Well…have been thinking about this since Ford reported it’s quarterly profits in the last week or so, making it almost 6.5 billion dollars in profit through the third quarter; eclipsing all of the other automakers combined. And, guess what? They did it with union organized plants that pay a wage that keeps their workers solidly in the middle class. Take that you right wing union bashers….you that have done your best to destroy organized labor here in the US….saying that the only reason the automakers can’t or haven’t made money is the overpaid, lazy union workforce. But the question that immediately comes to my mind is: if Ford can do it, why can’t the rest? Why is it necessary for GM and Chrysler to have a two tiered wage scale that pays new workers half of what their old ones make? What is different that they can’t do what Ford does, especially when they have come through bankruptcy with little of the debt that Ford carries? I don’t think there is a difference other than, with the bad economic times, GM and Chrysler are still hanging on to the adversarial labor relationship that existed before the downturn and their management just doesn’t get that their workers are not the problem. But, with the return of the know nothing repubs…that is all we have to look forward to….they are going to keep their feet on the necks of the middle class as long as America stays so damn stupid and keeps electing them….
One other observation that just popped into my head…why are police and firefighters unions okay, but teachers and industrial unions are constant targets of the repubs. I’ve never heard them say one word about the police unions in any of the big cities that have them…so, again, if unions are so bad, why are police and firefighters given a pass by the repubs? Just asking….
Well…felt like crap all day yesterday but I think I actually have a bug this time…not just he aftereffects of pool night in Ada…at least that’s my story…and I do still feel kind of crappy today with a slight fever and coughing a lot so maybe I’ll have an excuse to not do anything today but take it easy…as opposed to most days when I don’t have an excuse. The chairs did survive the wind yesterday and I didn’t have to chase them…geez…this is boring…I’m even bored writing it…so, what to do?
Not much to do today….again, but there is a Wings game tonight that I’ll have to go out to see…and I do have a few things to so around here…will probably start working on maintaining the bike since it’s raining and I’ll probably take the day off…okay, my brain is not working at all this morning…so I’m going to make some breakfast and come back later…
Well..if you’ve been reading or watching the news over the last couple of days, you’ve seen some quite disturbing behavior by some of the tea party candidates whose reason for running has been their respect of the constitution. Oh, really? Let’s start with Joe Miller who is running for senate from Alaska. This lying jerk (he admitted he is a liar the other day) couldn’t take a non-Fox reporter trying to ask him questions so he had his goon squad (he calls them bodyguards) handcuff and detain the reporter in what they called a “citizens arrest”; and the local sheriff had to come and rescue the guy. So, I guess ole Joe believes in the first amendment only when it suits him…but that shouldn’t surprise us since he has stated his admiration for the East German communist regime because “they knew how to handle illegal immigration”; but what this idiot clearly doesn’t care to know is that it was not immigration but emigration that they could handle well…with something called the Berlin Wall and shooting anyone who tried to leave.
Then, we have the “volunteer” from Rand Paul’s campaign who was shown on video stomping on the neck of a person from Moveon.org who was trying to ask Paul a question and was set upon by the mob that was at the rally. These are the kinds of thugs that are part of the tea party and are who you are going to have on your conscience if you vote for them. I guess the only people that have rights in their vision of America are those that agree with them…watch out the rest of us.
Then, we have Sharron Angle from Nevada…the tea party darling…who has said that if she doesn’t win the election, then there may have to be “Second Amendment remedies” for her loss…yep, she is proposing armed insurrection to “take back our country” if the people don’t want to vote for her. Another constitutional scholar from the right that uses the constitution as a political prop but doesn’t believe in it….don’t these people look like the bullies that tortured you when you were in school? I, for one, don’t want a bunch of thugs representing me or being anywhere near me….geez…
Well…out to Ada yesterday and feel kind of crappy today…so this one is going to be short for now…was planning on staying in for the day but have to go out to get some chicken stock to make today’s food…but I really want to just stay on the couch…yep, the depression is back with a vengeance….crap…more later…
Okay..feeling better after coffee but I need to get the workout in and then try to take the bike out…but the wind is already pretty strong so that may not happen…I’ll be back in a while to continue this…
Back again…sorry for the depressive first paragraph but that’s how I felt then…but I’m feeling better now after I got the bike ride in and had some lunch…the bike ride was really quite unusual with the wind blowing so hard but it was not as bad as I expected….just shifted down a few gears and took it easy…and now I have the prospect of taking it easy the rest of the day staring me in the face…and I don’t mind that stare at all…maybe more later…
Well…are you getting bored with my life yet? I know I am especially since I only have things to do about once a week now…but I do have Netflix that I can watch online now…still have to try to limit it to one movie a day, though, or that’s all I’ll do and I don’t want to veg that much. It was quite a boring day yesterday…did go out with G for a couple and that was a nice diversion…I do have more work to do over there this morning but that will take all of about 15 mins so it won’t be much help for relieving the boredom. I don’t know what happened about the whole being happy thing…I had a couple of weeks where I was quite happy but it’s gone now and I’m back to where I was…and I don’t know how to get back to happy…weird….but, I’m used to being like this so it’s no great surprise. I guess I’ll keep trying to figure it out. Not much else to do today…have to get a few resumes out and then figure out what I want to cook…and then out to Ada, I think, to shoot pool. Might be seeing T later in the week but I think it will more likely be next week since she was traveling last week and you know how swamped you get back at work when you’ve been gone…more later…
Oh, look down…I wrote one about McConnell before this one…yeah, out of sequence, I know…
Okay..if you haven’t gotten it yet let’s talk about what Mitch McConnell said the other day about what the repubs primary focus will be if they take control…can you guess? Is it to reduce unemployment, or to reduce the deficit, or to help people get health insurance, or to end the war in Afghanistan? If you guessed that, you would be wildly wrong…the idiot came out and revealed their true plan…not to govern for the benefit of the people but to “make sure Barack Obama is a one-term president”. I’m not making this up folks, they have no ideas on ensuring the upholding the constitutional rights of the people, or addressing the pressing problems we have…they just hate Obama so much they will put the future of this country on the line for their own little political gain. But, if you were paying attention, this was their goal all along…they just could not stand that an African-American was elected president and he had the audacity to try to govern for the benefit of all Americans, not just the rich and business as the repubs do. So, this is what we have to look forward to on November 2nd…no solutions to the nation’s problems but more of the same Newt Gingrich-Karl Rove vision of America where the rich get richer and everyone else can go to hell. It’s not to late to change the dynamic, though, let’s keep on trying to expose these idiots for what they are and get off our butts and vote…there are more of us who long for the days when the big ideas and the big projects that made us great were possible…and they still are with the right leadership…and that is not the repubs…geez…
Well…here we are in the last week before the election, and I thought it’s time to try to put the differences that you will see if the repubs win in the starkest possible terms. But I think that I am going to try to take it a little easy for the week; to take each part of the possible changes and get at them in detail in separate posts….that may change as the week goes on and if it looks like it’s not sustainable….this first one will deal with the lack of reasonableness (I know, I’ve talked about this before) that has paralyzed the country…to the point that even if politicians from each side of the aisle do cooperate, they can never say a good word about each other or their base will make them pay….let alone do the things that this country needs to go forward. One of the things that I just can’t understand is why none of these politicians (mostly on the right) has the guts to do what is best for the country; not only their party. Do you people who are going to vote for the repubs think they will be able to get anything done? And why would you want them to get anything done when all they do is favor business and their rich cronies? Don’t give me the baloney that the Obama administration is “taking away our freedom” when the healthcare bill requires people to buy insurance in 2014. I’ll bet most of the bitchers have health insurance provided for them on the job…and they just don’t understand how lucky they are to have it. But they also don’t give a damn about anyone but themselves…certainly not for the common good….more later…
Well…another month getting away from me…still no responses from all of the resumes that have gone out and I may have to face the new reality that I’ll never work again….so don’t believe all of the crap that getting retrained for the new jobs is what it takes for us older folks to get work…after all, how much more trained can you get when you already have 4 college degrees. There was an interesting segment on “60 Minutes” last night about the older workers struggles to find work; with many, many people with advanced degrees out of work for more than a year…for me, it’s been at least two years closer to three that I’ve been looking and there really are no prospects…and it is going to get worse if the repubs dismantle the rest of the safety net that has kept us eating at least. But I guess that’s a topic for the political section, huh? This is supposed to be about my life but isn’t work a huge part of life? Okay, I’ll move on and talk about my day and weekend. It was a boring weekend since I’ve not figured out this whole no friends thing yet and It is so easy to just stay here since it does save money…but I know I need to start finding new things to do, especially now that winter is coming on and that limits the possibilities somewhat. but that is not what I’m doing today…have to do some work at G’s after I work out and have my coffee and newspapers…I did get to the last 136 miles I need to get to 2K on the bike…so there will be a push this week to do 20-25 a day to make sure I make it..it is a goal after all and where are we without goals? Probably better off but I still have the last vestiges of my business career still rattling around in my head that force me to keep doing that. Oh, well…more later…oh, may have beers with G later but I’m not holding my breath…she’s skipped the last two weeks and that may signal the end of that routine, too.
Well…that title is a paraphrase of a Led zeppelin song title, and it came to me today on the bike that if we let the crazies and the know nothings take this election, it nobody’s fault but ours. It our fault if we sit this one out because it has become too partisan, or because we’re not energized enough, or because we’re too busy…this is way too important to not take a half hour out of our busy days and get out to vote…and there is a difference between the candidates that can’t be overstated…go back to Bush and deregulation or keep going forward where government puts it’s thumb on the scale FOR us, not against us.
This could be our chance to make sure businesses won’t keep spending secret money to get their way; to buy legislators and legislation that allows them to get rewarded for taking, taking, and taking…if we don’t believe the lies those right-wing ads are full of…if we hear ‘failed stimulus package” and think: LIE…if we hear 500 billion in Medicare cuts and think: LIE…and if we hear “Nancy Pelosi’s best friend” and think: LIE….we can get them to stop with our votes because they will stop spending the money if it doesn’t get results. So, let’s not give them the results they are looking for. It’s nobody’s fault but ours if we let this country go down the drain…again, it up to you and me…
Well…just a little observation that I made this morning…when you get up early as I do, it seems that this place wakes up as the sun starts to come up… a transition that feels much like the one I undergo…as the light starts to come in the windows, it seems a tangible reminder of the passing of time and a change in character as well…I know, I’m weird, but I have to put these weird thoughts down sometimes. I did go out to watch the first two perlods of the Wings game but missed Pavel’s heroics to win it with 11 seconds left…and watching the games alone is just not the same as it used to be with the group…but here we go on that change thing again…maybe it’s time to start looking for work in another city..to make that one last move that I still have in me…two of the kids have moved and with there no longer being a group of friends to hang out with, it just might be time…I think I’ll take today and start thinking about it. Not much else to do today…but I am going to get on cleaning all of the corners of the cobwebs and the leaves; but I do have a Netflix movie that I am going to watch right now…I have the coffee ready and I really could use a chance to shut the brain off for a while….more later…