Tannishblog

I like blogging. I like reading the thoughts of people I’ve never met and hearing their virtual voices. I like the intelligence, the rage, and the passion that others bring to their blogs and to their lives. I guess that makes me a voyeur.

I’ve only been doing this for a measure of weeks, but I’m amazed at how this latest of a long list of personal phases has changed my lifestyle and my perspective. I blog to practice my writing: in that sense, it doesn’t matter what the subject, only that the message is delivered in a manner that is pleasing to the reader. So I am here to practice, practice, and practice. I hope I persevere, I hope I can build an audience. Otherwise this is just so much mental masturbation – messy, that.

What is not obvious from reading my opinionated tripe – Oh! You’ve noticed – is I am Buddhist. Admittedly, I’m new at this Buddha thing, too; I took my refugee vows only two years ago. Being born into a moderately dysfunctional American family does not prepare one for the eventuality of believing in the inherent goodness of all humanity and the importance of cultivating compassion. I have come to this way of thinking reluctantly, but now that I am here, I value the lessons to be learned.

Notice the future tense; I have much yet to learn. As I reflect on the world as viewed through the news and the ‘net – a world I have tried most of my life to ignore – I find I have much to say about the mess we’re in. Does anyone care, who knows? But the potential of sharing my thoughts to even a small audience of fellow blogsters has expurgating qualities.

But there’s a conflict. My American vociferous values work well for the care and feeding of my web log, but not for the advancement of my chosen spiritual path. Snarking is antithetical to Buddhism. As I scrounge the ‘net for data that inspires my muse, I find my old habits of opinion and brashness take over – my muse is quite the bastard – and all I know of spiritual gentleness is abandoned.

Scanning the other Blogger-blogsters that show Buddhism as one of their interests has its surprises. Many have fallen off the wagon; some are just as opinionated as I. Some are strange to my view. None are Buddhist information blogs. There’s one Swami from Colorado who started a blog; it lasted for one post, over a year old now, and he hasn’t been back. I guess people who are really into the culture don’t blog, as they realize (as I do on some level) that all things are ephemeral and their time is better spent meditating. Perhaps they’re right.

So here I am: the Buddha wannabe and the writer wannabe at odds with each other – a crash of cultures and a clash of ideals. The challenge, if I choose to accept it, is to meld the two opposing forces into a new voice, a new impetus that may – if I do this well – propel me into the lists of old-fashioned spinal-bound authorship. Wish me luck!

A Matter of Moderation:

It seems there’s a problen brewing in God’s Country (home to the land of sky-blue waters). This is how they deal with things in the Northwoods.

Now, read my spin.

I spent the better part of twenty years working in retail. During that time, I bounced from many product lines in many different types of stores. At the time, I was assured of being able to work almost anywhere, as the retail industry was just beginning to recognize the value of service in the trendy new super-stores. Most long-standing department stores have learned the hard-knocks lessons against employee lethargy. In those days, I knew that I could pull stakes and relocate anywhere in the country and get another retail job relatively easily. For the many people like me, who did not come from a moneyed family and are not blinded by money lust, whom have realistic expectations in life based on humble beginnings; a retail career is an honorable way to make a living.

The corporations were mostly fair about the issue of compensation. In consideration of the facts that a big box retail venture suffers from a high overhead, and the greatest strain on a company’s liquidity is employee benefits, I’ve always felt my employers to give me a fair deal. But I’ve always been a person who would trade a few bucks for relative job security.

But that was before Sam Walton. Sam changed the rules for retailers. Companies soon found out that they had to change along or die. According to a report by UC Berkeley:

“We estimate that Wal-Mart workers in California earn on an average 31 percent less than workers employed in large retail as a whole, receiving an average wage of $9.70 per hour compared to the $14.01 average hourly earnings for employees in large retail (firms with 1,000 or more employees). In addition, 23 percent fewer Wal-Mart workers are covered by employer-sponsored health insurance than large retail workers as a whole.

At these low-wages, many Wal-Mart workers rely on public safety net programs - such as food stamps, Medi-Cal, and subsidized housing – to make ends meet. The presence of Wal-Mart stores thus creates a hidden cost to the state’s taxpayers.”

Now you know how Wal-Mart can keep it’s prices so low: not only does it buy goods from countries like China and Indonesia that have few of our modern protections for the working class, but they are unfairly treating their employees here.

The Berkeley report goes on to detail how Wal-Mart, as the nations largest retailer has influenced the whole retail industry, by strategic placement of its “supercenters” in areas of traditional higher standards for wages. These mega-stores carry so many goods they are able to compete with a diverse group of competitors, from grocers and pharmacists to bookstore sand electronic and appliance stores to photography specialists. It’s been known for Wal-Mart to move into a smaller town and destroy the businesses of a whole mall full of shops. Even in larger cities, a neighboring Wal-Mart will skew the business climate to the detriment of the workers salaries and benefits. The conclusion of the Berkeley report explains the dynamic of what it terms “Wal-martization.”

“Wal-Mart workers’ reliance on public assistance due to substandard wages and benefits has become a form of indirect public subsidy to the company. In effect, Wal-Mart is shifting part of its labor costs onto the public. We estimate the cost of the subsidy to Wal-Mart in California for state taxpayers to be $86 million a year. Other retail firms that carry their own weight by providing self-sufficiency wages and employer-sponsored health insurance are placed at a competitive disadvantage, which can result in a downward cycle for wages and benefits across the industry. As we have shown, Wal-Mart’s long-term impact on compensation in the retail industry has the potential to place a significant strain on the states’ already heavily burdened social safety net. We estimate the cost if large retailers throughout the state adopted Wal-Mart’s wage and benefits standards to be an additional $410 million a year in public assistance expenses. The public cost of low-wage jobs should be taken into account by policy makers at all levels as they make decisions about the kinds of economic development we should encourage in California and in our communities.”

For further enlightenment, read: Wal-Mart and county-wide Poverty, sponsored by the Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology, as Penn State.

Clearly, this is not a problem confined to one sate or even to one country, as Canada is feeling the crunch of Wal-Mart’s aggressive parsimony. Sam Walton was a self-made billionaire, and to many that fact alone will deify him. His business legacy stands at odds with his proposed values. Perhaps this is an effect of the Law of Unintended Consequences; perhaps Sam just hardened as he aged, we’ll never know. By I feel it is in the country’s best interest and in the interest of our communities to “vote with our wallets” and boycott Wal-Mart and its destructive policies. In America there are no lack of stores to shop. One way or another, we pay for the goods we buy, the Berkeley report enumerated this nicely. Why not pay a slightly higher price to support all the retail workers who provide you with shopping therapy. After all, it’s pay now or pay later.

I took a blogging holiday this evening as I performed my fatherly duty escorting my daughter to “Sports and Activities Night” at the high school she will start next fall. The schools motto of “Get Involved” smelled a little too much like propaganda to my jaded nostrils, but I have to say the North Shore schools today are lightyears ahead of the educational galaxy I knew in Chicago thirty years ago. Quick chats with other parents, a loose association glued by the bonds our children have formed, has got me thinking. As I watch the world spin apart, I still can’t help thinking that America today is a better place for our kids than it used to be.

Yeah, I know I’m looking through tunnelvision at an affluent school in a predominantly white district, but the changes I see are growing. The most important changes are those of thought. Parents expect more from their kids; kids expect more from their parents, and if real love is there, everyone rises to the challenge. In this way the world has gotten better for all involved.

Lets hope it’s enough.

I might move there yet! That is if they don’t close their border to Americans soon.

Our Northern Neighbors show up the good ol’ USA in the progression of the species by cutting a deal with major automakers aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 2010. Why can’t we do this (rhetorical question)? Because we’re too busy making war and struggling to set up puppet governments in foreign deserts, selling out our future and the future of our children, ideological infighting, and – perhaps most telling – denying that our own scientists know what they’re about. Phew! So much to do! How can we possible do anything about cleaning up this planet, can’t we just hire people for that? Anyway, it’s more important for America to destroy the separation of church and state, and erode the careful balance of power between our three branches of government than it is to provide a clean, healthy planet for our children’s children’s children to live in.

Besides, where’s the profit in that?

I just spent almost two hours lost in the blogocube. Whew! I came up for air after reading this article at 1115.org that backs up today’s previous post. Is it a conspiracy?

You be the judge.

I’m not a fan of SUV’s. The preponderance of Sport utility Vehicles on the roadways have, in my experience the following effects:

1. Adding clutter to traffic, as each person now has a larger vehicle about their person, and car pools are no longer in fashion.
2. Increasing the difficulty in the commute, as smaller vehicles cannot anticipate the traffic flow due to being unable to see around the SUV in front of them. The end result is more slamming of brakes, more erratic driving.
3. Accelerated drain on the global oil supply. No car has the mileage it should, given today’s technology, but the reason car makers have hyped SUV’s in the first place is to circumvent government emission standard set up on the seventies. By creating a new class of vehicle, they effectively did an end run around the laws.
4. Accelerated increase in pollution emissions. The faster we burn the fuel, the quicker we pollute and the sooner gas prices rise. We’re at about $2.50 a gallon already, how much do you want to pay?
5. Increased expense to the owner:
1. The vehicles themselves cost more than a sedan of the same luxury class,
2. More money will be spent on gas,
3. Higher insurance costs,
4. Higher city and state taxes for vehicle registration.

Now I find what I’ve suspected all along. Although SUV owners I know state that SUV’s are safer to drove than smaller cars, they’re wrong! If they were so safe, why is there a National SUV Safety Campaign initiative? The plot sickens, the members of the Illuminati laugh.

Jon Carroll of the SF Chronicle has his tongue so firmly inbedded in his cheek it ,well… it hurts to watch. Read Jon’s Unitarian manifesto: We are the Unitarian Jihad. He claims he found this in his email. I claim it’s good, clean fun!

My Unitarian Jihad Name is:

Brother Spikey Mace of Enlightened Compassion.

Get yours.

Shakespeare’s Sister gets worked up about the New American Fundamentalist Gestapo. Lets all go to the pulpit and practice Judge-icide!

What started as a posting about a Buddhist teaching dear to me ended up as a 1000+ word political rant - as if we haven’t enought of those these days. I started writing about a wristband I wear, then I start ruminating about what I read on the ‘net, and I had to write about that. I got bored for a whille, so I surfed the blogs, and as I read the warblogs left and right, I begin to despair, which brought me back to my original idea: It’s all about compassion, empathy, and cultivating peace. And the fact that I have as long a way to go as anyone else, it would seem.

Read my Blue rubberband thoughts.