Day
19 March 20,
2003
1.
Names. Some things to give back. Reminder that “policy
options” section is due in only two weeks—should be a survey of possible
options in some detail, not your preferred option, which you will discuss in
the final section.
I
know I’m a book behind again on your responses. I hope to catch up someday.
2.
In the news.
“When
Democracy Failed: The Warnings of History” by Thom Hartmann
What
various denominations have had to say about the war.
UNITED
METHODIST: "It is inconceivable that Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior and
the Prince of Peace, would support this proposed attack."
-
United Methodist Church
General Board of Church and Society
CATHOLIC:
"Step back from the brink of war and help lead the world to act together
to fashion an effective global response to Iraq's
threats that conforms with traditional moral limits on
the use of military force."
-
U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops letter to President Bush
EPISCOPAL:
"We do not believe that war with Iraq
can be justified at this time."
-
Episcopal Church House of Bishops letter to Congress
MENNONITE:
"Peace and security are enlarged when authorities choose the path of non-violent
diplomacy."
-
Mennonite Central Committee statement
PRESBYTERIAN:
"Oppose a precipitate U.S.
attack on Iraq
and the Bush administration's new doctrine of pre-emptive military
action."
-
Presbyterian Church (USA) general assembly council letter to members
UNITED
CHURCH OF CHRIST:
"We fear war would only provoke greater regional instability and lead to
the mass destruction it is intended to prevent."
-
United Church of Christ
leaders
CHURCH
OF THE BRETHREN: "We will
peacefully resist all efforts to resolve this conflict by military force."
-
Church of the Brethren General Board
AMERICAN
BAPTIST: "We call upon our churches and their members to enter into a time
of prayer, intercession and witness in pursuit of peace."
-
General Board of American Baptist Churches USA
Source:
Des Moines Register, Dec. 22, 2002
Here
are quotations from individual religious leaders opposing the war:
[Methodist]
Bishop Melvin Talbert, ecumenical officer of the United
Methodist Church:
"No nation under God has [the right to invade another country, causing hundreds
of thousands of civilian deaths]. It violates international law. It violates
God's law. War only creates more terrorists and makes a dangerous world for our
children.”
CNN,
Larry King Live, March 11, 2003
[Methodist]
Bishop Sharon A. Brown Christopher,
president of the Council of Bishops, wrote to President Bush in February:
"As the president of the Council of Bishops of The United Methodist Church
and, therefore, one of your pastors, I write to you, a fellow United Methodist,
because of the awesome burden that rests on your shoulders in these days. The
human community stands at an intersection of decision that will shape its
common life and international relations for years to come. In your hands rests
in large part the path we will follow. The Gospel of Jesus
Christ is a Gospel of peace. It calls us to transcend political ideology and
national interests to act on behalf of the welfare of the whole human family.
…"
http://www.umc.org/headlines/iraq/letter_to_president.htm
[Catholic]
Pope John Paul II: President Bush met with Cardinal Pio
Laghi, a former Vatican ambassador to the United
States, on March 5.
"I
assure you, Mr. President, that I am praying for you and for America," the Pope
wrote, according to Laghi. "I ask the Lord to
inspire you to search for the ways of a stable peace, the noblest of human
endeavors." Without UN support, military action against Iraq
is "illegal, it's unjust," Laghi told
reporters after the session with Bush. "There are still peaceful avenues
within the context of the vast patrimony of international law and institutions
which exist for that purpose," Laghi said.
"There is great unity on this grave matter on the part of the Holy See,
the bishops in the United States,
and the church throughout the world."
--
Multiple news sources
[Catholic]
Bishop Wilton D. Gregory, president of the U.S. Conference on Catholic Bishops,
hand-delivered a letter to Condoleezza Rice in September that read: "Given
the precedents and risks involved, we find it difficult to justify extending
the war on terrorism to Iraq, absent clear and adequate evidence of Iraqi
involvement in the attacks of Sept. 11, or of an imminent attack of a grave
nature … We respectfully urge you to step back from the brink of war and
help lead the world to act together to fashion an effective
global response to Iraq's
threats that conforms with traditional moral limits on the use of military
force."
Also
attending the White House meeting were the presiding bishops of the Episcopal
Church, Frank Griswold, and the Evangelical
Lutheran Church
in America,
Mark Hanson.
--
Multiple news sources
Full
letter: http://www.usccb.org/sdwp/international/bush902.htm
[Jewish]
Rabbi Michael Lerner: In his article "The Triumph of Fear" in the
March/April issue of Tikkun, Lerner writes: "How
could it have come to this? The fundamentally decent people of the United
States destroying the homes and lives of
innocent Iraqis, just twenty-eight years after most Americans were so sickened by
war-making that they chose to abandon the ill-conceived war in Vietnam!
From my analysis of the psychodynamics that make this war possible comes a new
strategy for the anti-war movement outlined in the second part of this editorial."
http://www.tikkun.org/magazine/index.cfm/action/
tikkun/issue/tik0303/article/030312b.html
[Episcopal]
Most Reverend Frank T. Griswold, presiding bishop and primate, the Episcopal Church, USA:
"I am deeply disturbed that some Christians are animated by notions of a
God of vengeance and retribution, and adopt simplistic views of good and evil.
The task of people of faith, indeed those of the three Abrahamic
faiths – Judaism, Christianity and Islam – is to point us all toward a God
abounding in compassion and love for each one of us. … Those who argue
for war have said that war can be an act of service to the
global community, and religious language is employed to justify such an action.
How can this be when war would have a profoundly damaging effect upon countless
innocent people? How can this be when war would further fuel the anger and
frustration so many people around the globe, far beyond the borders of Iraq,
feel towards our country?
Instead
of waging war, our faith calls us to wage reconciliation. This involves the
demanding and difficult challenge of loving our enemies and embracing policies
of generosity of spirit that build up the global community."
-- March 13, 2003 http://www.episcopalchurch.org/presiding-bishop/postings/article_126.asp
[Episcopal]
Bishop John B. Shane, the Episcopal bishop of Washington, joined with church
leaders on both sides of the Atlantic in signing a
statement opposing a preemptive war on both moral and practical grounds. He
told reporters that just-war theory makes a distinction between "anticipatory self-defense,
which is morally justified, and preventive war, which is morally prohibited."
In this case, he said, "I don't see the threat from Iraq
to the United States
as an imminent threat, so . . . military action against Iraq
is inappropriate."
-- Washington
Post, Oct. 12, 2002
[Lutheran]
Bishop Mark Hanson, presiding bishop of the Evangelical
Lutheran Church
in America,
said in February: "I think we're listening for the voice of religious
leaders to at least guide the conversation about morality, if not give
answers."
-- Tallahassee
Democrat, Feb. 22, 2003
Hanson's
letter to the ELCA about Iraq
(http://www.elca.org/bishop/iraq_0302.html)
[Presbyterian]
Based on our Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)'s "Commitment to
Peacemaking," the 214th General Assembly (2002):" urges "all
parties involved to actively and wholeheartedly seek a negotiated solution
based on diplomacy and not violence, peace and not war".
Presbyterian
Church U.S.A.
General Assembly: A summary of General Assembly policy on Iraq:
http://www.pcusa.org/peacemaking/iraq/ga-policy.htm
Nation
Council of Churches: Rev. Robert Edgar, general secretary of the NCC, representing
Protestant, Orthodox and Anglican denominations, said in February: "The
middle church is becoming as active as the religious right has been for the
last 15 to 20 years. We have had a huge change in strategy. Until now, the
middle and left had not used computers, there were no
full-page ads or phone campaigns against policy. But everybody knows that to break through the
maze of modern media, sermons have to be preached in new
ways. It took organized religion 10 years to oppose the Vietnam War. During
that time, people were thought to be un-American if they stood up against the
war. Now it is considered very American for the church to stand up. The idea of
a pre-emptive strike that does not have broad multi-national support seems
strange to
many religious leaders."
- Chicago
Tribune, Feb. 16, 2003
More
Robert Edgar: "Imagine that the kind of time, creativity and money that are being
poured into preparations for war against Iraq
were being poured instead into the challenge of ending poverty in the United
States and around the world. … The war on Iraq
is not a just war. It can be prevented if we mobilize the other 'super power'
-- world opinion -- to stand up and say
no to war. In the absence of compelling evidence that Iraq
poses an imminent military
threat, we will continue to press for a peaceful solution in
which the innocent families of Iraq
are spared the terrible scourge of war. Even in the face of the
Administration's insistence that a war is unavoidable, we believe America
can win without war."
-- PR
Newswire, March 2, 2003
interfaith prayer service in San Francisco
[National
Baptist Convention] Rev. William Shaw, president of the National Baptist
Convention USA Inc., said: "We talk about the number of lives
lost on 9/11, and that was
devastating. But that does not justify the taking of tens of thousands of lives
without any identity. … One way you wipe out any feeling about the loss of
lives to opponents is to demonize them. When you demonize people, there is no
sensitivity to killing. The case for this war has not been
made."
-- Philadelphia
Daily News, Feb. 27, 2003
Then
there are the few stray religious leaders who support Bush. Here is what they
have to say:
Franklin
Graham, son of evangelist Billy Graham, said on national television that Islam
is "a very evil and wicked religion."
Jerry
Vines, the former president of the Southern Baptist Convention, the nation's
largest Protestant denomination, said Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, was a
"demon-possessed pedophile."
Jerry
Falwell, another evangelical leader, recently called
the prophet "a terrorist."
3.
On Ehrenreich, Nickel
and Dimed. Have you thought much about what it
would be like to do what she does, to get by working at the bottom end of the
pay scale? Student poverty, which is real and which I know well, is something
different from what she’s exploring, isn’t it? And she knows well that her
little experiment isn’t “true” poverty—she has all kinds of advantages, a car,
credit cards, she can escape whenever she needs or has to.
Room
and board at BC is about $5600/8 months, or ca. $8500/calendar year. If you
worked 2000 hours at $5.45, you’d make $10,900 before taxes, probably about
$9500 after. That would give you a thousand for “everything else”—clothes,
medical care, transportation, entertainment. Think you could do it?
Another
way of thinking about this: while you’re in school, working hard but mostly not
for wages, paying for your living expenses and your tuition through some
combination of loans or your parents or your savings or scholarships or
whatever, your basic food and shelter needs are being fulfilled at what’s probably
a higher level than you could expect if you were a single person working
full-time, year-round, at a low-wage job. You don’t have to cook or pay
utilities or drive to your day-to-day activities (well, mostly). You can eat as
much as you want, or can stand, three times a day, and choose from a variety of
foods that somebody else prepares and cleans up afterwards.
And
what if you were a single head of household, with a child or two?
Introduction:
what’s to notice there? What is her
project, and what allowances and limits does she give herself? What does she
recognize makes her different from a “real” person in a similar situation?
For me, it’s that she recognizes her
advantages, and how little good some of what we might consider advantages
really meant.
So
her experience, as she tells it, really comes down to basic elements, right?
Shelter and employment are the big two. What does she find in those areas? What
kinds of shelter are available? What problems? Convenience,
cost, quality?
What
about jobs? It’s not too hard to find work, but what’s the work like? The jobs she got were demanding, and used up
both her strength and her attention . . . What’s your experience? Are
low-paying jobs easy?
Chapter One, “Serving in Florida.” From being a “consumer” to a “worker,” 11. She’s close to
home, but no one recognizes her.
Finding a place to live, 12-13.
Finding
a job, 13 ff. Applications, interviews, questions, drug
tests.
16
ff: Her career at the “Hearthside.” Billy and Gail.
The problem of feeling competent, and her desire to do it well, 18. Customers.
20 agape in the hospitality industry.
22-25:
Two problems: management and money. The list of housing
arrangements, 25-26. She’s able to live where she does only because she
had $1000 for rent and deposit. “Starting conditions are everything,” 27.
So
she takes on a second job at Jerry’s, 29 ff. The mess everywhere, smoking as
“what you do for yourself,” 31. The pace there is furious, “a crash course in
exhaustion management,” 32. Energy and pain.
35:
customers are the enemy. The worst are the Visible Christians, 36, who complain
and don’t tip.
37
ff: George, the Czech dishwasher who gets in trouble for allegedly stealing.
38
ff: moving to a trailer, closer, to avoid the commute and try to work two jobs.
She starts housekeeping at Jerry’s too. 43 ff: working with Carlie,
who hurts all over and doesn’t move fast. Moving in this
other world, eating lots of Advil.
46:
the “perfect storm,” four tables full all at once. The fog of
war, ten British tourists who have all kinds of demands. She just
leaves. “it became a test of myself, and clearly I
have failed,” 48.
Chapter Two, “Scrubbing in Maine.”
Whiteness
. . . signs of lots of jobs. NOTE: as she says, this all happened during a boom
time, when unemployment was at historic lows and jobs were going begging,
supposedly.
Again, finding shelter, finding a job. Scary
apartments and situations, 55-56, more tests 58-59. they
seem aimed at finding stoners and conveying information to the employees: “You
will have no secrets from us . . . we want your inmost self.” (59)
Work
as “dietary aide” at nursing home. 65: Pete, who says he has piles of money
saved but works there for the community.
66
ff: the “Deliverance” church.
68:
versions of Jesus. They only talk about Christ crucified, not about the Sermon
on the Mount.
70
ff: the Merry Maids cleaning service. Germs? 76, how to really clean. Well?
Student Responses
Nickel and Dimed is a very interesting perspective on the working
class.
I would
imagine it would be quite difficult to take yourself out of a middle-upper
class
situation and voluntarily live as a blue collar worker.
HoweverI
do know a few people who live in voluntary poverty as a statement of faith.
It was
difficult to read about the situations the majority of America deals with. People
With just
as much talent but not as much luck get put into the jobs that we all
Need done,
but no one wants to do it. I really found the way managers strictly
Run their
business and treat their employees all like delinquents. They can
Treat them
so poorly because of the massive turnover of employment.
I enjoyed
the line that they “not only want your muscles and that small part of your
brain that is connected to them, but we want your innermost self” (59).
However, when they are actually on the job they are hardly treated as human
beings. Life consists of only work and sleep, and paying bills.
This can’t be the American ideal we all hope to achieve when we are little.
As for
articles, the prospect of the war has made me rather sad. I found an
article suggesting Americans should “prepare for loss of life”. I thought
this was incredibly ridicules. What do Americans expect? That the
world will just let us go on our crusade in other’s homelands without casualties?
Idiots.
Jacob Boehr
Kelly Dietrick-
I have completed almost one-third of Nickel and Dimed,
and so far it has been a fascinating piece of literature through the eyes of
this "minimum wage earner" journalist. I think that what she is
trying to accomplish through this book is amazing, I don't think that I
could give up the comforts of a regular routine to an unknown world of paying
rent and trying to find a dead end job that barely gets me through the
month. She is amazing to me. However, within her experiment I have
a few problems with some of the "limitations" she places on herself
and her unknown racist remarks. For instance, when she is trying to find
a low paying job that needs hardly any credentials in Key
West she adds that she went to college for three
years. Which I feel if she really was a woman who just got off welfare
and found herself back in the working world, I don't think she would have a
college education, she would probably barely have a high
school equivalence. I think that if she just wrote in on her applications
that she had a high school education than her search would be more realistic,
however; I guess the jobs she did land did not entail any mental work that only
a college graduate could accomplish. Moreover, when Barb allows herself
to drive a car it allows her to find better jobs that most would not be able to
obtain without a car unless they were within walking distance. I just
felt that some of these limitations could have been applied to her experiment
that maybe would have made it more realistic. The biggest part of the
project that I felt she did wrong was when she allowed herself to spend
her "regular" money to pay for the deposit and 1st month's rent on an
apartment in Key West. I think she would have learned more if she found a
place and a job like the people she is suppose to portray.
Also, sometimes I found myself getting mad at her when she would make
comments about her being white and her being superior to some of her
co-workers, allow that maybe in the working world this is true. I just
got a little upset because I see her as equal to them, especially since she is
basically in the same living situation as they are too. Which leads to another complaint I have about her when she
comments that she is in a different class than these working class citizens,
which is true, but the way she states things she acts like she is so much
better than them. Barb doesn't smoke or drink,
she stays home and reads, which makes her better. At least that's
the feeling I got when I read the book. But all and all I
am enjoying the book and can't wait to find out more about the different jobs
she has, and the people she runs into.
WAR WAR WAR, frankly
sick of it. I hate talking about the subject because I do not believe in going
to this war with Iraq,
on a different subject the NCAA says that they are not going to post pone the
tournament for the "up-coming" war. BOth
men and women basketball games will go along as scheduled, but prays do go out to those leaving for combat and the family
and friends that have to wait it out. Means starts on Thursday and
Women's on Saturday. Miles Brand, NCAA president, comments that we need
to go on as normal as possible, which I could not agree more. I'm not
saying that war is not a horrible thing and what is going on will not affect me
in some inebt way, but we can not stop everything and
focus on the war. That would caue more chaos
and destructive things I think. Just like when 9-11 happened, everything
seemed to shut down. We can not leave in fear because fear will kill
you. I think the best way to fight and win at home is to go on with day
to day activities and pray for those who are over seas.
http://foxsports.lycos.com/content/view?contentId=980304
Barbara Ehrenreich describes her
difficulties trying to find a job where she is at living in Florida. She does her best to find low income housing
and low income jobs hopefully paying about $7 per hour. However she is finding this a difficult feet to accomplish down in Key
West. She is
seeing that to make the rent payments that she is going to have to start
working two jobs or find better paying jobs.
She starts searching for housekeeping jobs, but is told that she would
be good at waiting on tables. So she
takes the job because it’s a source of income with a steady pay rate and tips,
but she does not like this work for the reasons that she remembered she didn’t
like this work from being 19 years old.
Her back has been hurting and she goes and tries to find a different
job. Ending up waiting on more tables,
she’s not happy and decides to move to a different state to see if she can do
better than what she has been going.
Finding a job as a housekeeper, she has found a place to live in small
quarters, but it’s a living space with decent rent. Making every cent one earns and counting all
expenses is very difficult to do, but Barbra seems to make every cent count in
the best way possible, trying not to spend money where it’s not needed but
where it is needed on the supplies to survive.
She doesn’t seem to have too many luxurious items, but who really needs
them to live?
http://channels.netscape.com/ns/news/story.jsp?floc=FF-APO-1107&idq=/ff/story/0001%2F20030319%2F165147406.htm&sc=1107
This site has quite an interesting subject of a new weapon
that might be used against the forces in Iraq. This new weapon “e-bomb” ‘creates a brief
pulse of microwaves powerful enough to fry computers, blind radar, silence
radios, trigger crippling power outages and disable the electronic ignitions in
vehicles and aircraft’. This could cause
problems if our troops are in or near the area this confidential bomb is let
off. Does it just destroy enemy parts or
all parts? Is this
what wars will come down to now is an ‘electronic bomb’? Since most everything is of an electrical
basis in the world, why don’t we just send email bombs or viruses that could do
the same and not risk any people’s lives?
-Beau Beidelschies
I am really enjoying this
book so far. It was really neat to see her working jobs that did not pay much.
She wanted to see what it was like to be in poverty working jobs. Many people
are working a lot more in these kinds of jobs and are struggling just as much
as these people that Barbara talks about. Right now people are losing their job
because of the economy, so I feel it is getting harder everyday. People with
higher class or even middle class jobs do not think about those people that
struggle and worry about what they are going to eating that night for supper or
even where they are going to spend the night.
Even though she was acting like she was a lower wage worker, she still
did not to have problems with money. She said that even though some people were
finding money, she always had money to depend on. Also, at the end of the first
chapter, Barbara quit her waitress job. So many people can not do that in fear
that they might not have another job. I think it is it a good experiment and I
think that people should be in those people's shoes that struggle. Another
thing that I was not surprised by was the boss’ that she had. She had struggles with all of them. The
places that she worked in also did not surprise, because people that have
problems work in places like that. They seemed like places that were not kept
clean and supervisors did not care what it looked like. It makes me wonder what
these peoples’ home life is like that work in these
conditions. She was saying how some people live in vans and hotels. It saddens
me to hear people go through difficulties each and everyday and wondering if
they will have a roof over their head and food to eat. This seems like a very
interesting book so far.
Christian Science Monitor
one article in titled,"The Clock is Set."
The news reporter went to Kuwait to talk to men that were
there to fight. He was surprised that everything was a normal as ever. Some men
were ready to fight more than others, by wearing different uniforms or
additional supplies. Some men got up from bed to listen to the President speak
on Monday. One Marine said he just
wanted to get this war over with, so he could go home. There aren’t allowed to
call home, so the easiest and only access they have right now is email. They
feel that the President is doing right thing with giving 48 hours.
http://www.csmonitor.com/specials/kuwait/dispatches/dispatch_010_0318.html
In The Nation, “Postcard
from Bloomington,” talked about there was a small plane
that kept circling parts of the time in Bloomington. First, people didn’t seem
to mind, but they started to get worried. No one would tell the citizens what
it was doing there. Finally after a
while the FBI said that it was their plane. They were looking over Indiana University to see if there were any facility or students
that were foreign nationals that were faxing or printing information. FBI’s did
not find anything about terrorist and Bloomington felt this was unnecessary
for this to happen. http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20030317&s=vest
Fox News, “Blizzard Cripples
Colorado, Wyoming”
This article is about the
blizzard going on in Denver. There has been 6 ft. of
snow so far. The snow fall has been the
cause of one accident. Many people are not working because they can’t go
anywhere. One person said that he can
walk on the top of his barn. There has been up to 8 foot drifts in Denver. Families are coming
together and sharing food and shoveling. Hotels have been busy with people
staying there. Many governmental
businesses have been closed, including the post office .
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,81479,00.html
Cari Bowman
The article that I found was in the Washington Post. The
article is about a tobacco farmer in North Carolina
who had standoff with the police while he was in his tractor. Dwight Watson was
protesting the governments tobacco farming policies by threatening to set off
explosives in the a park. The protest ended after 48
hours. Watson had driven his tractor into a pond in the park and began
digging when the police began to close in and he got anxiuos
and surrendered. I think that if you want to be seen and heard a good thing to
do is stand on top of your tractor that you have driven into a pond in a public
park. However, threating to set off explosives
might not be the best idea.
The whole idea for the book Nickel and Dimed is an interesting one. In the introduction she
basically says what social workers have been saying. It is impossible to pay
for the bare necessities when you are working at minimum wage. Temporary Aid
for Needy Families (TANF) had been limited to five years. What is a single mom
supposed to do after her financial aid runs out. If a
single woman is struggling this much, what would it be like if she had a child?
What values are we holding up when we are cutting aid to needy families and
spending billions of dollars on war toys.
Anyway, the best part of the book this far is at the end of
chapter one when she walks out of her job. She says, 'And the surprising thing
is that you can walk out without permission, that the door opens, that the
thick tropical night air parts to let me pass, that my car is still parked
where I left it'. I think that everyone probably had a time where they walked
out of something where they might not have been aloud to. You think that
something is going to be different and surprisingly enough everything is just
the same.
Faith Blough
Of course I chose to respond to an artilcle that i read on
Salon.com. The title of it was called "Pentagon to Investigate
Academy sexual Assults."
Yeah I'm sitting here watching the president give us the we"
we are in war" speech and so i assume that
everyone else is writing about it. Anyway, 56 assults
have occured in the last ten years in the Air Force.
The females have been given a hard time for reporting sexual assult. The pentagon is doing a complete investigation
about what the air force is diong in the matter. The
air force usually handles these cases itself until exceptional cases arise such
as this and then the department of defense takes over. The AF said that 56
alleged assults were
over the last 10 years and there were many more cadets that have not come
forward. The AF said that last Friday, it punished 21 males for rape and sex
related crimes since 1990. This is evidence that sexual
misconduct is taken seriously at the academy.
This kind of reminds me of GI JANE, the movie with Demi
Moore in it. I'm not sure how i feel about this.
First of all, it doesn't matter who he is, noman
should ever take advantage of a woman. Ever, and i
find frustrating tha the AF is giving the women a
hard time. Women don't have a physical advantage over men but i think it sucks that have to live in fear of that
possibility. I also wonder what kind of "punishment" these men are
getting for their crimes. Are they geting of easily becuase they are in the military or are they getting the
punishment of an average man commiting a crime anywhere
else.
As for Nickel and Dimed, i
am so impressed with this author. there are so many
people who write books and think they know what they are talking about or
understand cerain siturations
but Barbara actually went and put herself in the shoes of struggling men and
women all over the world. $500 seems like a lot of money to rent a cheap
apartment. Here its like 250 maybe for an okay
apartment but she is in key west. I
did also wonder if she was married. i
thought that she mentioned 2 marriges but i wasn't sure if she was during the time when she did this
experiment. I didn't like hoe she mentioned that no one made her feel special becuase she was an average worker that was nothing special,
but putting herself in those spots she found and met all kinds of interesting
people. "when you seek hapiness
for yourself you'll never find it, only when you seek it for other will you
find it for yourself." This motivates me and it pertained to her. She
seemed like a giving person but moved after only a short time. Working just to
get by, on ends meat, not extra money to spend on herself,
only for necessities. Yet this is how people live, what would she have done if
she had kids with her. I don't know what this is life. My parents aren't
wealthy but they never worked crappy jobs just to get by. We alsways had extra money and lived in a house and got by
well, saved money, had good christmases,
went on vacations. Wow, i wonder what motivated
Barbara to do this. And day in and day out with a few minor cheats. But knowing
she could stop at anytime and go back to the money and security she knew she
had but she didn't. I admire her a lot and enjoy
reading the book, i've ony
gotten through about a 1/3 of it and am curious to see what sums up.
Brooke Diller
I'm not sure what to make of Nickle and Dimed. It's a fascinating concept, sure, sort of a new spin
on "Black like Me." I appreciate that the author was attempting to
get that lower income American perspective. What doesn't rub me well is her
attitude. I don't like how she keeps bringing up "I don't have to do
this" or the manner she went into choosing her job and home. It was like
she was saying "Yeah, I want to see what it's like to be minimum wage, but
I don't want to go THAT far." Ah well, it's still early on, so I'm sure
there'll be changes later on.
http://news.com.com/2100-1043-993323.html?tag=fd_top VIDEO
GAMES CAN HELP EASE PHYSICAL PAIN! A study has been conducted that suggest
people playing violent video games will be less receptive to pain. This theory
was come to when parents remarked that their children were incredibly
distracted even after they were done playing a video game. A positive aspect to
violent video games, I bet the FCC didn't see that coming.
-Brian Daniel
The first thought that came to mind after reading the
Serving in Florida chapter was:
oh, the story of my life! Well, ok, not
really the story of my life. But that is what came to mind, because I have been
waiting tables for 4 years now and every description in there is something that
I have experienced or felt. The most
intriguing probably were the people she described in the story. Serving a table
is basically the same where ever you go I have discovered. You become someone’s
slave for an hour or so and then they leave. What I hadn't realized is the
similarities of the people you meet on the job. Ehrenreich
describes some of the people and the situations that they are in like she is
working at one of the restaurants that I have worked in. I know the Czech dishers
trying to speak English and nodding or smiling at everything you say when the
really don't understand something, or the bitchy manager that contradicts his
or herself with every move they make (you can't sit down, but watch me!), that
snotty server that's been there for years and exaggerates your mistakes as if
they are the end of the world as we know it, or even that creepy cook guy that
hits on you every time you are within a 5 foot radius of one another. Being that I have not had any other kind of
non-blue collar job yet, I am under the impression that this is mostly
normal. Is it really just low-wage, low
class people that are the same no matter where you go? Will there always be a creepy cook and snotty
server type with every job I encounter, even after my completed education? Perhaps the people of both classes and wagers
are the same, but under the circumstances, they just go about things
differently. Maybe more tactfully
hitting on someone or kindly asking them act more professional in front of
their consumer could be what is to look forward to in the white collar
world.
Instead of going with the current war headlines of CNN.com,
I looked into the space and science section.
People (I’m assuming scientists) over the internet are claiming and even
distorting pictures with UFO sightings. SOHO
scientists claim that any “armchair astronomer” as they called it could make
these claims and find these spots in pictures.
They don’t really say it’s not real though!
-Angie Darr