Spaghetti for Thanksgiving
My lovely girlfriend is out of town for the Thanksgiving holidays in order to spend time with her aging mother. Since I lost my own mother before I turned six years old, I fully support her desire to be with her mother, especially after losing her father a few years ago. Instead of cooking my traditional turkey and dressing, I microwaved some spaghetti that I cooked the week before. I used turkey Italian sausage instead of hamburger, and it also contains onion, Poblano pepper, squash, and mushrooms. With a few glasses of wine and salad, it makes a good meal. This is my first photo revealing my black & white minidress from Coquetry, the same little company that made that multi-color psychedelic minidress everybody seemed to like.
I did not participate in "Black Friday," and it is a major bone of contention with me.
Thanksgiving has been stolen by Corporate America and no longer exists for a good many people. It wasn't enough to exploit the holiday by urging people to stock up on food, drink, and maybe decorations. And of course, the transportation and hospitality industries encouraged people to travel, eat out, and stay in hotels when traveling. Fine. The next day (Friday) was a holiday for schools, many offices and factories, but it was the official start of the Christmas retail season, and it was a big day for them. In my childhood and well into adulthood, it was a very busy shopping day but not a crunch day to be avoided.
But that didn't satisfy CORPORATE GREED. Some big chain stores opened very early Friday morning and allowed, even encouraged idiots to camp out overnight in order to be ready to exploit "bargains" when the store opened. That required having retail workers arrive very early or show up late Thursday night for stocking. This year a good many chain stores announced that they will be open all day Thanksgiving. That way, part-time workers (with no benefits) can sell cheap shit made in other countries under slave labor conditions to those who can (for now) buy those goods on credit that they cannot afford. It won't last. America's middle class experiment is fast coming to an end.
It didn't have to happen this way, and I fully support government action to come down hard on CORPORATE GREED and restore LIVABLE WAGES, FULL BENEFITS, REASONABLE WORKING CONDITIONS, and FULL-TIME EMPLOYMENT for all able-bodied adults. We used to have those things for the most part, and so did Europe. "Free trade" has not been free. When temporarily rich countries exploit the cheap labor, lax environmental laws, and lack of human rights in Third World countries to buy cheap goods, those rich countries ultimately become poor because good manufacturing jobs are exported leaving poor-paying service jobs. The globalization process won't stop until we are all little more than slave labor. Then who will buy the cheap goods?
We need to stop the Trans Pacific Partnership and Trans Atlantic "Free" Trade Agreement from being passed (in secret), drop out of the North American "Free" Trade Agreement, and declare the World Trade Organization to be a terrorist organization. Whenever possible, buy locally and avoid retail chains and restaurant franchises. If you are a property owner, install solar photovoltaic cells so you can wean yourself off the electric grid and try to grow as much of your veggies and fruits as possible. I wish I had these options. Europe probably has a better chance of keeping its independence and prosperity than North America or Australia, but they must assert themselves as Europeans before it is too late.
As for the "holiday" retail madness: I will not participate. I will shop where I normally shop and buy what I normally buy and nothing more. The list of chain stores I boycott grows.
Spaghetti for Thanksgiving
My lovely girlfriend is out of town for the Thanksgiving holidays in order to spend time with her aging mother. Since I lost my own mother before I turned six years old, I fully support her desire to be with her mother, especially after losing her father a few years ago. Instead of cooking my traditional turkey and dressing, I microwaved some spaghetti that I cooked the week before. I used turkey Italian sausage instead of hamburger, and it also contains onion, Poblano pepper, squash, and mushrooms. With a few glasses of wine and salad, it makes a good meal. This is my first photo revealing my black & white minidress from Coquetry, the same little company that made that multi-color psychedelic minidress everybody seemed to like.
I did not participate in "Black Friday," and it is a major bone of contention with me.
Thanksgiving has been stolen by Corporate America and no longer exists for a good many people. It wasn't enough to exploit the holiday by urging people to stock up on food, drink, and maybe decorations. And of course, the transportation and hospitality industries encouraged people to travel, eat out, and stay in hotels when traveling. Fine. The next day (Friday) was a holiday for schools, many offices and factories, but it was the official start of the Christmas retail season, and it was a big day for them. In my childhood and well into adulthood, it was a very busy shopping day but not a crunch day to be avoided.
But that didn't satisfy CORPORATE GREED. Some big chain stores opened very early Friday morning and allowed, even encouraged idiots to camp out overnight in order to be ready to exploit "bargains" when the store opened. That required having retail workers arrive very early or show up late Thursday night for stocking. This year a good many chain stores announced that they will be open all day Thanksgiving. That way, part-time workers (with no benefits) can sell cheap shit made in other countries under slave labor conditions to those who can (for now) buy those goods on credit that they cannot afford. It won't last. America's middle class experiment is fast coming to an end.
It didn't have to happen this way, and I fully support government action to come down hard on CORPORATE GREED and restore LIVABLE WAGES, FULL BENEFITS, REASONABLE WORKING CONDITIONS, and FULL-TIME EMPLOYMENT for all able-bodied adults. We used to have those things for the most part, and so did Europe. "Free trade" has not been free. When temporarily rich countries exploit the cheap labor, lax environmental laws, and lack of human rights in Third World countries to buy cheap goods, those rich countries ultimately become poor because good manufacturing jobs are exported leaving poor-paying service jobs. The globalization process won't stop until we are all little more than slave labor. Then who will buy the cheap goods?
We need to stop the Trans Pacific Partnership and Trans Atlantic "Free" Trade Agreement from being passed (in secret), drop out of the North American "Free" Trade Agreement, and declare the World Trade Organization to be a terrorist organization. Whenever possible, buy locally and avoid retail chains and restaurant franchises. If you are a property owner, install solar photovoltaic cells so you can wean yourself off the electric grid and try to grow as much of your veggies and fruits as possible. I wish I had these options. Europe probably has a better chance of keeping its independence and prosperity than North America or Australia, but they must assert themselves as Europeans before it is too late.
As for the "holiday" retail madness: I will not participate. I will shop where I normally shop and buy what I normally buy and nothing more. The list of chain stores I boycott grows.