BS: GET A JOB...

Subject: RE: BS: GET A JOB...
From: Amergin
Date: 26 Feb 04 - 05:41 PM

my unemployment just ran out...

Subject: RE: BS: GET A JOB...
From: Don Firth
Date: 26 Feb 04 - 04:00 PM

Glad to hear that life is good for you too, Martin. Stay tuned. The impact has just begun.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: GET A JOB...
From: Amergin
Date: 26 Feb 04 - 03:52 PM

I know I'd get a copy of that book... ;)

Subject: RE: BS: GET A JOB...
From: GUEST,Martin Gibson
Date: 26 Feb 04 - 03:49 PM

Guest, einstein

You aren't half as smart as your name suggests, I'm sure.

Life is good for me too, Mr. Firth(!). You stay healthy and active and all of that stuff. Remember, what you post here has tremendous impact on the all of the continents of the world.

Subject: RE: BS: GET A JOB...
From: Don Firth
Date: 26 Feb 04 - 03:30 PM

Right, Jerry. And thanks. I'm actually doing both these days—looking back and looking forward.

Oh, what the hell! This thread has already gone gunnysack (even started out that way!) so I may as well go ahead and post this. I seem to be on a writing binge today.

My current projects include trying to finish up the book I've been working on for the past few years. It sounds a bit pretentious to call it a "memoir," but it's a collection of personal reminiscences of my experiences in and around the folk music scene. I confer a lot with Bob Nelson (Deckman) about what happened when and who did what to whom. I have over 100,000 words written so far and I'm only into the early Sixties (I have a hunch it's going to take a bit of editing, but I'm not going to get bogged down in that until I finish the first draft). I have grandiose visions of sitting at a table at a Northwest Folklife Festival with a pen in my hand, surrounded by huge stacks of my newly published book, and with a six-block long line of people waiting for me to autograph their copy for them. Anybody have an idea of a publisher who'd be interested in something like this?

I'm also doing a bit of performing with a group called "Miscellany." It consists of Nancy Quensé (voice, guitar, banjo, Celtic harp, and hurdy-gurdy), Isla Ross (violin and viola in general, but she specializes in Celtic music, Scottish in particular), Barbara Palecek (my wife, who sings and also plays an old reed pump organ that folds up into a foot-locker—the sort of thing that came West in covered wagons and was used a lot at camp-meetings), and me (voice and guitar). Our main ongoing gig within the past couple of years is to provide incidental music for readings by poet Jana Harris. Jana (pronounced "YAH-nah") researched a lot of the diaries, letters, and journals of people who settled in the Pacific Northwest in the late 1800s and she bases her poems on their experiences. Her books of poems include The Dust of Everyday Life: An Epic Poem of the Pacific Northwest; Oh, How Can I Keep On Singing?: Voices of Pioneer Women; We Never Speak of It: Idaho-Wyoming Poems, 1889-1890; and several others. She also teaches writing at the University of Washington.

Nancy has done some amazing in-depth research into folk, popular, parlor songs, and hymns that were probably sung during the times portrayed (the hymns sound fantastic on Barbara's wheezy old reed organ!), and Jana has amassed a collection of slides of wonderful old photographs. Our presentations consist of Jana at a podium doing most of the readings while unobtrusively changing slides with a little switch in her hand, and the rest of us filling in appropriate music and song beneath and between Jana's readings. Jana does most of the readings, but we all read. Isla has a kind of "little girl" voice, so she reads the children's and young girls' poems, and since I'm the only guy, I get to do the guy poems ("Every Time Rory Shaughnessy Goes Underground" and "Broomshop Regulations"). Between the readings, the slides, and the music, the whole presentation has a sort of Ken Burns' Civil War flavor to it.

We have a presentation coming up on March 12th at North Seattle Community College, and another one soon at the Washington State Museum. There's been some talk about a television show on our local PBS affiliate and possibly a CD. If it all comes off, I'll keep people posted.

More than anybody wants to know. But I just finished a tough chapter I was working on, I have a head of steam, and I can't stop writing. Sorry to bore the crap out of you, GUEST, Martin Gibson, but you see, even though I'm officially retired, I've taken on a couple of jobs that I really love doing. I'm also as actively involved in politics as I'm able to be, with letters to the editor and op-ed stuff among other things. Life is real. Life is good.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: GET A JOB...
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 26 Feb 04 - 01:50 PM

Hi, Don:

I just wanted to add my appreciation for your postings. I really enjoy your description of your life. You've had a lot of fascinating experiences, and I respect you for all that you've accomplished. I too predate the folk scare, but not as much as you, in part because I didn't live in a large urban area where I could hear the music. I'd been playing guitar for four or five years before I actually saw anyone playing one, other than a brief five or six weeks of lessons I took.The first time I heard someone play acoustic guitar was when I heard Marshall Brickman backing Leon Bibb at a little restaurant in Madison, Wisconsin in the late 50's. I was fortunate to hear a lot of musicians from 1960-64 when I lived in New York City, and will always be thankful that I did... the new singer songwriters, and the old traditional musicians who had a brief taste of recognition on the coat tails of the Kingston Trio, Peter Paul and Mary and the rest.

It's good to look back. And even better to look forward..

Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: GET A JOB...
From: Don Firth
Date: 26 Feb 04 - 01:15 PM

Thank you, Bobert, GUEST,s einstein, and Frankham.

And if you'll forgive a bit of further drift in a thread that has already gone a bit wonky—

Frankham, if you are the person I'm pretty sure you are, I've enjoyed and admired your work for years. I first heard about you in the very late Fifties while I was filling in for a few weeks in a record store in Seattle. A young woman who had attended the Old Town School of Folk Music dropped in and wanted to know if we had one of your records, and it turned out we did. She and I listened to it together and that was my introduction to your work. I heard about you a lot, and I actually saw you in the flesh once. That was when you and the Weavers sang in Seattle in the early Sixties. You were on the stage, I was up in the balcony.

From the early Fifties (way pre-Kingston Trio) Seattle had a very active folk scene (sparked by such people as Walt Robertson and Sandy Paton), but it seemed to have been regarded as a bit of a backwater by the rest of the world. I did have an opportunity to meet many well-known (often later) singers who passed through Seattle: Guy Carawan, Barbara Dane, Rolf Cahn, Theodore Bikel, Bob Gibson, Dick Rosmini, and in 1954 sat cross-legged on the floor of someone's living room at four in the morning with Pete Seeger as we passed a guitar back and forth. I learned how to teach folk guitar in classes from Barry Olivier in Berkeley, and shortly thereafter had the opportunity to meet and talk with Bess Lomax Hawes at one of the Berkeley Folk Festivals, and she did a lot to refine my class teaching.

I think we're probably pretty much the same generation: those who became interested in folk music well before the Great Folk Scare.

I'm sorry we've never met (yet, anyway), and I'm glad to make your acquaintance.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: GET A JOB...
From: Frankham
Date: 26 Feb 04 - 10:23 AM

Hi Don,

Thanks so much for sharing the info on yourself and accomplishments.
I found it most interesting.

As for our mud-slinging post, here, I can only offer one
prescription. Dump elitist Bush and his cronies.

Frank

Subject: RE: BS: GET A JOB...
From: Sam L
Date: 26 Feb 04 - 10:19 AM

I hear the south has postponed rising again for another year or two.

Subject: RE: BS: GET A JOB...
From: GUEST,s einstein
Date: 26 Feb 04 - 02:55 AM

Don, I enjoy your comments so much. and I have been sickened, occasionally, by MG's previous abusive personal comments to you and to others.

MG - why do you feel you have to get before you are got. your paranoia has become a self fulfilling prophecy.

i would be interested to see if you have any ability to persuade with ideas rather than ripping into people with personal attacks.

you have no credibility.

Subject: RE: BS: GET A JOB...
From: Johnny in OKC
Date: 26 Feb 04 - 02:05 AM

Ask Tar Heel why he calls himself by that name.

It's because the Carolina rebels held fast (as though their heels were stuck in tar) in support of slavery, against the U.S. Government which he now thinks is so great.

Talk about twisted irony.

--- Johnny in OKC

(Not that "Sooner" has any more honorable a provenance.)

Subject: RE: BS: GET A JOB...
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 25 Feb 04 - 09:39 PM

Martin Gibson respect someone?

Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: GET A JOB...
From: Bobert
Date: 25 Feb 04 - 08:53 PM

Now, now, now...

Hey, lets stick wid the issues and leave the personal bickerin's to PM's...

And, Martin, a little sensitivity wouldn't hurt yer posts. And it's Don Firth, not Ferth. And if you also took the time to know that Don has accomplished all that you find "boring" overcoming the physical obsticles that physically handicapped folks must also fight, then you might have a degree of respect for him.

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: GET A JOB...
From: GUEST,Martin Gibson
Date: 25 Feb 04 - 08:11 PM

Don Ferth

For something that deserves no response, you were quite hypocritical. Boring, also.

Hi dianavan.

Subject: RE: BS: GET A JOB...
From: dianavan
Date: 25 Feb 04 - 05:46 PM

If you shun Marty, he will go away.

d

Subject: RE: BS: GET A JOB...
From: Don Firth
Date: 25 Feb 04 - 03:58 PM

GUEST,Martin Gibson

Your crudeness deserves no response, but just to set the record straight:—

I have lived in the real world for seventy-two years. I have seen a fair amount of life and I have held a variety of jobs. I am also happily married to a wonderful woman and have been for several decades. I made my living from the mid-Fifties to the late Sixties by singing (television, concerts, and clubs and coffeehouses) and teaching guitar both privately (both classic and folk) and in classes (folk). I have worked doing production drawings for Boeing commercial aircraft (the production drawing for the 727-200 No. 2 engine firewall is my work, as is that for the 747 wing-to-body fairing, among many other others). I have also drawn cartoons and comic strips. I worked in radio as a general announcer and newscaster, a rock-jock, a classical music announcer, and for a year as a news director. I have also worked as a telephone operator, and as a technical writer for a company under contract to the Bonneville Power Administration (which means I've done work for the same company that Woody Guthrie did in the Thirties). I still sing, and my old friends tell me my voice is as good as it ever was, if not better. Note that maturity lends a certain acuteness of judgment, artistically as well as in life in general. I am and always have been a student of history and philosophy.

Regarding my last name. Those familiar with the geography of Scotland and with place-names in and around there will undoubtedly recognize it. My great-grandfather was born in Orkney, and like many Orkneymen in the nineteenth century, he hired on with the Hudson's Bay Company, and was promoted to Factor on San Juan Island in Puget Sound, where he settled and established the family from which I come. It is an ancient and honorable name, and at least three will-known British actors bear it: Colin Firth, Peter Firth, and Jonathan Firth. You will note that, rather than assuming an alias of some kind, and further, hiding behind the GUEST appellation, I use my own name—the same name I used when I made my living as a professional musician and the name I used on the radio.

By resorting to base insults as you do, you only dishonor yourself.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: GET A JOB...
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 25 Feb 04 - 03:24 PM

The mantle of Gargoyle and tarheel must be weighing heavily.

Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: GET A JOB...
From: Don Firth
Date: 25 Feb 04 - 02:59 PM

Martin Gibson, you've just displayed the level upon which you operate. Your soul is revealed to all.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: GET A JOB...
From: GUEST,Martin Gibson
Date: 25 Feb 04 - 02:53 PM

Don Filth

Me not live in the real world? To a degree you are right. I spend not nearly as much time taking seriously what people like you post on forums like this.

I take seriously some (not all) of the music discussion, and the other times I am here for some entertainment value regarding some extremely twisted political and religious perceptions.

This place is hardly my real world. If it's yours, it's possible your sexual world is also.

Subject: RE: BS: GET A JOB...
From: dianavan
Date: 25 Feb 04 - 02:11 PM

Larry K - You're right about free enterprise. Its the very thing that made the U.S. strong. However, the problem is that monopolopies (multi-nationals) are so strong that it is very difficult for small business to compete. Multinational corporations also deprive many Americans of jobs.

Don't forget - war has always been a boost for the economy and statistics are easily manipulated.

d

Subject: RE: BS: GET A JOB...
From: GUEST,Larry K
Date: 25 Feb 04 - 02:02 PM

Someone once told me "you're only worth as much as someone is willing to pay you.   If you think you are worth more, than find someone who will pay you more"   Very true words.    Or in the case of the USA, start your own business.    What other country gives you more freedom to start your own business.   Millions of people have done that.   Your only limitations are your own talents, abilities, and desire.

You are not guaranteed a job in a capitalistic socieity.   It is your repsonsibility.   Since Bush has been in office the unemployment rate in this country has been below 6%.   Compare that to unemployment rates around the world such as 10% and higher in France and Germany.

The USA currently controls 43% of the worlds's GNP and 50% of the world's market research (Newsweek Magazine)   This number is actually increasing.   Somehow the USA economy is prospering even though we keep hearing about dissapearing jobs and people out of work.

CEO's that steal money and ruin their company (Ken Lay, Gary Winnick, Martha Stewart, Jeff Skillet and others) should be executed. They abuse the system and cause hardship for millions.

After reading some of these responses, it seems the biggest reason many people can't get a job is their own attitude.   I have worked for 26 years and have been laid off twice. Neither was my fault (one boss said I was the best emmployee he ever had)   I sarted working on my new job the day after I was laid off.   7 resume's a week doesn't get you a job- than send out 50 a week. And network. And use head hunters.    And have your friends get leads for you. Just don't be a victim- especially when you interview.

Subject: RE: BS: GET A JOB...
From: Don Firth
Date: 25 Feb 04 - 01:20 PM

Neither tar_heel nor GUEST,Martin Gibson live in the real world.

Hey, dianavan! On your comment above about multiple-personality disorder, I've always maintained that people with multiple-personalities should share them with people who don't have any.

But no. That would make me a "bleeding-heart liberal. . . ."

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: GET A JOB...
From: Arnie
Date: 25 Feb 04 - 01:05 PM

Well, my unemployed US friends, why don't you decamp to the mother country (well ex-mother country then). According to our glorious leader, we have 500,000 job vacancies. Strange this, since we also have 1.4 million unemployed! However, you'll have to be a bit nifty, 'cos from 1st May we will be joined by 72.5 million new EU citizens from Eastern Europe - and the word is that a few of them may be heading our way looking for work, seeing as the rest of Europe has decided not to let them in to work for a least 7 yrs. You at least have a head start as we almost speak the same lingo!

Subject: RE: BS: GET A JOB...
From: Nerd
Date: 25 Feb 04 - 12:42 PM

For once, I think ol' MG has said the most sensible thing yet on this thread!

Subject: RE: BS: GET A JOB...
From: GUEST,Martin Gibson
Date: 25 Feb 04 - 12:06 AM

Sha na na na, sha na na na na,
Sha na na na, sha na na na na,
Sha na na na, sha na na na na,
Sha na na na, sha na na na na,
Yip yip yip yip yip yip yip yip
Mum mum mum mum mum mum
Get a job Sha na na na, sha na na na na

Subject: RE: BS: GET A JOB...
From: GUEST,Jim Dixon
Date: 24 Feb 04 - 02:49 PM

That was me. Sorry I didn't sign it.

Subject: RE: BS: GET A JOB...
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Feb 04 - 02:48 PM

Fine, tarheel. I'll stop saying "my job" as soon as the employers stop saying "my company."

And since you don't believe creating jobs is a worthwhile goal, let's get rid of all the tax loopholes that are supposed to give rich people an incentive to create them.

Subject: RE: BS: GET A JOB...
From: dianavan
Date: 24 Feb 04 - 12:53 PM

I think he does live on less than $8.50 an hour. He just eats alot of possum and squirrel.

d

Subject: RE: BS: GET A JOB...
From: Frankham
Date: 22 Feb 04 - 10:59 AM

Tar Heel,

You can get a job in this country. Many people can't make
a living at it. That's the problem.

NOw many can make a living in other places in the world so
that's why jobs that are worth anything are going there.

I suggest that in order to support this thesis, take a job
that pays less than $8.50 an hour and show us how to live
on it.

Frank

Subject: RE: BS: GET A JOB...
From: Bobert
Date: 22 Feb 04 - 10:53 AM

Like I said above, CarolC, our country has gotten to the the point where "cheating" is not only honored.... but rewarded...

Purdy scarey direction for a country that pounds its chest as a "moral country"...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: GET A JOB...
From: CarolC
Date: 21 Feb 04 - 11:46 AM

Re: Nerd's 21 Feb 04 - 01:39 AM post. The irony is that, as things are set up now, the US government gives tax incentives to companies that move their operations oversees.

Subject: RE: BS: GET A JOB...
From: Peace
Date: 21 Feb 04 - 11:43 AM

I read your post

Subject: RE: BS: GET A JOB...
From: Bill D - PM
Date: 20 Feb 04 - 11:22 PM

nawww, brucie..not mis-spelled...just wrong gender.

OK, this ol' boy's slow. Took me about five reads before the light went on. Good one. LOL

Subject: RE: BS: GET A JOB...
From: Sam L
Date: 21 Feb 04 - 01:39 AM

Interested? To start, I'd get off this Get a job/ I-worked-my-ass-off-to-get-my-greasy-job crap, and at least mention doing something without anybody hiring you to do it. The lone busker above trumps the two self-important jobbers, even with just a nickel in a hat. He made it himself, without kissing anybody's butt (or his own, as overpaid peons always, predictably, invariably, robotically, lord hep me I gotta kiss it again, always feel the need to do, publicly). Nobody talks about the respect due those who just do things they believe in, for big money or little. How cynical is that?

Subject: RE: BS: GET A JOB...
From: Nerd
Date: 21 Feb 04 - 01:39 AM

Two things amuse me about Tar_Heel's posts. First, coming from someone who claims to be a Christian, the first post not only admits but revels in the fact that we in the US have cheap computer mice because some poor Chinese person is kept in grinding poverty through low wages. But isn't that a sin, Tar Heel? Won't the luxury items produced by sweat shop slaves send us all to hell? Wouldn't it be better to pay 80% more for a mouse?

Second, there's the claim that many successful people make that "because I succeeded, anyone who doesn't is a whiner." This reeks of the unresolved guilt people like Tar Heel feel because they know their success was based as much on luck and advantage as on skill and hard work. The pathetic, whimpering child inside Tar Heel is so crippled by guilt over the fact that he succeeded partly because he was white, for example, that he has to whine about black people in the most racist manner (yo'face?) and claim they make more money than they deserve. Awww, poor little white boy feels discriminated against? Don't we feel sorry for you!

And, by the way, the flaw in the argument about the jobs in India is that the corporation IS doing something other than exporting information and importing modified information. It is, for example, giving money away to the Indian government in the form of its workers' taxes!

Here's what people forget: for the privilege and advantages of being a US corporation, using the US infrastructure to establish and maintain itself, and the US reputation to make clients feel like they're doing business with the best, a US corporation owes the US community (who paid for the infrastructure and established the reputation). It pays our government, which uses the money for our various needs. It's like their membership dues that they pay for using the the swimming pool and tennis courts at their country club. They pay in corporate taxes.

By outsourcing jobs, the corporation deprives the US community of dues twice: once, when the workers pay their taxes in India instead of here, and twice, when the workers who got laid off start drawing unemployment. Thus, if such companies want to keep using the US infrastructure and reputation, they need either to be good citizens and keep jobs here, or else pay more taxes to make up for their theft of services.

So the answer to "what do you do?" is to charge a tax on companies for every worker they employ overseas and apply that money to our various welfare programs. If we make the tax high enough, it will work as a deterrent, and the companies will look for other ways to keep costs down besides gouging foreign workers. If it's still profitable to gouge, at least our unemployed will have a solvent system watching their backs until they find work.

Subject: RE: BS: GET A JOB...
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 21 Feb 04 - 01:07 AM

tar hell-you are stpid person, anyway i piyt sonmething here before, but i thgjink it got delted , or it break down or cut of, any wqy, = you are ful of shit.john

Subject: RE: BS: GET A JOB...
From: Sam L
Date: 20 Feb 04 - 11:42 PM

Martin, people are not whining, there's been one rough comment, but be grateful for it--this is the only thing you can form any kind of response to.

One time at the park a family got out with their doberman, which ran directly to my very small kids, who were scared and began climbing me. I said call your dog. Three times. The man looked at me. I said call your motherfucking dog you pissant I'll kill the fucking thing and beat you with the carcass you cocksucking shithead. He called his dog. Then he told me he didn't appreciate the language. But it was the only one he UNDERSTOOD. Sometimes you have to come down to the level of a person, or they just sit there indefinately, scratching themselves like monkeys. As a lame-brained repetitious troll (or actually I'm almost convinced you are a real person who is like a troll but without any redeeming aesthetic awareness that you are funny) you of all people should know this. All that space of park and the guy sets his doberman loose in the kids playground. What a fuckhead.

If you and Tar Heel can't muster any sign of intelligent argument for yourselves, or just the personal courage to stand for whatever you think you think, I could do it, I've heard it enough. And I've worked with people who thought the world owed them a job, who whined about doing what they were paid to do. I've seen situations where the point could be fairly made (but the administration G.W.Bush just isn't one of them, because he sucks). But I could argue the other way, if y'all need to hire somebody to do it. Do you have a dental plan?

Subject: RE: BS: GET A JOB...
From: Bobert
Date: 20 Feb 04 - 11:41 PM

Another aspect of this discussion that has not been brought up is the rampant *cheating* that is going on in the US. It used to be that if you got your education and played by the rules you would most likely succeed. No more. The message that is coming thru loud and clear is that you have to cheat. The political leaders cheat. The CEO's cheat.

This does not bode well for the country as more and more folks are thinking that cheating is part of being successful...

Ahhhhh, just food for thought...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: GET A JOB...
From: Bill D
Date: 20 Feb 04 - 11:22 PM

nawww, brucie..not mis-spelled...just wrong gender.

Subject: RE: BS: GET A JOB...
From: Peace
Date: 20 Feb 04 - 10:44 PM

No one gonna point out that cowardess is misspelled? I figured by now . . . . Sorry about the rant, folks. Had to get it off my chest. And tar_heel, I didn't mean to offend you any more than you meant to offend me.

Subject: RE: BS: GET A JOB...
From: dianavan
Date: 20 Feb 04 - 10:15 PM

Kim C. - I think we might have the same idea regarding the "job market". Whose fault is it anyway? Seems to me the economy should not really need "stimulation" if business people were really capable of providing the goods and services required by the market.

...but talk about whiners! What do you call those people called lobbyists? What about subsidies and grants to businesses? What about the tax breaks? Somebody is sure doing alot of whining!

Maybe when they decided that church and state should be separate, they should also have included corporations as being outside the mandate of good government. Maybe it can still be done.

d

Subject: RE: BS: GET A JOB...
From: Teresa
Date: 20 Feb 04 - 10:09 PM

Personal story:

Once I was busking, playing guitar and singing in the subway station, and someone came up to me and said, "Why don't you get a real job?" I said, "Ok, you got one for me?"

Silence.

Teresa

Subject: RE: BS: GET A JOB...
From: Peace
Date: 20 Feb 04 - 09:56 PM

And while I'm at it, the word "bu!!sh!t" in the second line above is a common concrete noun. The word "asshole" in the fourth line is the same. The word "fu#cin'" in the last line is an adjective. The fact that I use the words doesn't mean I don't know others. And, I wanted you to know that I know what parts of speech they are. I do not like people who take cheap shots just for the helluvit. Unemployed people have enough to dael with. Don't add to their troubles. That is an act of cowardess.

Bruce Murdoch

Subject: RE: BS: GET A JOB...
From: Peace
Date: 20 Feb 04 - 09:49 PM

tar_heel,

I have heard many people who brag about how hard they worked to get where they are, how much they scraped to get what they got, etc. Good for you. But you are a presumptive person to make the assumption that anyone who wants a job will find one. That's bu!!sh!t. People with certain types of physical challenge can't find work. People who haven't had the benefit of education sometimes can't. Many people sometimes can't through no fault of their own. You come off as a real asshole when you spout that kinda crap. I have a university education mostly because I was lucky. I was the first person in the entire history of my family--and take that back as many generations as you'd care to--to become educated past the high school level. I would be ashamed of myself if I ever said that "just because I could do it so can anyone else who really wants to." That just ain't so. Stow your rants, OK? You are coming across as a fu#kin' idiot.

Subject: RE: BS: GET A JOB...
From: Peace
Date: 20 Feb 04 - 09:42 PM

I'll referee, OK? Unless it's gonna be a knife fight. No point having rules in a knife fight.

Subject: RE: BS: GET A JOB...
From: Pseudolus
Date: 20 Feb 04 - 03:45 PM

Well, Martin, you may want to read my post again. There is nothing in there that even remotely resembles a whine. However, if you'd like to discuss it, I make you the same offer....

Frank

Subject: RE: BS: GET A JOB...
From: Kim C
Date: 20 Feb 04 - 03:41 PM

But nowhere in the Constitution does it say that the President is reponsible for ensuring that each individual is gainfully employed.

Yes, the editorial is harsh, and probably written by someone whose only purpose in writing is to elicit strong reactions from readers. Neal Boortz is a talk radio host, if that gives you any clues.

But let's look at this a little deeper. What I got out of it is that it isn't the President's fault (no matter who the President happens to be at the time) if you don't have a job. I don't believe it's necessarily yours. Indeed, the individual does bear the responsibility of looking for a job, and keeping up the skills necessary to get a job. But even that doesn't ensure employment. There are other factors at play, most notably the local economy.

If there are no jobs to be had where you live, that's not your fault. And it's not the President's fault, either. The President is an easy target because he's the one in front, but the people behind him, i.e., the House and the Senate, and the State governments, all have some culpability when it comes to issues of economics. And I use the term President in general - not necessarily referring to George Bush.

Subject: RE: BS: GET A JOB...
From: Rapparee
Date: 20 Feb 04 - 03:16 PM

I'm very much ashamed, but my opinion is also a cut-and-paste job.

"We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

"Before he enter on the execution of his office, he shall take the following oath or affirmation:--"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.""

I see no relation between the current president and either of these two quotations.

Subject: RE: BS: GET A JOB...
From: Janie
Date: 20 Feb 04 - 03:13 PM

Now all y'all, lets be clear. That Tar heel don't speak for this Tar Heel. His ilk are everywhere (sad & scarey,but true), not just the South. My kid is dealing with some one very much like him in school--they call them bullies there, and know they operate out of narcissism and fear.

McGrath--you got 'em in the UK too.

Janie the Tarheelbilly

Subject: RE: BS: GET A JOB...
From: GUEST,Martin gibson
Date: 20 Feb 04 - 03:09 PM

Tar Heel

The whiners continue to squirm and resort to ass-kicking threats, don't they?

Subject: RE: BS: GET A JOB...
From: Pseudolus
Date: 20 Feb 04 - 02:43 PM

I'll be losing my job to some worker in India as of May 15th. I'm not looking for a president to just hand me a job or money to feed my family. What would be nice is to see that my president is showing some signs, any signs, that he is trying to keep the playing field level. That's not happening. I'll find another job, it may not be right away and it may not pay as much as I'm making now, but eventually I will. In the meantime, tar heel, let me know if you'd like to get together and talk about this man to heel, and we'll see how much of your rant you can get out before I kick your Carolina ass!

Have a beautiful day,
Frank