Sunday, March 1, 2009

Stimulus or No Stimulus -- That is the question!

First, just want to say Soorrry, for not posting in a while. I’ve been sick ... stupid flu! A Valentines present from my loving hubby, couldn’t just settle on the typical box of chocolates and pink carnations this year. I’m going to kill him! If it wasn’t bad enough to have a thermometer rooted in my mouth, wearing my jacket all the time because of the chills, cool compresses to my head, I thought my head was going to explode! Hubby had a headache, I had migraines! I’ll kill him twice!

Still, hearing on the news night after night the plight of the country, it seems headaches are the least of the worries. People losing homes, jobs and money it seems the “End of Days” are here. I’ve read and seen all the hoopla over the new “Stimulus Package” out of DC. My daughter, Barb, and I talk about -- debate -- it everyday. I love her now more then ever, finally someone I can truly “debate” with, I love debating. When she was younger she was a mouthy, disobedient, never listened to a word I said, pain in my butt-crack! Now she is fast becoming my dearest friend and worthy adversary. I’m very proud of her! You go girl!

Back to point! I know I’m going to get lambasted for this, but I agree with what our new President proposes! I know, I know, the republicans believe only tax cuts will solve all our problems, their ideology, giving tax cuts will cause people to spend more which will make more business and yada, yada, yada! But...think about it! What happens when the tax cut money is all spent? The tax money will not be enough to do much of anything with anyway. What are we looking at, a couple of thousand more in our pockets that will be eaten away by catching up past due bills? I just don’t see anyone buying a new car, furniture or family vacation when their home is about to be foreclosed or utilities shut off! Any tax cut monies will be spent playing catch-up! Not to mention, what about those who have lost jobs? How do you get a tax break, when you can’t even afford to pay taxes in the first place? And…if any tax break can be given, all the money will be spent feeding families who can’t afford to live now. Again, after the tax break money is gone then what? The people will still be facing foreclosures, jobless and no way out because there will be nothing to fall back on.

Whenever I read about how the republicans poop-poop Obama’s stimulus plans, how it will cost to much, or the time will take way too long to do any good I can’t help but think back to an old childhood story. It was about a wealthy fisherman and his neighbor.

Here is that story:

A long time ago, ancient times really, there was this fisherman who was one of the richest men of his village. He got up everyday and took his boat out to the best of fishing spots. Always he would come back to dock with a boat of more fish then his wife could sell in the market.

One day, his neighbor, who was a bricklayer and out of work, came to the fisherman as he was coming into dock and asked for a fish. His family was starving, his kids were crying for food and he had no money to buy the fish. But since the fisherman’s boat was so full, surely he could spare one fish to help feed his neighbor’s family that night. Instead of giving the man a fish, the fisherman picked up a rod, show the man how to bait and cast the line into the water. This outraged the neighbor! How could he be so selfish? He had more fish than anyone could ever need and he would let his neighbors starve then to part with just one fish! Instead he gives him a pole! This, of course, outraged the whole village. How could a man be so cruel? To let children go hungry! The fisherman was dragged before the village elders to explain himself, to go against God’s law of helping your neighbor in times of trouble. After the calls for him to be lashed, beaten and even, in some eyes, stoned to death for his greed the man answered humbly. “True I could have given my neighbor a fish, I had more then enough in my nets. But…It would have only fed him and his family for one night. By giving him a fishing pole, teaching him how to bait and cast his line to catch fish, I have fed his family for the rest of their lives.

This is how I look upon the stimulus package. Obama is the fisherman who want to teach the country how to fish. Yes!! He can make tons of tax cuts, which really only help the already rich, or he can create jobs that will put money back into the pocket in our overwhelming numbers of unemployed, that grows by the day, and even start putting tax money back into the country. Another way to look at it is this way. How can you get a tax cut if you can’t pay income taxes because you have been unemployed for months or a full year? Can’t pay tax on a zero income! Right? So you have no taxes coming in, you have no cuts! Am I wrong in this?

A big complaint “Well, a $800 trillion dollar package will put our grandchildren in debit! Only if you sit on your @$$! Here is another way to look at it, if the package creates jobs, income taxes revenue will rise, when more money is coming in to the IRS because more people are working then the package can actually start paying itself off. Besides where the heck is the money coming from for the tax breaks?

Obama wants to create jobs, building and repairing our infrastructure. Build schools, fix roads bridges and other things that have gone by the wayside for far too long. We have roads that are all but dilapidated, bridges that are at the brink of collapse and yet the republican’s can only think that throwing good money after bad will fix everything! Look what happened to the first republican bailout! Did it open up credit? Nope! Did it help millions of families save their homes from foreclosure? Nope! Instead the banks felt it was okay to order $50 million dollar private jets, have star studded luxury week-ends being pampered, wined and dined while children were being tossed out of their homes and into the streets by their own banks!

Go back into history. When the depression was at it’s height FDR became our president. I’m sure the “New Deal” had it’s opponents too. Still, it did go through. With it came the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) in Cumberland county, TN that put hundreds of unemployed back to work. Actually, all my kids at one time went to school in the old TVA’s project headquarters offices. Look up Homestead Elementary School -- Crossville, TN. The old buildings are gone, so I hear, and a new school build, but I’m sure there are pictures of the old school on the net somewhere. They were charming, natural rock classrooms. In essence the “New Deal” took a rural, hungry, no income area and turned it into a viable, self sufficient community that brought electricity to the valley and thousands of new homes and businesses.

Anyway back to point, dams, bridges, and cities began growing in leaps and bounds. YES! It did take time! A couple of decades, but…as everyone will agree, by the mid 1950’s America was living in the golden age of Camelot! Never have we, as a country, been as prosperous and successful as the years between 1955 and 1965. Let’s face it, this country’s been on a downward spiral ever since another Texan became Commander and Chief and LBJ tossed us into another useless war of Vietnam! Now it is time to tell our government to take their heads out of the butts of banking CEO fat cats with their luxury spa week-ends and help the little people who really need it, preferably before the fat cat banks padlocks them out of their homes!

Oh and one more thing, why can’t those same fat cats pay back their multi-billion dollar salaries, bonuses, awards or whatever they want to call them and bail out their own stupid banks; instead of stealing the last few pennies we, the general public, has left in our empty pockets?

Well, enough of this for now, go wash your face and hands it’s time for dinner!

Monday, January 19, 2009

Humans really are animals!

It's Monday, my oldest daughter, who is living with me after a rather nasty divorce, (please, don't get me started! I love her I really do, but I beginning to feel it'll take a pair of vice grips and a crow bar to get her on her own again and I can have some of that "Golden Years Peace") she is off to "WORK".

I hear everyday of the stress she is under, the treatment she must endure for that vital bi-weekly paycheck. The very same one that, hopefully, she will move into her own apartment with; Before...I'm carried out in a bodybag! Anyway, hearing her complaints and treatment it got me to thinking. I was doing the dishes, I often think best while doing dishes, I don't know, maybe the warm, soapy water helps remove all the clutter in your mind. Or maybe you are so bored and letting your mind wander is better then creating a soapy fashion show on your dog, cat, ferret, snake (insert favorite pet here). Ever try to create a bubbly bikini on a cat? It's fun! Especially the six cup top, only it can get wicked when you suddenly realize...cats hate getting wet!

Sorry, I digress, back to point. Years ago and I do mean many years ago, like in the 1950s and early 60s ... yes I remember those days, well most of them being born in 56, on the tail-end of the Babyboom. Still, in Corp America there were sayings like, "Mr/Mrs. Jones is a real asset to this company." "I don't know what this company would do without Mr/Mrs. Smith!" Or my favorite one of all, "Mr/Mrs Employee is indispensable!"

In today's job market it is sad to say, no one, well the little guy, is indispensable! Most corporations see employees right the reverse. Not only are you disensable, but a dime a dozen. My daughter works in a call center as a Customer Service Rep for a national cell phone company. As a veteran of the "Call Center" enviroment, work for a customer service partner for Microsoft as a Windows 2nd level Tech support agent, I really know where she is coming from. I can't blame the public, instead, I blame the management of these corporations. Sometimes it seems that the customers take great delight in treating, "in the trenches", reps trying to help them worse then swamp slime. (Maybe it's because they are getting a little of their own back for being treated like swamp slime where they work.) Still, it only makes it worse and stress levels high when Management threaten to termenate your job if the site's stats don't improve.

We have all heard it on the news for weeks and weeks! This corp in financial trouble, this corp needs a bailout...etc, etc, etc. We have seen layoffs, down right terminations due to bankruptcy with the country's failing business world. Who gets the blame? The little guy!

There was a time that the buck did stop on a manager/CEO's desk! I remember a time seeing signs "Under New Management" as common place. You don't see them anymore. Which brings me to my post title. Corporate America looks upon the poor working man as nothing more then animals being lead to slaughter. If the company is not makeing their multi-billion dollar profits it's the little man that suffers with layoffs, if not downright terminations. While the upper management and CEOs keep their cushie, multi-million dollar salaried job! If a company is going into the toilet and moral stinks it is because the backbone, the poor slobs in the trenches, the average Joe has been brow-beaten, hammerd, whipped to an inch of his life and have just given up hope of it ever getting better. What corporations don't realize is, is when employee moral is down, everything goes into a downward spiral. How in the hell can you be cheerful to a customer when you've just been told by your team manager you are on the brink of losing your job because site stats are down and it's coming from "Higher Ups", meaning the CEO's!

First and formost a CEO's concern should be is his business being run right! Not if he should take the corp jet to Rome for that Italian Romanesque look or to Paris for that French provincial look for that solid gold toilet seat in his 5th guest bathroom!

Upper Management concerns should be the work inviroment! Is it safe, pleasent and enjoyable. A place where employees feel they are appricated and are happy to have a great place to work. Not what color the wife/husband's brand new SUV should be this year and if they will get to join the CEO on that trip in the corp jet!

Middle management whose concern should be the employees. Are they taken care of, are their concerns met, do they have a stress free enviroment? Not someone who is on a power trip because he now starting to play with the big dogs and/or promising the CEO they will get that gold toilet seat from where ever or heads will roll!

Lastly there is Lower management whose concern should also be the peons! The lowly employee who by all rights keep the company a float. To fight for them when the stats are not the greatest! To find out why moral is sinking and FIX the problem! Not to keep the virtual cattle prod and pink slips at the ready when the CEO is pissed off because the company only made enough profits for him to fly to London and they really didn't want a Victorian gold toilet seat, because that's whats in the 4th bathroom!

Now if stats are sinking and moral is lower then algae in the buyou the CEO should look at the managment! Somebody is not doing their job!!! Start with upper management, if the work place is safe, pleasent and enjoyable then move down to the next level. I bet you would soon find the problem and as stated it is someone on his/her own power trip or making pie crust promises and then again we would all see that sign..."Under New management"!

Ever heard of putting the gun to someone's head making them do something they can't do other wise? Well when your boss is standing over you, threating to fire you because your best is not good enough, I'm sorry, but to me that is the virtual gun to your head! No it's not your life he is threatening, instead, it's your livelihood! Especially in today's job climate! Now unless you look forward to living in a box under a bridge with no toilet, let alone a toilet seat, and eating at McDumpser's every night, I don't know anyone who's moral would not be lower then the deepest, darkest abyss. And the more bosses do that, the more moral sinks and the more moral sinks the more your business will end up in that gold seated toilet!

Look gold is cold! Your butt don't care if it's setting on gold or just a hole in an outhouse! When ya got a go, ya got a go! For $24.95 you can go to Wally-world and get a clear seat with plastic fish! Go with the underwater theme! It's more fitting anyway! But treat your employees like humans, stop threating them and bring back the line "Mr/Ms Employee is indispensable!" When you do that, your employee moral will shoot through the roof! People will be happy, your stats will go up, profits will go up and you may even make enough to fly to China and get that Ming dynasty porcelain seat for your 6th bathroom!

Just one of my pearls, now go eat! You look thin!

Monday, January 12, 2009

Nana Weasel? Thats a weird name!

I get that all the time. Where and why did you ever come up with something like "Nana Weasel"? Well, it is a very loooong story and I will try and be as brife as possible.

I am a ferreter. What is a ferreter? Someone who breeds and cares for ferrets. (You know, those little critters that look like tube socks with fur and a mask.) Although, I have never taken up the breeding of ferrets, just the care of them.

Anyway, it all began when my family and I lived in New York for a short time and HE slinked into my life! HE? Who he? You may ask. "HE", was the infamous "Benny 'Da Weasel' Gambini!

As a mother of four I have had my share of "Mom, can we keep him/her/it as a zoo full of poor little furry critters kicking, clawing and yelping for a rescue from the pack of two legged hoodlums dragging them into yard claiming they are strays. I had heard of ferrets, in the 80's they became the pet of choice for the Yuppy generation, but never wanted to own one. Well, while overnight camping in our neighbor's back yard, Barb and Frankie found a small, sable male ferret and brought him home. At first it was the usual, "No! Are you cazy? I'm not running a zoo for every Tom, Dick and Fluffy you guys fine!" And as usual I lost the battle with, "Ok, but we keep him only till we can find his owner! But...then it has got to go!" Benny, however, had his own evil, sweet furry charms that managed to steal my heart and the rest is history! I should have known, ferrets are the prince and princess's of thives anyway! They steal everything, socks, shoes, TV remotes, car keys, underwear! Ferrets have a philosophy. "What's mine is mine, what's your's is mine and everything belongs in my Hidey-hole! After we decided to keep him we tried to come up with a name. The usuals were thought of and dismissed, Bandit, Noodle and I think we even thought of Fluffy once. My hubby, being the crazy guy he is, came up with Benny, which he elabrated with 'Da Weasel' and since we lived in NY, he had to be a member of the mob family 'Gambini". Sooo, we humbley greeted with the deepest respect to our family, Benny 'Da Weasel' Gambini, the mob boss of the East side raisin racket dares, who would break your toe knuckles dares, if you din't make yas daily raisin payment dares. Why da toe knuckles, cause I ain tall enough to break anything els dares!

As stated, Benny was my Alpha ferret, the first in a very long line of rescues. After leaving NY we moved to Arizona. By that time I had studied and learned all I could on the care of ferrets from books. Back in the day when the internet was in it's infancy I found out and got deeply involved with "the American Ferret Association", AFA for short. I also found out that the AFA ran ferret recuses from California. In CA ferrets were and still are illegal! They are also illegal in the City of New York. Everyone knows in the AFA that no one in NYC has a ferret, instead they are Jewish rats. In CA no one owns a ferret, instead they are Polish cats! At least that's the defence to the USFG when you get caught.

Anytowhoms, being in Tucson I was in the perfect location and volunteered to become a California rescurer and "The Arizona Hidey-Hole" was born. I could get a call at anytime of the day or night to make a run to the CA/AZ border from Blithe to Yuma to pick up confiscated ferrets who would be otherwise turned over to the Calif Fish and Game and condemned to death without so much as a trial!

Ok, Ok this is all very interesting, you are probably saying to yourself right now, but what's with the "Nana Weasel"? Well, when running covert operations like ferret rescues from the dangerious USFG we had code names, mine was "Little Weasel", given to me by my rescue cordinator. Yes, we all think upon ourselves as "Secret Agents" making daring and dangerious rescues, saving the lives of oppressed, condenmed ferrets. Ok, so it sounds nuts, but let us have our fun for pete's sake! Besides, having the theme song "Secret Agent Man" running through your head when you're making that mad 3am dash to Blithe, a normal 4 hour drive in 2 1/2, and there are no Starbucks to be found, keeps you awake! Don't make me bite your butt crack!

Anyway, I have gone by the nickname "Little Weasel" for many years. Weasel_Wardancer has been my online handle just as long. Well, when Barb, my third daughter, did me the honor of becoming a grandmother, thank Goddess somebody did before I died, "Little Weasel" morfed into "Nana Weasel" and there you have it! Are you happy now? Good! Now go clean your room and call your Mother, she misses you!