Happy July4th!

On a private e-mail list, I’m taking part in a very timely discussion on the Pledge of Allegience.

Fact is that we look at freedom in so many different ways. Many of us were satisfied with the ruling, and others outraged. A debate ensued. Tempers flared.

But at the core of it – man you gotta hand it to the founders of this country. They built a system of *ideals* and generations have come and gone that have re-interpetted and faught for those ideals. Blood, sweat and tears.

Happy July 4th everybody. Celebrate the freedom we’re blessed with today. Celebrate for those that sacrificed to get us here. Celebrate to stick it up the terrorists’ noses.

It flows up and not down

That’s what Bill shares about corporate loyalty and man is it so true. I think people need to revisit to the early nineties recession, and the corporate response to it, for where this began. IBM’s layoffs come particularly to mind.

This book excerpt looks mighty interesting.

Better yet, this Business 2.0 article from last year connects the dots.

If this sounds like deja vu all over again, it is–sort of. The 1990-91 recession introduced the notion of equal-opportunity job loss; back then, college-educated workers were among the first to be laid off. Debate raged in Washington about how to retrain white-collar workers and ready them for the new job insecurity. Companies began getting very explicit in their warnings to employees: Jobs were not for life. Harvard professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter was one of a chorus of academics and consultants arguing that since companies could no longer provide job security, they should do more to give workers “employability security” through training and skills counseling. All this prompted a 1994 FORTUNE cover story called “The New Deal” that said legions of white-collar workers were encountering the “widespread replacement of the job compact of the previous era, the one that traded loyalty for job security. That deal is virtually dead.”

It’s deader then a doornail.

empty protest and the politikbloggers

I could log this great garret piece under my weblogging category, but that may be missing the point.

i see no politikblogger achieving public justice for any major issue; what i keep coming across is simply a string of petty private revenges. at the present time, politikbloggers devour each other over the actions of politicians who don’t even know they exist, by reinterpreting carefully selected articles and opinion pieces generated by one of a double-handful of monopolistic media machines, as seen through the rose-colored glasses of their particular political caste. truly, “empty protest” … as is this entire paragraph.

I shut down PhillyFuture because I realized it was “empty protest”. Commenting on the articles of others, and adding nothing to Philly related causes. I couldn’t figure out how to make the transition from punditry, to real activism. Check out HallWatch for a Philly site that is making a difference.