Jobs and Joblessness

I was watchin' a TV program [Parenthood] and was struck by how much our society's economic situation has changed. In this episode a man, in his early to mid-40's, married father of two teens, is fired from his job. It gave me pause.

Back when I was in the workforce, two weeks severance pay gave you enough money to make your bills until you found a job with commensurate salary and benefits. In extreme situations, you might not find a new job for a month, two at the very most.

Now? Now some folks are out there actively lookin' for any kind of work, not just in their "field" but ANY kind of job for months if not a year or more! I have lucky friends because I don't know anyone involuntarily unemployed so I have listened to the news reports and thought, "Oh, those poor folks."

Why it took fiction to bring this cold hard fact home to me I don't know. But I hope those of you who are in a job you hate but can't leave and those of you lookin' for work encounter better days just around the corner.

The Madness of Political Correctness

"Political Correctness" can be defined in these terms: A. the disinclination to communicate accurately about the reason or nature of something. In other words the speaker doesn't "tell it like it is." B. the deliberate distortion of truth and reality to advance a political agenda. This is a calculated tactic called "propaganda" in another time. C. the use of intimidation tactics to silence those who will not "fall in line." These can include giving the cold shoulder to the incorrect; calling them names such as bigot, racist, xenophobe; threats of violent protests over incorrect behavior; taking legal action such as suing for defamation or libel to silence criticism and attempts to disallow the incorrect their 1st Amendment right to free speech, i.e. hate speech laws. D. it can range from being annoying as it was in the U.S. ten or fifteen years ago to being a totalitarian state such as Nazi Germany, the U.S.S.R., China before capitalism, Southeast Asian despotically ruled nations or the fictional state in 1984. We must begin to recognize politically correct language and behavior and be brave enough to call it the brainwashing it is. Let's return to sanity, shall we?