Unions still have their place

I used to believe that Unions are no longer necessary, but I'm not so sure anymore. As the union power recedes over time, employers are becoming increasing arrogant again. (Enron wouldn't have come close to getting away with their scam with union bosses on their tail.) It's not yet as bad as the 1800's, but we aren't as far off from reliving that nightmare again as some seem to think.
Already, some of the basic protections for workers are being scaled back, being wrongfully labelled as "archaic". We should be pushing world's developing nations to aspirer to meeting the challenge of copying our system of labor. We should not be rolling back our system to compete with them. As someone who is firmly rooted in white collar middle class, I can say the only thang protecting my career is the rarity of my work skills. As the world market becomes more competitive, that rarity will diminish, as with many American jobs. We need to help other countries realize that having a suitable standard of living is just as important as having one or two successful companies in their country. Henry Ford gave us clear examples of how to run companies that benefit the employees and in turn, benefit the company because employee prosperity is spent buying company products. Anyways, we are on a slippery slope that we should back away from.

Breathe of relief

On the AP today: "'We find that the secular purposes claimed by the Board amount to a pretext for the Board's real purpose, which was to promote religion in the public school classroom,' [U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III] wrote in his 139-page opinion."
This was part of the judge's finding in the case where the then Dover Area School Board attempted to cram that ridiculous notion of Intelligent Design into our U.S. classrooms as an alternative to the Theory of Evolution. The judge also had other harsh words for the school board and their actions.
I doubt there will be an appeal to the ruling since the Dover area community kicked all 8 of those guilty school board members out of office earlier this year.
I expect that religious leaders will now push for a repackaged Intelligent Design concept under some different name, and that we will be having this issue come up again within 15 years. What these I.D. proponents don't realize is that the more they try to become scientifically accepted, the more they will eventually have to adopt evolution and natural selection into their own belief systems. This is pretty much the end of the legal road for anyone that wants to dearly hold on to the traditional biblical creation myths and force those myths on everyone else. From this point on, the movement behind I.D. will eventually turn into a scienitific group that will one day turn it's back on it's own origins.
The only other legal battle pursuable by the religious faithful is to pretend that the 1st Amendment of the Constitution doesn't really forbid government tampering in a society's religious beliefs. If they can convince a judge of this nonsense somewhere along the line, they may still be able to openly get religion back into our school system. But then all hell will really break lose because every religious group in existence will claim their right to be present in our schools. I'm guessing that any judge, regardless of their beliefs will want that to be the result of their ruling. Given that, even this battle will be lost once and for all by the religious nuts one day.

Drunks

It's weird how alcohol affects everyone differently. In some bizarre way, I'm almost jealous of people that lose control when they are drunk. Then again, I have no real desire to have no control over my person, and I'm thankful that not even getting mind numbingly drunk takes that away from me. But what happens to drunks when they are out of control and blackout, especially during these out of control periods? It's as though the person's Frontal Lobe and short term memory centers shut down. (I'm not going into the particulars as to why I'm wondering about this right now, but it is being triggered by multiple separate events this weekend.) They lose the ability to properly respond to emotional impulses. This suggests a shut down of the reasoning area of the brain, the Frontal Lobe. They also have a limited ability to retain memories of when this happens, which suggests a shut down of the short term memory areas. It must be a very strange feeling to wake up and be told of your actions, but having no ability to recall the memory of those actions. I never want to experience that myself, but I am curious how others feel when they experience it.

Hugs and Kisses

I just tried these Kissables. I assume that Hersey came out with this product to compete directly with M&M's. I tried Kissables. They are good. To me, they taste better than M&M's. I'd recommend at least trying them out. The only thang that I don't like about the candy is the odd shape, but I think that's only because I'm so accustomed to M&M's. Other than that, that are pretty good.

King Kong

Peter Jackson is a genius. He's not a genius because he's great at story telling or special effects. He is great at those. His true talent lies in having a complete understanding of the material he's working with. He gets it.

I didn't like the King Kong movies. The original is just too archaic to watch. The remake was completely miserable. And what's this about King Kong vs. Godzilla? What's that about? Peter Jackson produced and directed the 2005 King Kong version. He has not only redeemed the King Kong story, he has brought it to the level that the story deserves. King Kong still isn't one of my favorite stories, but it is now one that I now really enjoy and have a new found respect for. I think Peter Jackson understood the story better than its original director, producer and possibly the original writer too.

I highly recommend King Kong!

My life isn't one of those stories where I find my true love and live happily ever after from the start. I've written before about living much of my early life in a haze and only coming out of that haze since I past my quarter century mark. I was alert and sentient, but maybe not as alert and sentient and I shoulda been. This caused me to miss a lot of opportunities that were laid about before me. Opportunities to further my life in career, love, friendships, etc all lost. I was dumb...Intelligent, but dumb. The problem with having intelligence is that it can enable you to fool yourself into thinking you know more than you really do. lol
Not only could I have got laid much earlier, I coulda prolly had a couple of girlfriends by my early 20's. But no. I wasn't ready. The longer one wants to explore these areas, the harder it gets to have the breakout experience that opens your world, such as a first love or even just getting laid. If this blog were to go back to my early 20's, the text would be filled with frustrations that I would prolly now find embarrassing. Maybe it's a good thang my blog beings in 2002. lol I was well on my way to becoming who I am at that point.
In my younger years, I fear I was loved long before I know what love really was. If not love, then at least there was girls who where attracted to me that I just didn't...I just was unable to know it. Insecurities were the main cause. I had nothing to be insecure about, but when one is young, one doesn't know that. I'm no exception, though I guess I hid it pretty well, even from myself. Intelligence allowed me to come up with reasonings that nurtured my insecurities rather than defeat them. It took me a long time to figure out that I wasn't ugly. It took me even longer to figure out that I'm actually fairly attractive. It took me even longer to understand that certain people are more attracted to each other than others types of people and that it doesn't matter what one person likes cuz everyone is different with different tastes. There should be a class that teaches children this in grammar school. lol ...nevermind, there is... ...I was screwed up by my parents like everyone else...hehe. Most of my insecurities do come from my mom and dad, or at least how they raised me. I'm not sure where my early life haze come from, though. I still slip into it once in a while, but I've learned to use it as a tool (hard to explain...saving that topic for another time). It holds no grip over me any more.
Nowadays, I feel as though I'm experiencing life on my own terms. I have great friends and great loves (past and present). Most of all, I look forward to the days ahead of me in this life.