Insidious Discrimination Against the Unemployed

My Rant of the Day:  Are you out of a job and looking for a job?  According to a report on CNNMoney, if you’re Looking for Work? and Unemployed you need not apply.

I’ve been working for a living since 1971, and I’ve always been able to get a job in a matter of days.  Not so today.  Since being laid off in late 2008, I’ve applied and applied, to no avail.

I told a friend, “It’s a good thing I have hobbies that pay: writing and painting.  I’ve always written for companies and for publication while holding down a full-time job.  I’ve always painted and hung art showings every one to two years.

It’s a good thing for me, but everyone is not so fortunate.  I see on the news and witness around me, the horrible toll unemployment exacts from those who have nothing to fall back on.

The most recent passage of  HR 4213 – Unemployment Compensation Extension Act will help some of them, but not those who have exceeded 99 weeks.  This is the much ignored 5th Tier that was not added to the current bill and is not a front-of-mind  for our legislators.
“…even the most active members of Congress on the unemployment issue say there will be no bill to help 99-ers by adding a fifth tier of benefits…”

What are these  Americans to do? They have exceeded or will soon exceed 99 weeks of unemployment compensation, and are not considered as viable candidates for hire because of their unemployed status.

What can we do.

1. If you work for and/or make the policy that excludes people ready, willing and able to work because they are ‘unemployed’, STOP IT!
2. If you are an agency and are asked to discriminate against unemployed citizens, report that discrimination.
   
3. The rest of us need to rabble rouse: Blog it;  Tweet it; deluge the White House, Senate and Congress with e-mails, letters, petitions in support of extending HR 4213 to Tier 5 and looking into the discriminatory hiring practices of U.S. companies.
4. Here is a current circulating Petition. 

Please sign it and Thanks.
Perle

Are all smokers so hyper-sensitive, or is it guilt?

One of my downstairs neighbor’s visiting sister? is a smoker. Like many smokers, she thinks nothing of flicking her butts anywhere and everywhere.

That everywhere happens to be the yard all of us in this 4-plex share. I stopped one day and asked, “I don’t want to offend you, but could you not toss the cigarette butts in the yard. It’s such an eyesore in our pretty yard.

She complied for awhile, but slowly but surely there they were again. I picked them up for awhile; however, yesterday I tossed one up on her porch. Her sister, Jackie, came banging on my door this morning to inform me, “You are rude; you are not our landlord, and you cannot tell us what to do. My sister can throw her butts wherever she wants…”

She was dressed for church, and I’m sure was off to worship, thinking that’s all it takes to be a ‘good Christian’. Do they take their scripture to heart?

You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' 

But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. (Matthew 5:43)

Jesus was summing up all the law in these two statements. If a person loves the God with all their heart, soul and mind, loving their neighbor is the natural result.

I wonder about folks like that. Do they go to church and pray just to be seen praying? Do they ever walk their talk, or is it just talk.

And, why can’t we all be good neighbors instead of having to ‘call the landlord’, as I am now forced to do come Monday morning.

I have too much stuff

It's time to pretend I'm moving soon, because I really do have too much stuff.  Ten years in this my aerie (top left of a 4-plex), and I look around and realize that I've reacquired new stuff to replace the old stuff I got rid of when I last moved.


The only really minimalist room I have is my bedroom: Bed, 2 nightstands, 2 lamp, dresser and trunk.  Well, there is a vanity in there, but it's for sale.  I'm not the kind of girly girl that sits at a vanity to do her make-up.  It is mostly a dust catcher and occasional cat perch.

And no, there is no TV in my bedroom - never has been and never will be.  The bedroom is for sex, sleep, and bit of reading before lights out. But the rest - OMG.  My book shelves alone, have overflowed to the floor, coffee table, and boxes in the closet.  

I have four closets and a storeroom and they are all full of stuff. I'll have to pace myself, or I'll be overwhelmed and stall out before I begin, and begin I must.

First: The clothes closet is full of clothes I haven't worn in over a year and suits for a life I don't have anymore.  Second will be the books.  I'll keep the favorites - the ones I read and re-read, and I'll keep the necessities - the ones I refer to for my writing.  

Baby steps. I'll decide what's next when those two get done.  I have an art rotation closet (I'm keeping that one).  It's hard to part with art, my own or that of others.


What brought this on? Well this morning while browsing Facebook, I ran across a page called Minimalist Journey, and followed the link to Mark Savage's Blog, and then I started looking around at all 'my stuff'.  

I may not get rid of as much stuff as Mark Savage plans to, but I know the good feeling I get whenever I've downsized in anticipation of a move.  It's been ten years since the last time.  

I have no plans to move in the physical sense, but lightening the load of stuff, will make this place feel like new again. 

Seti’s Chronicles - A Rendezvous in the Woods

Excerpt from Work in Progress: Seti's Chronicles - Surviving 2012

The shower renewed me and now I walked the unfamiliar streets moist with sea mists blown in on ocean breezes.  It was a gentle persistent wind and seemed to whisper encouragement as I made my way to the meeting. 

The lavender card in my hand felt warm to my touch and glowed its tiny map with directions that were short if somewhat vague.  I took the turn on the old dirt road and made my way to its end.  I knew the ocean was out there somewhere; I could smell it.  I stopped at the weathered gate that seemed to lead nowhere.  There was no house, just a stone wall guarding an overgrown lot with a battered rusty gate at its center. 

I can't look back.  There is and will ever be only now, and now and then as mists part, I catch glimpses into future realms and rooms, but those rooms are veiled in mist just now, ephemeral.  I want to know what waits; there’s a sense of destiny.  There is only now and that in the field is enough.

I knew all about Cayce's life and what he predicted about the coming Fall.  Other research turned up an assortment of people who believed some day the poles would shift.  I wanted more and this was just more research, a source of more information in that pre-internet world. 

My thoughts rambled.  What was I doing – a woman walking alone in the woods in a strange town at night.  Was I being naive or just stupid.  The gate moved easily and soundlessly and yet I sensed that ears perked at its opening and closing and yellow languid eyes watched from a nearby tree "Whooo, Whooo?"

"Who indeed?"  I spoke to the eyes in the tree, after my initial fright.  "Just me, Seti, and don't ask why? why?  I'm not quite sure myself, Old One."  The owl suddenly took flight and winged away up the small rise ahead.

“Nice to have wings,” I said to his disappearing form as I plodded on up the winding trail.  Following it down dips and over springs and finally to a small lake.  Here the path split left and right.  "Which way?" I addressed the lake having no one else to ask. 

The lake was silent and still, but for the rill of waves from the gentle wind.  "All right, which way Wind?"  I smiled inwardly, planting my feet firmly and wide with arms akimbo.  The smile fled as a sudden gust of wind hit my left side with a force that would have sent her sprawling but for my stance.

"Okay, right.  Thank you," I offered up with a little more respect.  My hair blew wildly around my head, my cloak flapped and wrapped around me and then lay still as the wind fled to the tops of the trees and all around me was calm again.  I plodded on, reflecting on what had just happened, and glanced up at the stirring branches high in the trees and this time along with my warmest thoughts I said, "Thank you for your guidance; I do appreciate your help."

The wind came down from the treetops and gently blew my black mane to merge with black cloak.  Somehow, I could not explain it but I felt safe and accompanied now, as if a friend had joined me on this dark ramble and none would harm me, none would dare.  The moment I accepted that, my feet upon the path felt just right.

Almost a half hour later I came to a copse of huge old Oaks.  The path wended this way and that through their midst and finally I was through to the other side.  I stood on a large green lawn.  The path now large flat stones lead to a large house.   Actually, it looked more like a minor castle, out of place in the this coastal U.S. town.  Somehow I knew it belonged here in this place, at the end of this my path, and so did I. 

© Perle Champion