Author: Rex Nipper

I was speaking to my father yesterday about some of the things going on in the world and my life right now: Family, my precarious job situation, the economy, Japan, etc. I was telling him that I would love to find a job near to where I live, or at least live where I work, when he got really quiet. This is usually an indication that he is formulating an answer I’m not going to agree with. This time was no surprise.

“I think you need to stay where you are, where there is some job security,” he said. It struck me instantly has a comical statement. I wanted to say job security? What job security? Don’t you read a newspaper? However, I remembered that he came from a different time. He worked for decades at something he hated, because as he said to me once “It’s not called work because it’s fun.” He came from a different era where work was drudgery, and the best you could hope for was a pension.

My father, at 74, comes from a time when people would work for 20 to 25 years somewhere and retire on a pension. They had medical benefits, life insurance, disability, you name it. Before I answered I had to remember that in his life, he never experienced a layoff, and if you worked hard, and did a good job, you hand no fear of EVER being let go. I thought of this all in the span of a split second to prevent myself from laughing through the phone. After all…he doesn’t know…there is no more job security.

Like the dodo bird, job security had died out. Whether you work for yourself, or for someone else, there are no guarantees in life anymore. You can’t rely on your employer keeping you till age 65, and you can’t rely on the economy keeping your business afloat until you sell it off to someone else. Those people that are able to do that are very lucky. I’m not sure planning has much impact anymore. It used to be that if you worked somewhere a year or less, you were seen as a poor hiring risk. Not anymore. With all the layoffs, and closings, companies are lucky if a person has six months in one job. You are actually seen as a poor risk if you worked somewhere longer than three years.

Thirty years ago companies were loyal to their employees, and employees loyal to their companies. Employees were proud of the products they made, and would react negatively if you knocked the work they did. Companies would do all they could to make a quality product for their customers, and they knew that the first step to quality was to ensure they had the best and happiest workforce available. However, all that has changed. There is no more focus on the customer, or the worker. Now the most important thing around is the investor. We’re no longer in business for the people we serve. We’re now in business for people whose only vested interest in our company is whether our stock went up a fraction of a point.

If you are working for an organization, and you like your boss, and you love your work, you’re very lucky. If this is a publicly traded organization, however, don’t hold your breath that the love is returned. It’s not. You are as much at risk of unemployment whether you’re a temporary employee or “full time.” Everyone is temporary.

So my advice is this: Save. Prepare for that inevitable situation where you will be out of work. It will definitely happen…sooner or later. Always keep looking for your next opportunity. Don’t let misplaced loyalty inhibit your best interests. And last but not least, do what you love. Don’t waste any time doing something you don’t like to do. Life is too short. There is an old saying that “if you do what you love, the money will come later.” It might be true, and it might not. But at least, in the end, you will have done what made you happy.

Rex

I was trying to think of a topic to write about. Since most of my articles are based on irony, I was thinking about all the ironic topics I could choose. When I considered the multitude of options, my head began to hurt. Then I had to just list them before it would explode. Below is my list:

1. Most pro-life advocates support the death penalty.

2. The converse is also true. Those who support the right to choose oppose the death penalty.

3. Progressives believe in evolution, but through their actions, do all they can to stop it.

4. Conservatives deny evolution, but through their actions do all they can to instigate it.

5. Conservatives believe there should be no limits to personal freedom, but are more likely to pass laws which limit personal freedom.

7. Conservatives believe that sex education promotes pregnancy.

8. Progressives believe sex education helps prevent pregnancy.

9. Teenagers rarely think about pregnancy.

10. In other words, conservatives believe in no sex, progressives safe sex, and teenagers ANY sex

11. If a teenaged boy has sex with his teacher, we think “you go tiger!”

12. If a teenaged girl has sex with her teacher, we think “let’s feed him to the tiger”.

13. We require two years with a learning permit, three months of training, and a formal written test to get a driver’s license. Yet any idiot can be a parent.

14. To replace a lost driver’s license, they require you to show them your social security card, and birth certificate. To replace a lost social security card or birth certificate, all you have to do is show them your driver’s license.

15. In almost all states, it is illegal to carry a concealed weapon. However, you’re more than welcome to walk around with it in plain sight.

16. Newt Gingrich feels that marriage is sacred yet he had an affair with his second wife while he was still married to his first (who was dying of cancer), and had an affair with his third wife while he was still married to his second.

17. Conservatives think homosexuality is the greatest threat to the American family. I guess I always thought it was infidelity.

18. When a woman says “Hey Baby” to a man in the office it’s cute. When a man says it to a woman it’s sexual harrassment.

19. Adding to the death penalty theme: We are one of the few countries, that if you kill someone, we punish you by killing you.

20. It costs more to make a penny than what a penny is worth.

There are more, but my brain started to hemorrhage, so I stopped.

I was just asked by an old friend to write something hopeful about our country. I know there’s always a lot going on in our country, which makes us think that we’re going to hell in a hand basket. For the last few years we’ve been struggling. It doesn’t help that struggle seems to sell news. However, much of what we read, listen to, or watch is seen through such a limited view. We don’t take time to see if there are good things around us. If you think people are at such odds, then walk down the street, or through a neighborhood playground. Do you see scores of political zealots ranting about their ideologies? Or do you see families? Go ahead…look. Tell me which ones are the right-wing ideologues, and which ones are the left-wing? I bet you can’t. That’s because we are so much more than what we read in the news and see on television.

I really do think that if things don’t change we run a chance of the country ripping apart (See The Road to Civil War). However, I still believe there are a lot of things that have to happen before that’s truly a consideration. While we have a lot of people who spend most of their time trying to find a way to hate everyone but themselves, there are even more that try to show there are more things that bind us than separate us. They just don’t get in the news.

Over the last year I have seen people who have little time give it freely, little money donate it happily, and with challenged faith strengthen it gradually. I guess it’s all in how you look at things. With Katrina, the Twin Towers, and the shootings in Columbine, and recently Arizona we focus on the horrors rather than the Heroes. This country is like a very large family. We argue, we bicker, and we hurt each other. However, if someone outside the family tries to hurt us, then that’s a different story. When that happens all our arguments stop. We remember we are family, and in the end, we remember that without each other we are nowhere.

All families fight…especially the strong ones. It’s the fighting that makes us stronger. I don’t’ worry much when people are yelling at each other. At least then I know it’s out in the open where our wounds can get some air. It’s when things are covered up in dark and damp places that infections fester. We just need to make sure we bring those wounds into the open where we can attend to them.

So while I see the Glenn Becks of the world ranting hysterics I don’t worry. They are the clowns, or at least the crazy uncles spouting out drunken diatribes at the reunion. The more they spew from their mouths, the more irrelevant they become. We have problems, that’s true. I still think, however, that in the end we will come together. We always have. So if you think you’re watching the country circle the drain, just remember. We have been here before, and we have survived. This country has seen war, civil war, disaster, and disease. Yet we always find a way to survive…and we always will. We’re family…that’s what strong families do.

See Missy…There’s always hope;).

Rex

I didn’t pay much attention to the news this weekend, so it was just today when I heard that 14 people were injured, and six killed in Arizona at a political rally. One of the poor souls killed was a 9 year old girl who accompanied a neighbor to the event because she, as a member of her student council, was interested in going to the event. I can’t imagine getting that call. And to tell the truth, it’s the biggest reason I don’t have children. I doubt I would survive it, personally.

What is more disturbing to me than the shooting is the reactions to the event. Evidently the political junkies on both sides are in no short supply of stupidity. All of a sudden gun control advocates of the Nut Job Fleet are taking to task Rep. Gabrielle Giffords on her belief that gun ownership is a God given right. I admit that this is where my conservative side comes out. I doubt more gun control would have changed the day here. This shooting had nothing to do with control. I can pretty much say that “control” was not a factor. Blaming this on where someone stands on gun ownership rights is just retarded. Perhaps we should look at where people stand on mental health rights? If ever there was an argument for Universal Health Care…I think this is it!

In turn, having the right wing of the Nut Job Fleet come out and say that this tragedy could have been prevented if we had a different President, and different policies that this would never have happened is equally ridiculous. That’s like blaming Bush for 9/11. It’s stupid. Also, arming everyone in the crowd would not have had the effect all these pundits think it would have. I’m sure the number of bodies on the deck would have been far greater. If you think I’m wrong, just go spend a day at the DMV and look at the people on YOUR side of the counter. Do you really want these morons armed? I saw one guy espouse that all college aged kids should be given hand guns for protection. Now there’s a kegger I’m never attending!

I fully believe that gun ownership is a right that should be availed to all law abiding citizens. However, I think that gaining access to such arms should come with some type of mental check (and a silencer. I like quiet in the forest). I think parenthood should come with some type of registration test as well, but that’s another article. What I don’t think is that this had anything to do, no matter how you want to spin it, with anything that’s going on outside this shooters head. He would have found a reason to go to the farm no matter what was going on in the world around him.

Using this event as a launching point for your agenda, not matter what it is, makes me wonder what type of human being you are. I think it’s safe to say that you have no scruples. You definitely have no morals, and blaming the victims in this shooting is like blaming the raped for the rapist. Perhaps we should spend more time trying to eliminate the problem rather than the symptom. Make no mistake. The symptom here is the shooting. The problem…is us.

It’s not often I get to rant about the Left. It’s rare that something comes across my view from that side which garners my attention. However, now they have done something which galls me to no end. They want to change the key works of Mark Twain.
This is where the Left loses me, and causes me to look for large objects with which to pelt them. They have decided that in the case of political correctness, that they should change the key works of Mark Twain. Someone get me a bat!

The whole point of Huck Finn was to illustrate how horribly the south treated slaves. Now all of a sudden you want to change the wording because you think it is too offensive? Hey clueless…it’s SUPPOSED to be offensive. You’re supposed to be outraged, you’re supposed to be shocked. That’s the whole point, Nimrod!

Mark Twain is a pillar in the American literary scene. If you change his works you diminish them in ways, I can’t begin to describe. It’s appalling. You should be ashamed for even suggesting it. Hey…while you’re at it, why not just re-write the Constitution? I know there are some offensive words in there.

Political correctness has gone way too far. I never have liked using the words African American. I think that term itself is inherently racist. How the hell am I supposed to know if someone is African American? For all I know they could have come from Jamaica. Besides, I’m just a white guy. I don’t think anyone sits down to try and figure out where my ancestors came from.

I think people spend too much time trying to find ways to be a victim. There are true horrors in the world, and real people, who have suffered real atrocities. Why make up something so stupid as a word to make you a victim. If we continue to give weight to the distribution of random characters, how can we expect to get passed the real issues?

Slavery was wrong, racism is wrong, hate is wrong. There’s no way around that. Trying to make it seem less horrifying does nothing for your cause. Huck Finn, and Tom Sawyer are literary works which illustrate how people treated each other during a particular time in our history. If we try to gloss over our history in an effort to make it less painful, we’ll never learn anything from it, and in turn, be destined to repeat it.