Have We Really Sunk This Low

You know there was a show once called Soylent Green where by the age of 60 your number was pulled and you were required to go to a certain place where your demise ended with you being turned into fertilizer, hence the name Soy (Soil) Green?

With so much hype about age discrimination and society being big on youth, maintaining your youth we have simple gotten away from reality. Now I am not writing this to show any sort of rage against youth because like everyone else I do not want to grow old either. I try to take care of myself so I can be agile, have good health although I probably need to lose a good 20 pounds but I read so much about how post, blogs, the news, commercials, advertisements are always saying do what ever you need to do to remain young. Now we know age discrimination has always been around as far back probably since cave dwellers. Nevertheless, it appears it is becoming so in depth with society that employment is suffering. Good people with mounds of experience, great minds and wonderful talent is being put out to pasture because they are simply depicted as an ole cow. Now you’re being told how to appear for job interviews and I am not talking about dressing for success or making sure your shoes are shined nor what color blouse to wear. You are being told to dye your hair, wear trendy accessories and front a big fake. Therefore, we are being taught that lying is ok.

Were we not taught as we were growing up to be who we are and not try to be someone we were not? We were also taught never to lie. Lying just leads to trouble and eventually you will be caught. Look around in social relationships, online dating, reading people’s profiles what is the one thing that majority of lookers are saying? If you are a liar stay away, I am not into liars. I want someone honest. However, when you awake in the morning to go to that job interview you spend numerous hours prepping to become the biggest gimmick. To appear to be someone what you are not.

Now lying has taken on a different form. Once you have the job and you no longer want to dye your hair and the grey starts appearing or you simply did not have the time to do it this time, you are now showing your true self. Not to mention most people can tell within a few years of different genres, what era you stem from. Maybe you do keep up with certain trends, but let us face it, you cannot hide everything about where you came from, and the era you grew up. You might be able to fool the fool when interviewing, but just like a resume, if you put something down that might be stretching it, you will eventually be found out. I'm not saying it is wrong to keep up with trends if you so feel you need to, but it is like chasing a lie, you are forever having to cover it up and the wondering when can I ever be who I really am. In a comment posted, someone stated well once you get the job and you decide to let the gray show and the situation arises that you are older and something is made of it like losing your job, then you have a case to head to court. Do people really think the company will admit that they canned you because you were being fake? Not in a million years. You will never know the true reason. Who in their right mind would even begin to say “Mr. Jones, we need to remove you from your position because you have gray hair or you just are not who you said you were during the interview.”

My thoughts are plain and simple. Even though I‘ve been told I look younger than I really am, I am not going to lie about whom I am. Accept me or tell me I am just too old. People need to take America back. Things have changed without a doubt, but when you have to start playing fairytales just to keep a job, we have definitely stained our morals.

In addition, if that is the case everyone coming in the door will be hiding something. Is that the kind of company you want to work for, never knowing who is hiding something? One lie leads to another and another and you are always fighting to cover it up. It is what we been taught all our lives. So now, since we are deviating from what we have been taught we need to start teaching our kids in a different light, "it's ok to tell a lie!" Little white lies despite where and how they are used will eventually haunt you. I am not the kind to jeopardize or dignify the world by changing who I am and tossing my my ethics and moral standards. Then that is just me!

I was in a hiring position at one time, and the way I see things is if someone is going through all that trouble to be fake to get a job, how fake are they going to be at portraying and having the true ability to perform that job. Their attitude would have been compromised also. Their thoughts might very well be, "well I got away with it then, how much more can I get away with, if I just fake it!"

Say what you want folks as we do live in a different age, but we (society) are the only ones that can change things, if we want! What is next you are now 50 and you are trying to look forty. What will the genre do when they say we do not want 30 year olds, so they start trying to be something they are not? I have always had this thought that if Hollywood can produce a movie about it; it is not to far from being factual. Eventually we all lose.

I think the bigger question should be asked, what society is going to do when 10% unemployment becomes 20%, 30%. Someone will have to take care of these people or we will simply move into what we see in other third world countries. Is that what society is itching for. Greed so bad that only a certain few have everything and we let everyone else suffer? I was told that is what capitalism is all about. Is it really? To allow so many to suffer for so few to be rich?

In a technological perceptive country that is considered #1 in the world, someone will have to feed these people, whether it is corporations or the government. Even with Obamacare, you are still required to pay something, as I understand in order to obtain it. If that is the case, if I understand it correctly, who is going to pay for all these people that are unemployed, living on the street, running up to cars begging for food? Sounds far fetched, but so was landing on the moon back in the 40's and 50's but it happened!

Society is so worried about projecting youth. Where will wisdom come from? The world was not made by simply recreating the wheel each time you thought of an idea. Wisdom is what has allowed us to be where we are today. I am not saying this against the youth. We need to cherish our youth that is our future, but does youth have wisdom to foresee what could happen if we do the wrong thing? Does youth have anything to fall back on and someone to question when they should be moving forward? Who will they ask if we coral all the people that are 40 and over who might have experienced exactly what they are going through? Oh, I forgot we can just Google it!

I am not discounting thoughts or theorems on what is being projected out in society. Moreover, yes I realize we have to do our part or we will not be able to survive within our society. All I am trying to say is if we do not wake up as it was stated by Japan during the bombing of Pearl Harbor…"All we did is wake up a sleeping giant." Well society’s sleeping giant by today’s standards is disregarding the old, more room for the new. However, who creates the age line. Today anyone over 40 and definitely 50 is being considered old. Who keeps up with the scale of where old begins and where young ends? Someone commented to me on the wisdom factor and that there are many older people who appear to be wise but are nothing but old people who will not change their ways. And young people are not stupid they surely can think for themselves without the help from older people. Why some of this is true and yes, there will always be old geezers who think they are wise and will not change, and there are many young adults that brings future to the dismay, but if we do not learn or manage stability and equality, we will encompass bigger problems down the road.

Whether one wants to believe that or not. What we are dealing with is the quiet before the storm. We may be smarter than we were before the evolution of the civil rights and the woman’s movement, but that does not mean just because the majority agrees with things the way they are that things cannot change.

Those that seem to be making the rules as we play need to keep in mind they too will reach the avenues we're up against and then they will not have anyone to blame but themselves because they made the rules!

Generations have changed, I agree it is the way it is today, but it can change. If everyone continues to believe this is the way it is yes it will stay this way. How did we get to the realm we are at now before this type of social stigma came about? Someone or rather a portion of society, a group, something or whatever was bold enough to take a stand, said things have to change we are heading in a bad or indifferent direction, we want it to change, and this is where we are now. Just like the 60's and 70's and no I don't reminisce in the ole days as I can say I do keep up and believe and support technology; I'm just using as an example. People stood up to what they believed in. They stood on their beliefs. Now people see it as instead of standing up, I will just fit in. Good leadership has fallen, now we have a bunch of followers who appear to be leaders but they do not know which end they are following, the head or the tail. They have laws behind them to keep them at an advantage.

By no means am I saying anyone owes me anything so give me a job at my age. No, I am responsible for my own destiny. Nevertheless, within different types of turmoil come different reactions from people. There's a discussion on linked in, "How would you change the economy without creating a revolution!" Despite what we may believe in today’s cultured society, sometimes history does repeat itself to come to some sort of stabilization.

As I stated, I do not disagree with the facts of what today depicts, I personally prefer to be challenged on my own merits, not on what someone thinks I should be. I am a bad fit when it comes to faking things!

Lastly, I want to go back to the wisdom comments that I made and the response I received, as we do not need old wisdom. I am not a genius, scientist, or professor, but if what has been said about wisdom in the response I received “we do not need stereotypical old sage wisdom“, then why do we spend so much money going to college to learn from the old to bring light of the future? We are typically building new theory off old theorems. Without old theorems, we really would not be doing much of anything just reinventing what has already been invented, formulas, disease control, engineering philosophy, court cases (case studies), medical miracles,(transplants, etc.). Without the wisdom from these folks before us that spent the time and many given their lives fighting bureaucracy to derive at what we have been able to expand on today just exactly where would we be? Maybe I am wrong, but it is a thought to ponder.


Here's a site that talks about the need the future has for employing those of age and how companies will be welcoming them. Let's hope it comes to pass.

http://www.trainingfolks.net/publications/pub_013/Mature_Workforce.html

Nostalgia- Continued

I recently wrote on an earlier blog "Nostalgia, A Thing Of The Past Or A Useful Tool For The Future?"

I cannot help but think back of the way things were. I know; I know several have stated that the past is the past. Nevertheless, have you ever given it any thought? Where would you be if not for the past? Would you be right here typing on this thread if you had not had something that lead to this technology in your life back in the day? Maybe it was just a typing class. However, it was something. So I will not sit around and even think the past was just that the past.

If it had not been for President Kennedy back in his day, would we have ever evolved to the space age, as we know it? Sure, we would have made it there, but when, and would it be as we know it today and would we have been number one? Look at what we are going through today. One can hope based on opinions, facts, and theory that the next movement toward jobs of the future will be lessons learned and better achievements should this ever happen again, and let us face it, we will, maybe not myself but someone will go through this ordeal again, and again. Let us hope we all are learning, young and old, something about hiring people, communications, becoming more personable and expectations from recruiters to jobseekers.

If we don't learn, life as we know it may have been hard before, but the future will not only be hard, but it will be lonely because if we continue to apply the way things are being done today the only hope we have is sitting on our porch in our rocking chair moving back and forth and the only thing left to think about will be the good ole days!

The Oil and Gas Deep Water Drilling Debate

Today the New York Post had a breaking news event whereas tomorrow October 12th they will be announcing a lift on the moratorium that Washington put in place from the oil spill that took place in the GOM back April of this year 2010. During a discussion, I came across numerous people that spoke out against deep water drilling. Now I for one am not a drilling expert nor am I an engineer and I will not claim to know anything or everything about oil well drilling and the effect it has on our environment, however I did give my thoughts in relations to how and what I believe since the O&G industry has been around in my life since I can remember. After working on oilrigs and for service companies for over 17 years I may not be an expert, but I feel I definitely have some knowledge on how things operate. I responded with not a favorable response against many that were on the opposite side of the fence.

I will not ever change my thoughts about drilling. I grew up with it all around me. I know the pros and cons behind it. Not always good, but my argument will always be for those who dislikes it but those same ones are not doing anything different when they drive up to the pump and fill their vehicles. I have grown up around alternative fuels also. Sugar Cane, Corn Mills, it's no different when it comes to mess and cleanups, just on land and requires refineries and it takes chemicals to break it down. Again, an added argument is we can continue buying foreign oil. US brings in over 10 million barrels of oil from Saudi Aramco "daily" and that is a lot of oil. It is used in mostly everything we use today from plastics to over the counter meds things that have petroleum distillates processed in it.

One thing I didn’t bring up in the conversation is how has the O&G helped our lives? Just as those that are proponents against the space program. What have we learned from this program that has bettered our lives? In a previous post I talked about nostalgia, something that is merely the past of something that could help our future. Well as I see it the space program we learned a lot about technology. Things we use everyday. The same goes for oil. Many things are derived from oil and it has made our lives more prosperous today.

Therefore, for me to argue that the O&G industry is not a worthy business would be foolish and is no different from coal miners arguing their positions and shrimpers on boats arguing their positions. I totally support the O&G industry and "totally" agree with tighter safety rules that "MUST" be followed. Nevertheless, we need to keep more work here instead of purchasing from abroad when it comes to fuels. We have the ability, the knowledge and the know how to meet our own needs without other's benefiting from our dollars that definitely hurts our well-being and adds to our economic breakdown. We have been doing it for the last century and there will always be accidents. That is no different than a bridge giving away in Los Angeles or a volcano blowing acid into the atmosphere, there will always be disasters, but just as humanly possible we need to be more aware using more precautionary measures.

People in Florida complain about the state of their economy. I lived on the panhandle for 10 years, all the talk was about the pristine beaches in one breath, and the next breath was we do not have employment and if it would not be for the tourism industry we would be broke. Do not even talk oil relations to anyone in Florida. Governor Charlie Christ was talking about bringing drilling to Florida at one time prior to the oil spill. Surely this would have not happened over night, but I am sure when the word got out the drilling companies were standing in line to obtain their permits and ready to bid on blocks out in the GOM off of Florida. Then the oil spill occurred, as I am sure those thoughts of drilling were shelved and the discussion came to a sudden halt. However, you cannot have it both ways. You cannot complain how much you want to keep everything pristine, you do not want O&G messing up your coastlines, but are the first in line for gas and complain when you don’t have it and yet complain because unemployment in Florida is at one of the highest rates in the US. That is why Florida is broke. Retirees and snowbirds are not coming to Florida any longer to spend their dollars for retirement and vacations because of the hurricanes and not being able to insure their lovely mansions along the Gulf Coast since insurance companies came about indicating they would no longer insure anyone on the beaches. This meant you would have to be self-insured or move out and retire somewhere else. Guess what, the people with money that were coming to Florida decided if I need to live near water, I will just buy something near a lake. Therefore, tourism is now suffering. You need to boost economies and it is not going to happen by selling beer at the beach.

Everything around us has an effect that someone does not like. They cut down millions of acres of the rain forest every year and what does that effect? Does anyone complain how it is affecting people, natives, and animal habitats? Maybe some people are screaming out, but as usual, no one worries about it unless it has a direct impact on the way they are living. It might not affect everyone directly but there is an indirect effect we just may not see it. The drilling may not be seen as good in many people’s eyes, but if people really think about things all around them somewhere, some job is indirectly having an adverse effect on something. I am not a scientist so I cannot debate many avenues but in my opinion, the earth gave us the chemicals and such to work with. We did not order them from planet ZYGON and have it delivered to the ports for us to assume we know what to do and how we are going to handle it. It is not like something we just suddenly got our hands on like Kryptonite. We know the chemicals we have are made right here on planet Earth. They are taken from good ole mother earth herself and made into things we as humans use for our everyday living. It is our responsibility to become more perceptive and aware and learn better ways and methods at how to manage what has been given to us as stewards. Mother Nature has in her own way, knows how to take care of herself. It might take 40 years for her to clean up an accident but she will clean herself up. Now do not take that the wrong way. I am not saying we need to make messes or create disasters expecting our planet to take care of our carelessness. What I am saying is along with our technology and knowledge we can contribute to helping her along in bettering our planet. We just need to accept things will happen, some beyond our control but for those that are in our control become better aware before things happen and be prepared when things do happen.

Lastly, despite what people think about oil drilling many people seem to think catastrophes like the GOM oil spill is something that is horrendously controllable. Well, let me rephrase that. The oil spill is something that will not happen unless caused by man himself. If anyone has any knowledge about O&G then you will know that scientist have proven repeatedly that oil seeps from the bedrock floors all around the world in all our oceans all the time. (Jul 18, 2010 ... oil seeps from the floor of the oceans all around the world everyday 24/7. maybe Obama should put a 6 month moratorium on the floor of the ...
www.nola.com/news/...oil.../oil_seeping_from_gulf_floor_ne.html )

It is really physics, as I know it. You have pressurized compounds below the crust of the earth. The earth is constantly changing. Fault lines are shifting. Life as we would never know it occurs, but life as we wouldn’t expect it happens beneath us everyday just in a different fashion. When pressures reach their capacities and there is nowhere for them to go what usually happens? Like a water hose and water with a tiny hole in it. It will find the weakest point and elevate itself to the point of escape and boom you have seepage. If the pressures are large enough and occur long enough the opening increases and this pressurized liquid will surface. Sure, it might not be what we seen as an oil spill, but it is happening everyday around us. Do you think when a volcano erupts someone just walks over and says “oops the pressure is building we need to vent it by turning on the valve until enough has escaped then we can turn it off? Earth is a living creature just as you and I are. It suffers pains and has to release its frustrations also to rid the pains. It is a growing organism. Maybe not in size but in area that it already encompasses. So believe the O&G might not make things better, but there are many things amongst us that can actually fall into that category. It is simply how like anything, we manage it.

We can change things and go to electric cars or anything else for that fact, but somewhere down the road in our kid’s lifetime and their kids lifetime; there will be something found that is not good about that. A show played last week about the affects batteries had during a crash impact. Was not to promising. Therefore, it does not matter what we agree on or not agree on, something somewhere will eventually have an impact on humanity.

The Blame Game

Last night I got into a discussion and as Peter Griffin from Family Guy stated in a job he took for a news station... "What Really Grinds My Gears" was the fact that someone was talking about the state the economy is in and who is to blame for it. Of course there are plenty people still out there pointing fingers. Following is what I replied as I'm objective enough to know it is not a matter of whose fault it is but whose going to take action to get us back on track.

I think personally that we really need to be passed these pointing fingers of who inherited what from whom and how they got it. If you read history, this sort of reaction to the economy was coming for the last 40 years. It has been clearly stated by every president in a state of the union message. We need to do something, or future generations will suffer. What will we do? They always brought it up, always said where we need to focus but never had any answers and each has simply passed it down.

Despite who is at fault and who dropped the ball and who should keep running, we need to be more focused on what government as a whole will do to cure the issues at hand. Voting to me is an awesome responsibility but if it is merely just a knee jerk reaction to get the public to listen to the promises and the typical election is won by someone who says their interest is that of the populist and the result being voted electoral college which is really a joke in my book since you have no clue who’s voting for the people or for their own pocket book and no one is going to listen, then the general population needs to react differently.

The main issue is not who’s fault it is but reducing the amount government gets toward spending and the lobbyist who continue to fund their own causes leaving we the people groveling in lines trying to show we’re not spoiled, wasted, or the bad omen of unemployment. The focus from main stream politicians should not worry about the Ob-care right now, or other controversial programs that support bogus pork, but it should be full focus on building a better public confidence so companies will have the want to train and put people back to work. Being unemployed is not only hurting the jobless population, it is also hurting business in general and the government. No taxes in, no taxes out. No money made, no product purchased.

Until mainstream realizes that they may be capable of their own expenditures, they are really forcing the typical business to have to support the unemployed also. One way or another someone is paying something for someone who is unemployed.

We need to really get passed the blame game and focus on how to make touchdowns!

Self-Distruction

I understand a lot about technology. I might not be IT savvy, but I do have a considerable amount of knowledge toward what we deal with today, but what I do not get is how upcoming do not seem to get it. We all watch sci-fi. Let us face it we have seen it happen over our lifetime, just was not as bad. We had space movies, and reality taught us to get to the moon. We had Hal the robot who controlled 2001 A Space Odyssey, so we all assumed one day we'll have a space station and we created Skylab. However, why don‘t we ever get it?

We sit around now and complain about jobs. Does anyone not see where we are headed? Maybe not in my life time but at least in my kid’s lifetime, there will be some sort of robotics that eliminates the welfare of an honest days work. We did see i-ROBOT right? Then I forget the name of the movie, but Green something I believe.... but it is where government simply gathered people up and imprisoned them for being around the age of 60 or so. Then they annihilated them and used them for fertilizer. Ok far fetch maybe, but think about it, if Hollywood can think it up and dream it up and we've seen what their sci-fi buddies have created that turned into reality, anything is possible.

My point is doesn't anyone see that the more we progress and I'm not against progression at all but when it affects mankind do we not see now things we're doing daily can progress to the point where we are hurting ourselves. Greed in Corporations will become outdated. Money will become obsolete. So you are getting rich now but one day when you have all this money and a one-world government decides for you that it is worthless and now you will answer to them then what will greed have accomplished?

Those list from the good ole days are true and shed light, but what is next... You kids have it so easy, I remember when we had to take the space shuttle to work just to earn enough to stay alive, and today you kids just beam yourself around the globe and create virtual mistresses to come in an baby-sit y'all. Y'all have it way to easy.

Fiction yes, but to me, it is the future and we just do not realize we are our own worst enemy, and we will eventually self-destruct!