Amazon spokesperson Mary Osako, meanwhile, told Businessweek that “our employees have made it clear that they prefer a direct connection with Amazon.” “This direct connection is the most effective way to understand and respond to the wants and needs of our employees. Amazon’s culture and business model are based on rapid innovation, flexibility and open lines of direct communication between managers and associates.” SOURCE: Amazon Workers Vote Against Forming Union | TIME.com. Lets face it unions today have a pretty bad reputation with many of us. In the past they have tended to make an enemy of the people who … Continue reading A Direct Connection…

“If we can just let other people alone and let them do their own fighting. When you get into trouble 5,000 miles away from home, you’ve got to have been looking for it” – Will Rogers, 9 February 1932 The world is a much smaller place now than it was in 1932 when Will spoke these words. The first multiple channel trans-Atlantic cable would not be laid for almost 25 years and communications satellites where also decades away. 1932 was just the beginning of our addiction to the automobile so it would be again decades before we became dependent on … Continue reading Let Them Do Their Own Fighting….

I have stated often on the blog that I have spent much of my life asking myself “What do I want to do when I grow up?” It just seems that I never really found my own personal unique way to put my mark on the world.  This question popped up yet again while I was sitting on my throne a while ago and suddenly the most obvious answer flooded my senses. I was meant to be an editor!! This calling should have been obvious to me before now. I can’t believe I have lived this long without fully realizing it.   … Continue reading When I Grow Up….

  You are what you do, not what you say… Continue reading Actions Speak….

Fine dining at Michelin-starred restaurants around the world can come at a price. But what you get for those high price tags (which can often be accompanied by sticker shock) are outstanding dining experiences that can take you to a castle in Switzerland or to an underwater culinary experience in the Maldives. From Japan to Europe to the Big Apple, luxe dining menus are often designed tasting courses paired with wines, which substantially adds to the consumer’s bottom line. SOURCE:  10 most expensive restaurants in the world. I guess there are people, especially the 1%er who don’t mind plunking down … Continue reading 10 most expensive restaurants in the world

  Are you a builder of walls or windmills? Continue reading Winds Of Change….

“Went down last night to a world’s championship wrestling match. Us movie actors are advised to go there by our producers so we can learn how to act. It was a fine show, everybody enjoyed it, but wrestling managements are overlooking an extra big revenue, for folks would pay even more to see them rehearse with each other before the match.” – Will Rogers, 25 July 1935 This quote brought back a very distant memory for me. I can recall with I was about ten years old watching my grandmother yelling at the very small TV screen in their living … Continue reading Rehearsing…

The one thing these old boys with a big navy are scared of, and that’s submarines. They are always claiming they are inhuman and not a civilized mode of warfare. It would be rather interesting to see published the names of weapons that are considered a pleasure to be shot by.    – Will Rogers, 30 April 1935 Of course submarines have been replaced by drones as being not civilized mode of warfare today.  At least that is what those who have been shot by drones say. Will was just not much of a fan of our war machine. I … Continue reading A Pleasure To Be Shot By….

I have readily admitted here that I am no snob about television. My wife and I usually watch a couple of hours of our favorite programs nightly. That is just how I relax  and let my brain cools down at the end of many days. We have a digital video recorder that records our favorite shows so we can watch them whenever we want. With the DVR I can speed through three minutes of commercials in about four seconds so I usually only get a very fleeting glimpse of all those advertisements. I have also recently discovered streaming video which is … Continue reading Viagra and the American Male…

I see where it was 50 years ago this week that President Johnson declared “war on poverty”.  This resulted in many social justice issues being addressed. Among them were:  Social Security Act 1965 (Created Medicare and Medicaid) – July 19, 1965 Food Stamp Act of 1964- August 31, 1964 The Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 which created the Community Action Program, Job Corps and Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA), centerpiece of the “war on poverty” – August 20, 1964 Elementary and Secondary Education Act – April 11, 1965 By today’s standard, which are pretty low indeed, it was remarkable … Continue reading War On Poverty… Solved…

Things are finally starting to thaw out here in the Midwest. The temperature actually got into the 20s yesterday and is supposed to break freezing today. But there is still much ice to contend with. As a matter of fact we now have a new lawn ornament in our front yard as a result of the ice. Here is the story behind that. Our neighbor from across the road knows that ice and I are a treacherous combination so she usually get our mail for us during these conditions. She is seventy-six years old but refuses to admit it. She … Continue reading The Big Thaw….

Cooking is one of my passions. I have always enjoyed it since I started cooking for my dad, brother and me at the age of ten years. Mom decided to look for greener pastures, which she found, and left us on our own.  I didn’t really know much about cooking so I learned as I went. Dad, growing up on a pig farm, knew how to make a pretty wicked pork chop and he learned how to make milk gravy on toast in the army during WWII. The soldiers called it “shit on the shingle” back then. (Like always I … Continue reading Its Own Real Estate….

The funny thing about Michael Galinsky’s photographs of malls, taken during a road trip across the U.S. in the winter of 1989, is not the feathered and hair-sprayed hair, the pleated and pegged jeans, the high-tops and acid wash, the puffy chests in too-small or over-sized tank tops. It’s not the whiff of Mrs. Field’s cookies, Orange Julius, and Chick-fil-A waffle fries. It’s not the fluorescent lights and pained efforts to bring the outdoors in: rubber plants, umbrellas hovering in food courts, faux snow fluffed, not falling, over Christmas scenes. That dusty, dim glow. The funny thing is, looking at … Continue reading Flashback to the Timeless Malls of the 1980s…