush's veto of the child health insurance initiative.  Actually, that situation is an apt contrast and perspective-setter for the subject at hand. 

It's benefits re-enrollment time for almost every employee working where medical and dental benefits are offered.  To the familiar, it's the old routine of management talking about what's gone on with medical and dental insurance rates and how that affects the plans, coverages and employees' cost sharing. 

The price of medical insurance coverage has skyrocketed for many employers and they find themselves in the quandary of limiting choices versus asking everyone to pay lots more to maintain those choices while the price of everything else is also on an upswing while profits and wages lag.  It's logical that minimizing the pain in the pocket while still providing effective coverage would be chosen.

It was so chosen at my place of employment, a government agency.  Our choices dropped from three insurors two years ago, to one in the upcoming year, with basically four coverage levels from which to choose.   I don't have a problem with that although 50 percent of my co-workers do because the insuror deprioritizes non-urgent care and sometimes one sees a physician's assistant instead of a physician.  However, one of the choices does allow a virtual free-market experience for more money.  You'd think our employer had asked for their firstborn, to hear the whining!

Let's get back to reality, folks.  Many of us seem to have totally lost the perspective that we're darned lucky to have coverage that reduces an office visit to a mere fraction of the market price and even does moreso for hospitalization.  I grew up in a family with such poor health insurance that we may as well have had none.  We saw doctors when truly sick or truly injured.  Once the folks made a mistake in not spending on an emergency room visit for a sore throat (we could barely afford living, ER was a huge cost at $300 in 1970-something)so my sister became gravely ill, requiring hospitalization which took them years to pay off.  That was bad health insurance because it did not provide enough help to be of help.  The plans offered by my and other employers are far better, but so many people gripe.

Do we sometimes have to wait a couple of weeks to be seen?  Well, you know, a routine physical is not urgent.  If you know your kids do sports, get the physical lined up ahead of time.  A visit for something you've let go for weeks, months or years is not urgent either unless it's suddenly erupted into disruptive pain, major inflammation or notable expulsion of fluids. My experience has been that if you indicate a sudden change, life-inhibiting pain or fear that the condition might be serious, the insuror gives the visit greater priority. 

While many aspire to health care that treats them like the rich and famous, they must come back down to earth and realize that unless they're willing and able to pay for a Cadillac themselves, they need to take satisfaction in a Chevrolet.  It is good enough to ensure that you receive treatment according to need and for a small portion of the market price.  Raising a fuss that you want more is just the kind of narcissism that gives Americans a bad reputation.  Count your blessings.  Some people don't have them.

I don't understand how the jury could acquit the guards in the Florida youth boot camp beating case when the video is very clear:  the guards killed 14-year-old Martin Lee Anderson and the boot camp nurse assisted.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-10-12-boot
camp-death_N.htm

The acquitted parties said they followed procedures and training in dealing with the troubled youngster who just didn't want to exercise that day.  They beat the snot out of him, then instead of calling an ambulance they tried to cover their own sorry asses by  trying to physically shake him awake while applying an ammonia whiffer.  When they finally called for help, the boy went to the hospital and was put on life support and died the next day when it was turned off. 

It is irrelevant that Martin was a troubled child.  It is irrelevant that Martin defied an order (it was a minor point and for God's sake  he was a 14-year-old boy -- that's what they do!!!).  It is irrelevant that the guards were using their training and following procedures: SO DID THE NAZI HENCHMEN. 

Right and wrong is not suspended because a person has been deemed socially unacceptable. There is a point in any situation when in spite of your "orders" you know you're doing wrong.  Right people stop.  Wrong people don't.  THOSE GUARDS DID WRONG.  The nurse who stood by and did nothing DID WRONG.  They all belong in prison because THEY KILLED A PERSON.  The jury did not do its job.  Shame, shame, shame on them.

Young Martin was fighting for his life.  Can you imagine his terror?  Can you imagine the utter sorrow of his mother, Gina Jones?  Imagine, because when justice loses her mind, we can all suffer her terrors.