The Right to Bear Children

So, in the headlines today, among the stories of economic stimulus and changes in the government, there is a current which continually to stimulate our need to judge people. The news provides us persistent status of Nadya Suleman, the mother of 14, Angolina-look-alike-lips, who in no way is capable of raising 14 children. And she has our attention.

Nadya went through fertility treatments no less than 7 times. Her first 6 kids were all the result of science, and the provision of semen from a close personal friend. In turn, she had an additional 6 embryos, which she had fertilized, and then placed in her womb. Naturally, because nature has a sense of humor, 2 of Ms. Suleman's embryos split, giving her a total of 8. At which point she delivered all 8 a few weeks ago. Since then, she has run the media circuit, telling the world of how she will raise these 14 kids with love and student loans. A plan which can certainly not fail.

Since then, while denying she was on welfare, she has taken food stamps, and disability for 2 of her first 6 kids. In addition, her family has looked at the situation, and metaphorically and literally shaken her head, wondering what the hell went wrong in their own child rearing. Her doctor fails to see what was irresponsible for implanting the final 6 in a mother without a job.

However the latest was societies response to her 14 kids. In recent news there have been calls to remove the children from her home. Naturally, I would agree, that a person's belief that they can raise 14 kids is certainly a possible symptom of insanity. However, I would suggest that our nation's laws provide no limit on numbers of children or who can raise them. My issue is that the suggestion was made that the children be removed subject to an investigation, which seems to put the cart before the horse. And frankly, if this is legal, your author is in deep trouble. I will certainly be arrested for something that I have thought of doing.

As I mentioned above, the evidence is strong that this mother may not appreciate the needs of 14 children. Further, in watching her responses on the Today show, while she is incredibly well spoken, and says the right answers to the questions, I would submit that these answers were entirely too correct and too well spoken to not have been scripted. Further, when the financial plan is to live on student loans until she graduates to be a social worker, at which time they will be on easy street, the evidence begins to build. Today, her father and mother are beginning to show signs that this is a real issue. Lastly, while Ms Suleman believes that her community and her church will surround her with love and assistance. That had better be one large church. The reality is that the facts of this story are the precursors to the story which reads, "Mother smothers 14 then steps in front of traffic". But folks, we need to do the investigation first. And fast. And final.

At the end of the day, I have no doubt that an investigation will result in 14 kids finding new homes, better homes, and homes where they are not starved. In watching my sister and her husband today, who have a 3 week old son, Gage, it is obvious that I was right 4 years ago, when I said to myself that parenthood is the hardest job you will ever have. Nurturing one child is hard work, often thankless, spattered with happiness, sadness, and sleepless nights. My sister and her husband are handling it like most new parents, figuring out what works, and what doesn't. I watched her calculate the number of ounces of milk Gage ingested today. I laughed out loud. While they are doing and awesome job, the parents both have exceptional intellects and deep passion for doing a great job. Ms Suleman lacks the intellect, and has a passion for craziness and no real appreciation for what she has brought into the world. I wish only the best for her children, and I only hope that this disaster is mitigated by quick action of the state.

I am less of a Patriot

This weekend, I joined my fellow Americans in what looks to be a repeatable, frequent activity. I stood alongside my brethren - Black, White, Hispanic, Middle Eastern, Asian, and every other imaginable flavor. We walked through the tiled miles, watching, hunting, and at times even fighting for our rights to obtain food cheaply. No, we were not in bread lines, nor were we in some post-apocalyptic scene from Mad Max. We were in Walmart. Yes, Walmart, Friday night, for food shopping. And I am less of an American because of it.

I am not a snob. Walmart is no better nor worse than any other big box store, though the brand of loser in Walmart on a Friday night is indeed special. I had never been on a Friday night, and will likely choose better in the future. But we wandered the halls of Walmart looking for the best China has to offer. We found aisle after aisle of bargain, and we spent about 2/3 to half of what we normally spend on groceries, and found everything, if not more than in our normal supermarket. And for this, I should lose my right to a veterans funeral.

I say these disparaging remarks not to take away from the millions of American shoppers who frequent Walmart - I too will be going back. We have been forced into these conditions by economic challenges, and the realities that saving at times like these is all that much more important. I make these remarks because I am angry - I know, big surprise - that Walmart has taken such a share of the market, that they can afford to be so low in cost, and in turn that they can pressure their suppliers to be so much lower for Walmart that they make it impossible to compete, fairly and freely. How does a local supermarket ever open their doors when Walmart is cutting them 50 cents on the dollar? Impossible to start right from the beginning.

In addition, when Walmart squeezes their vendors so tightly, the vendor is forced to ship their manufacturing overseas. Once they transfer the manufacturing for Walmart overseas, they ship all of it there - It fails to make sense to do anything here, if they have to do any manufacturing there - which in turn castrates American manufacturing. Even if we could make it better here, we wouldn't, simply to save a few pennies. Interesting to note, while sitting over lunch a few weeks ago, I was talking with an MBA and a PhD candidate - two fairly smart guys. I posed the question, what do we as a nation still produce and product well. My MBA friend, whose family was in textiles, pointed out that his family still produces some of what they did many years ago (surprisingly nylon stockings). However, we couldn't name anything else, besides cars (and they didn't really make the "Produces Well" category. This is shameful.

Worse still is the fact that everything is found in Walmart was disposable. There was nothing which seemed to have an enduring quality - Clothes were fairly single use - no handmedowns. Furniture was pressboard, and would look lovely for 4 years, and then look lovelier in a landfill. Toys lined the shelves, and the video game areas far outsized the sporting good areas (at least the baseball, football type sporting goods) and the toys for the most part would not survive the attention switch of a four year old, let alone pass from an older child to a younger one. Tags on all of the products read "Made in Somewhere Else". And the icing on the cake was Walmart's weak attempt to sell us a non-plastic bag for our use to carry crap into our homes, hung at the check out below eye level, and out of the way. I guess the profit on those is lower.

While this began years ago, Walmart exacerbated the issue by controlling so many diverse vendors from televisions to TV dinners and left us with an additional economic catastrophe to deal with. Their sole saving grace is that they do in fact pass on these savings to customers, and this does help many Americans. I found myself watching the people in line as we checked out. The old black man, with US Army Retired on his baseball cap. The young Hispanic couple, he in his work clothes, and mom carrying the young infant, with their daughter in tow. The stereo-typical 40-something, single mother, white woman with her cigarette pack in her back pocket of the too tight for her age jeans, smacking candy from her kids hands while they waited in line, and us, another couple in this sea of hundreds, just trying to save some money, in hopes of finding an American dream, and watching Walmart push it just a little farther out of reach.

On a side note, there is something ironic about buying ammunition and food at the same time. Where our forefathers worked the North Carolina landscape into crops and hunted food with their ammunition, I now buy ammunition to forget about the economic and other life challenges we face today, and I buy my crops with labels from Peru so I can have my blueberries in February. As I have said in the past, Globalization is grand, but better still is that I am so far from the hunter/gatherer that I don't think I know my place in the food chain anymore. . .

I hate off shore call centers (or why I should just read the directions)

So today, I spent 30 minutes on a chat session with Linksys technical support. The lag was remarkable between the time it took me to type my question and the time it took to receive a response. I have no doubt that this was because someone trascribed it to postal mail, and then mailed it to Bangalore. (Home of the torpedo). They ran me through the script. Painfully slowly. "Is the power light on?" This only makes me angrier, because I know there is someone in BF that answers "Ooops, you're right". I explain my issue to them in great detail. They then ask me specific questions which demonstrate that they have not read any of my typing. Which only angers me more. I then realize I want to do something else, and the game begins. I respond with another answer, and then let them know that they have 8 minutes or I am returning the product. Nothing like a little pressure to add some fuel to the fire.

We continue down the path. Open the device manager. "Is your device there?" My reply "I don't know, the device manager is pretty big. Wanna give me a hint where it is?" For the record, "Wanna" might not translate so well. We look. Not there. 6 minutes, I tell them. "Is the device plugged into the computer?" "Yes" Really? You asked if it was in the Device Manager, but thought I might not have plugged it in? Seriously dude, the script is meant to be read top to bottom. 4 minutes, I type. Another minute of diagnosis fails, and finally I surrender. I eat my egg salad, and start again. This time, when the installation gets to the point where I got stuck ( a point which my overseas friend never discovered in his script, I find that there are more words than I saw before - An option which I should have chosen. And I click next. And next again. And oh my, guess what - Next again. And suddenly I could connect to the internet.

So now, I have completed the task of connecting my Xbox to the internet again, with blazing fast speed. And I realize, I don't really hate the linksys products I have bought over the years. I hate the product service which I have received. And to be fair, so have millions of other Americans. I just saw a story on the news the other day, where people are pushing the companies from which they buy into moving their operations for call centers back to the continental US. Clearly with 11 million unemployed we can do a better job. Companies like Cricket, who make a cell phone for the elderly actually tout their on shore call centers on their television ads. Many more, like Dell are moving back, having failed to serve their customers from afar, and realizing that their customers will simply go to best buy and buy from the Geek Squad, because these kids speak their native tongue while reading the script.

I do recognize that it is not Linksys' fault that I don't read directions, but when I call for help that you brag about, I would really like the person to answer the phone having read them before I call.