Retirement. This is the golden period of a lifetime of hard work, when one can actually enjoy a few of life's comforts without the confines of everyday work. It is a period celebrated by society. It is a time of a few good years before death. You are out of the game, having done what you have done, having said what could be said, and having lived in the active world swirling about you. It is not a time for youth, just beginning their venture. Yet, many young folks live a portion of the retirement live - the relaxing and doing little but without reflection and with few memories, without goals and without drive. Text-ing and Twitter-ing do not make a life, past or present, and never will.
Current Legislation. It was considered landmark legislation when a bill was passed and signed to allow the FAA to move around money to avert serious airport delays owing to traffic controller furloughs. While Congress was giving itself high-fives on a job well done, the United States citizenry was unimpressed. Indeed, this achievement is something like telling your parents that while you couldn’t tidy up the house after school you did manage to put the cap back on the toothpaste.
Political Compromise. It is one thing not to compromise on the basis of a strongly held principle, but quite another not to compromise when you have forgotten how.
Liberals and Conservatives. Who says liberals and conservatives cannot get along together? Here we see a picture of the San Francisco Chronicle building on Fifth and Mission, in the downtown, completed sometime before 1924.
It has a beautiful stone-faced facade and a rather classic architecture. It is kept in excellent repair. You must admit the image shows its design to be rather conservative, even for its time. The building is populated by the San Francisco Chronicle editorial staff, mostly rather liberal. Yet, both get along quite well. Now there we have an example to build upon :)
Thinking. Some people should just not be allowed to think! Know any?
Current Legislation. It was considered landmark legislation when a bill was passed and signed to allow the FAA to move around money to avert serious airport delays owing to traffic controller furloughs. While Congress was giving itself high-fives on a job well done, the United States citizenry was unimpressed. Indeed, this achievement is something like telling your parents that while you couldn’t tidy up the house after school you did manage to put the cap back on the toothpaste.
Political Compromise. It is one thing not to compromise on the basis of a strongly held principle, but quite another not to compromise when you have forgotten how.
Liberals and Conservatives. Who says liberals and conservatives cannot get along together? Here we see a picture of the San Francisco Chronicle building on Fifth and Mission, in the downtown, completed sometime before 1924.
Thinking. Some people should just not be allowed to think! Know any?
Rich man - poor man. Right now I'm at a meeting in San
Francisco, in fact the annual AERA (American Educational Research Association) meeting. I'm staying on the 25th floor
of the Parc 55 hotel. Nice hotel. This morning, I left the hotel for a little
walk to the West, and within two blocks I was knee deep in street people. No jobs, no money, no prospects. This afternoon, I walked a little to the East. I was in the land of influence
and shops stocked with the finest imported goods.
As always, there were street people, but in smaller numbers, all begging
for dimes and quarters, where just an ice cream in the local shop cost nine
dollars. San Francisco is a city living at once in
squalid poverty and total luxury - each within a stone's throw of the
other. OK. We know this. But I'm not the first to write this
piece. It has been written almost the
same over the centuries many times and in many ways about many cities having a
quiescent impoverished class and a garish wealthy class. This
nexus of
squalor and luxury has been the subject of many hundreds of novels. It
seems like humanity recognizes it, accepts it, and yet is fascinated and
horrified by
it - all simultaneously.
Too poor and never rich. Once a people are too poor and too beaten and too downtrodden, they have not the inclination, nor resources, nor ability to improve themselves. To the rich, they are invisible. BUT, and this is a big but, many of those in poverty let it happen, some assuming that life would be a sequence of upgrades-without-effort. It isn't. I'm not sure of the percentage of folks, but it is a sizable percentage of people that will live in perpetuity with government offered living assistance, a government offered food allowance, with no thought of rising up in the society. In fact, doing nothing for a lifetime is just fine.
Over-achiever, under-achiever - un-achiever? It is a myth we are all over-achievers, or even achievers. It is important to understand that many are non-achievers, and moreover, not-want-to-be achievers. Achievement is just not in their lexicon. Simply recall your school days and your fellow students. Some cared much, some cared not at all. Some worked, some didn't. These are signatures of a lifetime. It is a myth that the preponderance of people are willing to work hard, to take risks so as to achieve something, anything. It is a fact that as long as food is on the table, there is a bed to sleep in, and a TV in the living room, doing nothing is a personally acceptable life-style.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Too poor and never rich. Once a people are too poor and too beaten and too downtrodden, they have not the inclination, nor resources, nor ability to improve themselves. To the rich, they are invisible. BUT, and this is a big but, many of those in poverty let it happen, some assuming that life would be a sequence of upgrades-without-effort. It isn't. I'm not sure of the percentage of folks, but it is a sizable percentage of people that will live in perpetuity with government offered living assistance, a government offered food allowance, with no thought of rising up in the society. In fact, doing nothing for a lifetime is just fine.
Comfortable subsistence is a life.
Over-achiever, under-achiever - un-achiever? It is a myth we are all over-achievers, or even achievers. It is important to understand that many are non-achievers, and moreover, not-want-to-be achievers. Achievement is just not in their lexicon. Simply recall your school days and your fellow students. Some cared much, some cared not at all. Some worked, some didn't. These are signatures of a lifetime. It is a myth that the preponderance of people are willing to work hard, to take risks so as to achieve something, anything. It is a fact that as long as food is on the table, there is a bed to sleep in, and a TV in the living room, doing nothing is a personally acceptable life-style.
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