Americans Are Stupid

A community center is not a mosque. Yet liberals have allowed the Tea Baggers and the rest of the xenophobes on the right to frame the discussion around a "mosque at Ground Zero." As Keith Olbermann stated, it's not a mosque and it's not at Ground Zero. But Keith is the only person of note saying so.

If the (absolute) least common denominator gets to set the frame how is it possible to have an intelligent conversation?

Taking To The Streets?

This post on Tom Dispatch by Bill McKibben is worth the read. Why aren't more people enraged by the lack of progress on Global Warming?

McKibben lays out 3 things that need to be done to move forward in a meaningful way on what is literally a life and death issue. One of those things is that we're going to have to get loud; we may have to get arrested. His last paragraph:

Mostly, we need to tell the truth, resolutely and constantly. Fossil fuel is wrecking the one earth we’ve got. It’s not going to go away because we ask politely. If we want a world that works, we’re going to have to raise our voices.

It's a Jungle Out There

I recently attended a briefing about a company here in the Rochester area that I'd like to work for. They are a relatively new company with a great product. I've read recently that the economy is - slowly - turning around, but I've also heard that so far this is a "jobless recovery."

There's a phrase that belongs in the Oxymoron Dictionary.

In any case, the HR director for this company stated that for every position they post an opening for they receive between 150 and 250 applications. That is not out of line with what I've heard from other companies in the area.

So here's a question: Can there really be such a thing as a "jobless recovery?" How sustainable are corporate profits when so many of the consumers they depend upon for those profits are unemployed or under-employed?

Back From the Dead

On January 24th of 2009, I almost died.

A patch of black ice in the middle of the road ended an otherwise ordinary winter weekend in upstate New York. My Honda CR-V crossed the center line and hit, head-on, a logging truck.

I don't remember anything until about two days later. I spent two weeks recovering in the hospital, spent a month in a wheel chair and then another month on crutches. There was lots of pain, physical therapy, drugs, and the joys of withdrawal from pain medication.

Today I walk at least 2 miles a day, ride my bike, golf and am pretty much back to normal. I was very - very - lucky.

That was the start of my hiatus from The Fulcrum.

After going back to work, about a year after my accident - and the day before my birthday - I was "downsized" from my job with a company I'd been with for 17 years. That served to prolong the hiatus. But now that I'm well established in my job search, I've decided that I have a little bit of time during the week to blog again.

So now I'm back; and there are so many things to talk about!

Is There Anybody Out There?

It's been over a year and a half since I last posted to this blog.

I was curious to see that there are still an average of 19 visits per day here. So... who's out there still stopping by? Leave a comment and let me know. Maybe it's time to resurrect The Fulcrum!