Trying to reach family about my silently suffering cat who is suffering from kidney failure. Irony rules as means of communication have proliferated, but effectiveness, quality and satisfaction with communication have plummeted-as least for me. Phone calls not answered....text messages with too few words too convey clear meaning. Makes growing older a pleasure knowing you all will be living in this unconnected world where means of communication will continue to proliferate and the meaning of it all diminish.

Why the Beatles?

My God, what great fortune to be young as these brilliant, root based, musicians were producing music that expressed the highly charges emotions and attitudes of a generation facing induction into a dested war, some killed, some fleeing, most damaged. The variety of musical expression quite unequealed in pop music,the Beatles. This group was part of the inspiration for a huge generation of  young people who were inspired by their genius expression to create, to perform, to work hard for what we found in ourselves and thought could change the world.....Please embrace and encourage those who inspire today's young to dream bigger, work harder and believe in their own ability to change the world!

Letter to Editor:

Remarkable that few have put together the significance of the headline news. Yes, the Affordable Care Act MAY reduce full time employment and cause small businesses to hire fewer workers, but Boomers are delaying retirement and young people experience lower success finding jobs and setting up separate households. The mostly obvious conclusion is that some Boomers find themselves suffering chronic illnesses that limit their job effectiveness or want to take a chance on their own business venture and would like to retire early or at least work part time which will open job opportunities for others-middle aged or young.

Small businesses still suffer from very conservative lending standards and loan covenants that make them reluctant to hire more employees, so their avoidance of ramping up hiring is not based simply on the potential imposition of costs or fines based on health care law mandates. Rational economic analysis suggests that all businesses-not just small ones-rely upon complex evaluations of employee productivity, sales increase probability and bottom line potential net revenue. . If a small business views costs of health insurance as a detriment to growth, then they are unfortunately in a low margin, limited growth business. The government cannot solve that.

Lastly, we Boomers have had a great run! We enjoyed fabulous low cost/high value education opportunities; high growth economic times and expanding technologies while the US dominated world economic well-being.  We are reaching late 50’s and early 60’s healthier than our parents. But, we are burdened by financially supporting not only our parents, but our children who have not thrived as we did. So, we may be willing to cut expenses and scale down in order to preserve our assets, take the time to care for ailing parents, and perhaps motivate children to accept financial independence. Besides, determining the value of a bigger house, more expensive clothes and investments diminishes for most of us as we see more clearly the sources of joy in our lives.

Early retirement or acceptance of part time employment for people over 60 will surely make more jobs available to younger people in this country since Boomers have filled roles that are less likely to be digitally transferrable offshore.

So, there are many winners in this transition-people able to cut back on work as they seek quality of life over wealth, struggle with chronic illnesses or early onset disabilities of aging. Business growth based on careful evaluation of opportunities and net income growth underpins all sound business decisions. Most important, enabling millions of young people to find jobs or improved jobs is necessary for many who were harmed by the recession in ways that have postponed their independence and careers.

Let’s look at the Big Picture-not headline stories portraying narrowly focused impacts, not portraying the larger implications and longer term effects.  

Maybe They should Suceed

Can't help commenting on the remarkable events that truly depict the Old South/Continental divide. Recent legilation in North Carolina, Arkansas, Texas and Florida have made clear the essential disagreements about values that suggest these southern states were correct. They should seceede.

I am from the upper Midwest a state with a wildly swinging political base...home of the Republican party and Joe McCarthy as well as fighting Bob LaFollette and Senators Russ Feingold and Tammy Baldwin moving to Massachusetts in 1991, I encountered the Bluest state and learned it was far from that. Dominated by a socially conservative and corrupt Democratic Party, the legislature was a sharade, espousing oportunities for all while taking paybacks, manipulating voting districts and demeaning public teachers. Shameless, and that system remains in force. Speakers of the House have been indicted, convicted suffered disbarrment and been imprisoned, but the "system" prevails.

Yes, the understanding of Democratic/liberal values varies accross this great land; but there is agreement about the priority of rights and government comittments. Fiscal conservatives in Wisconsin resist union worker claims, but have not pressed for Stand your Ground and related "Gun Rights" laws. Lacking racial and ethnic diversity, Wisconsinites overall lack the racial and ethnic distrust and hatred that are an essential element of the culture of Florida and its Southern neighbors.

The Southern Sate mentality is anithema to the day to day experiences of most Americans. We live side by side with people of different religions, cultural backgrounds, races and sexual oreintations, and we make day to day efforts to reach out, be friendly and approach them with the most optomistic intrepretation of their intentions and goals. We assume the best and in nearly all intsances are rewarded.

In Texas, Florida, Alabama, North Carolina and  its kin in contiguous states, these day to day experiences are approached with distrust and veiled aggression. Poor people are viewed as undeserving and lazy, black and Hispanics as inferior and gays as immoral. The "12 Years a Slave" mentality lives deep in the heart of long term and recent immigrants to these states; and they quietly accept the premise of dicrimination that informs their illusions of superiority.

More to follow....too aggarvated to continue now.