Last night, I had an interesting and strange dream. There was a young boy, maybe 10 years of age, who was the best karateka. He was undefeated. But somewhere, there lived a woman, who also was a karate master, and he had never battled her. So he challenged her to a match, which she accepted.
The match was arranged to take place in a hotel, in its basement facilities. One got down there by lifts which arrived in an atrium, from where one got into the gym facility.
On the day of the fight, the gym was crouded and it was set in a semi-dark lighting. Everybody attending was excited, but only talked in hushed sounds. I was on duty at the elevator hall, to watch for the boy's arrival, and to announce him prior to his entrance. Finally, he got off the lift.
He held a hand gun, and he walked slowly inside the hall. On his way there, he dropped the gun onto some chair, then proceded to the tatami inside.
The woman, about 40, slender with blond straight hair which she had mounted into a flat bun at the back of her head, was already there.
As the boy approached the tatami, he saw her standing beside the tatami, on the far end, holding an office chair on rollers in front of her, much like an obstacle or shield.
The boy looked at this, and I felt his disappointment. He just sat down on the tatami, in meditation posture, and holding up his left fisted hand to his face. There now was a big, black framed set of glasses on his nose. He talked to his fist as if it were a person, saying: 'you see, this is not what was supposed to happen. You have to always make sure you are prepared for surprises. Now, what are you going to do about this?'.
The woman had come closer to listen to his talk, and at that moment, he got up, grabbed her by the coat, and they rolled over the mat once.
Then, the match was over and judged undecided: no winner, no loser.
I could sense that the boy was not happy about that. She did not seem to mind one way or the other.
Then everybody walked out of the gym, along the ground floor hallway, the boy with his coach, and the blonde in front of them. I was walking beside the coach. It suddenly occured to me that the boy was no longer a boy, but a young man in his mature late 20s or 30. But before I could ponder this transfiguration, I suddenly realized that there was a big commotion in front of us: the blonde woman was collapsing onto the floor. In her fall, I could see a tiny hole in the back of her head, and a little blood. I realized that she had been shot. As I turned around to the man-boy, he was lying in his coaches arms, his head mostly bare of skin and his eye sockets empty of eyeballs, but filled with shiny, dark pools of blood.
I knew that he had killed the woman and himself with one bullet.
As I tried to sort out my confusion and shock over this development, I woke up!
Now, how am I going to solve this mystery? Maybe somebody can help me out!? Mr. Freud, if you, please????
Friday, March 7, 2008
Monday, March 3, 2008
Water under the Bridge...
That is what we say when we mean something is old and should be forgotten.... meaning it is, well, gone!
But what about the water? Is that gone, too? Many people believe there is less and less of it on our planet earth. Is that actually true? Did it vanish? If so, where to? We should be able to answer that question with a little effort of reflection.
First, we need to establish where we are, meaning, what kind of cosmic situation we are living in. Once we have the big, overall picture, we can zoom in on any detail we care to.
So, there is the Solar System, swirling around as part of the Milky Way, and in it, third rock from the sun, planet Earth. Around it, a couple of layers of gazeous matters, 1 % of various gasses, 79 % of nitrogen, and a mere 20% oxygen! I find that surprising, considering it is oxygen that we need to breathe. Looks like those 20 % are enough for all of us to breathe in and out comfortably!
Then, somewhere up there, about 65 miles from the ground, is our oh-so-much debated Ozone Layer. Looks like that one has gone back into oblivion in the public mind, after we were told that it was pierced with holes and about to vanish! Nobody mentions it anymore in the media, it has become an "old hat", water under the news bridge .... I just wonder why? Either there was a real danger of it disappearing, or there never has been! It seems that layer is still there, and any hole - if there ever was one - has closed itself up nicely and neatly! So much for that!
Above our beloved Ozone Layer, there are still two more layers, making up approximately 220 miles of atmosphere. They are the Mesophere and the Ionosphere (as in ions).
And after that... well there is space, the big void as we could call it, even if we now know that it is not absolutely empty.
On our beloved planet Earth, we are under the influence of the gravitational force, which keeps everything neatly here, instead of letting it just float away into space. You know, if you have ever taken a trip on a plane, that oxygen up at about 10 miles or so is already extremely rare. If the cabin lost pressure, we would have to breathe through the provided oxygen tubes. So, gravitational forces keep those 20 % oxygen nicely down here, where we need it most. The gravitational forces act upon all objects alike. We should consider that a boon, as we'd never be able to retrieve anything we dropped outside. Imagine you just dropped your big money purse, stashed with cash, and - whooosh !!! - no more gravitational forces: you can just wave your dough goodbye as it would float ever upwards, never to return to you! Well, inside your house, you'd have to climb on a ladder each time you dropped something, in order to retrieve it from the ceiling..... maybe funny one time, but after that ? pretty tedious and annoying, right! (and these are, of course, just joking images, since you yourself would have to run around permanently tethered to a rail, or else....
So, by the same gravitational forces, our water can't escape Planet Earth either. It is always here, somewhere... If it is not in the oceans and rivers, it may just have evaporated and be sitting in those clouds overhead, and next thing you know, it comes raining or snowing down on you. Or, some of it is trapped in the enormous ice caps and glaciers. But it never stays entirely in any of those states, it goes round and round, from liquid to solid to gaseous and so on.
Now, it may well be that it concentrates and appears - or also disappears - in various locations on Planet Earth, such as the Sahara. But, the sum total of all water can't go anywhere outside Earth, it stays here forever!
So, if there really is less water out there on the planet, taking part of that cycle, then where could it be? Hmmmm let's see..... what is it that has changed in human behaviour? Ah yes! We now put water into containers for long periods of time! That definitely is new to humans, and it was certainly not our habit before, say WWII. Bottles!!! Cans!!! Mineral water like Perrier, Evian, San Pellegrino, just to name three, but most certainly not limited to these! And then some: Coke, Pepsi, Dr. Pepper, Mountain Dew..... just to name a few of those, and the list is endless! And let's not forget to mention all the beer in bottles! Does anybody have any idea how much water that all represents? Stashed away in containers, and only released into the natural water cycle after we have consumed it and eliminated it again....! There are millions of bottles and cans out there in warehouses around our globe at any given time: America, Europe, Asia, Australia, maybe a little less in Africa, but still: a whoooole lot of bottles and cans! If you think that should not have an impact on our water levels in nature, you might take some time out to think again! I for one am certain it does have a tremendous impact!
Just a few numbers I was able to glean from various sources: the Anheuser website, the Coca Cola site, Wikipedia for the bottled water, and so forth:
In 2005, Anheuser produced 3 billion, 134 million of gallons of beer!
In 2004, Coca Cola produced 17 billion 108 million gallons of soft drinks for Americans alone!
That is 50 billion servings consumed each day in the US of A!!!
In 2004, we consumed 41 billion gallons of bottled water - worldwide!!!
And we also have other usages of water, such as big cities who consume tremendous amounts each day in their water supply system: just one example: Chicago, which draws 2.1 billion gallons each day!!! from Lake Michigan.... at that rate, they can suck Lake Superior dry in about 42o years, half a millenium!
Well, if you want to go find more examples, knock yourself out! The data is out there, it just takes a little effort to round it up! And it is impressive, wouldn't you agree?
But what about the water? Is that gone, too? Many people believe there is less and less of it on our planet earth. Is that actually true? Did it vanish? If so, where to? We should be able to answer that question with a little effort of reflection.
First, we need to establish where we are, meaning, what kind of cosmic situation we are living in. Once we have the big, overall picture, we can zoom in on any detail we care to.
So, there is the Solar System, swirling around as part of the Milky Way, and in it, third rock from the sun, planet Earth. Around it, a couple of layers of gazeous matters, 1 % of various gasses, 79 % of nitrogen, and a mere 20% oxygen! I find that surprising, considering it is oxygen that we need to breathe. Looks like those 20 % are enough for all of us to breathe in and out comfortably!
Then, somewhere up there, about 65 miles from the ground, is our oh-so-much debated Ozone Layer. Looks like that one has gone back into oblivion in the public mind, after we were told that it was pierced with holes and about to vanish! Nobody mentions it anymore in the media, it has become an "old hat", water under the news bridge .... I just wonder why? Either there was a real danger of it disappearing, or there never has been! It seems that layer is still there, and any hole - if there ever was one - has closed itself up nicely and neatly! So much for that!
Above our beloved Ozone Layer, there are still two more layers, making up approximately 220 miles of atmosphere. They are the Mesophere and the Ionosphere (as in ions).
And after that... well there is space, the big void as we could call it, even if we now know that it is not absolutely empty.
On our beloved planet Earth, we are under the influence of the gravitational force, which keeps everything neatly here, instead of letting it just float away into space. You know, if you have ever taken a trip on a plane, that oxygen up at about 10 miles or so is already extremely rare. If the cabin lost pressure, we would have to breathe through the provided oxygen tubes. So, gravitational forces keep those 20 % oxygen nicely down here, where we need it most. The gravitational forces act upon all objects alike. We should consider that a boon, as we'd never be able to retrieve anything we dropped outside. Imagine you just dropped your big money purse, stashed with cash, and - whooosh !!! - no more gravitational forces: you can just wave your dough goodbye as it would float ever upwards, never to return to you! Well, inside your house, you'd have to climb on a ladder each time you dropped something, in order to retrieve it from the ceiling..... maybe funny one time, but after that ? pretty tedious and annoying, right! (and these are, of course, just joking images, since you yourself would have to run around permanently tethered to a rail, or else....
So, by the same gravitational forces, our water can't escape Planet Earth either. It is always here, somewhere... If it is not in the oceans and rivers, it may just have evaporated and be sitting in those clouds overhead, and next thing you know, it comes raining or snowing down on you. Or, some of it is trapped in the enormous ice caps and glaciers. But it never stays entirely in any of those states, it goes round and round, from liquid to solid to gaseous and so on.
Now, it may well be that it concentrates and appears - or also disappears - in various locations on Planet Earth, such as the Sahara. But, the sum total of all water can't go anywhere outside Earth, it stays here forever!
So, if there really is less water out there on the planet, taking part of that cycle, then where could it be? Hmmmm let's see..... what is it that has changed in human behaviour? Ah yes! We now put water into containers for long periods of time! That definitely is new to humans, and it was certainly not our habit before, say WWII. Bottles!!! Cans!!! Mineral water like Perrier, Evian, San Pellegrino, just to name three, but most certainly not limited to these! And then some: Coke, Pepsi, Dr. Pepper, Mountain Dew..... just to name a few of those, and the list is endless! And let's not forget to mention all the beer in bottles! Does anybody have any idea how much water that all represents? Stashed away in containers, and only released into the natural water cycle after we have consumed it and eliminated it again....! There are millions of bottles and cans out there in warehouses around our globe at any given time: America, Europe, Asia, Australia, maybe a little less in Africa, but still: a whoooole lot of bottles and cans! If you think that should not have an impact on our water levels in nature, you might take some time out to think again! I for one am certain it does have a tremendous impact!
Just a few numbers I was able to glean from various sources: the Anheuser website, the Coca Cola site, Wikipedia for the bottled water, and so forth:
In 2005, Anheuser produced 3 billion, 134 million of gallons of beer!
In 2004, Coca Cola produced 17 billion 108 million gallons of soft drinks for Americans alone!
That is 50 billion servings consumed each day in the US of A!!!
In 2004, we consumed 41 billion gallons of bottled water - worldwide!!!
And we also have other usages of water, such as big cities who consume tremendous amounts each day in their water supply system: just one example: Chicago, which draws 2.1 billion gallons each day!!! from Lake Michigan.... at that rate, they can suck Lake Superior dry in about 42o years, half a millenium!
Well, if you want to go find more examples, knock yourself out! The data is out there, it just takes a little effort to round it up! And it is impressive, wouldn't you agree?
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Happiness still is: Going to the Saint Louis Symphony!!!
This past Saturday, March 1st, the Symphony program was once again, a heavenly menu:
Oliver Knussen, Flourish with Fireworks, then Chopin, Piano concerto # 2, Turina and De Falla's Three Cornered Hat - all of it masterly conducted by the outstanding Maestro Miguel Harth-Bedoya.
What a delightful performance in Chopin's 2nd concerto, by Ingrid Fliter! She truly deserved the Gilmore Artist Award she got in 2006. Ingrid lets her soul flow through her fingers into the piano keys, and she takes us on an imaginary journey of romanticism and love fulfilled: Sweetness, depth, strength, deep emotion and the lightness of being! She is simple, strong and unpretentious, an imposing presence in the world of classical music.
Thanks, SLSO, for bringing her to Saint Louis!
Oliver Knussen, Flourish with Fireworks, then Chopin, Piano concerto # 2, Turina and De Falla's Three Cornered Hat - all of it masterly conducted by the outstanding Maestro Miguel Harth-Bedoya.
What a delightful performance in Chopin's 2nd concerto, by Ingrid Fliter! She truly deserved the Gilmore Artist Award she got in 2006. Ingrid lets her soul flow through her fingers into the piano keys, and she takes us on an imaginary journey of romanticism and love fulfilled: Sweetness, depth, strength, deep emotion and the lightness of being! She is simple, strong and unpretentious, an imposing presence in the world of classical music.
Thanks, SLSO, for bringing her to Saint Louis!
Friday, February 22, 2008
Junkfood Makes for Fat Fat Children!!!!
Ever since I got here, to the US of A that is, I have heard left and right, on TV, in the newspapers and from neighbors, how miserable and unhealthy the fare is that all schools - public and private alike - feed our students. And I hear, that with such a bad and unbalanced, hence unhealthy diet, it is little wonder that the majority of kids end up hopelessly overweight.
We all foot the bill of that state of affairs down the road: fat kids make fat adults, who will get nasty things such as diabetes, heart and circulatory problems, pulmonary problems, joint problems, back problems and so on.... all of which translates into millions and hundred of millions of dollars spent on more or less inadequate treatments for the most part. And by that I mean that those treatments do not manage to fix and eliminate the causes, they just maintain some form of status-quo-sick-existence.
And while I know that everybody loves to complain about that situation, I have not seen or heard of a single official at any level who came up with a solution. Makes me think this is part of what I call the national hobby: it feels so nice to whine about something, without any intention of ever seriously fixing it!
So, what if we could fix it? Can you imagine? Hundreds of thousands of children eating healthy and balanced meals in the school cafeterias around the entire country!! Now, that would be a beautiful sight, wouldn't you agree?
Here is what I would do to fix the situation:
Get rid of the cafeteria routine as the schools practice it, entirely! No more deep frying and smoking up the dining room, no more unhealthy, greasy burgers from contaminated beef, no more concern of potential salmonella infections! A dream? not at all! read on!
Schools need to build a freezer storage room, with lots of shelves, where the stinky hot and smokey kitchen used to be. Then, they order an adequate number of microwaves, which they install inside the cafeteria. Then, they chose a provider of frozen meals. I am thinking frozen menus such as Healthy Choice, or Lean Cuisine, just to name two, or any other balanced brands of frozen meals. Any of these offer a rich variety of meals, from chicken to fish to red meat to vegetarian, so there is something for every taste in there.
Kids can then make a selection every morning or whenever the organizer of the program sees fit, and at lunch time, the team has pulled the ordered trays out of the freezer, and students heat them in the microwave, and they can discard the trays afterwards and recycle the paper. No need to have a dishwasher and waste money on maintaining a multi-personnel kitchen team.
It is that simple! And there is no down side to this plan, every aspect of it is positive. I am sure meals could be less costly for the student, all the while still yielding a little profit to the school.
So here is the big big question, the one that really matters: Do the parents and teachers in this country REALLY and TRULY love their kids, or do they just want to keep on paying lip service?!
Heck, if I were the marketing director of any of the frozen meal producing companies, I would have already jumped on this one and made it work:
I'd find myself a school district, or a good size school, who would be willing to receive free meals for all its students from my business for one year. I'd also hire an independent team of nutritionists and scientists who would monitor the children from the beginning to the end of the year. That way, I'd be able to document the changes that will occur in the weight of the kids, or, I'd document that no changes had occurred if that turned out to be the case. Personally, I think the changes would be truly significant! (But, it is good to document it for the most reticent doubting Thomas, who will only believe it if it is served in the form of graphs, statistics and page filling reports with lots of verbiage.)
What is in it for the frozen food company? Lots of things:
They boost their image, as they show concern for America's children and their good health.
They can publicise this fact everywhere, not just on TV ads, even on their wrapping materials.
They can write it totally off as marketing and advertising cost, so it is not even a financial burden.
They will acquire a whole new customership from the hundreds of thousands of students who come to like their dishes and get used to eating frozen dinners.
They will increase their product volumes considerably, once the program goes nationwide.
And the kids? What if they don't want to let go of greasy hamburgers and deep fried fries?
I'd chose two or three of the pop artists who were the most popular with the teenage crowd, and I'd hire them to promote the new eating habits. Once the kids see that their stars think of this as cool, they will all follow suit. Bingo!
So, this is what I want! Let's see what happens next.... I am used to getting what I want!
We all foot the bill of that state of affairs down the road: fat kids make fat adults, who will get nasty things such as diabetes, heart and circulatory problems, pulmonary problems, joint problems, back problems and so on.... all of which translates into millions and hundred of millions of dollars spent on more or less inadequate treatments for the most part. And by that I mean that those treatments do not manage to fix and eliminate the causes, they just maintain some form of status-quo-sick-existence.
And while I know that everybody loves to complain about that situation, I have not seen or heard of a single official at any level who came up with a solution. Makes me think this is part of what I call the national hobby: it feels so nice to whine about something, without any intention of ever seriously fixing it!
So, what if we could fix it? Can you imagine? Hundreds of thousands of children eating healthy and balanced meals in the school cafeterias around the entire country!! Now, that would be a beautiful sight, wouldn't you agree?
Here is what I would do to fix the situation:
Get rid of the cafeteria routine as the schools practice it, entirely! No more deep frying and smoking up the dining room, no more unhealthy, greasy burgers from contaminated beef, no more concern of potential salmonella infections! A dream? not at all! read on!
Schools need to build a freezer storage room, with lots of shelves, where the stinky hot and smokey kitchen used to be. Then, they order an adequate number of microwaves, which they install inside the cafeteria. Then, they chose a provider of frozen meals. I am thinking frozen menus such as Healthy Choice, or Lean Cuisine, just to name two, or any other balanced brands of frozen meals. Any of these offer a rich variety of meals, from chicken to fish to red meat to vegetarian, so there is something for every taste in there.
Kids can then make a selection every morning or whenever the organizer of the program sees fit, and at lunch time, the team has pulled the ordered trays out of the freezer, and students heat them in the microwave, and they can discard the trays afterwards and recycle the paper. No need to have a dishwasher and waste money on maintaining a multi-personnel kitchen team.
It is that simple! And there is no down side to this plan, every aspect of it is positive. I am sure meals could be less costly for the student, all the while still yielding a little profit to the school.
So here is the big big question, the one that really matters: Do the parents and teachers in this country REALLY and TRULY love their kids, or do they just want to keep on paying lip service?!
Heck, if I were the marketing director of any of the frozen meal producing companies, I would have already jumped on this one and made it work:
I'd find myself a school district, or a good size school, who would be willing to receive free meals for all its students from my business for one year. I'd also hire an independent team of nutritionists and scientists who would monitor the children from the beginning to the end of the year. That way, I'd be able to document the changes that will occur in the weight of the kids, or, I'd document that no changes had occurred if that turned out to be the case. Personally, I think the changes would be truly significant! (But, it is good to document it for the most reticent doubting Thomas, who will only believe it if it is served in the form of graphs, statistics and page filling reports with lots of verbiage.)
What is in it for the frozen food company? Lots of things:
They boost their image, as they show concern for America's children and their good health.
They can publicise this fact everywhere, not just on TV ads, even on their wrapping materials.
They can write it totally off as marketing and advertising cost, so it is not even a financial burden.
They will acquire a whole new customership from the hundreds of thousands of students who come to like their dishes and get used to eating frozen dinners.
They will increase their product volumes considerably, once the program goes nationwide.
And the kids? What if they don't want to let go of greasy hamburgers and deep fried fries?
I'd chose two or three of the pop artists who were the most popular with the teenage crowd, and I'd hire them to promote the new eating habits. Once the kids see that their stars think of this as cool, they will all follow suit. Bingo!
So, this is what I want! Let's see what happens next.... I am used to getting what I want!
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Slave Labor in the US of A
Now this is a topic that should normally have been outdated ever since we abolished that very ugly thing: slavery! But it is well alive here in the good ole US of A (not that it would not also exist elsewhere, true, but I live here, so I am concerned here).
The new form, or should I say, one of its new forms, thrives on first generation immigrants. I am certain it touches more than one sector of activity and more than one ethnic group, but my immediate experience is in the group of construction and road work: sewer lines and water laterals etc... In my city, many Albanians and Bosnians, Serbs and people from other neighboring states around there, work in this line of hard labor. The company owners are mostly equally of the same original countries. They use the newcomers as cheap labor, making them work 70 hours a week in many cases, and paying them whenever they feel like it. Some of them who are my friends, have been working at that rate for 2 months or 3, and not seen a single paycheck in that time. The bosses excuse? Oh, I get my contracts from the city, they take time to pay me, so I can't pay you. You must wait... In the meantime, you can see these same bosses moving into huge mansions of million dollar value, in the best suburbs....
These workers do not benefit from any form of social advantages: no health insurance, no sick days, no 401K, nothing, zippo, absolutely nada! And not only that, even if they get injured on the job, their employer does not "allow" them to collect from workman's comp! How they manage that is beyond me, but they do! I can only imagine that this works because the worker does not know his rights, and the company does not inform them or do their legally required duty.
I also know of one case where a young man worked for a sewer contractor of that veine, and when he broke his finger during a hard job, and had to go to the hospital, the boss refused to pay the bill. The young man took a lawyer and sued the employer, and he won: The boss had to foot the bill. Three months later, as our young hero came out of his house and walked down the street, he got shot in the back. He survived, but he will be paralyzed for the rest of his long life. The shooter was never arrested! This is the kind of intimidation the slave bosses (I should call them the Albanian/Bosnian Mafia) practice in order to keep other men's mouth shut. When you have a family, 2 little kids, and your English is not good yet, what choices do you have?
Many of them work for these bosses on city contracts. The city requires that the workers be paid 34.00 bucks/hour. That sounds like a lot, but believe me, once you've seen how hard the work in this line is, you'd agree they deserve it! Well, the boss only gives then 12.00 and keeps the difference. One case of this kind of fraud was actually discovered here, and the FBI investigated. I don't know if anything has come from it yet, or will ever...
Oh, there is another nice way of defrauding your slave immigrant labor: make them work for 70 hours a week and only pay them for 40... that way, you can pay them the required 34.00 per hour, right!?!
Last week, one of these immigrant workers who has not seen a paycheck in three months, got so frustrated with his situation after his boss once more told him he did not know when he'd pay him, he drove the bosses pick-up truck down interstate I 17o and just parked it by the side of the road, called his wife to pick him up from there, and left the truck to be picked up by the bossman himself. He just had enough to be exploited! Needless to say, he won't get another job in that community for some time.....Let's hope we won't find him in a landfill in the coming year! I wish him courage and good luck!
The new form, or should I say, one of its new forms, thrives on first generation immigrants. I am certain it touches more than one sector of activity and more than one ethnic group, but my immediate experience is in the group of construction and road work: sewer lines and water laterals etc... In my city, many Albanians and Bosnians, Serbs and people from other neighboring states around there, work in this line of hard labor. The company owners are mostly equally of the same original countries. They use the newcomers as cheap labor, making them work 70 hours a week in many cases, and paying them whenever they feel like it. Some of them who are my friends, have been working at that rate for 2 months or 3, and not seen a single paycheck in that time. The bosses excuse? Oh, I get my contracts from the city, they take time to pay me, so I can't pay you. You must wait... In the meantime, you can see these same bosses moving into huge mansions of million dollar value, in the best suburbs....
These workers do not benefit from any form of social advantages: no health insurance, no sick days, no 401K, nothing, zippo, absolutely nada! And not only that, even if they get injured on the job, their employer does not "allow" them to collect from workman's comp! How they manage that is beyond me, but they do! I can only imagine that this works because the worker does not know his rights, and the company does not inform them or do their legally required duty.
I also know of one case where a young man worked for a sewer contractor of that veine, and when he broke his finger during a hard job, and had to go to the hospital, the boss refused to pay the bill. The young man took a lawyer and sued the employer, and he won: The boss had to foot the bill. Three months later, as our young hero came out of his house and walked down the street, he got shot in the back. He survived, but he will be paralyzed for the rest of his long life. The shooter was never arrested! This is the kind of intimidation the slave bosses (I should call them the Albanian/Bosnian Mafia) practice in order to keep other men's mouth shut. When you have a family, 2 little kids, and your English is not good yet, what choices do you have?
Many of them work for these bosses on city contracts. The city requires that the workers be paid 34.00 bucks/hour. That sounds like a lot, but believe me, once you've seen how hard the work in this line is, you'd agree they deserve it! Well, the boss only gives then 12.00 and keeps the difference. One case of this kind of fraud was actually discovered here, and the FBI investigated. I don't know if anything has come from it yet, or will ever...
Oh, there is another nice way of defrauding your slave immigrant labor: make them work for 70 hours a week and only pay them for 40... that way, you can pay them the required 34.00 per hour, right!?!
Last week, one of these immigrant workers who has not seen a paycheck in three months, got so frustrated with his situation after his boss once more told him he did not know when he'd pay him, he drove the bosses pick-up truck down interstate I 17o and just parked it by the side of the road, called his wife to pick him up from there, and left the truck to be picked up by the bossman himself. He just had enough to be exploited! Needless to say, he won't get another job in that community for some time.....Let's hope we won't find him in a landfill in the coming year! I wish him courage and good luck!
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Happiness is: Going to the Saint Louis Symphony!!!
Yes it is indeed! I love it so much that I must sigh that line every Saturday, after leaving Powell Symphony Hall and sinking back into the seat of my SUV: Ahhhhhh... happiness is going to the symphony! I am a Parisian gal, as you may recall from my Beijing blogs, and so I am quite spoiled when it comes to the classical offerings of a world class city. The Saint Louis Symphony can keep up with that expectation with ease: they are simply marvelous! So here is what I imagine as an advertisement campaign:Use Schroeder the piano player from Peanuts, to represent SLSO, and have Lucy give him his repartees. And the top slogan would be: Happiness is going to the Symphony!Well, believe it or not, but I find that our very beloved own David Robertson, Conductor of the SLSO, even could have been the model for Schroeder. If I had to carricaturize him, he'd end up looking like Schroedi!
I called that idea in and talked to Kristy, their VP marketing manager. Let's see if they like it and adopt it.
I called that idea in and talked to Kristy, their VP marketing manager. Let's see if they like it and adopt it.
No Country for Old Men.... I went to the MOOOOvies!
No Country for Old MenVery interesting indeed, except for the - it seems - very variedly debated ending. I checked to find the movie online and found a whole bunch of titles "the last 10 minutes" on Google and Yahoo! So, I can't be the only one to have issues with the ending!Anyhow, it is a story that goes very much like a nightmare in which you wish you could get out, but you can't manage to wake yourself up and escape that way. The pace and the way the people act are truly reminescent of such nightmarish dreams: slow and inexorable.You should go and watch this movie, it is suspenseful and well done. I won't tell you the details, that would just spoil it. Suffice it to say, that by my book, it could be construed as a metaphorical story about the indistructible existence of evil. It just keeps on going and doing its thing....Where I ended up not liking the movie though, are - you may now have guessed it - the last 10 minutes.I did deliberately NOT read up on any sites to find out what others had to say to that, I just want to give my original impressions and interpretations of it:It feels very much like a let-down, or you might also go back to my analogy of the nightmare dream: you finally wake up and it is over - just like that!
In this movie, the very bad villan seems to be also the only hero. The good guys don't accomplish much, other than getting themselves killed by our psychopath one by one.I think the ending should have shown THE confrontation between Llewellin and Anton, whereas we just get to the scene where Llewellin is lying dead on the pavement. So we can surmise what must have occurred. That is definitely anticlimactic. The other player, the old sherrif, too, seems like an incompetent police officer to me, just as the first one, at the very beginning of the story, who actually managed to book our villan, AND his killing contraption (I won't tell you what it is). If that officer had acted truly professional, the movie would have had to take a totally different turn, or ended right there, ha ha ha.Thank goodness for unprofessional and blundering sherrifs! They make movies possible!When the movie ended, I thought the reel must have torn, but no, it was really over!
And the moral of the story: Let it be known: Evil never dies, it just keeps going and going, very much like that pink bunny....
In this movie, the very bad villan seems to be also the only hero. The good guys don't accomplish much, other than getting themselves killed by our psychopath one by one.I think the ending should have shown THE confrontation between Llewellin and Anton, whereas we just get to the scene where Llewellin is lying dead on the pavement. So we can surmise what must have occurred. That is definitely anticlimactic. The other player, the old sherrif, too, seems like an incompetent police officer to me, just as the first one, at the very beginning of the story, who actually managed to book our villan, AND his killing contraption (I won't tell you what it is). If that officer had acted truly professional, the movie would have had to take a totally different turn, or ended right there, ha ha ha.Thank goodness for unprofessional and blundering sherrifs! They make movies possible!When the movie ended, I thought the reel must have torn, but no, it was really over!
And the moral of the story: Let it be known: Evil never dies, it just keeps going and going, very much like that pink bunny....
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