The fastest growing minority in our United States of America are Underemployed-Americans.

Underemployed Americans are seriously discriminated against. We have little access to health care, we are kept out of the best housing, we are shunned socially.

Look around you. Maybe your sister is in love with an Underemployed American. How does that make you feel? Be honest with yourself. You probably think that you're a fair-minded person, but would you discourage your sister from marrying an Underemployed American? Maybe you're thinking, "Oh yes, they're in love and that's nice, but think of the children!"

Underemployed Americans are a diverse groups; we come from many backgrounds. Some have been underemployed for generations, others come to it still holding briefcases. Many feel such shame in being Underemployed that they deny it, even to themselves.

The majority, who we like to call "Temporarily-Employed-Americans", often have trouble understand issues that face Underemployed-Americans. "Why can't you just work harder!" they may say, "Get more education, and you can do better!"

We must understand the prejudices of the TEAs. After all, many of us were one of them at some time, and others are simply afraid of becoming one of us. They don't understand that not everyone can become an MBA, a lawyer or a software engineer; and even those people now are joining our ranks.

Underemployed Americans must be honest about divisions within our own group. Those who have jobs, however unsuitable or abusive, frequently look down on those with no jobs at all. "I may be working contract labor with no benefits or security," you may think, "I may be living paycheck to paycheck and can't afford a vacation, and a major illness would bankrupt me. But at least I'm better than those who doesn't have any work at all!"

These divisions have a purpose: they keep us from recognizing our common problems. When Underemployed-Americans are scattered and divided, we are powerless, economically, politically and socially. When we who have badly-paid jobs look down on we who have no jobs, we are weaker. When an employed moves some jobs offshore, those who lose their jobs are cut off from the remaining Temporarily-Employed-Americans, so that there is no way in which they can make common cause. Indeed, the TEAs can be rallied against their former friends and co-workers!

Many Underemployed Americans are so ashamed of our status that we try to pass as Employed-Americans. There are many ways to do this, but the most important is to deny it. Tell people, "I'm between jobs" or simply lie about your status. You can dress like a Temporarily-Employed-American, and few can tell the difference. When the time comes to pay for the drinks, just whip out your credit card. What the heck? You are hopelessly in debt anyway, what is another round going to cost you? At least no-one can guess that you have the shame of being an Underemployed-American.

In most social situations, people will turn away from the topic if it's brought up anyway.

It's time to STOP BEING ASHAMED! It is NOT SHAMEFUL to be an Underemployed American. You have NOT chosen to be this way; you're as good as the RAT BASTARDS who sent your job overseas. You are as patriotic as the pigs who take home million dollar paychecks for running their companies into the ground. You've met the guys in the executive suites; most of them are as dumb as stumps but have one thing you don't: a complete lack on love for our great nation. If they can make a few more bucks by sending Americans into poverty, they do it with a smile.

You can be PROUD you are not one of those. You have a heart, you have a soul, and you love our country. You would never move YOUR headquarters to the Cayman Islands just to duck your responsibilities.

So what are you going to do?

http://rewinn.blogspot.com/2009/10/underemployed-americans-growing.html

B Roll,

So sleep learning is a myth after all?

I am having a hard time listening to healthcare "reform" debate now. I have to force myself. So much is being made over so little...

Please . . . free-marketeers have thrown the favorite lackey to the forefront. Sure, he's a shill. So are most of his colleagues on the Hill. The shame of it all is there is no shame: the sociopaths try it once, they'll try it again and again until they get what they want. Can we all agree on a good housecleaning? Vote the bums out! And for you Firefly fans, we should aim to misbehave.

Great costumes! And related to current affairs!

Why limit this skill to Halloween alone???

Thom, just put it in his job description that he is required to come to work in costume AT LEAST one day per month! It's good for group morale!

Duality

Slipped into the eternal question
for Halloween's ghostly threshold,
the question behind Jacob's banker
and his king rings singly:
Am I wearing the costume
or is the costume wearing me?

The Los Angeles Times published a story recently on the “savvy” game plan of a key insurance industry lobbyist, Karen Ignani of America’s Health Care Plans. Her success, apparently, was based on a PR strategy to convince the Obama administration and lawmakers that it favored “universal” coverage after all, and offered to quit denying coverage for people with pre-existing conditions or after major (or during) medical procedures. The price for these “initiatives” was no cap on premiums, and no public option. Basically, it would be a win-win situation for insurance companies; higher costs would be offset by forcing more people to buy insurance plans at any price the insurers deemed fit.

Yet the core of health care debate is affordability, and if the insurers have their way, “universal care” will only make life for people at the lower-end of the pay scale worse. Affordability isn’t just about premiums, but co-pays and deductibles. Insurance has to be affordable AND cover primary and preventative care, rather than passing excessive up-front costs to the insured; making preventative care affordable is the most promising means of keeping medical costs down in the long run. Yet even the most optimistic reform plans on the table keep millions uninsured (Republican complaints about the number that will remain uninsured, is disingenuous coming from them considering that they oppose any change in the system); while those who would rather pay a fine probably shouldn’t be considered in the numbers, another large segment—those eligible for Medicaid but don’t sign up—could be reduced significantly if the red-tape was eliminated. That leaves legal residents who are the most vulnerable group of all, those who live at or below the poverty line who cannot afford insurance even with subsidies. For these people, “universal” coverage is nothing more or less than a sham.

It must be repeated over and over again: the public—or “consumer”—option must be part of a final health care bill. It is needed because the insurance industry has only its own “health” in mind, and that can only be measured in profits without any real effort to cut waste—whether its own or that of providers. The latest anti-public option pitch by the insurance industry is that providers will pass on reduced government reimbursement costs to private insurers; programs like “bundled” payment plans being experimented with for Medicare, which pays providers a fixed sum rather than waiting for a smorgasbord of bills for often redundant procedures, is the kind of common sense cost-cutting that only inspires incomprehension in the insurance industry. Bundling forces healthcare providers to take greater care in the tests they order and pay more attention to there results, rather than order a crap-shoot of tests that may or may not have anything to do with an illness.

The state “opt-out” public option being proposed now is far from acceptable, but it is a foot in the door, and it can be improved and expanded over time.

What great costume choices. Jacob is a great talent KPOJ needs to keep forever! Great get up Jacob! You are the best!!!!!

mathboy,

Well, that's THAT, then...it looks like there's no way to overcome this.

Doris Day? That's my name! Que sera sera

You are right about interacting honestly on the web. The biggest sex organ we have is our brain.

Quark,

I resemble that comment about us guys thinking about attractiveness a lot. Heads turning heh....Does that mean your a babe? tee hee hee :-) Remember men are pigs.

I am more concerned that Mr. Gainor has any access to any microphone. His rambling rants seem far more appropriate to someone locked alone in his bathroom making funny faces into the mirror.