A record 4.6 million people are drawing unemployment checks, and as many as 2 million could join them in the next year. That may seem like a Depression to some people, but what we can be sure of is that these losses will not be felt evenly. As companies opt to cut the highest paid workers through buy-outs, you can be sure that the Baby Boomers, ages 45 to 63, will disappear fast than anyone else. That means that one effect we can be sure of is faster generational change.
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Category Archives: People & Culture
All about the standing-upright chimps that really love to talk about themselves.
Awards
This week voting continues for the 2008 Weblog Awards, and I am proud and humbled to be a finalist in the category Best Culture Blog. With a tremendous number of new visitors coming through and wondering just what this mess of language is all about, this is a good time to explain myself. What is my point, after all? As usual, I’ll answer that by questioning the value of blogging in the first place, and then point you to a few other nominated sites that I hope you’ll consider alongside Barataria. Hopefully it’ll all work out.
A Visit from St. Klaus
‘Twas the hours before trading, and there on the screen
The markets abroad were all tranquil and green;
In Europe and Asia they each held to their course,
With decent increases in bourse after bourse.
But yet I couldn’t sleep in the dark of the night
Knowing somewhere that something just possibly might
Take a dive, though the hour was terribly late
For the year wasn’t over, this bad two-oh-oh-eight.
Christmas for Everyone
Because I am feeling lazy and have a lot of other things to do, I thought I’d recycle this post from 2000 which first appeared in Columbus Day Riot.
Christmastime can be hard those of us who tend to worry about how the world works. I have railed in the past about the obligations to a relentless flurry of materialism, but that only comes to me because the majority culture is part of my heritage. There are millions of Americans and billions of people around the world for whom Christianity itself, the supposed origin of the holiday, is not a part of their traditions and values.
I think there is something there in the life of Jesus that we all can celebrate and learn from.
Waves
To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 (KJV)
Barataria - The work of Erik Hare 