On the Supreme Court’s discussion of the extension of federal rulings to cover states and local government:

“Justice Stephen Breyer was most vigorous in asserting that the Second Amendment involves dangerous weapons and should not be accorded the same status as other constitutional rights. “We’re starting with a difference in purposes,” he said, suggesting that the right to weapons cannot be equated with the right to free speech, for example.”

Just ask any victim of emotional and verbal abuse about that, sir. Some people would prefer one quick shot to a lifetime of demoralizing and debilitating commentary. Probably a similar number of deaths by suicide and by aggression towards and poor interaction with others result from this.

Arms can and should be controlled in a likewise manner as is freedom of speech.

It’s no big surprise that older workers who have been laid off are having a much harder time finding a job than younger workers. It’s always been that way, and with the current unemployment near 10%, it’s only gotten worse.

And yes, there are things to do with your resume that can creatively overlook some of your years and experience to focus on more youth-oriented skills. For example, play down the years of experience and play up the “willing to face new challenges” bit.

But I didn’t bother posting again about this situation merely for fun or reinforcement; what got my blood simmering this morning is a quote from today’s MSNBC’s article on “Laid-off Workers Face Biases in Job Search.”

“Unfortunately, we can’t change society’s stereotypes, but individuals can separate themselves by noting how they don’t match the stereotype,” said Bendick.

“Unfortunately, we can’t change society’s stereotypes…”

Well society sure did something for gender and for race and religion. Oh yeah, and for sexual preferences and physical impairment.  But for age? Nah, why bother.

In other words, while society flocks around their darlings of the moment, whatever’s trendy, old people still aren’t cute or needy enough to garner any liberal interest.

Though I do understand the concern on the part of some parents regarding the President’s planned speech to schoolchildren this week, I still can’t help but feel that it’s the type of panicked mob mentality response that’s often the case of much ado about nothing.

While it might have been more prudent to speak directly to children with their parents present and thus choose an early evening broadcast time, it shouldn’t be a necessary consideration. He is, after all, the President and hopefully has their best interests as his primary goal.

Parents who are up in arms against this speech may have the experience of the liberal political pressure that’s aimed at students on many college campuses, but the White House has assured us that this televised speech is in response to the large dropout numbers and meant to encourage kids to work hard and remain in school. My only negative concern might be that if the idea of a college education is touted as being necessary, it might make those who have chosen other paths or who honestly do not have that option open to them feel less meaningful. But this is speculation on my part; I don’t know how the address is laid out and neither does anyone else.

Otherwise, it’s the same inspirational b.s. they’re hearing; only this time, maybe they’ll listen.

I don’t understand how, in this atmosphere of economic depression, people don’t see the writing on the wall and do the right thing.

I’ve been commenting on Wisebread’s suggestion to small businesses to save money by outsourcing labor to “Virtual Assistants” the majority of which is overseas labor. The attitude seems to be, well big business does it to save money, and it’s a global economy these days, so…

Without thinking that maybe, just maybe, this is one of the reasons Americans are suffering the onslaught of unemployment and loss of their jobs and homes. So maybe big business (corporations, that is) aren’t greedy, just using good business sense, after all?  You can’t have it both ways. And no, it’s not something that American small business should follow as a model. Look in your local weekly papers–you’ll find plenty of fairly cheap employable Americans there.

I am not against a global economy, but when we’re hurting our own to satisfy a few, when supply is greater than demand here on our own soil, when money is the bottom line over human compassion and caring, I’d say idealist America has a problem.You spread your arms too wide and the closest to you are going to be smothered or drop out and fall to the floor.

Today’s headlines in the local news, and the teeny little article accompanying it:

23 Pratt & Whitney Workers Laid Off

19 Conn. Employees Given Pink Slips

EAST HARTFORD, Conn. — Twenty-three workers were laid off at Pratt & Whitney on Wednesday, company officials said.Of those laid off, 19 were located in Connecticut and four in Maine, officials said.Pratt & Whitney officials said the salaried positions were being sourced to an outside vendor.“This action is part of Pratt & Whitney’s overall efforts to reduce costs in response to the downturn in the global economy and its impact on the aerospace industry,” the company said in a written statement.

(WFSB Channel 3)

Maybe when we start outsourcing doctors, nurses, lawyers, teachers, and politicians, Americans will wake up.

I really need to stop reading the news.

While every teaching position lost is regrettable due to the personal loss of income for the individuals as well as the impact on students and faculty, I was surprised to see such a low unemployment rate among Connecticut teachers. 1200 out of 50,000 certified teachers in the state means an unemployment rate of 2.4%.  The state average unemployment is currently at 8%.

From what I understand, stimulus funds will be flowing into education as well as construction and healthcare as the top three priorities though the money may be slower in coming than many would like. It should be an alert to those entering and already in the college systems to hone skills geared towards these less affected, more poised to rebound areas.

This page is just too funny to let pass: “80% of Grads Move  in With Parents”

And this statement, from a new graduate who sounds more like a Miss USA contestant:

“There are a lot of, like, openings, especially with group homes, nursing homes, all the stuff with, like, people that need help,” she said.

Meanwhile, it claims that CT Governor Rell sent a mass mailing out to college graduates to stay in Connecticut to pursue jobs. Yes, that’s while they’re living off their parents–who themselves may be out of work. It seems she wants to keep the best and brightest in the state.  In other words, we’re sort of catering here to an elite group who, like ‘Miss USA’ above, are so very much smarter than the regular residents.

…to work outside the now standard box of technology. In today’s New York Times, an interesting and enlightening article on “The Case for Working With Your Hands.”

The Princeton economist Alan Blinder argues that the crucial distinction in the emerging labor market is not between those with more or less education, but between those whose services can be delivered over a wire and those who must do their work in person or on site. The latter will find their livelihoods more secure against outsourcing to distant countries. As Blinder puts it, “You can’t hammer a nail over the Internet.” Nor can the Indians fix your car. Because they are in India.

Thanks to Time Goes By for the link.

I wonder if they waited four hours before calling a M.E.?

After biting my tongue through several nights of this ad (In This Together Connecticut) I find myself needing to make comment. The ad is state-employee minded–which of course I’m not at all against–but is tipped and twisted by one group to appeal to another group (non-government employees) by threatening their safety.

Workers have stepped up and made sacrifices. Now it’s time for the wealthy and big corporations to pay their fair share to help fix our state budget.”

This annoys me for several reasons. First of all, the government is not only the last one to make the sacrifices and take the hits as the private sector has taken for the last year and a half, but it’s that so typical whiney “well if we’re going to have to do this, everybody has to do this” that indicates to me that belief in spreading the wealth is also a strong belief in spreading the pain when they’re the ones hurting. I hate that every time there’s a possible layoff looming in the government sector, the public is made to feel guilty and must bear the threat of loss of security, education, playgrounds, et al, everything that is important to them rather than gearing the cuts at the ever present waste in  state spending. Oh and government, by the way, is one of the biggest hirers right now. Yet the corporations as employers are being asked to help keep state employees in their jobs–jobs that pay well over comparable positions in private industry. Well, if they had their druthers, I’m sure they’d just as soon keep their own employees in their jobs.

While government employees are important, to be honest with you, I’m just as dependent if not more so upon my auto mechanic, my doctor, my grocer, my banker and a host of others in the private sector as I am on the state.

Thanks to Ronni Bennett for the post notice on this New York Times Article, whereby Democrat Senators Baucus (MT) and Harkin (IA) propose:

Congress is seriously considering proposals to provide tax credits or other subsidies to employers who offer wellness programs that meet federal criteria. In addition, lawmakers said they would make it easier for employers to use financial rewards or penalties to promote healthy behavior among employees.

Exactly how does lowering the risks for, loading the dice in favor of, the insurance companies help American citizens? How is this plan, masquerading under “wellness care” and reward or penalty system any different than the time the insurance company came around and checked out our house and sent notice of non-renewal because our house was in the 30 year-old range that statistics said would start having problems that would cost them?

Insurance premiums are no more than regular protection money paid to an industry that is out to make a huge profit and it’s time that something be done about these mobsters. If the government is indeed going to step in, then don’t play with the mob; take care of health services and the patients, not protection money makers. Besides being an invasion of privacy, a huge step by Big Brother, and offering little to the American people as a benefit, providing carriers additional ‘insurance’ against their risk-taking is an asinine way of solving the problem.

The more I read the more I believe there should be further investigation of the tactics used in torturing prisoners and establishing legality. I’m not necessarily looking for blame purposes, but for the future. As Americans being represented by the military and justice departments of the United States we have to know a) how far we’re willing to go to secure our country and if we agree to that, and b) if despite established standards, there are ways to get around them without fear of penalty.

Morally, we’re likely ALL opposed to the idea of using torture, whether physical, emotional or mental and the defining point at which we may accept the concept is based upon the purpose and the value we place on what is gained, i.e., knowledge to prevent a catastrophic attack. Obviously, for a country that is willing to go to war which necessitates arming men and women with guns and ordering them to shoot and kill the enemy, it’s pretty hard to say that dead’s okay but hurting isn’t. And to be completely honest, soldiers don’t drop down dead when shot like they do in the movies, they hurt a whole lot first, and maybe for hours, days before they die.

Morally, we also kill people strapped into a bed or chair in a nice clean room with a dozen people watching–capital punishment. Now why is that okay to do? And why do we find nice ways of doing it that supposedly don’t hurt and bring a quick death and consider ourselves humane? Frankly, I’d think most of the convicted would likely opt for a public flogging than a nice meal and a needle.

Lots of interest in the release of the so-called torture memos, and lots of interesting and deeply intense questions arise. I suppose I’m not interested in the legalities as much as the morality of the use of torture. For one thing, laws come to define a position established by a society only after they have decided the ethical question. It is also clear to me that what may or may not be legal does not always jive with what may or may not be ethical. The two are often in opposition just by personal belief alone, and sometimes on a larger scale of right and wrong.

This is a matter of grave importance and yet it is something that even as we see it in movies and on TV, we prefer to believe that we as a people do not condone the torturing of prisoners in order to obtain information. The thing is, we do, and we likely have to if we’re talking about the safety and security of our society under threat.

Now waterboarding has to be a horrid experience, and even if they claim it doesn’t hurt, it’s the fear of death and the sensation of drowning that’s got to be pretty horrible. But let’s go beyond that to inflicting shame–for some people, that’s worse, or to the intentional infliction of pain.  We don’t want to think we can do this to other people and we may be able to justify it by concentrating on the people who we’re saving, a self-defensive move. And there’s this, if we feel and agree that any manner of torture is not acceptable and is in fact immoral, then we have to assume that death is worse than inflicting pain, and that is certainly our intention when we arm thousands of men and send them out to face the enemy in a process called war. Maybe then, some things are unfortunately necessary.

It’s a tough thing to decide and it looks like we can’t pretend anymore that our country doesn’t do this except in the movies. Now that it’s out in the open, we may have to make some sort of decision. We can’t simply impose our own personal values on the whole of society, nor can we risk the welfare of that society by accepting the refusal of a terrorist prisoner to offer information that threatens it.  Quite the dilemma.

This Hartford Courant poll on the issue this week regarding students on two state campuses requesting the right to carry concealed weapons on campus show some surprising results (NOTE: I’ve been updating the chart below):

Guns on Campus?

Yes (5667 responses)

91.4%

No (534 responses)

8.6%

• 6201 total responses (Results not scientific)

While my initial response to the question was pretty much that I didn’t trust kids with guns running around, I have to come back to the facts: that state law still requires one to be twenty-one years of age to carry, and it’s much, much harder to get a gun permit than it is to get a gun; that the ones who are intent on killing will always be able to sneak a gun in (and they haven’t been using small, concealable weapons!); that in many cases such as the fast-food restaurant massacre there was a woman who had left her gun in the car, whose father was killed along with many others, and who regrets deeply that she didn’t have that chance to prevent some of those murders. Thirty-two dead and twenty-five wounded by a single gunman at VA Tech–don’t you think a couple people firing back might have saved some lives? Or do you want him to stand there shooting people until he runs out of bullets?

While the shooting events on campus are relatively small compared to overall crime, the devastation in each event is total by the nature of the number of students and faculty that become sitting ducks for the shooter. Campuses safe? Well maybe, but why then are there so many ‘lockdowns’ of schools in the news lately as one of the first immediate steps taken following any form of shooting within running distance of a school?

I know this: I want to be able to carry a weapon legally to protect myself and others if necessary against the few nut-jobs out there that are depending on taking advantage of an opportunity and knowing full well that no one can stop them. I’ll bet the students at Columbine, VA Tech, and any of the few (but more than plenty to the victims’ friends and parents) schools that have seen the slaughter firsthand, wish that someone in the second row had had a weapon, aka, a chance to protect them.

Interesting–but not surprising–article this morning regarding the tendency to not spend money in a bad economy even when your income/employment is considered relatively secure.

The frugality of the Kimberlins and Scanlons and millions of other Americans who still have their good jobs feed back on the economy, holding down growth and encouraging other worried workers to trim their spending — causing the whole vicious cycle to run another lap.

Logically, this makes sense; the whole idea behind government (taxpayer) stimulus is to get money circulating, and all good liberals should immediately go out and spend, spend, spend. However, I think that the mob mentality that the article appears to blame for the hoarding is not completely on target.

Economists say many still-flush consumers are handcuffed by psychological traps that cause them to tighten their purse strings even though economic hardship is not their reality. Underscoring the crucial role that consumer psychology will play in turning around the economy, President Obama and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke have both been on the hustings this week sounding notes of optimism.

“Traditional economics assumes that we are all rational, that we approach these things very rationally, take in all the information, and then weight it and make a decision,” said Thomas Gilovich, a Cornell psychologist and co-director of the university’s Center for Behavioral Economics and Decision Research. “To a behavioral economist that seems clearly untrue.”

While I and many of my friends are not feeling secure, we’ve all started saving for the bad times since last year. We aren’t looking around at what others are doing, we’re attempting to insure our own survival by creating a safety net that’s not based on a government handout as an option.  I think that frugality–at least in my own case–is a learned habit, and it’s extended beyond my own personal finances to that of my thoughts on government spending. Some folks don’t see it that way, and this is likely where the follow-the-crowd thinking comes in: If it ain’t my money, spend it; if it is and I’m the only one paying, hold on tight. The problem here is that these folk who are so free with government spending don’t appear to care that as long as everyone else’s money’s being spent along with theirs, it’s okay.

Personally, we’ve put more money into the system, into government via taxes, the insurance companies via premiums, the school systems via tuitions, etc., etc. than we’ve ever drawn out over the years. That feels good.

It’d be nice to think that this whole “change” thing in American politics was smart enough to recognize what may deeply delay any recovery plans. It’s a little thing about the Baby Boomer generation and how they’re getting laid off first, with no hope of rehire (Older Workers Need Not Apply, NY Times), and how the next ten years of their forcibly changed plans to retire on their own savings and hard work will become the thing they tried so hard to avoid: being a burden on society.

So take some of that money planned for larger schools and shiny electronic classrooms, for building more airy spaces and playgrounds and roads, for tilting at windmills, and put some of that construction and health cost funding into what immediate future needs are being created instead by the ’solving’ of the current economic crisis: old age homes and medicare for those who thought they’d be able but will not now be able to take care of themselves in retirement.