Monday's Musings Redux
Item 1 So today begins my week vacation. A week I took for odd reasons. I don't have any plans and I didn't coordinate the break with Carole or anyone else. I took it off because I'm expecting my employer to soon hire a new director for my program. When that happens, I don't want to be taking any vacation for a few months. Better to take it now than risk missing out on a week of the reformation process. I want to make sure I'm present and involved in any changes the program undergoes. So suddenly possessed with a free week, what do you think I ought to do with it? This is the audience participation part! The craziest idea: drive to New Orleans and see if there's any way I can help anyone. The feeblest idea: lock myself in my room and play videogames for an entire week. You got a middle ground to suggest?
Item 2 Stave It Off reader Seth "Saltshaker" Altshuler, now enrolled in MSW school down in Sacramento had this to say about WallMart (I paraphrased) :
Why hate WallMart? Cuz they pay their employees crap, and they don't give employees benefits until they've been working there for 9 months (compared to industry standard of 3 months). This creates lots of great jobs for Americans! Jobs that keep the employees below the poverty line AND uninsured. What does that create? Approximately $420,000 per year, per store (assuming 200 employees), of tax-subsidized social services (low income housing vouchers, public health options, hospital forbearance programs, etc.) Yet another wonderful example of how giant corporations are getting a massive handout from their pocket puppets in the white house.
God bless students and their uppity liberal idealism.
Item 3 September 11th came and went. Somehow I forgot to commemorate. I was too busy "bringing democracy to the middle east." Remember when killing Iraqis was supposed to be retaliation for something? Do we even realize how stupid and flimsy the reasons for this war really are? Man, we totally suck as a populace. Somewhere God is holding each American citizen accountable... just like he held all the Germans accountable for the crimes of the Nazis.
Item 4 I watched a documentary about Lt. Gen. Romeo Dallaire last night. In case that name is news to you, Nick Nolte's character (Col. Oliver) in Hotel Rwanda is modeled in part on Lt. Gen. Romeo Dallaire, the Canadian commanding officer of the UN Peacekeeping mission in Rwanda. The amazing part was watching Dallaire's gradual breakdown due to post traumatic stress disorder. He relieved himself of command after he began suffering from mental lapses and angry outbursts. Living back in Canada after the genocide, at one point the highly decorated officer was found passed out drunk beneath a park bench. He has an intriguing legacy to live with. He was a voice of peace and reason amidst total chaos. He did advocate for a legal mandate to interfere on behalf of the Tutsi. But he has also been attacked for not disobeying his UN orders. Some have charged that he should have obeyed a higher moral ethic and used his power to prevent further bloodshed. The documentary shows him and his wife living back in Rwanda 10 years later trying to sort out his demons. Disturbing film. _Rants
Labels: Philosophy
posted by John @ 11:28 AM
6 comments
6 Comments:
"Somewhere God is holding each American citizen accountable... just like he held all the Germans accountable for the crimes of the Nazis."
Ze Germans vere nihilists. Zey believed in NAAHsing. Including God. If God exists, zen he is holdink me rezponsible und punishing me by makink me friends vit ze likes uf you. Und it stings. Like a vasp.
Now. On ze udda hand. If you mean ve vill be dealink vit ze emotional fallout for ze next sree or five decades, und people sinking Americans are wicked und zlimy, like giant wicked zlugs, zen ya ya, I must agree vit you. Even zough I don't believe in you. Away, figment uf my imagination, away vit you!
Zoapy
Item 2
If you want a site to vent your feelings about Walmart, check out "http://wakeupwalmart.com"
Donny: Are these the Nazis, Walter?
Walter Sobchak: No, Donny, these men are nihilists, there's nothing to be afraid of.
Sorry, I can be accused not of lurking, but of browsing: two weeks of many blogs = lots to catch up with.
Isn't everybody forgiving stinky Walmart for their sins for donating lots of their ill-gotten gains to hurricane victims? How easily we are placated.
Hey! What I really meant to say was: Since you're all bored and shit, could you spare a minute to give me some digital camera advice? My old-fashioned fellow died in St. Peter's and so I am faced with the realization that the wisest thing, in terms of svelteness of camera equipment, would be to go digital. The question is thus this:
What are the basic requirements for a snap-hobby total amateur who loves to play? I mean in terms of pixels, memory size and any other variables I may have no idea even exist. What about zoom, can I have a zoom? How zoomy can I get? What's a good price? OK, so that's a lot of questions. But if you answer them, I promise I'll post the picture of a sort of rusty metal thing I took just for you in Rome.
I don't think we are forgiving Walmart just because the Shrubbery turns out to be even more callous and incompetent.
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