Yesterday I saw an article online that says Wal-Mart is suing a former employee - who is permanently brain-damaged and in a nursing home for the rest of her life - for close to $400,000 in repayment for monies paid out when she was hospitalized after a car crash. This redefines "outrageous", in my opinion, and takes it to a new low in 'art forms'.
But wait! We aren't finished! This woman's husband is just finishing treatment for prostate cancer, so he isn't exactly solid in the make-a-living / pay-the-bills department, either.
And in the This-Wasn't-Needed-Either category, we have some brainless twit of a judge deciding to award Wal-Mart $277,000. Wal-Mart's spokeman said "Wal-Mart feels terrible on behalf of (this woman and her husband) - "but" - the paperwork sez...."
In this Indn's opinion - screw the paperwork! Wal-Mart's profits last year were $90 BILLION!
I divided $90 billion by $400,000, and came up with 225,000 : 1 in favor of Wal-Mart and against this pitiful, sad couple. Therefore, I repeat, to Hell with the paperwork.
I think it's time Wal-Mart heard from YOU who read this. They've already heard from me..
As a business person, this kind of don't-give-a-damn attitude on the part of big corporations embarrasses me. We who do care look bad by association. We who are small corporations - mine is about the size of the period at the end of a sentence - look even worse, simply because we are corporations and we want to grow.
The difference is, some of us - like mine - work to honor Affirmative Action, hire the handicapped, promote and follow Indian Preference, and plan our activities to include handicapped access - because that's real "good business practice".
Last but not least - just because "the paperwork" includes a clause that says Wal-Mart "can" sue one of their employees or former employees to recoup monies paid out for hospitalization, does not mean it "must" or even that it "should". When a company makes 225,000 times the amount involved in the lawsuit, I believe that company has a bigger responsibility to not sue and thereby to help the injured employee.
Call 1-800-Wal-Mart and tell them what you think of this outrageous lawsuit of theirs. Or go to Wal-Mart.com and email them through their Contact Us link. Let them know the "massa / slave" mentality was outlawed when slavery was - in 1862. And then join me in boycotting Wal-Mart until they stop this outrageous kind of action.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Saturday, March 8, 2008
Why Is The Economy Slowing?
Yesterday, I noted that gas and diesel prices locally are up again.. Gas is now $3.15 / gallon, diesel is $4. The headline in the local paper said, "Economists uncertain as to cause of economy slowdown." Takoszja, this is no mystery. When fuel for the buffalo pony costs more than a gallon of milk does, the economy is going to slow and it is going to slow quickly. If there is a "why" past that, it is because people must have money for food, housing, clothes and fuel, but when fuel costs $3.15 & $4 / gallon, everything else is going to cost more, too; which means there is not going to be as much - maybe none - for frills. Thus, the economy slows. Quickly. Tain't no mystery at all.
Monday, March 3, 2008
Eco-Terrorists Ought to Be..
I read an article on Yahoo today about "eco-terrorists" burning down several multi-million-dollar, 4,000-plus-square-foot "dream houses" in Washington state. Let's get a few things down about this.
First - NOBODY "needs" a 4,000-plus-square-foot house.
Second - There is no such thing as an 'environmentally-friendly' 4,000-plus-square-foot house. Why? Simple - Every day in the U.S.A. alone, several square miles of Our Holy Mother, the Earth are covered over with blacktop, concrete, and/or buildings, taking them out of the processing of carbon dioxide and associated production of oxygen. Lessee here - global warming is characterized by what?? Did I hear you say "Rising levels of carbon dioxide in the biosphere?" If you said that, you get an "A". If you didn't, shame on you and 40 lashes with something nasty.
Third - Not all "dream houses" are huge and contribute to global warming. My "dream house" is one of the many I've revived using as many recycled materials as I can get - which takes some "digging" sometimes. My current project is an old school that was abandoned over almost 20 years (except by dopers, drunks, vandals, and kids getting each other pregnant).
Fourth - "Green Building Techniques" are better demonstrated by revitalizing existing structures and removing some of the not-so-old garbage built in the 1960's and 1970's that reeks of bad construction practices or any that are unsalvageably unsound, to put earth back into its original function of processing carbon dioxide and producing oxygen, thus reducing global warming.
As for those idiots who burned down the 4,000-plus-square-foot insults to our intelligence - I can't help but wonder - how much did their bonfires add to global warming? To poisoning our air, sky, and water? The land itself? Did they do anything of value in the long run? Wasting resources is just plain wrong, no matter how it's done, and last I heard, it is still a truism that two wrongs don't make a right.
I think both the "eco-terrorist" arsonists AND the ostentatious-monument builders ought to be staked on a fire ant hill for awhile. Both make me ill.. Neither of them has contributed one iota to healing the Sacred Hoop of the world.
So - What have you done, today, to help heal the Sacred Hoop of the world, of which you, too, are a part?
First - NOBODY "needs" a 4,000-plus-square-foot house.
Second - There is no such thing as an 'environmentally-friendly' 4,000-plus-square-foot house. Why? Simple - Every day in the U.S.A. alone, several square miles of Our Holy Mother, the Earth are covered over with blacktop, concrete, and/or buildings, taking them out of the processing of carbon dioxide and associated production of oxygen. Lessee here - global warming is characterized by what?? Did I hear you say "Rising levels of carbon dioxide in the biosphere?" If you said that, you get an "A". If you didn't, shame on you and 40 lashes with something nasty.
Third - Not all "dream houses" are huge and contribute to global warming. My "dream house" is one of the many I've revived using as many recycled materials as I can get - which takes some "digging" sometimes. My current project is an old school that was abandoned over almost 20 years (except by dopers, drunks, vandals, and kids getting each other pregnant).
Fourth - "Green Building Techniques" are better demonstrated by revitalizing existing structures and removing some of the not-so-old garbage built in the 1960's and 1970's that reeks of bad construction practices or any that are unsalvageably unsound, to put earth back into its original function of processing carbon dioxide and producing oxygen, thus reducing global warming.
As for those idiots who burned down the 4,000-plus-square-foot insults to our intelligence - I can't help but wonder - how much did their bonfires add to global warming? To poisoning our air, sky, and water? The land itself? Did they do anything of value in the long run? Wasting resources is just plain wrong, no matter how it's done, and last I heard, it is still a truism that two wrongs don't make a right.
I think both the "eco-terrorist" arsonists AND the ostentatious-monument builders ought to be staked on a fire ant hill for awhile. Both make me ill.. Neither of them has contributed one iota to healing the Sacred Hoop of the world.
So - What have you done, today, to help heal the Sacred Hoop of the world, of which you, too, are a part?
Saturday, March 1, 2008
NOW Have We Heard It All?
Hanh mitakuyapi.
Recently, I was sent to work for a local window-manufacturing concern on a temp-to-hire assignment. On my second day, I told someone that I have a college degree. (Strike 1) They asked "in what?" and I replied, "Chemistry". (Strike 2, and possibly, 3. Read on, and you decide.)
This person then asked, "Then why are you working at a job like this?" and I replied, "I was in heart research for 9-1/2 years and decided that was enough. I had a small-jobs contracting and property-maintenance business for 20-some years; but when my man died during a mugging, I didn't have the energy to push a business any more. No one wants to hire me permanently so far because they figure I'll quit and go back to business, so I work temp. I have bills to pay, same as anyone else, after all."
One of the office people heard this exchange and suddenly, the plant manager acted as if I had Grand Mung and the assistant plant manager acted as if he were so0o sad for me and them, and the HR guy acted as if he wished he could be friendly but he "had to be careful"...
Are we all wondering "what's really going on here?" (The third of my Four Favorite Questions, I note..) I expect we are.
Eventually, I got someone to spill the beans about the sudden change of attitude.
It seems the company has a patent for its window-making process. Patents being expensive and North Dakota being part of the Land of Backward, the "brains" in the front offices "thought" that since I have a degree in a hard science, and especially since I already knew how to build a window (it isn't rocket science, takoszja..), I was in a position where I could easily steal their patent and their market. "I know too much."
If this isn't duh-uh thinking, I don't know what is. But I can't help wonder if now we haven't heard everything..
I feel no great sense of loss here, though.. Production can be very, very bor-ing, and this job was.
More importantly, though, is their attitude that "everyone is a thief at heart but them". Or maybe, that "everyone is thief at heart, including them, so they 'must' go to extremes to protect their investment". While it is true that it's only paranoia if someone isn't out to get you, I find their perspective offensive.
Whichever - I don't want to work for anyone with an attitude like that, so I spent last week chopping onions in a food-processing plant or cleaning in a school district, and one day kneeling on a folded towel, cleaning vomit off the floors of an elderly friend's house with a putty knife, before I scrubbed them with bleach and Spic-n-Span, because she has The Ultimate Vile Flu which is currently coursing through this area (1400 cases and counting; it can put you on the bedroom-to-bathroom trail for up to a week!), and she was too weak to get to her bathroom in time, and therefore of course too weak to clean her floors, poor thing..
All of which were more interesting jobs than making windows for the silly group with their patent-and-thieves-in-every-corner fantasies.
Let's hope my angel-of-mercy activities are rewarded with my not getting TUVFlu.. I live alone, too.. and then perhaps we can find me either the last $1500 I need to get my tiny company back in the market, or a real job so I can save up the $1500 and get my tiny company back in the market - no paranoid fantasies. Mitakuye oiasin.
Recently, I was sent to work for a local window-manufacturing concern on a temp-to-hire assignment. On my second day, I told someone that I have a college degree. (Strike 1) They asked "in what?" and I replied, "Chemistry". (Strike 2, and possibly, 3. Read on, and you decide.)
This person then asked, "Then why are you working at a job like this?" and I replied, "I was in heart research for 9-1/2 years and decided that was enough. I had a small-jobs contracting and property-maintenance business for 20-some years; but when my man died during a mugging, I didn't have the energy to push a business any more. No one wants to hire me permanently so far because they figure I'll quit and go back to business, so I work temp. I have bills to pay, same as anyone else, after all."
One of the office people heard this exchange and suddenly, the plant manager acted as if I had Grand Mung and the assistant plant manager acted as if he were so0o sad for me and them, and the HR guy acted as if he wished he could be friendly but he "had to be careful"...
Are we all wondering "what's really going on here?" (The third of my Four Favorite Questions, I note..) I expect we are.
Eventually, I got someone to spill the beans about the sudden change of attitude.
It seems the company has a patent for its window-making process. Patents being expensive and North Dakota being part of the Land of Backward, the "brains" in the front offices "thought" that since I have a degree in a hard science, and especially since I already knew how to build a window (it isn't rocket science, takoszja..), I was in a position where I could easily steal their patent and their market. "I know too much."
If this isn't duh-uh thinking, I don't know what is. But I can't help wonder if now we haven't heard everything..
I feel no great sense of loss here, though.. Production can be very, very bor-ing, and this job was.
More importantly, though, is their attitude that "everyone is a thief at heart but them". Or maybe, that "everyone is thief at heart, including them, so they 'must' go to extremes to protect their investment". While it is true that it's only paranoia if someone isn't out to get you, I find their perspective offensive.
Whichever - I don't want to work for anyone with an attitude like that, so I spent last week chopping onions in a food-processing plant or cleaning in a school district, and one day kneeling on a folded towel, cleaning vomit off the floors of an elderly friend's house with a putty knife, before I scrubbed them with bleach and Spic-n-Span, because she has The Ultimate Vile Flu which is currently coursing through this area (1400 cases and counting; it can put you on the bedroom-to-bathroom trail for up to a week!), and she was too weak to get to her bathroom in time, and therefore of course too weak to clean her floors, poor thing..
All of which were more interesting jobs than making windows for the silly group with their patent-and-thieves-in-every-corner fantasies.
Let's hope my angel-of-mercy activities are rewarded with my not getting TUVFlu.. I live alone, too.. and then perhaps we can find me either the last $1500 I need to get my tiny company back in the market, or a real job so I can save up the $1500 and get my tiny company back in the market - no paranoid fantasies. Mitakuye oiasin.
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