"I ask you this: which way to go?  I ask you this: Which sin to bear?  Which crown to

put upon my hair?  I do not know, Lord God, I do not know."  

- Langston Hughes

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(March 2007) How low is the bottom line?

 I am not inclined to start grass-root campaigns…until now.

Don’t shop at Circuit City.

     I was never a fan of Circuit City, but their just announced "cost-cutting measure” should be very disturbing to anyone working a job in the United States.  Please read the section below that went quietly out in the news this week:

     “NEW YORK — A new plan for layoffs at Circuit City is openly targeting better-paid workers, risking a public backlash by implying that its wages are as subject to discounts as its flat-screen TVs.  The electronics retailer, facing larger competitors and falling sales, said Wednesday that it would lay off about 3,400 store workers — immediately — and replace them with lower-paid new hires as soon as possible. The laid-off workers, about 8 percent of the company's total work force, would get a severance package and a chance to reapply for their former jobs, at lower pay, after a 10-week delay, the company said.”

This photo is a recently fired Circuit City dad congratulating his newly hired son on his new full-time managerial position at Circuit City, which pays minimum wage.  They will celebrate their bankruptcy and foreclosure in their cardboard box house by sharing a meal of orange rinds and Lo Mein recovered from a restaurant dumpster. 

     So if you stay at a job, and do that job well- which then increases your pay, you are liable to be fired?  Better yet, these poor employees get to reapply after only 2-1/2 MONTHS for lower pay!  I am not all for companies having to make the bottom line and move to re-structuring or lay-offs- but I understand that happens.   That is a fact of life.   Corporations make money...no money = no corporation.  BUT- this is more than that.  For clarity, while Circuit City may not be the top seller, they are not in dire straights.  Forbes puts their holdings at $11 billion plus.  It is the fact that they are not displaying growth this year, as they were in the last- and that translates to stockholder displeasure.  But look what happened with this "cost-cutting measure" - the Wall Street response on March 29th was that Circuit City shares rose.  The bottom line is money. 

     I read a nice quote about this situation:  Henry Ford realized if no one had money, no one could buy his cars.  So he paid the employees well.  People bought cars, Ford made money, everyone prospered.  If the bottom line forces us to strip well paid employees from a corporation...who is left to buy the goods?  A move like this puts everyone at risk in every job.  This is not simply backwards, this is the evils of wages that are “market-based” over people based.  This seems like a great big "DUH"!  I would rather see complete lay-offs than this move.   I have not shopped at Circuit City in more than 5 years because while trying to price match a videogame, a manager became very insulting to me about price matching.  To not shop there for the past few years was a personal choice brewed with bitterness, but I find it funny to think that this manager (if she is still there) is probably going to be out of a job.   I also love the number of stories that tag this as a “cost cutting measure”.  Nice term…but it is semantics for lay-offs.  "Cost-cutting" is going with cheaper 1-ply toilet paper in the restrooms, or appointing a copier nazi- not firing people simply for doing their job well enough to not be fired in the first place.

Update 11/10/08

AP Circuit City files for bankruptcy protection Monday November 10, 9:31 am ET

uh yep...my grass roots just took a little time.  I am not happy to see a business fail, however- I am happy to see a bad business fail.

(April 2007) Technology, cell phones & me

    I like computers. 

     I'm not entirely sure what to do when things go bad, but I still like technology.  It's the future, and it cannot be avoided.  But it also does not need to own us.  That disposition of "liking" technology disqualifies me as a technophobe, and that's important because:  I do not, and have not ever owned a cell phone. 

Now, normally this is not even a rant worthy statement, I am not one of those people who parades around about "tv rotting your brain"...except recent events warrant me writing a short bit on this. 

     In recent months I have had numerous people tell me that they are getting me a cell phone.  That kind of ruins a present if you tell them doesn't it?  They do this because they know that I do not want it.  Even after protesting that I do not want one or need one, they still mumble something about getting me one.  They make this angry statement towards me simply because I do not have one.  Not because I borrow theirs (I never do), but just because I do not own one.  They must feel pity for me, or they do not want me to be left out, cast out, discarded- so they loudly declare "That's it! For __________ (insert birthday, holiday, bar mitzvah, whatever) I am getting you a cell phone!" 

     I have seen more than a few people even become angry with me for not having one using the "what if's?".  It always falls back on the "What if your car breaks down" or "What if you get in an accident?" or "What if you get kidnapped...catch fire...or trampled by a raging circus elephant?... then what'll you do smart guy?" 

     What if? 

     What if we did not live in fear?  What if we were not being manipulated by industries that tell us what we need in order to make money and line the pockets of those that are already wealthy?  Ask yourself the age old question: who benefits?  Do you want it, or need it?  Where has this NEED come from?  What if I wanted to talk to people face to face, instead of on cell phones or computers?  Better yet, what if I don't want to talk to anyone... or to be found?

     Cell phones have opened the flood gates to social rudeness, and I happen to still like good social manners.  People take calls at meals, yell into their phones in crowds, disrupt movies, have private arguments in non-private places, text while pretending to listen to others...Why?  For what value? 

     Is it fear of being lonely? Maybe missing out, or just a need to find some glint of acknowledgement that they are still alive and noticed?

     Not for me.  Computers and the internet and other media/entertainments suck away enough of my "real" life.  Maybe someday in the technology-laden future I'll have one implanted in my brain.  Until then I will just keep being amused by the look of sheer terror when I tell people that I don't have a cell phone. And I'll keep waiting on Big Bertha the circus elephant to trample me after I spontaneously combust beside my broken down car after my accident that occurred during my kidnapping.

(July 2007) My new crack...

     After too many years of saving change and bills in a huge jug, begging for donations on the street, and selling homemade bottles of my own blood- I have finally purchased my dream.  A slick, glossy 42" plasma high definition television.  Just hook it up to my veins, call in sick, and forget shaving or interacting with people or society.  After a few trial and errors in hook ups, it was functional.  Imagine the scene in a soap opera where the character has been in a car/chemical/fire/circus accident and they have their eyes bandaged in gauze.  After weeks, the hot doctor slowly removes the bandages fearing blindness and punctuated with gasps from the small crowd of super hot buxomly nurses circling the bed.  Then the screen is from the point of view of the character.  Images are blurry, then ever so slowly everything comes into crystal clear focus.  The characters tearfully embrace, and the credits roll.  Well...that's me.  They took the gauze off and I am in a high definition soap opera.  The first movie we watched is a much maligned great film...Hulk.  This movie got slammed for being to heady for the comic-to-movie genre, but I thought it was definitely one of the best.  The depth of the character studies greatly outweighed the lackluster digital Hulk.  Ang Lee did the Hulk righteous.  So now that I have watched many explosions, and quite a few discovery channel epic adventures with close-ups of dirt and rocks...I feel strangely complete, my soul can rest easy.  I may not have a cell phone, but dammit- I have a really freakin' amazing picture on my TV. 

(January 2008) I don't need a thneed

We already produce as many bags of recycling as we do trash...but I feel a need to do more recycling this New Year.  I don't want to leave a mess for lil' Asher.  I do not believe in preaching, so this is just for me.  I'm just one person.  But if I change for the better, then I make a small difference.  I also pledge to avoid as many chains and conglomerations as I possibly can this year.  My money goes to better choices.  Some cannot be avoided, but many can.  I don't refer to this as a New Years "resolution", because it has steadily been made into a life change for a while.  I am simply pledging to put more effort into the change in order to independently better things. 

Here is a list of places that I will not go to this year, some I already do not visit- or have recently begun to avoid:

*McDonald's, Wal-Mart (You get what you pay for...junk), Sbarro Pizza/Mall pizza shops ($3.45 for a cheese slice...are you kidding?), Circuit City ( A previous rant tells you how I feel about this store), Exxon Mobil (Why is gas always more expensive there, and their profits soaring?) , Sears, Blockbuster (See following rant to know how I feel about this place- and the CONSTANT change of policy and service, late fees/no late fees), Irondequoit Suzuki and the "Huuuge" Hyundai dealership (and too many other sleazy car dealerships to mention), Pier 1 (Strip-mining culture with overpriced knock-offs), Dominos Pizza, Friday's (Crappy restaurant and frozen foods), Abercrombie & Fitch ($60 cargo pants...WTF?), HSBC & Bank Of America (extra charges and poor services), Boxed Lunchables ( a kids food with 50 grams of fat and 70+ grams of sugar...WTF?), I am also dangerously close to adding a moratorium on Major League sports (for lying, cheating, and RIDICULOUS salaries)...

Guilty pleasures: the NFL-MLB-NBA, Starbucks (even though I am anti how expensive they are), Barnes & Noble, FYE, Regal theaters (and most theater chains...$9 movie-no thanks unless I really want to see something in the theater)...

And those that I prefer due to quality goods, cost, recycling programs (lack of waste), or community efforts (but, I don’t claim these to be evil free):

*Target (their line of foods "Archer Farms" is surprisingly good), Wegmans (regional grocery, good food), Local pizza stores, Stereo Shop (local), Amazon.com (or local book stores), Old Navy (even though I hate their commercials, they price their clothes very reasonably), Bud Plant (art books), ESL banks, Time Warner (this may shock some, but they are great here in NY for everything from free HD to cheap and free movies), Red Box (movie terminals), Ashley Furniture...

     You wouldn't know it from this...but I have a discriminatory bias against hippies.  I grew up surrounded by fakes that reeked of Patchouli and Raid and preached the hippie value to anyone within earshot.  They got baked and claimed to be hippies, but did little beyond going to Dead shows and bong hits.  In reality they were just like everyone else.  Playing out a popular fad, but not really DOING anything to create a meaningful change.  It's not that hard to make a difference, and preaching changes nothing...only action can create change.  So I am also giving the big middle finger to and banning hippies from my life.  There is little difference to me between the MLB ballplayer taking steroids to break records (but creating press releases that he is clean), and the Hippie wearing Abercrombie pants, drinking $4 Starbuck frappuccinos and buying a Grateful Dead CD at Wal-Mart.  Go on; get baked and go to a Phish concert ya jerks.

(January 2008)  Conspiracy Theory #431

     Although I have a few books, I am not a conspiracy buff- nor am I a brain dead believer.  I read them for fun.  One of my favorite conspiracies is about the only sport that I am a monster fan of- the NFL.  The conspiracy goes that to support the Iraq/Afghanistan war, and to create a fierce patriotism post 9/11...the government and the NFL conspired to have the Patriots win the 2002 Superbowl.   Right, that'll create patriotism...the New England Patriots.  Most Americans don't even know what or where New England is...I’m not sure that would inspire very much at all.  So, I have a conspiracy, with first-hand knowledge.  I believe that Blockbuster is faking incompetence, and here's my convoluted reasoning.

I.    I joined the online movie deal only 6 months ago.  I was happy.  Happy is good.

II.  My Blockbuster (and many stores) look like they are overwhelmed and full of idiots that have no organization skills.  Piles of movies  sit all over the store, rentals and returns are stacked in teetering columns, and mounds of movies for sale, old popcorn and candy, and nonsense merchandise crowd the store. 

III.  When I joined it was $9.99/month.  1 movie at a time, and I was able to exchange my mail movies at the store -NO limit, and I  received a free movie or game rental once a month.  I watched a lot of movies.  a LOT.

IV.  Then Blockbuster changed the deal.  They said I could only exchange my mail movies for 2 a month.

V.   Then they stripped the free rental/game out of the deal.

VI.  Then the stores all changed their policy from no late fees (which is not true, they had a certain time limit, and then they charged your  credit card for the cost of the movie), to any movie HAD to be returned the next day by 11am, or you would be charged .99 a night. 

But they did this without notifying customers online, or in store.

VII.  Then they announced that my deal was no longer valid, and my fee for the same service was going up to $11.99/month. 

VIII.   Many times during this span, I emailed complaints that movies on the top of my queue (list...damn French) were being skipped even though they were marked as "available".  It was as if the support tech never even read my email in replying.  They never responded specifically to any of my complaints. Each one was scripted.  Imagine going up to someone and asking about the weather, and they respond with: "Thank you for your comments.  We at Blockbuster are happy to serve you and provide you with the best online service with thousands of movies available for just a click!"  But is it sunny or rainy? "Thank you for your comments.  We at Blockbuster are happy to serve you and provide you with the best online service with thousands of movies available for just a click!" ...ok, but I just want to know if I need an umbrella, is it sunny or rainy? "Thank you for your comments.  We at Blockbuster are happy to serve you and..." Feel the rage yet?

IX.  Through another source I found out that their distribution sites and proximity determine what movies you get.  So site A may have

your top movies, but because you live closer to site B, you get #4 on your list.

X.    I cancelled my service after only 6 months.  That made me sad.  I have enough things that make me sad in the world

...CURSE YOU BLOCKBUSTER!!!

XI.  The other night I was coerced to go rent a movie for my wife and sister-in-law, and I noticed 2 things that make my conspiracy valid:

1) Even though they have a huge sign that they have movies for $ .99 per night, all of the movies that have come out in the past 6 months are $1.99 per night, and $1.99 per day after that...even though they have NO REAL LATE FEES?!  I am not sure, but I think that charging someone after a "due date" qualifies as a late fee.

2) I was 4th in line.  The 3 people in front of me were all renting.  Every one had a late fee, or money due on their account due to movies not returned on time.  I watched 3 couples rent single movies, but paying a combined $6 to $8 for the newly rented movie and the overdue fees from their previous rental.

    I am sure that many of the policies and pricing will change within a short period of my writing this all out, but I think this is a planned look of incompetence.  It's a conspiracy for money.  No one complained- even though they were obviously annoyed. This perceived lack of competence creates pity, who wants to yell at a kid who makes minimum wage and can't help you anyway?  This also allows for Blockbuster to make whatever rules they want, and to charge anyone anything they want...kinda like the church...and I also think Blockbuster may have had an employee shoot Kennedy from the Grassy Knoll, and possibly are responsible for killing Christ and moving the football every time Charlie Brown went to kick it.

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