Archive | November, 2013

Think people don’t want to work? Post a job and see

24 Nov

Job Fair Held In Midtown Manhattan

I hear more and more people complaining about shiftless hordes who don’t want to work. Maybe they know something I don’t, but when a supermarket near my house opened, 10,000 people applied for 400 jobs.

At a convenience market where I buy coffee, a cashier was complaining about her job, remarking how things are done differently at the other two places where she works.

There was a time when nearly everyone could work a single job, or perhaps two, and survive. Not so today. Wal-Mart has made billions for its founders but in Canton, Ohio, one store found it necessary to hold a food drive for its own employees.

The poor work, but still draw resentment.

John R. Kasich, the Republican governor of Ohio, told his cabinet, “I’m concerned about the fact there seems to be a war on the poor. That if you’re poor, somehow you’re shiftless and lazy.”

When the poor ask for more, the rich counter with charges of class warfare – hiding the fact that such a war actually is being waged in the opposite direction, and with great effectiveness.

I fully understand the propensity of the rich to take and hold all they can. Despite the efforts of Christianity and the other great religions, intense greed is endemic.

But why do so many average people believe that social programs primarily serve the indolent?

For sure, there are cheats. Lots. Nothing sends off a member of the middle class like watching someone use food stamps for groceries then buy cigarettes with cash. (This isn’t even cheating.) Such stories, sadly, prevent the recognition of real need.

In America, we are all tense and frustrated and filled with resentment and fear and sometime hate. For the angry Middle Class, the easiest target is the unemployed, who have come to represent a fault-filled force that siphons off taxes. Without such targets, many people would have a tough time getting through the day.

What can we do to stop this inner angst, this potentially explosive and destructive energy? We’d be so much better off without it.

Maybe the remedy is safe, secure, fair-wage jobs and the return of a culture of opportunity and equal advancement.

People find happiness in work, not welfare.

Corporations all over the U.S. are holding billions in cash. Might there be investment and jobs somewhere in those stashes? If we’ve all got to vent, why not send a little steam up instead of down? It’s time to stop wasting energy trying to disband a phantom nation of the lazy. It’s time to get to the real problem.

Lanny Morgnanesi

 

 

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Meanwhile, the world is burning

8 Nov

Mannequin

When we think of Venezuela, and we often don’t, we think of a socialist country that makes trouble for the U.S. What we should think of is a South American nation obsessed with beauty queens and curvaceous figures.

To attain the ideal look in Venezuela, surgery of various sorts is employed.  Females who have it performed are known as “operated women.”

This is a bit of background for the success story of Eliezer Álvarez, who makes mannequins. (Can you see what’s coming?) His story was told yesterday in the New York Times.

Business was off for Mr. Alvarez. He analyzed the situation and realized his mannequins were not a fair representation of the model Venezuelan woman. So he augmented them, according to the Times, with “bulging bosom and cantilevered buttocks, a wasp waist and long legs.”

It worked. Business picked up. In fact, his “operated” mannequin has become the standard for all clothing stores in Venezuela.

We could look at this turn of events and conclude that such a nation, socialist or not, cannot possibly be a threat to us. Or, we can withhold judgment until the operated mannequins hit our own stores.

As a cultural influence, politics and religion cannot  compare with the undertow of forceful, tenacious displays of sexuality. In the presence of such displays, the intellect of men evaporates. I sense women fall prey to these traps for reasons beyond love, affection, attention and advancement. But I don’t know what they are.

The utter ridiculousness of it all is told in a joke that I don’t think was meant to have much meaning, but in a way it gives a subtext to all of history. I’ll sum it up:

Three women apply for a single bank teller job. The manager tries them out for a day. At closing time, the cash draw of the first is $50 under, the draw of the second is $50 over, and the draw of the third balances perfectly. Who gets the job? The one with the big ….

In the online comments section to the Venezuelan story, and Asian woman who said she is proud of her small breasts wrote:

All I can imagine is someday, future archaeologists will be able to find out so much about our civilization from all the surgical implants and devices found in our empty coffins.

Lanny Morgnanesi

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Something I recently learned

2 Nov

Football-old time

In the early days of football, a touchdown was worth zero points.

A touchdown, however, gave you the right to kick the ball between two poles that were connected by a string. If the ball sailed over the string, the kicking team scored one point.

In those days, most of the rules were negotiated before each game – included how many players would take the field. In early football, there were no quarterbacks, wide receivers, first downs or forward passes.

By the way, 18 people died playing old-time football in a single year, 1905.

Read this and more in a book by John J. Miller called, “The Big Scrum: How Teddy Roosevelt Saved Football.”

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