Uncle Paul?

‘Hello?’

‘Hi, honey.
This is Daddy.
Is Mommy near the phone?’

‘No, Daddy.
She’s upstairs in the bedroom with Uncle Paul.’

After a brief pause,

Daddy says,

‘But honey, you haven’t got an Uncle Paul.’

‘Oh, yes I do, and he’s upstairs in the room with Mommy,
right now.’

Brief Pause.

‘Uh, okay then, this is what I want you to do.
Put the phone down on the table, run upstairs,
knock on the bedroom door and shout to Mommy
that Daddy’s car just pulled into the driveway.’

‘Okay, Daddy, just a minute.’

A few minutes later
The little girl comes back to the phone.

‘I did it, Daddy.’

‘And what happened, honey?’

‘Well, Mommy got all scared, jumped out of bed with no clothes
on and ran around screaming.

Then, she tripped over the rug, hit her head on the dresser
and now she isn’t moving at all!’

‘Oh, my God!!! What about your Uncle Paul?’

‘He jumped out of the bed with no clothes on, too.
He was all scared and he jumped out of the back window
and into the swimming pool.
But I guess he didn’t know that you took out the water
last week to clean it.
He hit the bottom of the pool and I think he’s dead.’

Long Pause

Longer Pause

Even Longer Pause

Then Daddy says,

‘Swimming pool? …………

Is this 486-5731?’

No, I think you have the wrong number ….

We Don’t Need You – We have a Robot!

 Marchant Electric CalculatorEvery weekend for 7½ years I spent my Sunday afternoons poring over next week’s production schedule. There were no desktop computers. Marchant and Monroe mechanical calculators were still in use.

Today that job is performed faster and more accurately by a desktop computer. It’s done in minutes.

Lettuce Bot

Inventors have now developed a lettuce picking machine that will replace 20 farm workers (in one field alone). Amazon has a computer fulfillment system installed at three distribution centers that may eventually reduce the need to hire tens of thousands of workers. A company called LabCorp is hard at work developing machines to sort and split blood samples, which is just one of hundreds of thousands of menial laboratory jobs that pay decent money but could more efficiently be done by robots. A company in Mumbai, India remotely adjusted my laptop computer that was not sending print messages to my Hewlett-Packard printer.

So many jobs are gone. Manual labor has been reduced. Complex calculations are quickly solved using a computer.

Not everyone has the comprehension to learn the skills that the 21st century demands. How will they earn a living in this environment? No commentators, no wise men, no one has a solution.

As we enter 2014 it appears we will be feeding, clothing, and housing those that cannot perform the jobs of the new century. Some will object but our humanity will dominate.

Source for part of this posting: http://www.dailynews.com/technology/20131225/do-robots-make-us-more-productive-or-steal-our-jobs

Raising the Minimum Wage is No Solution

Remember when cars cost $3,500 and a house cost $30,000?  Inflation raised your pay, the cost of that car, and houses are still just as unaffordable.

Over my many working years I have benefited from the increased minimum wage rates as well as the union won rate increases.  I have always been part of the administrative staff and always on a salary.  Some were weekly rates, some were monthly rates, and there was once even an annual salary.  I receive no overtime pay but my high pay rate is supposedly offset by better pay than the hourly employees.  Not true.

Huffington Post reports that 13 States Will Raise Their Minimum Wage For The New Year.  It seems like a good idea.  After all who could argue with the idea of increasing the pay for those least paid who clearly are in a world of hurt?  Many need food stamps and housing subsidies to survive.

Those salaried jobs of mine have not brought me to wealth.  So I can relate to the poorest paid.

The problem for me is that a pay hike for everyone still leaves the poorest paid at the bottom of the pyramid. Now they face proportionately higher cost for rent, food, and the other necessities of life.  They will be no better off than they had been before the pay increase.  Inflation will destroy their gains.

San Francisco is a city with a minimum rate of $10.55 per hour. The new rate in January will be $10.74.  The cost of living in San Francisco is 164% of the national average.  How has the high minimum rate helped the lowest paid workers?  It hasn’t!

Is there a solution?  I know of none.

Jewish Logic

The nice Jewish mother-in-law comes over and finds
her son-in-law furious, and packing his suitcase.
“What happened ??” She asks.
Jacob screamed, “What happened? I’ll tell you what happened!
I sent an email to my wife saying that I was coming home from my trip today.
I got home and guess what I found?
My wife, yes my Ruth, your daughter, with a naked guy in our marital bed!
This is the end of our marriage. I’m leaving!”
“Calm down!” says the mother-in-law. “There’s something odd about this story.
My Ruth would never do such a thing! Wait a minute while I check what happened.”
Moments later, the mother-in-law comes back with a big smile.
“You see, I said that there must be a simple explanation:”
“Ruth never received your email!”

Author unknown

David Bancroft

Guns Are More Valuable then Lives

Despite Newtown, Aurora, Virginia Tech, and Columbine, gun owner’s rights are more important than lives in America.  That fact is supported by the lack of control legislation from our congress.

School Shooting, Grayson RobinsonClaire Davis, 17, was in critical condition after being shot at point-blank range at Arapahoe High School on Dec. 13. She died Saturday afternoon.  The killer was 18 year old Karl Pierson.  He had legally purchased his shotgun at a local store a week before the shooting and bought the ammunition the day of the shooting. Anyone 18 and older is allowed to buy a shotgun in Colorado.

Colorado has a history of shooting incidents.
1999  Columbine High School in Columbine, an unincorporated area of Jefferson County – 13 people were killed
2006  Platte Canyon High School in Bailey – one person killed
2007  A 24-year-old man named Matthew Murray shot and killed four people in two different cities in Arvada and Colorado Springs.  The facilities included his church.
2012  Aurora at Century movie theater – Twelve people were killed
September 9, 2013  In the first recalls of state lawmakers in Colorado history, State Senate President John Morse and Senator Angela Giron were both removed from office Tuesday by voters upset with their stance on gun control.
December 13, 2013  Claire Davis, age 17 is killed by another student

Reality TV and American Culture

With more than 300 million people in the United States, America has a diversified society.  Those people living in rural midwestern and southern states have little in common with those who were born in a big northern or west coast city.  Smaller communities are just not very diverse in terms of religion or ethnic background.

When ‘Duck Dynasty’ Star Phil Robertson claims Black People Were ‘Happy’ Pre-Civil Rights it’s his view and his opinion.

We have a set of rules that allowed the American Nazi Party to parade through  Skokie, a Chicago suburb with a high Jewish population.

Our laws allow Mr. Robertson and the Nazis to say what they want and parade in a peaceful fashion even if most of us find their words and deeds disgusting.

Private enterprise has the right to protect its interests too.  Thus GQ magazine saw its right to publish the words of Mr. Robertson.  Similarly A&E cable network has the right to end its relationship with the man.  Call it the Paula Deen effect.

WordPress is a blog medium where everyone can express their views. Readers can always go elsewhere.  Some of the things David Bancroft and I have posted caused significant objection and controversy.

You are free to express your comments to this blog. We do not reject comments that offer opposing views.