{"id":620,"date":"2018-01-14T04:38:33","date_gmt":"2018-01-14T04:38:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/maybegoosefeathers.com\/wp\/?p=620"},"modified":"2018-02-04T03:40:09","modified_gmt":"2018-02-04T03:40:09","slug":"saturday-6-pack-january-13-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maybegoosefeathers.com\/wp\/?p=620","title":{"rendered":"SATURDAY 6-PACK: January 13, 2018"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>A weekly listing of articles, audio clips, and other tidbits I\u2019ve encountered that seemed interesting, insightful, or otherwise useful \u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

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Things were a bit busy last week and I didn’t have time to get to this.\u00a0 There wasn’t much, either.\u00a0 Some book, oddly enough with the word fire<\/em> in the title, was consuming almost all the oxygen in the news cycle.\u00a0 But it’s another week … and another cycles of stories and events.\u00a0 Here’s my curated collection for the 51st week of the current administration … interregnum? …<\/p>\n

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First, when the nation’s largest employer announces wage increases and bonuses, the sheer number of employees potentially impacted makes it hard to ignore.\u00a0 The announcement sounded good — $1000 in bonuses for current employees and a bump up to $11\/hour in starting wages.\u00a0 But as the details emerged, maybe not so much.\u00a0 The top bonuses go to employees (does Wal-Mart still call them “associates”?) who have been there for 20 years.\u00a0 The average store employee will get a bonus of around $190.\u00a0 Also keep in mind, the estimated savings to Wal-Mart from the new tax policies amount to $18 BILLION; what’s being shared with the employees is no more than 2% of it.\u00a0 Plus, there was an attempt to cover over the closing of more than 60 Sam’s Club locations.\u00a0 Tends to make one wonder where the money in the bonuses\u00a0 is really coming from.\u00a0 But at least wages are going up — that’s something, right?\u00a0 Maybe not.\u00a0 Consider these insights from The Motley Fool:<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.msn.com\/en-us\/money\/markets\/what-living-on-an-dollar11-hourly-wage-looks-like\/ar-AAuyJLc?li=BBnb7Kz<\/a><\/p>\n

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This was on the tentative list for last week.\u00a0 But perhaps it’s even more timely with the news about Wal-Mart this week.\u00a0 Here’s a three-fer from Marketplace, a series of stories about the life and times in the retail sector — especially for the workers:<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.marketplace.org\/2018\/01\/02\/business\/coming-retail-apocalypse<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.marketplace.org\/2018\/01\/03\/business\/retail-workers-are-taking-cue-coal-miners<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.marketplace.org\/2018\/01\/05\/business\/are-fulfillment-center-jobs-good-fit-laid-retail-workers<\/a><\/p>\n

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This was a small story that caught my ear, in no small part because my daughter is three semesters away from joining the ranks of school teachers.\u00a0 We’ve known for a long time that teachers are generally underpaid.\u00a0 We’ve known for quite some time that workers at the lowest end of the wage scale are being priced out of housing — renting as well as ownership.\u00a0 But what does it mean when educated, highly skilled professionals (such as teachers) are being priced out of housing in the places where they work?\u00a0 Consider this:<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2018\/01\/11\/577279624\/subsidized-housing-my-help-school-districts-retain-teachers<\/a><\/p>\n

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Now … onto the latest cause for widespread outrage at the current occupant of the Oval Office.\u00a0 First of all, did he really say that?\u00a0 Sen. Durbin says “yes, he did.”\u00a0 But Durbin’s a Democrat, so can his accuracy be trusted?\u00a0 Sen. Graham was in the room, too, but he’s only willing to say that he said his piece at the moment to the boss of his party.\u00a0 Others who were in the room claim they didn’t hear such language.\u00a0 Here’s how the situation developed and who is saying what.\u00a0 Bottom line: while Graham is too much of a team player to publicly confirm something like this, he has acknowledged Durbin’s account as essentially accurate.\u00a0 As for the others supporting Trump in his denials, well, they were there only because of his invitation and they openly share his already well-established highly negative attitudes towards immigrants, particularly immigrants who would not be considered “white”.\u00a0 That’s my take, but you can read it and do your own math:<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/how-it-happened-donald-trumps-shithole-countries-remark\/<\/a><\/p>\n

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The disgusting word itself is not the problem here.\u00a0 The real problem is the attitude behind it: the sheer racism and bigotry that underlies, enables it, and makes it acceptable.\u00a0 The claim that “Trump was only saying out loud what lots of people are thinking” is a genuine one.\u00a0 Until that line of thinking that justifies racism and bigotry stops, this will happen again and again to the delight and applause of a significant number of our fellow citizens.\u00a0 I wish I knew how to stop this, but I don’t.\u00a0 Read or listen, and weep:<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2018\/01\/13\/577833629\/how-political-media-reacted-to-trumps-vulgarity<\/a><\/p>\n

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Finally, about “that book” … Fire and Fury<\/em> by Michael Wolff.\u00a0 I haven’t read it and don’t plan to.\u00a0 Wolff’s reputation for slipshod work and the sloppy style of reporting that’s more suited for gossip columns that real journalism or analysis is considerable.\u00a0 However, even a broken clock has the right time twice a day, and no doubt some of what he describes is accurate.\u00a0 But that’s been abundantly clear for some time now.\u00a0 There’s a deeper question that isn’t answered, which Leonard Pitts draws out: “Yours truly had hoped this book would answer a nagging question about Trump\u2019s White House: What should we make of these people? When they turn reality inside out like a sock, when they stand before calamity and assure us there is no calamity, when they insist Trump is a misunderstood genius whose only problem is our failure to see his greatness, are they lying to us \u2014 or to themselves?\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The former would make them fools. The latter would make them something worse.<\/em>”\u00a0 Which is it?\u00a0 That’s what we really need to know.\u00a0 Read the whole piece here:<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.miamiherald.com\/opinion\/opn-columns-blogs\/leonard-pitts-jr\/article193850019.html#storylink=cpy<\/a><\/div>\n
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<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A weekly listing of articles, audio clips, and other tidbits I\u2019ve encountered that seemed interesting, insightful, or otherwise useful \u2026   Things were a bit busy last week and I didn’t have time to get to this.\u00a0 There wasn’t much, either.\u00a0 Some book, oddly enough with the word fire in …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-events-topics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maybegoosefeathers.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maybegoosefeathers.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maybegoosefeathers.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maybegoosefeathers.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maybegoosefeathers.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=620"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/maybegoosefeathers.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":629,"href":"https:\/\/maybegoosefeathers.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620\/revisions\/629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maybegoosefeathers.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maybegoosefeathers.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maybegoosefeathers.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}