I Outsource to India
I have an office in Pasadena, California, and I outsource to India. I do all my business within the laws of the USA. I pay taxes. I admire Obama and I support him– as far as I can without being a citizen. You, you who are citizens? All you do is complain. Take action at [...]
THE BEST LESSON
I was a straight-A student in the working class schools I went to in Detroit. Nobody in my family had ever gone past high school, but by some miracle my guidance counselor helped me get a scholarship. To an elite liberal arts college. The classes were challenging, but not overwhelmingly so. I decided that, as [...]
RE-GIFTING PRESENTS
Christmas three years ago I gave my brother-in-law a wallet as a gift. He and my sister were having a rough time that year– he lost his job, their baby needed an operation– so I put some cash in the wallet to help them out. This year at our family Christmas get together, I opened [...]
CHRISTMAS TREASURES
When did it become a rule that “bought new” gifts are the only gifts acceptable? Handmade gifts, or things once owned and loved by the giver, are “tacky”? Really? Have the stores’ barrage of “Buy, buy, buy! advertising so discombobulated people’s brains that they can’t hear their hearts any more? When kids are too young [...]
WHY SHOULD PUBLIC WORKERS GET PENSIONS?
Why should public workers get pensions? It’s ridiculous! So their work contract said that part of their salary was going into their pension fund. Yeah? Well, so did mine. In the 1980s the company I worked for put part of my pay into a retirement fund invested in the company’s own stock. Supposedly this stock was [...]
DO BETTER, PEOPLE!
The ugly attacks on President Obama hurt me, but they frighten me even more than they hurt. Let me try to explain. It’s racism: but it’s not the kind of racism most African-Americans are used to. This kind sees Obama’s mixed race heritage as somehow perverse. As tainted and treasonous! It’s as if his very [...]
I LOVE CHRISTMAS
Oh, I love Christmas! I do, I do, I do! The best part starts with putting up the tree. I have a bunch of Christmas CDs– on my ipod, too– and I get those going. From the Mormon Tabernacle Choir to the Chipmunks and The Nutcracker. We sing along to our particular favorites–”O Come [...]
A Ticket to Heaven
Long before the current attack on science I was dealing with creationists. Friends would come up to me with quotes from textbooks, all fired up that their kids were being taught “notions” that went against what they’d learned at home or in church. This was a people vs eggheads issue, not one of politics. We’re [...]
Is There a War on Christmas?
Is there a “War on Christmas”? I don’t believe it! What’s the matter with saying “Happy Holidays”? People said “Happy Holidays” when I was little. Nobody got all hostile about it. After all, Christmas and New Year are two holidays, aren’t they? You want to wish people happy for both– or happy for whatever they [...]
