Tannishblog

The NY Times has a long article about Men Not Working, and Not Wanting Just Any Job. There's a silent trend happening that escapes the data gnomes of Bureau of Labor Statistics, namely the growing number of dropouts from the work force.

Millions of men… in the prime of their lives, between 30 and 55 — have dropped out of regular work. They are turning down jobs they think beneath them or are unable to find work for which they are qualified, even as an expanding economy offers opportunities to work.

Wait. I'm in the prime of my life? Nevermind…

I'm not sure I like news that some men my age are taking the easy way out of their career misfortunes by retiring early. The two mentions of mortgaging homes in order to fund their laxity are abrading my sensibilities. Isn't that abusing the system? No wonder my insurance costs are higher every year.

And no mention is made in the article about how these men afford things for their children. I smell a Baby Boomer bugaboo here, in the selfishness of kicking back just because your future didn't pan out the way it "should have."

“These are men forced to compete to get back into the work force, and even then they cannot easily reconstruct what many lost in a former job,” said Thomas A. Kochan, a labor and management expert at the Sloan School of Management at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “So they stop trying.”

It's one thing if you've either made enough money to justify the move, or if you've sufficiently downsized your lifestyle to accommodate a shrinking income. Increasingly, though, these Deadbeat Dudes are riding the welfare train besides over mortgaging themselves in order to pay for the privilege of kicking back.

Instead, [one man] supports himself by borrowing against the rising value of his Los Angeles home. Other men fall back on wives or family members.

But the fastest growing source of help is a patchwork system of government support, the main one being federal disability insurance, which is financed by Social Security payroll taxes. The disability stipends range up to $1,000 a month and, after the first two years, Medicare kicks in, giving access to health insurance that for many missing men no longer comes with the low-wage jobs available to them.

No federal entitlement program is growing as quickly, with more than 6.5 million men and women now receiving monthly disability payments, up from 3 million in 1990. About 25 percent of the missing men are collecting this insurance.

That just ain't right.

Dang! I sound like a Republican I know. I think I'll shower.

The Washington Post has an interesting article today. I find that odd, since most of my blog clippings come from the NY Times, that bastion of decadent socialism - according to a Righty friend, or from CNN. My feeling that WaPo has anything to interest me is novel.

As I peruse the article, entitled: How the Brain Helps Partisans Admit no Gray, the mind harkens back to many other comments by my Righty friend which I question. I tried looking for a ripe snippet, but the whole thing must be read. It’s that good.

The House of Rep(ublicans) finally passed an increase of the minimum wage. The American party of Who-Gives-A-Shit tacked provisions for the first wage increase in ten years onto a bill that also allows a cut in inheritance tax. Such a move is surely going to be hotly debated in by Senate Democrats against the Estate-tax provision.

This way the embattled Repugnant party can say they tried to help poor Americans, but the bad-old bully Democrats hate the working class enough to nix the deal. Boo Hoo! If, the Dems decide to let such transparent self-service through, then the Repugs have won a boon for the wealthy, and the rewards in the form of campaign dollars will flow. If it doesn’t pass, then the big black paint brushed will come out to slather filth over the Democratic party. Either way, they win, politically speaking. This must be an election year.

The American people lose big time because of such hedonistic maneuvering. Democrats aren’t above such flagrant disregards for others, either. They’re just as guilty of skin-saving political gestures such as this. It’s disgusting.

There’s no where to turn for honest representation in our government. American plebeians have known that for years. Politicos have wondered why a large proportion of Americans don’t vote. Pundits of all persuasions bemoan our collective lack of interest. A vicious cycle occurs, disillusion destroys confidence leading to disinterest. Less people vote. Less votes results in diminished representation of common American values in favor of representation of a select few whom, in our society represent ultra-greedy individuals and their corporate alter-egos, giving way to further disillusionment of the masses.

Yet this is the system we have, like it or not, broken by self service and greed for power. This is how the Repugs have ridden the power structure to the top, by riding the wave of disinterest and manipulating it for their greed. As an example in how our government, see how Halliburton’s stock has risen in the last five years, Dick Cheney must be proud of his work. He’s never stopped working for the company, and I expect his to return to the company after he’s finished his Apocalypse project.

Such is the nature of wage slavery in the New American Century. We did it to ourselves. It is up to us to un-do it. Now, that’s a sobering thought for a Sunday morning…

Today the family is off for it’s annual time shift to visit the Renaissance. This is a tradition with the wife and I for as long as we’ve been together, and my daughter has never missed a year since her very first summer. This time, as friends are coming, we’re borrowing the neighbor’s minivan which, if we can sustain a speed of exactly 88 MPH, should be able to propel us backward in time.

I’ve got this fantasy going that when I retire, I’ll grow my beard longer, dress in renaissance drag, and stroll the grounds as a troubadour ogling the women all day. What a life!

If you ever find yourself (under mysterious circumstances) driving on I-94 through the Illinois/Wisconsin border on a weekend in the summer, you owe it to your progeny to spend a day at Bristol. Good times for everyone!

Tonight’s quote comes on the heals of a discussion I had with a conservative friend at work today as he tried to illuminate me about progress and economics. I’ll save the details for another post. Suffice it to say I disagreed with some of his unstated assumptions which form his definition of progress.

As I peruse the Little Zen Companion, one of the books I use to find these tidbits, I connect this quote with the ramblings my brain produces in trying to frame a response to my friend’s comments.

The thing about Zen is that it pushes contradictions to their ultimate limit where one has to choose between madness and innocence. And Zen suggests we may be driving toward one or the other on a cosmic scale. Driving toward them because, one way or another, as madmen or innocents, we are already there.

It might be a good time to open our eyes and see.

– Thomas Merton

Of course I take the Zen approach (to my limited capacity) while my friend takes the more conventional tract. Time will tell which one of us has it right. Either way, it is indeed a good time to open our eyes and see what our "civilization" is up to lately.

Yesterday's drive home was the first time I saw one of these:

Not sure I quite agree with the choice, but I think it would be a good idea to see a woman in the White House. Commander-in-Chieftess? Hmm.

As fatigued as I am tonight, my inner geek leapt from his habitual slouch at this news: AMD acquires ATI. That’s right. The World Best CPU maker has merged with the Worlds Largest GPU maker, a move that will surely shake things up in the tech sector. While the story is two days old (centuries in Internet time,) I find out about it tonight through Digg, via a hardcore hardware site I visit infrequently, [H]ard OCP.

There’s bound to be virtual reams of speculation about this unprecedented move, so here’s my first guess. As AMD and Intel continue their slug-fest over processor technologies, the biggest buzz words this past year is "dual-core", of two processor cores on one socket. Effectively this provides a properly equipped computer access to two CPU’s which could run in parallel or in tandem, depending on the needs of the current software application. That said, both chip makers are looking into their scrying devices and seeing possibilities for quad-core processors.

Now imagine if a dual- or quad- chip had its own graphics unit, aka a GPU, built right in. This would be wonderful for laptops, as circuitry real estate and power usage are factors in the design. Such a strategy would decrease latency for data traveling through the graphic subsystem to you monitor, as it would run throught the microscopic pipelines within chip itself and never need to travel along the (comparatively) interminable traces of a motherboard and video card, resulting in faster, smoother pixel pyrotechnics in games and video.

Nvidia, the competitor to ATI and my favorite GPU brand, must be convulsing this week. A quick check at Morningstar showed no change for today, but investors probably can’t yet fathom the merger’s effects yet. Stay tuned.

To contrast all the interest in our next World War as it begins, fascination with biblical prophecy as it seems to pertain to current events, I would again like to show you an alternate view of "how the world works."

First, I offer another quote brought to us by the Dzogchen Organization.

Everybody has the beauty of enlightenment in his or her own mind. Buddhahood is within yourself. Wisdom is within yourself; it cannot be found somewhere else.

      ~ His Holiness the Twelfth Gyalwang Drukpa

While the Western world implodes from its own carelessness, bringing on war and environmental damage, a few quiet people around the world are devoting their lives to improve whatever will be left of the planet after Western ideals run their inevitable course. While other religious icons recline in riches accumulated over centuries, making pronouncements based on medieval practices, some people of modest means are living lives of compassion caring for others in need. From his web site:

Dear My Friends,
On this small planet, in the daily dreams of our life, beneficial deeds are always recommended, simply because we are all born to help each other.

By sharing our love with different expressions and through the practice of generosity, morality and understanding, we will then be fulfilling our purpose of being members of the human race.

How refreshing that a person take such a stance wholly unheard in our dysfunctional society. How rare is the individual whom advances the well being of others over himself? If, as is often quoted, the "meek shall inherit the earth," I dearly hope people like the Twelfth Gyalwang Drukpa survive to bring the dregs of humanity back from the ashes of our current conflagrations. 

Excuse me while I ponder this aloud. I’m trying to follow the logic. First pass a sweeping education reform bill with a friendly-sounding name ( lets call it No Child Left Behind) with the aim of holding teachers and school districts accountable for student achievement. OK, Sounds good.

Next, we rearrange government spending to funnel funds to our war efforts by cutting from - among other places - education budgets. Then we wait three years and hold the states responsible for failing to meat the new guidelines without adequate funding.

And how does the federal government plan to sanction the recalcitrant states? By withholding money! The states have no money to implement the new law because funding for the necessary transition period was cut, so failure to conform to NCLB was inevitable. Because they failed, the feds are threatening to not pay the states.

… I’m still not getting it… How does this benefit the children? They only get one chance to go through school, they have no means to make up for the effects of undercutting education costs. Most families who have children enrolled in public schools do not have money enough to pull them out and send them to private teaching institutions.

Corporations are pressuring the federal government to revamp our public education system lest our nation loses a competitive edge. Civil liberty organizations are bemoaning the educational divide between white and minorities. They all are asking the wrong people. Our education system cannot be mandated from Washington. But if the same parties donated the money they spend on lobbyists to education groups within the state they operate, perhaps the problem of plummeting test scores would miraculously correct itself. If Washington would sanction such efforts by providing (gasp!) tax-relief to corporate and private benefactors, perhaps something good would happen.

Just a thought. ("I don’t suppose I’m right," said Pooh…)

The NY Times has a too-short blurb (see: Go Speed Racer!) on a Silicon Valley start-up named Tesla Motors, which is producing the first ever all-electric sports car. Great Name!

According to the web site, the Tesla Roadster can do 0 to 60 in four seconds and run 250 miles per charge. Yes, its expensive, as is all new technologies. The company is marketing it as a must-have status symbol With it’s looks, it will be. After all, what’s a mere 75,000 to the average pro quarterback or to a multi-platinum rapper? Chump change.

All new technologies must become commercially viable before they’re adapted by the public, first as a niche then going mainstream as competition and other market forces demand affordability. The rapid advances in computer tech is a great example of this paradigm. I’m waiting eagerly for space travel to follow the same pattern. This little guy is a good start, though.

This is one hot-looking car! A geek’s dream. I might have a tough time choosing between Racing Green or Thunder Gray Metallic finishes (Electric Blue is cool, too.) Hey, a guy can dream, can’t he?