For five and a half years, I managed group homes for the developmentally disabled. I was "salary plus", meaning that, while I was salaried, I still got paid for overtime past my scheduled 46 hours a week. I was quite definitely a "professional" employee, and my salary was just over $24,000 a year. I was unable to hold another job or even pursue a further education without the consent of my employer, so my salary was limited to what my employer paid me. I was expected to be on call 24/7, an...
In my previous article on the conditions at the mine in death valley, I mentioned the very real dangers there. To be fair, mining will always be a dangerous occupation, but as long as there is a need for ore, there will be a need for laborers to extract it. Job pay, in my opinion, should always be related to job risk, and miners should be among the best paid laborers in America. In the case of American Borate Company's Billie Mine in Death Valley California, however, risks are taken that unne...
The death toll in the school hostage situation in Russia is now at 322, as well as all 26 militants who seized the school. For once, I am speechless. I look at my beautiful children, and I cannot even begin to conceive of what a hateful, horrible heart one must have to consider them to be targets to make a political point. Frankly, I cannot see murdering to make a political point to begin with, let alone murdering innocent children. Perhaps the most horribly wretched part of this is, a...
Well, Las Vegas' most infamous current resident, John Wayne Bobbit is currently in jail on a domestic violence charge. He was, of course, convicted of domestic violence in an earlier relationship, which came some time after the infamous "Bobbitizing" of his genitalia by ex wife, Lorena, whose defense was that she had been abused by Bobbit. Frankly, given his history since the incident, I'm thinking Lorena should have Osterized the damn thing. Anyway, Bobbit is claiming that the charges aga...
OK, this article is meant for JU's peacenik community. If you disagree entirely with its pretense, move along. I'm not going to allow this to become a debate thread. I was thinking back to John Lennon and Yoko Ono's Christmas billboard in NYC in the early 70's (72, I think it was? correct me if I'm wrong), and I had a related proposal. These holidays (Christmas to many of us), organize a drive with some of your friends to put full page ads in your nearby major newspaper with the simple ...
We are... black, white, hispanic, asian, native American, semitic, pacific islander, inuit... we are... Americans, Greeks, Jews, Italians, Samoans, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, Guatemalans, Haitians, Cubans, Germans, Norwegians, Swedes, Poles, Hungarians, Romanians, Ukranians, Lithuanians, Argentinians, Chileans, Brazilians, Peruvians, Panamanians, Jamaicans, Indonesians, Australians, Britains, Irish, Scots, French, Spaniards, Swiss, Dutch, Iraqi, Iranian, Turkish, Saudi, Palestinians,...
I have heard this argument and that argument for the repeal of guns in the United States, basing one's opinions off of irrelevant comparisons with Australia and the UK, which aren't apt. Then I just read a piece on yahoo news about two Englishmen being sentenced to six years in prison for converting blank guns into guns that shoot real ammo. They converted about a gun a day, according to the article for 14 months...that's 420 guns, and sold them to....guess who? NOT law abiding citizens, but ...
I responded to Draginol's article about the far left, and I responded that there are sites where the far right is just as bad. I pointed out the "reverend" Fred Phelps as an example (he protested the funeral of Matthew Sheppard, and, as I found out elsewhere on the page I am about to link, is trying to have a monument erected commemorating Matthew Sheppard's "entry into Hell"). I was sickened, however, by what I read next. Apparently, today, as we are commemorating September 11, he and his...
Nearly 40 years after he allegedly defected from the US Army, Sgt. Charles Jenkins presented himself at the gate of Camp Zama, just south of Tokyo. He is now resuming active duty, while the military considers his case for court martial. The full story can be obtained on yahoo news. It is good to see that Jenkins has, all these years later, decided to do the right thing and surrender himself to the US Army. Was Jenkins a deserter, was he kidnapped by the North Koreans, or is there some othe...
Thought I might throw THIS to the wolves. What follows is a transcript of the CBS evening news response to the allegations that the Bush documents are forged, pulled from the Drudge Report. Enjoy, ladies and gents: 'KEY CHALLENGES TO NATIONAL GUARD DOCUMENTS ANSWERED' Fri Sep 10 2004 19:03:11 ET The biggest challenges to the authenticity of the documents featured in the 60 MINUTES segment on President Bush's Texas National Guard service are answered in a report to be broadcast on the ...
On September 11, 2001, I was working as a live in manager in a group home for developmentally disabled adults, and I got up, as usual and prepared everyone for work, getting them their breakfast and sending them off with their job coach. My day staff and I were sitting in the kitchen waiting for the last job coach to arrive. The last job coach arrived, and told us that a small plane hit the World Trade Center, and that they thought it was an accident. We turned on the TV just as the second...
Well, for the second time in a week, the Las Vegas monorail is down for repairs. This public transportation effort has been plagued with cost overruns, delays and shutdowns ever since its opening. To top it off, the monorail does not even run along the strip, easily Las Vegas' biggest traffic concern. Isn't the goal of most public transit programs to ALLEVIATE congestion? I am beginning to wonder if Lyle Lanley, the overseer of the monorail project on "the Simpsons" didn't have a hand in t...
350 coffins are being buried in the Russian soil 350 hopes, 350 dreams 350 faces filled with laughter and with tears 350 future scholars, athletes, diplomats 350 future mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles 350 sons, daughters, cousins, friends 350 lives that should not have ended in vain 350 voices crying out "No More". Stopping the hate begins with you and me. respectfully submitted, Gideon MacLeish.
I finally got one of the statistics I wanted to see for a long time: the domestic gross for Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" came in at $118 million dollars. While this is impressive for a "documentary" (although I really wish they'd quit calling it that), I think a fair analysis of the numbers are in order for those who insist that the numbers show the majority of Americans to believe Moore's view: *Assuming a ticket price of $7 a ticket (averages are higher than this, I believe; I have...
For those of you who have never been to Vegas, the Fremont Street Experience is on Fremont Street, the "original" strip, and in the heart of downtown Vegas (the Strip, actually, lies mostly outside of Vegas proper). This from an online review: Review: With its $70 million light canopy, $17 million in upgrades and 550,000-watt sound system, the Fremont Street Experience is sure to mesmerize. Positioned 90 feet above Fremont Street, the attraction stretches 1,400 feet and consists of 12.5 mi...