A letter to my father …

Dad,

As we find our great nation teetering on the brink of another depression, I worry… a lot. I worry about what kind of world my nieces or my unborn child is going to inherent and be forced to live in. I worry about the business of health care and how it’s not about health, and then I worry about my parents getting older, but just what is going to become of our system when the collective ‘We’ need health care the most. Not just those that can afford it. I worry about our dependence on energy, I don’t know what the solution is, maybe it’s drilling (but I doubt it), maybe it’s biofuels or the sun or wind or something yet to be discovered. I worry all our jobs being shipped overseas for cheaper labor and the disconnect for those who shop at Walmart because it’s “cheap” and not understanding that by shopping there, one is supporting the companies who farmed American jobs out. That I just don’t understand. I worry about our state of education, the Millennial generation with their great technological skills, an amazing ability to multitask, and yet utterly selfish. Not that everyone is, or that my generation or your generation wasn’t selfish either. It just seems different. Maybe that’s my old age speaking now. I worry that social security won’t be there for you or me and that the ability to save for retirement isn’t a reality for me. That the cost of living is so high that it’s not even really an option. Many employers want specific skill sets, and they aren’t willing to pay for those skills in demand, mostly because there’s someone right around the corner, with the skills and desperate enough for a job that they’ll work it anyway. Not just hurting themselves, but our society on a whole. I worry that when my life comes full circle that I’ll end up in a job that requires me to ask, “Would you like fries with that?” Just so I can pay my monthly bills when I’m old. I worry about the direction this country is going; somewhere in my lifetime I think it’s veered so far off course that each time there is a party change in the White House or congress that there’s a massive over correction. Just like learning to steer out of a skid for the first time and then throwing the car into another skid. I don’t think our nation’s situation is any different.

I’ve enclosed some propaganda for you. I know that we don’t always see eye-to-eye on political issues, Ijust hope you’ll take the few minutes to read the articles. I hope that you reconsider your recent change of heart.

I love you so much and so deeply.

Here’s the links to the article(s):

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1839724-1,00.htm

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/americas/09/29/zakaria.sarah.palin/index.html

Human Veal

A veal pen is roughly 8′ deep, 4′ wide and 4′ high. Typically Holstein bull calves arrive weighing around 100lbs and leave 14-16 weeks later weighing somewhere around 320-370 lbs. The placement of the solid-sided open-front boxed pen is typically placed facing south to allow the low winter sun to penetrate into the hutch and the open end allows for natural ventilation.

I mention this because a veal pen isn’t much different than my cube at work. Really. I sit in a 6′ deep by 6′ wide box that too is about 4′ high. I started here somewhere around 175lbs. and am now in the neighborhood of 195 lbs. Granted it’s been more time than the 14-16 weeks the calves get and I do have the luxury of being able to get up and move around a bit during the day. The other interesting fact is that I too have a window, yet I am not facing the south and unlike a Holstein bull, I don’t get fresh air, I get OSHA approved forced circulated air. I’m really not comparing my life to that of a piece of veal, but there are similarities though.

I’d just call this food for thought.