Dont Look at me…

As the number of Pakistani people affected by the flooding now reaches over 13 million people, I have to ask, “Why am I not seeing this in-my-face every 10 seconds?”  Thirteen million people suffering and/or displaced by weeks of massive flooding that seemed to stretch over the entire country, yet you hear very little on the news.   This is 2 million more people affected than in the 2004 Tsunami, the 2005 earthquake in India, and the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, COMBINED!    And this isn’t headlining every night?   It made me wonder why this was?   Why wasn’t there a huge humanitarian uprising?   Where is Demi Moore?   Where is super duo Pitt-Jolie?   Where is Opra?   Where is Sean Penn?   Oh actually he’s still digging in the mud in Haiti, so he gets a pass.   But where are the donation text message numbers?    Where are all the Red Cross ads?   Am I missing something?

   Then it occurred to me, there was something I was missing.    Attitude.    Our current attitude towards Pakistan is less than favorable.    And it’s not just Pakistan, it’s the entire Middle East, that we are simply fed up with.    We as a country no longer care who lives, who dies, or who suffers, in that entire region.   Nope, we’ve written it completely off.   The more I thought about it, the more I knew I was right.   There’s no media coverage coming out of there anymore.   People don’t want to know that our troops are STILL dying over there.   People don’t care if the Iraqi population falls into turmoil or if the Afghans are plagued with corruption.   And people don’t care if Pakistan drowns under 15 feet of mud.   At this point we see everyone from that region as animals, unworthy of our aide.   I mean we’ve got our own problems, and at the moment Pakistan is a major contributor to those problems.   Right?   No, wrong.    It’s not the people of Pakistan that are the problem.   It’s the puppet governments we put into place in these areas that later give us problems, not the overall population.

   So, why the media blackout?   Well, simply put, the news corporations in this country want to make money.   They have their finger on the pulse of popular opinion (or dare I say, they control the pulse of popular opinion), and they know that right now, people in this country want the vilification of all things “Middle Eastern”.   So, showing them as victims just isn’t going to sell ads.   Or maybe it’s the Bio Research Team from ______*, that would like to keep things on the down-low.   Test subjects galore!!!  Wooo Hoooo!!!  Yeah, I’m sure they’re there to “help”…   lol.

*I’ve refrained from naming them as it is an unverified rumor.   Not that the rest of this stuff isn’t conjecture on my part, but that one is iffy at best.

Side NOTE:   To the middle aged lady texting in her giant SUV at 70mph…   You almost became the proud owner of a dead motorcyclist.  BITCH!   This lady didn’t even have the decency to stop texting when I pulled up next to her to see what kind of moron was in the vehicle.   Clueless, she didn’t even know that the motorcyclist was so shaken up he had to pull off the road.   Probably to clean himself.    People, merging into high speed traffic on 528, is not a proper place to be texting your F’ing peeps!!!

Yeah, Unions are like onions.   Some people like them, some people don’t, and it has many layers after you peel off the skin.  

   This is one place where I’m split down the middle.   I’ve had beef with Unions ever since I had a conversation with a friend of mine who was a half pipe builder on a 2-Hip King of Very Series, a national BMX Freestyle competition.   He was complaining to me how when they came to NY city, he wasn’t allowed to actually build the ramp, he had to let the union workers from the even location build the ramp.   He couldn’t pick up a wrench, or level, or anything.   He had to let the venue construction team build something that most of them had never even seen, putting safety of the riders in jeopardy, simply because they were union, and “that’s the rules”.   Back then, a half pipe wasn’t as standardized as it is now, and that led to a last minute scramble for corrections on the day of the event.   So yeah, ever since then, I’ve been trying to wrap my head around the pros and cons of Unions.    I’m no closer to a decision than I have ever been.

   Even my earliest memories with Unions were set in confusion.   My Father was an air traffic controller back in the 70’s and was part of a union, PATCO.  Don’t ask me what it stood for, I was 9 when I first heard the term.   The union decided that working conditions were too difficult on air traffic controllers, and from what I remember, they were excessively hard and stressful for people that have thousands of lives in their hands every hour.   Listening in on meetings, I really didn’t understand what they were talking about, but I could tell they were angry.   So PATCO decided to go on strike.   And strike they did…  And I even got to help make a sign and hold it up high in the picket line (having no clue why).    Then the president (Reagan) fired my dad.   As a child of 9 years old, this was confusing.   Why did these PATCO people think it was okay to stop working and why did the president fire all of them?   It took me until about the age of 12 to realize just what had happened, which also gave me enough time to hate the positions of power on both sides of the spectrum.   The Union for its incredibly dumb decision to hold an illegal strike, and the Presidency for firing people that were trying to better their working conditions.   So it’s no wonder why I have a problem with choosing a side to sit on.

   So I see the good and the bad in Unions.   I see how a Union can help it’s members and protect their rights, salaries, and even their health.   But I’ve seen the harm Unions can do by creating some members with a deep sense of entitlement, and making it impossible to fire lazy and worthless people.   I’ve seen the Union fight for better working conditions, but I’ve seen them strong arm management into ridiculous demands.   I’ve seen the Union work for an equal opportunity work place, but I’ve seen management promote worthless individuals, because it is easier than fighting the Union, if they tried to fire them.   Unions are responsible for the 8 hour work day.    Unions are responsible for paying some lazy-ass to sit around doing nothing and collecting time and a half.   Unions are there to protect your job against an evil corporate management system, and secure your retirement.    Unions make it impossible to fire the bad apples, and make it entirely too easy to abuse the system.

   So you see, I’m totally confused.    There is a good reason to have them, and a good reason to not have them.   All I can say at this point is this:    There seems at this point, still a need for Unions, but if the Unions are unable to police themselves better and stop the abuse from its members, they may find themselves on the out.   It is entirely possible that Unions have become a haven for the lazy and corruptible, but does that make them obsolete?   Do Unions need to go the way of the Dodo, or is there redemption in the air?

I’m waiting for a sign.

Side NOTE:    Congrats to the courts of France, restoring at least a tiny portion of honor to the French, by blocking the Roma deportations.    Keeping in mind, they only had a tiny portion of honor to begin with, so that’s great.  Good job! 

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