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!
Friday, February 22, 2008
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....
Radu Lupu? Maybe..... NOT!!!
Radu Lupu hums along when he plays a piano concerto!! Un-be-frick'n-lievable!!!! And out of tune to boot! Should anybody in the audience dare do that, they'd be booed out of the hall, so why should a top pianist be allowed to do that? It is annoying, disruptive and disrespectful to the orchestra AND the public!At last Friday's concert, at first I thought somebody next to me or behind me was the culprit, so whenever the treacherous growly sounds appeared, I could not help but swing around in my seat and scrutinize the row behind me, in hopes of catching the hummer... until it dawned on me what the real situation was! And it is hard to see, because Radu wears one of these force-of-nature beards, hiding his mouth and almost the entire lower half of his face. Actually, he could be a descendant of , Rasputin,to judge by his looks!
So, although he is a great pianist, but I will not attend any future perfomances with him. If I want to listen to a piano concerto with out-of-tune humming over it, I can do that at home, where I can invite some friend with a wooden ear to do me the favor. I could treat us both to pizza made by my humble self, to compensate for the humbug (pun intended).
Can't anybody have the courage to tell this guy that he should refrain from humming along? I mean, stardom and all that apart, he still ows us a spotless performance when playing with one of the world's finest orchestras.
I think a pianist who hums along loudly has a deep personality rift and egocentric character flaw!
If I ever get a chance to talk to Radu, you can be sure I'll tell him myself!
OK, I'm glad I got that out of my system!
Happiness IS going to the Symphony!
And this Valentine's day, we'll have a performance with Orly Shaham, who does NOT hum along, and she will play an all Chopin program, for lovers only!Happy Valentine's to all nice people out there, stay in love: with yourself and your special someone, and the rest of the world, well, most of them anyhow!Peace and apple pie!
So, although he is a great pianist, but I will not attend any future perfomances with him. If I want to listen to a piano concerto with out-of-tune humming over it, I can do that at home, where I can invite some friend with a wooden ear to do me the favor. I could treat us both to pizza made by my humble self, to compensate for the humbug (pun intended).
Can't anybody have the courage to tell this guy that he should refrain from humming along? I mean, stardom and all that apart, he still ows us a spotless performance when playing with one of the world's finest orchestras.
I think a pianist who hums along loudly has a deep personality rift and egocentric character flaw!
If I ever get a chance to talk to Radu, you can be sure I'll tell him myself!
OK, I'm glad I got that out of my system!
Happiness IS going to the Symphony!
And this Valentine's day, we'll have a performance with Orly Shaham, who does NOT hum along, and she will play an all Chopin program, for lovers only!Happy Valentine's to all nice people out there, stay in love: with yourself and your special someone, and the rest of the world, well, most of them anyhow!Peace and apple pie!
The Meaning of Life!! Anyone???
So you want to know whether there is any meaning to life as we know it? The Universe? Well, so do I!
In a nutshell, the meaning of life is in living it, full stop.
Everything goes round and round, from the smallest to the largest, and time does not exist, scientifically. It is just a measure that humans created to partition their existence into manageable units. We are not going anywhere, time travel is an illusion, it cannot be done. Well, if one takes exception to our travelling back in time inside our head, in our memories... which is not physical travel.
We are all trying to reveal to ourselves. as the human collective. the clues to our existence: through things such as Russian Dolls, spinning dreidles, caroussels, fireworks, storytelling, movie making and acting... you might ask what all these heteroclite items have in common to form a group? They all attempt to symbolize and relate the nature of our existence. There are numerous others, too many to mention... anybody can find them in their own lives if one looks with interest.
So... life serves no other purpose than the experience of life itself. Nothing gets ever lost, everything constantly transforms itself, inside our closed, huge and even seemingly endless space, called the Universe.
And yes, in the vein of this logic, reincarnation is part of the way how it works.
In a nutshell, the meaning of life is in living it, full stop.
Everything goes round and round, from the smallest to the largest, and time does not exist, scientifically. It is just a measure that humans created to partition their existence into manageable units. We are not going anywhere, time travel is an illusion, it cannot be done. Well, if one takes exception to our travelling back in time inside our head, in our memories... which is not physical travel.
We are all trying to reveal to ourselves. as the human collective. the clues to our existence: through things such as Russian Dolls, spinning dreidles, caroussels, fireworks, storytelling, movie making and acting... you might ask what all these heteroclite items have in common to form a group? They all attempt to symbolize and relate the nature of our existence. There are numerous others, too many to mention... anybody can find them in their own lives if one looks with interest.
So... life serves no other purpose than the experience of life itself. Nothing gets ever lost, everything constantly transforms itself, inside our closed, huge and even seemingly endless space, called the Universe.
And yes, in the vein of this logic, reincarnation is part of the way how it works.
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