That's Justice?

So according to a Washington Post article by R. Jeffrey Smith, Corporal Thomas M. Pappas who had operational control of Abu Ghraib prison at the time of the abuse gets a “letter of reprimand” and a two-month pay cut. Private Charles Graner, Jr who says he was carrying out the orders of senior officers gets 10 years in jail…….

What the Buzz Was All About

I’m probably the last person to have read it, but I just finished (sadly) The Secret Life of Bees. I knew when it was newly published that it was a gem, every critic said so—but let me just confirm it personally. I pulled it off the shelf because last week I bought Kidd’s new novel, The Mermaid Chair. Being the obsessive/compulsive I am, I told myself I couldn’t read the new one until I finally read her first one.

Well, timing is everything – it couldn’t have been a more appropriate story to read over Mother’s Day weekend! It is a sweet, poignant story, rich in tone, solid in its depiction of the south of the Civil Rights era, full of characters to whom I grew deeply attached and humor that made me chuckle out loud. It is essentially a child’s search for mother love--

Perhaps it is impossible to have a relationship with a book, but Sue Monk Kidd has created a story so alive with warmth and emotion I feel like I just spent a few days with a very good friend.

Corporate Semantics

Strange happenings in my world of the newly unemployed… Several months ago my managers at the mega corporation where I worked for ten years made the decision that my writing job was superfluous. I accepted my dismissal gracefully, along with 300 other employees whose positions were eliminated that day. Working in a corporation in the throes of hefty down-sizing is like working in a haunted house. Ghosts of the laid off reside in every cubicle while those still employed are waiting for the trap door to drop out from under their feet at any moment. I admit I was relieved to come out of the mournful shadows that company had become, and work in the light of day. If I hadn’t been so attached to my salary, I would have ended the craziness myself. Who knew there was a whole world of freelancing out here?

At any rate, last week I received a phone call from my ex-manager asking if I was interested in returning for a short stint as a contractor to help managers “catch up” on their backlog of documentation. So does this mean my job wasn’t really unnecessary or even eliminated? Obviously, it was dispersed among several managers already overloaded with responsibility.

My first reaction: are they kidding? Go back there after what they did to me? What nerve! But I worked hard not to take my lay-off personally so why start now? And let’s face it…it’s a writing assignment; it’s what I do. It’s gratifying to know my work was/is valuable. But the best facet of this opportunity is I’ll do it on my terms as an associate to the giant, not under its thumb. (And it’s probably silly, but it’s nice to know that (like my job) I’ve been gone, but not “unnecessary.”)

Information Overload

It’s wonderful! It’s marvelous! It’s really confusing….

There are the morning shows on the major networks, there are CNN, MSNBC and Fox, there’s Comedy Central news, there are paper newspapers (remember them?), and there are on line newspapers from ALL the major cities not just the ones in my neck of the woods, paper and on-line versions of monthly magazines and weekly magazines, and there are blogs, thousands of them. With all these resources, all this information, where does a weary reader begin each day?

So last week, in a response to my entry What Are They Thinking? a friend refers me to Paul Krugman’s series of editorials on Medicare issues which, of course, got me even more fired up about my mother’s situation and the elderly healthcare situation in general. Incensed and muttering to myself around mid-morning on Friday, I flipped on the TV as I prepared to go the gym. I happen on an author interview. Two men are sitting at a table discussing how the FDA being a bedfellow with the pharmaceutical, food and insurance industries, is stifling natural remedy manufacturers from adequately marketing and distributing their products. They talked in great detail about FDA restrictions on labels, the $840 million it costs to get a drug approved in the U.S., how hospitals would never administer a natural cure to a patient in place of a more expensive drug. Then they went on to discuss how FDA officials have left their posts to become leaders of pharmaceutical industry lobby groups (a point Krugman alluded to in his May 6 op-ed piece). I was totally absorbed, taking notes, waiting anxiously to hear the title of this book and then it happened. A flash across the screen….”This is a paid commercial. To get your copy of The Cures They Don’t Want You to Know About call 1-800-……”

Now I’m an information junkie, I admit it. But I am proud to say, I do draw the line (albeit sometimes a bit late, sometimes struggling against the temptation) at info-mercials. So far I have maintained the ability to weed out THAT particular source of information. I guess maybe I do know my limits….

Isn’t A Driver’s License about Driving?

Congress is in the process of drafting leglislation that “would call on state and federal agencies to develop new rules for licenses” that would “require states to check the citizenship or immigration status of applicants.” This, of course, is intended to help deter terrorist attacks since “some of the 9/11 hijackers used driver’s licenses as identification when checking in for their flights.”

It seems to me that Congress is experiencing some confusion over the purpose of certain government-issued documents. Last I checked a driver’s license was for driving legally. A social security card is to prove to your employer that your wages should be documented for social security benefits. And a passport is a government issued document that provides proof that you were born in the country you say you were born in when you cross international borders. Isn’t the passport the travel document? Maybe airlines should be required to change their policies and make passengers carry passports as proof of i.d. rather than burden state governments to re-vamp their old, established DMV policies and procedures at the expense (an estimated $500 million) of their citizens.

Anyone who’s lost their wallet, moved across state lines, or been an out-of-state student can attest to the fact that our documentation procedures are complicated enough—imagine if the safety of the nation was factored into replacing them. We’d all need administrative assistants just to do the paper/pc work!