The Message

I like most Americans, I spend a fair amount of time watching TV and much of that time is watching commercials.  I wonder, do commercials reflect our society or simply the morons who think them up.  I know most are pretty bland and straightforward, but there are some that send a secondary message, destroying property, doing stupid things, or simply trying to get away thinking you are stealing.

Here are a few examples, I child is playing in the yard and covered with mud, the mother says as soon as you get cleaned up we can go for ice cream, so the father simply turns the garden hose on his son and when he falls he sprays him again. 

A women is checking out at Ikea and notices her bill with surprise, the screen reads “It’s not a mistake” but the women thinking it is runs out of the store screaming, “Start the car, start the car” jumps in and speeds off yelling with delight thinking she has just ripped off the store.

A young lady stops her car pulls out a chain saw and cuts down a telephone pole that falls into a string of polls all of which come tumbling down.  I bet the phone company loves that and no doubt some imitator will give it a try.

What are these advertisers thinking?

The Chinese Are Coming!  The Indians Are Coming! The Work Is Going!

Blast globalization anyway, workers need jobs in the United States, let’s put up the trade barriers, let’s cancel those trade deal, isolationism rules!

Uh, not so much.  Our fate is in our own hands, just ask the buggy whip maker, or the wheelwright or maker of 33 1/3 records (what?) or the …

Consider the following:

New Workers Sorely Lacking Reading, Writing Skills, Report Finds
There is a glaring deficiency in reading and writing among new entrants in the American workforce, and that is troubling employers who are being forced to invest in additional training—or simply look for skilled workers offshore—for one of the most fundamental job skills in the 21st century economy.

December 19, 2007

New Workers Sorely Lacking Reading, Writing Skills, Report Finds

There is a glaring deficiency in reading and writing among new entrants in the American workforce, and that is troubling employers who are being forced to invest in additional training—or simply look for skilled workers offshore—for one of the most fundamental job skills in the 21st century economy.

The latest report to sound this alarm was published last month by the National Endowment for the Arts, which concluded that employers ranked reading and writing as the top deficiency in new hires. The study, “To Read or Not to Read,” was based on a variety of data sources including a 2006 report by the Conference Board titled “Are They Really Ready to Work?” which concluded that today’s American workforce is “woefully ill-prepared” for the demands of the workplace.

However disparate the sources of the data, the picture presented is one that NEA Chairman Dana Gioia described in the report’s preface as “simple, consistent and alarming.” The decline in Americans’ reading and writing skills has “demonstrable social, economic, cultural, and civic implications.” Workers who cannot read and write well earn less and have higher unemployment rates. Employers, meanwhile, must spend more time and money on what is considered a basic skill.

Linda Barrington, research director for the Conference Board and an author of its report, says that even among recent graduates of four-year colleges, new hires were unable to write effective business communication, read analytically or solve problems.

“It’s nice that they are reading e-mail and reading comics,” Barrington says, “but if they can’t turn it into a communication tool, that is where the breakdown happens on the employer side.”

The Conference Board study was prompted by a closed-door meeting two years ago with Fortune 100 CEOs who worried that the skills gap would only quicken the offshoring of American jobs.

Literacy levels today are similar to those in 1970, according to the Nation’s Report Card, the federal government’s annual assessment of literacy levels. But the economy has changed drastically since then. Workers today need to be able to read and analyze complex, often very technical material, like manuals for car mechanics, to succeed in most jobs.

“Jobs that don’t have much in the way of skills have moved out of the United States or are not living-wage jobs,” says Timothy Shanahan, past president of the International Reading Association and a professor of urban education and reading at the University of Illinois at Chicago. That means even jobs that are considered low skill require workers to read at an eighth-grade level, he says.

To read the full article visit this site.

http://www.workforce.com/section/00/article/25/27/49.html

Lifes Mysteries

Observing people can provide interesting and occasionally perplexing experiences.  For example, yesterday morning I was parked in the lot of a restaurant, the only car in the entire lot, and as I was leaving my vehicle a women pulled in and parked next to me on the right side and then struggled to exit her car because her door would not open fully as she was that close to my car.  Does she suffer from a latent scratch and ding wish?

Last night my wife and I went to a diner for dinner (or is it dinner for diner); if you are in New Jersey where else do you eat.  A man sat down, the waitress asked for his order.  I’ll have three eggs, two over easy and one sunny side up.  Was he making a political statement, did he think the over easy eggs have lower cholesterol levels?

A group of men at another table were at the end of their meal when the waiter asked about dessert.  I’ll take a piece of cake to go one fellow said and a Styrofoam container was placed in front of him with the aforementioned cake.  A few minutes later the four men left and the contained was still there.  The waiter called to the man that he forgot is cake.  “No, I ate the icing, that’s the only part I wanted anyway,” was the reply.   And he needed it to go to accomplish that?

Finally, a woman in her mid 40s and a younger companion sat behind us in the diner.  She was dressed in camouflage cargo pants with a camouflage bandana around her head, like a female Rambo, but with her shirt on.  Was she making a fashion statement?  Had she wandered out of the woods in question of a Jersey diner? 

Such mysteries will never be solved of course and my quest for the answer to “what are people thinking” is enduring.

 January 6, 2009

December 25, 2007

Twenty-seven….twenty-seven.  Does anyone have number twenty-seven?

Of course someone does have number twenty-seven and when they call twenty-nine that person will come to the realization that they have passed number twenty-seven. 

If you are standing in a long line waiting to be served and if you are just a tad annoyed that you are standing in a long line, would you pay attention to the next number to be called?  Apparently, a considerable number of people do not.  Rather, they are daydreaming, talking to someone (on the phone) or simply spaced out.

I can imagine the topic of discussion among the deli clerks after a long day. 

“Well, Jack how many dummies didn’t respond to their number today?”

“Oh the usual, and those senior citizens are the worst, they always swear that I never called their number.  Maybe they are just practicing for when their number is really up.”

One more time, twenty-seven………..  eighty eight.

“Excuse me young man, did you call number twenty seven?”

“Yes, madam, two hours ago.”   “Well, I was standing right here and you never called twenty-seven.”

Ninety      “Oh, oh, I am number eighty.”  

In defense of the wandering customer, I must admit it is equally annoying to have the deli clerk not advance the electronic number supposedly telling you what number is currently being served.  “Number 90, click, 91, click, 92, click, 93” 

“Hey, we are already on 103.”  Okay, you’re next.

“May I have an eighth of a pound of liverwurst cut very thin.”  

“Anything else?”

“An eighth of a pound of no salt, low fat, domestic Swiss cut regular.”

“Regular?”

“You know, like you do for other people, but let me see it” “And can I also have six slices of headcheese so it weighs a half a pound”

It’s going to be a long day.

Lest you think this nonsense is confined to the deli counter, think again.

I was in a restaurant the other day where you place your order, pick it up when ready and take a seat (no not McDonalds or such).  However, in a restaurant it is a bit more complicated, you also have your receipt and it is a much bigger number (harder to remember). 

A number was called and the order placed on the counter, there it sat and sat and sat while the number was repeatedly called.  Maybe they can’t here the number in the back room I thought generously. 

Not exactly, finally someone came to the counter inquiring about his order (which sat there getting cold).

They were sitting three feet from the counter, the closest possible seat to the person calling the number over a loud speaker.

“Hey, this food is cold!”

Stupid Decisions Cost Us All

Money © is a fine magazine, but there is one thing that annoys me to no end.  That is its insistence on telling us about stupid people or more accurately people who make stupid decisions.  Actually, I read Money mostly to get a chuckle from the real life stories of people who Money tries to help with their finances, often after they have gotten themselves into a hole through every fault of their own.  I once wrote to Money, asking them to consider telling us about some smart people who have been frugal all their lives, don’t see a 5,000 square foot five bedroom house as a necessity and actually plan for emergencies and for the future.  I received no response, so I suspect that these kinds of stories would be rather dull to most people, either that or they would have no idea there actually were such people out there. There are people like that, aren’t there? One would think if you are reading Money on a regular basis, you would be doing pretty well, but perhaps that is not the case.  On thing is sure, many stories in Money are about people who probably spend more time reading Star © of the Globe ©.

The September 2007 issue of Money tells us about a family symbolizing the uninsured in America, Teetering on the Edge it is called.  The couple makes $90,000 and their health insurance cost $800 a month for the family, actually in today’s market not a bad deal.  However, the couple did not think they received much in return (you mean like protection from unforeseen risk, especially for unmanageable costs?). They bemoaned the fact the plan did not cover ordinary pediatrician visits and had a $40.00 co-payment (one of the reasons the policy cost “only” $800 per month).  Here is a thought, does your auto insurance cover the cost of an oil change or new brakes?  Most traditional health plans do not cover “ordinary” services meaning those services that are routine, predictable, and not associated with treating an illness. Such expenses are ones personal responsibility, not the responsibility of the community who is also paying premiums.  In addition, when such routine services are covered, it simply adds to the fixed cost of the coverage each month.

This couple’s solution to being ripped off by an insurance company was to drop their health insurance, a family with a small child and the “reasonable” thing to do was to drop coverage. Then we are told the wife became pregnant, magically without any thought to the financial consequences no doubt.  The new child has a serious eye problem requiring thousands of dollars of care.

So now, they can’t get health care coverage for the child because of her pre-existing condition.  The solution; enroll the child in SCHIP, a state run subsidized program we all help pay for and the rest of the family now takes a plan with a $10,400 deductible, but “free” well visits. Their premium for the SCHIP plan is $160 per month (no deductible) and for the rest of the family $131 plus of course, the costs of all other care before the deductible.  Let’s see if I have this right, paying for routine care and a $40 office visit co-pay  was too much of a burden, but paying $3,492 in premium with a $10,400 deductible or a potential out of pocket cost in a year of at least $13,892 is a “reasonable gamble.”   Sure it is, if no one gets sick and if the wife does not “become pregnant.”  Politicians would call this strategy opting for “affordable” health care.

In the same issue there is a story about a couple who have gone through hell for two years because of Katrina.   But a comment in the article caught my eye, "Fairly free-spending before Katrina, the Pellissiers have little savings." One 401(k) is worth $20,000 and the other business retirement plan is about the same and they put aside nothing for college (with three children, the two oldest 16 and 14).  The article also indicates their income is $87,600 and their ongoing routine living expenses are $87,572.  Those living expenses include $25,800 for food and groceries, $8449 for utilities and $7,700 for day care and tuition.  Perhaps they need to eat less, buy some candles and I am not sure why a five year old needs day care.  Income taxes according to the article are $1,427, and I sure would like to know how you swing an effective tax rate under 2%. 

Other issues of Money include stories about people like the couple who was tens of thousands of dollars in credit card debt but the husband simply had to have his $25,000 motorcycle, or the women who bought a house and used credit cards for the down payment and surprisingly found she could not make the monthly payments. How about the couple in serious financial trouble, but maintained that their two multi thousand dollar vacations each year were essential.  Each issue contains similar stories.

This stuff would just be funny except for the fact that we all pay for people who continue to make stupid decisions.  Perhaps it is the indirect cost of their defaulting on loans, or the subsidies they get on health care or college or whatever, or how about those who choose to forgo health insurance, but still receive health care. 

Not one in Ten

I hope my experience yesterday July 4, 2007 is not typical, but I drove through several towns in New Jersey and after a while I was struck by the fact that even though it was the 4^th of July, a national holiday, and the most important national holiday, there were few American flags in sight.  By my rough estimate less than one in ten homes displayed a flag. 

Do we care that little, are we that indifferent to what the 4^th of July really means (ok so the Declaration of Independence wasn’t really signed on the 4^th, but you get the idea)?

You see this stuff really does matter, a sense of history and sacrifice and respect does matter.  A sense of obligation and commitment does matter and the symbols that represent those things matter as well.

It’s like going to church in jeans and a sweatshirt; you’re there, but why?

The absence of a flag at every home is not the real issue, the loss of what it means to be an American is.

By the way which two Americans died on July 4, 1826 just hours apart and why was that symbolic?  Rquinn63@comcast.net

Sit Up Straight – A Crisis in America

When I was a youngster many years ago (many) I remember hearing these words quite often: “Sit up straight, chew your food well, keep your mouth closed while you are eating, elbows off the table, put your knife and fork on the plate when you are done, take your hat off when you are inside, use your napkin (but not to blow your nose), cover your mouth when you cough, don’t talk with your mouth full” and my very favorite, “bring your food to your mouth not your mouth to your food.”  Following all those rules one would be close to a square meal at West Point (if you don’t know what that means, you are uniformed).

Unbelievably, after fifteen years of repetition it actually sunk in.  Today as a seasoned citizen, I am reasonably well mannered, at least I do not embarrass my wife (often) and they let me come back to upscale restaurants.

However, it appears that subsequent generations did not get the message or chose to ignore it or more likely, it was never passed on beyond us slightly pre boomers.  Regardless, today it is entertaining to watch young people and some not so young in the act of public dining. Your attention is typically drawn first to the hat on the boys, a baseball cap on backwards and never removed at the dinner table let alone indoors; must be a hair thing, but rude nevertheless.  The young women show their independence by sitting on their leg and all too often spiking their conversation with language formerly reserved for the latrine during basic training.

I was in a restaurant today and I could not help but notice the young girl hunched over her food no more than three inches from the plate shoveling in the food non-stop. Perhaps it was her first meal in a long time…no, that is not it.  Her mother was only slightly better and clearly did not notice and unusual behavior on her daughter’s part-imagine what it is like at home.

In Florida a few weeks back I was dining alone and heard a strange sound a few tables away, it turned out to be a man in his mid thirties chomping away on his food, mouth open and scooping the food in like a coal miner working for pay by the pound.

At a fine dining establishment (dinner for two cost $175) I was delighted to witness the forty something women finish her meal by blowing her nose in a linen napkin, I suppose it was better than the corner of the tablecloth.

There is a national crisis in America and it is not health care, it is the lack of civility, manners and old-fashioned decency.