Originally Posted by James E. F. Landau

63 soonds young for a great-grandparent. And where I live, in Moraga, a 42-year-old is more likely to become a parent than to become a grandparent. (When I came to nearby San Pablo, however, people started having children in their teens and twenties instead of in their thirties and forties.)

The median age for an American woman to become a grandma is 47. So there probably are a number of women becoming grannies in their early 40s (some even in their 30s).

My college-educated Mom became a grandma two days after her 45th birthday. She had her eldest at 22 and my big sister also had her first at 22 (and yes, she was married). However, my niece had her first at 30, my mother didn't become a greatgrandmother until she was 75.

Originally Posted by James E. F. Landau

But how would the parents of a Silent child have parented him/her if they were both GI's?

My father and his sister, both core Silent's(1935 & 1933) were both raised by GI parents(1911 & 1914), both were raised just fine! Although the father figure in their lives was actually a step father. Their natural father was a 1904 GI

I was raised by two GIs. I'll leave it to you whether or not I came out fine. I think so.

U.S. Postal Service

There was a report that the Postmaster General was going to ask Congress to reduce mail delivery to five days a week. Tuesday was suggested for deletion, because volume has been lowest on that day.

Competition by e-mail was cited as causing a loss of money.

Originally Posted by TimWalker

U.S. Postal Service

There was a report that the Postmaster General was going to ask Congress to reduce mail delivery to five days a week. Tuesday was suggested for deletion, because volume has been lowest on that day.

Competition by e-mail was cited as causing a loss of money.

A few years ago (well, at least seven) I was driving home to North Carolina and listening to a Congressional hearing on funding/running USPS. And they discussed, among other things, closing some post offices, and cutting back a day or two. I thought the direction they'd be headed was to get back on the federal budget (and get some taxpayer help) again, in exchange for a mandated level of service.

Was I surprised to find out yesterday that since 1983 delivery six days a week has been an unfunded mandate for the Postal Service.

Originally Posted by TimWalker

U.S. Postal Service

There was a report that the Postmaster General was going to ask Congress to reduce mail delivery to five days a week. Tuesday was suggested for deletion, because volume has been lowest on that day.

Competition by e-mail was cited as causing a loss of money.

If they're going to give up on the "Universal Service" that is their supposed reason for existing, they really ought to give up their monopoly on certain classes of delivery and let private concerns actually compete. I'm sure there's a market for post delivery on a daily basis; if USPS doesn't want it, open the job up to someone who does.

Originally Posted by The Grey Badger

I was raised by two GIs. I'll leave it to you whether or not I came out fine. I think so.

On the other hand, I too was raised by two GIs, and lots of folk will try to claim me as a counter example. ™

Originally Posted by Justin '77

If they're going to give up on the "Universal Service" that is their supposed reason for existing, they really ought to give up their monopoly on certain classes of delivery and let private concerns actually compete. I'm sure there's a market for post delivery on a daily basis; if USPS doesn't want it, open the job up to someone who does.

There is. Unfortunately, the biggest paying market for it - I've been told the one that actually makes money - is the direct mail business a.k.a. junk mail. Dead tree spammers. And there is less and less tolerance for those these days.

Originally Posted by The Grey Badger

There is. Unfortunately, the biggest paying market for it - I've been told the one that actually makes money - is the direct mail business a.k.a. junk mail. Dead tree spammers. And there is less and less tolerance for those these days.

Why? It makes good firestarter, and you get it for free -- heck, the idiots even subsidize your letters getting delivered. A double-benefit.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

If they're going to give up on the "Universal Service" that is their supposed reason for existing, they really ought to give up their monopoly on certain classes of delivery and let private concerns actually compete. I'm sure there's a market for post delivery on a daily basis; if USPS doesn't want it, open the job up to someone who does.

It's already been examined, and 'private interests' only want the profitable part. When the burden of daily first-class was added, not one private company showed even a slight interest ... and that was in the '70s when email was non-existent.

Private intersts want bulk mail and urban areas. Letter writers need to get a life; suburban-exurban-rural folks can fend for themselves!

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Why? It makes good firestarter, and you get it for free -- heck, the idiots even subsidize your letters getting delivered. A double-benefit.

Sigh. My fireplace is gas log. Came with the house that way.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Why? It makes good firestarter, and you get it for free -- heck, the idiots even subsidize your letters getting delivered. A double-benefit.

I heard a story of one guy that deliberately got on as many mailing list and ad interest groups as he could. Heated his house that way. Not sure how true it is...

That would make an ashy mess if it was your primary fuel. But then again, I can put up with a lot of ash for free fuel.

Don't ashes have some sort of use? I know one guy up in the Jemez mountains who kept a bucket of ashes in the little house behind the big house to throw down the hole after use. Do they also have some use in fertilizing the garden?

Recession forces arts organizations to regroup

Daunting Challenges/Many are cutting expenses as contributions and ticket sales fall, and as they recover from the blow of last month's snowstorms as well

by Janet I. Tu

"Pacific Northwest Ballet is consolidating some ballet classes and cutting back on advertising.

"Seattle Repertory Theatre is requiring its full-time employees to take two weeks of unpaid leave.

"Seattle Art Museum has cut back 5 percent of its staff....

"...the dismal economy is buffeting local arts organizations....

"A majority of the local arts groups that responded to the survey said contributions and ticket sales are falling, and more than half the groups are cutting expenses. Many are putting expansion plans on hold. They're already seeing corporations, which are facing their own tough times, cut back on giving...."

Call to rebuild parks evokes 1930s program

Depression-era Stimulus

Civilian Conservation Corps put 3 million men to work in the national parks

by Julie Cart

"The first 'emergency agency' established by President Fanklin D. Roosevelt was the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), which was established in 1933 and eventually put 3 million men to work in the national park system....

"By the end of the program in 1942, CCC workers had built scores of bridges, constructed flood-control projects, cut 97,000 miles of fire roads and planted 2 billion trees, prompting the nickname 'Roosevelt's Tree Army.'

"The rustic, rock-and-timber buildings and massive lodges constructed by highly skilled artisans are now famously part of the national parks' 'parkitecture....'

"Now, some in Congress and elsewhere are reaching back to embrace Roosevelt's Depression-era strategy by calling for a similar parks-restoration program to be included in President Obama's economic-stimulus plan. The House version of the bill has $2.25 billion earmarked for projects in parks. The Senate version is still under debate and is expected to be voted on Monday.

"The CCC was born with the Depression in full roar and one out of four American wage earners out of work. Tens of thousands of unemployed and hungry young men took to the road rather than be a burden to their families.

"The National Parks Conservation Association, a nonpartisan parks-advocacy group, testified before Congress that the nation's 391 parks have billions of dollars in 'shovel-ready' projects,' some of them remnants of the system's more than $8.7 billion maintenance backlog.

"Citing the CCC as a model, the parks group is advocating for the development of a National Park Service Corps and estimates that investing stimulus funds in parks would create about 50,000 jobs. The group has studied the economic impact of parks, particularly in rural areas, finding that that every dollar spent at a park generates $4 in benefit.

"Construction projects could be contracted out and stimulate the local economy, said Jon Jarvis, park service director for the Pacific-West region.

"'We have literally thousands of those types of projects,' he said.
'The infrastructure of the national park system has come in fits and starts. It was massive during CCC; now a lot of those systems are inadequate and failing.'"

Patt Morrison:
I'd like my CEO well-done, thanks
It's a 'public mood' moment, and the mood is ugly.
Patt Morrison
February 5, 2009
» Discuss Article (17 Comments)



Oh, I want it. I want it bad.

Next week, when Barney Frank starts hauling fat-cat CEOs before his House Financial Services Committee, I want him wearing a barbecue apron. Instead of a gavel, I want him wielding a barbecue fork the size of a trident. By the time the grilling's over, I want ... I want a lot.

I want groveling. I want show-trial sweating and stammering. I want their nine-figure bonus checks endorsed over to the rest of us. I want my 401(k) money back. I want blood; I'm a vegetarian, but I'd make an exception for a smoking plate of CEO en brochette.

Political scientists call this a "public mood" moment, when a focal incident like the Olympics or 9/11 fuses a nation of hundreds of millions of identities into one public identity.

UCLA political scientist Lynn Vavreck tells me that, in this case, the public mood is outrage on the part of good citizens -- that's us -- over the misdeeds of bad citizens.

It's embarrassing to think that we share a country with these rich dimwits. As Frank told the bankers: "People really hate you. ... You have to help us deal with that. You have to avoid being stupid."

I don't begin to understand the complicated financial stratagems these men engineered. Even the SEC couldn't keep up.

But we all understand perfectly the flagrant arrogance of Citigroup planning to spend $50 million on a new corporate jet -- and a French-made jet, to boot -- after taking billions in bailout money from taxpayers who are getting pink-slipped. Citigroup backed away from the plane; now, can it still be serious about spending $400 million for naming rights for the New York Mets' field? Mets fans -- resist!

Collateralized debt obligations are beyond me, but I get the dunderheadedness of Wells Fargo booking a 12-night corporate bash in Vegas. The smartest person at Wells Fargo was the one who realized that a big party was itself a moral hazard and canceled the shindig.

People everywhere are fuming about their dismal fiscal futures at the hands of unregulated markets and firms run by chief executive officers who even now seem to be shining their shoes with hundred-dollar bills. President Obama used the word "shameful." Nice try, but words will never hurt them. Federal regulators are looking into Angelo R. Mozilo, the genius who made and unmade Countrywide Financial with its time-bomb subprime mortgages. But in the meantime, I'm thinking of giving myself the pleasure of driving to Thousand Oaks and TP-ing Mozilo's house. Single-ply -- I can't afford the good stuff anymore.

In 1991, Charles H. Keating Jr. was on trial in Los Angeles. His freewheeling savings and loan conned thousands of elderly depositors into investing in risky bonds. They lost millions. A few ruined investors committed suicide.

Outside the courtroom, one elderly woman grabbed Keating by his lapels and screamed at him to give her her money back; some Arizona politicians set aside a whole month in her honor.

This time, the CEOs will probably never see the inside of a courtroom. What they've been up to with the bailout money only breaks the spirit of the law.

Psychologically, perp walks and prison time aren't necessary, says UCLA's Vavreck. Our anger "has a value in itself -- being part of the community of people who hold this attitude is in itself some kind of benefit." In other words, forget it Jake, it's just catharsis.

I do feel consoled that Obama wants to cap the income of bank-bailout CEOs at half a million dollars. At the end of last year, as taxpayer money was being trundled to banks by the wheelbarrow-full, some CEOs turned down their annual bonuses. But they dealt out $18.4-billion worth to staff further down the food chain who, fail or prosper, had come to regard bonuses not as, well, bonuses but as a birthright.

What else can we get out of this?

I like the idea of a Fair Fair, a carnival roaming the country, bringing big-name, big-headed CEOs to a fairgrounds near you. For $10, you get three baseball throws, three chances to dunk the CEO into a big, cold, wet tank. For $5, you get a foam bat and a swat at CEOs running a gantlet of the newly poor. Half-price tickets for the unemployed.

No, wait. Let's put the CEOs in charge of that new "bad bank" being proposed to corral toxic assets. If they're as talented as they tell us they are, they can prove it by turning all that junk around.

No paychecks, let alone bonuses, until they do.

p att.morrison@latimes.com

Originally Posted by TimWalker

U.S. Postal Service

There was a report that the Postmaster General was going to ask Congress to reduce mail delivery to five days a week. Tuesday was suggested for deletion, because volume has been lowest on that day.

Competition by e-mail was cited as causing a loss of money.

E-mail as competition to mail?

I send telegram-like messages by e-mail -- not letters.

Front page of today's Seattle Times-photo of very long line of people making snake like curves into the background (with the Seattle skyline as the backdrop). Caption-"Job Fair Jammed."

I saw the newspaper after my housemate announced that he had been laid off.

Originally Posted by TimWalker

Front page of today's Seattle Times-photo of very long line of people making snake like curves into the background (with the Seattle skyline as the backdrop). Caption-"Job Fair Jammed."

I saw the newspaper after my housemate announced that he had been laid off.

I was one of the people in that long line (I was laid off with 1400 others at Microsoft.) I didn't even bother to wait until I got inside...

Meanwhile, at my end of the country:

http://www.phoenixvillenews.com/arti...0004640762.txt

Rendell calls for 'full-scale' school mergers

Thursday, February 5, 2009 6:14 AM EST
By MARTHA RAFFAELE
AP Education Writer

HARRISBURG — Gov. Ed Rendell called Wednesday for the first state-ordered consolidation of Pennsylvania school districts in at least 40 years, saying that fewer districts would mean a lighter local tax burden on property owners.

His proposal will probably meet resistance from local school boards whose members fear that mergers would close some schools and cause overcrowding in those that remain.

Rendell said during his state budget address that he wants a legislative commission to develop a plan to reduce the state's 500 public school districts to no more than 100, ideally. He is asking the Legislature to include money for the study in the 2009-10 budget. The last major state-ordered consolidation of Pennsylvania school districts occurred in the 1960s, when the state had more than 2,000 districts.

Merging more districts would enable schools to operate more efficiently and spread the local share of school costs over a wider range of property owners in each of the remaining districts, he said.

"There is nothing sacrosanct about the need to maintain 500 separate schools districts across the state — each with its own staggering, and growing, administrative costs," Rendell said.

More than 40 percent of the state's school districts enroll fewer than 2,000 students each, and more than 80 percent enroll fewer than 5,000.

The current number of 501 school districts is expected to drop to 500 in July, when the Center Area and Monaca school districts northwest of Pittsburgh complete a merger. Declining enrollments have forced both districts to limit the types of courses they can offer to students.

Originally Posted by TimWalker

Call to rebuild parks evokes 1930s program

Depression-era Stimulus

Civilian Conservation Corps put 3 million men to work in the national parks

by Julie Cart

"The first 'emergency agency' established by President Fanklin D. Roosevelt was the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), which was established in 1933 and eventually put 3 million men to work in the national park system....

"By the end of the program in 1942, CCC workers had built scores of bridges, constructed flood-control projects, cut 97,000 miles of fire roads and planted 2 billion trees, prompting the nickname 'Roosevelt's Tree Army.'

"The rustic, rock-and-timber buildings and massive lodges constructed by highly skilled artisans are now famously part of the national parks' 'parkitecture....'

"Now, some in Congress and elsewhere are reaching back to embrace Roosevelt's Depression-era strategy by calling for a similar parks-restoration program to be included in President Obama's economic-stimulus plan. The House version of the bill has $2.25 billion earmarked for projects in parks. The Senate version is still under debate and is expected to be voted on Monday.

"The CCC was born with the Depression in full roar and one out of four American wage earners out of work. Tens of thousands of unemployed and hungry young men took to the road rather than be a burden to their families.

"The National Parks Conservation Association, a nonpartisan parks-advocacy group, testified before Congress that the nation's 391 parks have billions of dollars in 'shovel-ready' projects,' some of them remnants of the system's more than $8.7 billion maintenance backlog.

"Citing the CCC as a model, the parks group is advocating for the development of a National Park Service Corps and estimates that investing stimulus funds in parks would create about 50,000 jobs. The group has studied the economic impact of parks, particularly in rural areas, finding that that every dollar spent at a park generates $4 in benefit.

"Construction projects could be contracted out and stimulate the local economy, said Jon Jarvis, park service director for the Pacific-West region.

"'We have literally thousands of those types of projects,' he said.
'The infrastructure of the national park system has come in fits and starts. It was massive during CCC; now a lot of those systems are inadequate and failing.'"

Hey, maybe we can get my shelved Yellowstone highway project built before 2015!

A highway in Yellowstone?

Wouldn't that be counter to the very reason Yellowstone became a National Park?

Originally Posted by Andy '85

A highway in Yellowstone?

Wouldn't that be counter to the very reason Yellowstone became a National Park?

Not at all.

The highways I work on serve to get people through and around the Park at leisurely speeds, in order to experience its grandeur. They're generally winding, two-lane roads through rolling and mountainous terrain... they aren't 70-mile-an-hour freeways.

The road I was referring too, a section of the Grand Loop Road, was built mostly during the 1930s during the Roosevelt era, and is falling apart. The pavement needs to be reconstructed, and the roadway alignment adjusted to meet safety standards and blend into the natural landscape better. Many of the historic stone masonry guardwalls, culvert headwalls and other structures, built by master craftsmen on CCC crews, are also in disrepair and need to be preserved.

There's a lot of work to be done to keep National Parks like Yellowstone and Glacier safely accessible to Americans.

Originally Posted by Finch

I was one of the people in that long line (I was laid off with 1400 others at Microsoft.) I didn't even bother to wait until I got inside...

Ouch! I'm sorry to hear that. Good luck on your job search.