Don’t drink the water!
Bread may or may not be the staff of life. Water on the other hand is essential for survival. Like electricity, you never think twice about water safety until it’s compromised.
On Thursday of last week, a major American city of 300,000 had their public water supply compromised by a careless corporation. A week later, residents in some parts of the city are now allowed to drink the water. Still, there are more questions than answers forthcoming. Continue reading
I had a post ready to go this morning. It was a post highlighting changes in the way we adapt to weather and events in our lives that are unexpected. Aspects of it dealt with something some call “learned helplessness.” There was an element of collapse involved. I guess I’ll leave that topic to others more qualified to write about it. This recent post referenced the idea that there was a time when “you could still talk about such things in public without being shouted down by true believers in perpetual progress and instant apocalypse, the Tweedledoom and Tweedledee of our collective non-conversation about the future.” That time is no more. Continue reading
We all want life to be easy. After nearly 70 years of unbridled progress and the concept of convenience being considered an American birthright, it’s hard for anyone to adjust to events that vary from the perfect script.
How does a culture step back from snack foods packaged in single-serving containers, microwave ovens, and phone apps that do everything except shield us from natural disasters? No one wants to voluntarily go back to a time when life was hard and involved effort to survive. But does our learned helplessness bode well for the future? Continue reading
Another retailer, another security breach. This one involving 40 million shoppers at Target stores in the U.S. For many, the stress of holiday shopping is now through the roof.
While many are choosing to direct their anger and frustration at Target, they shouldn’t; the 2nd largest retail discount chain is doing everything it can after the fact to address concerns from customers.
Getting targeted by hackers, at Target
The Minneapolis company, which has 1,797 stores in the U.S. and 124 in Canada, said it immediately told authorities and financial institutions once it became aware of the breach on Dec. 15. The company is teaming with a third-party forensics firm to investigate and prevent future breaches.
Target advised customers on Thursday to check their statements carefully. Anyone noting a suspicious charges on a credit/debit card is told to report it to their credit card company and then to call Target at 866-852-8680. Cases of identity theft can also be reported to law enforcement or the Federal Trade Commission. Of course, this is after the fact.
What I found most interesting about this case is how often this actually happens and what appears to be the response in the retail world among so-called experts. Continue reading
There is a narrative that says that the dawn of the 21st century has brought significant changes to our structures of work and economics. I won’t dispute that, but I’ll also say, the old way of doing things is still firmly entrenched and pushing against the status quo requires considerable effort and savvy. Even then, swimming upstream is hard.
Social media regularly serves as the 21st century’s equivalent of snake oil. Broad claims about the “new frontier” often reveal, when you look beneath the veneer that The Who were right; “meet the new boss, same as the old boss.” Not always, but often enough to know that things still are oriented to a certain way of conducting business. Continue reading
Retailers used to rely on window dressing to lure customers into their stores.
When I was small, Lisbon Street in Lewiston was a retail shopper’s paradise. Driving through downtown Lewiston today reveals a shabbiness and lack of any retail options I’m interested in. There are a handful of eateries, but mostly storefronts with dirty windows. Continue reading
Technology is ubiquitous in our lives as Americans, and pretty much the norm throughout the western world. Some believe that it has the capacity to cure all that ails us; others harbor sentiments about it akin to Martin Luther’s feeling for the devil, when he turned and threw his inkwell at him. Whether you love, hate, or are ambivalent about technology, it’s here to stay. Complaining about it won’t change anything. Continue reading
Sometimes I play a little game. Thinking back, I try to remember a time when things seemed simpler, less confusing. While it’s impossible to stop the march of time, and in many ways, I realize that life has taught me valuable lessons, I occasionally wonder whether history swings on pivotal moments and decisions.
It can be comforting thinking back to a prior time. Often, it’s when we were younger, now believing that things were better. There is certainly an element of nostalgia inherent in that process, but to merely chalk it up to slipping on rose-colored glasses is missing a larger point, I think. Continue reading
Beware of wolves in sheep’s clothing.
Since the government shutdown began, and the image of Ted Cruz began flashing across my television screen, I’ve been thinking about things that happened in my life 30 years ago. That’s when I learned a valuable lesson—one I kept trying to run away from. Those experiences taught me firsthand just how dangerous and delusional demagogues are.
It was thirty years ago that my young wife and I loaded up a U-Haul and journeyed 1,500 miles across the country to Northwest Indiana. She was pregnant with our son. I would enroll at Hyles-Anderson College, a fundamentalist, Baptist Bible college located in Crown Point. For two years, I attempted to correlate the inconsistencies I saw upon arrival, but kept tamping down, like a good little preacher boy. Continue reading
Bees make honey.
I like honey. It’s sweet and comes from bees. I rely on beekeepers to gather my honey because if I did the collecting, I’d probably get stung.
I know Maine has a fairly large beekeeping community. You’ll see places as you travel across the state that have the hives and other telltale signs of beekeeping; like Brown’s Bee Farm, in North Yarmouth. Continue reading