by John

IMPEACHMENT

Details: Published: Sunday, December 15, 2019 12:50; by John Campbell; Hits: 1091

Last week an item on a Pittsburgh TV station news broadcast reported a school superintendent who was fired because of a DUI. I didn’t know the details, but he may have lost his job because he had a second glass of wine at dinner or maybe he just drank way too much before driving. Drinking and driving will be the subject of another blog, but that a person lost his job due to a single infraction where other remedies could have been made is the point that I want to make. Locally we have seen a police chief and a mayor lose their jobs due to minor infractions that many would not believe rose to the level of being fired. Some time ago, a friend of mine was fired from a local factory for not following a procedure correctly. He added a step that had been in the procedure before it was revised to speed up production. There was no harm to the product, the machinery or fellow workers. His supervisor did not like him, so he lost his job. The company lost twenty years of experience when they could have given him a written warning and retrained him. He made somebody irate and gave them a chance to get even for past grievances.

COFFEE CLUB

Details: Published: Friday, December 13, 2019 12:55; by John Campbell; Hits: 1361

When I retired over 15 years ago, my wife was still working. I had plenty to do with a golf membership, a woodworking shop in my basement and a motorcycle. It was the early mornings that were a little hard for me to get started. A gym membership took care of part of the morning, but still a lonely house was not very inviting so I started to go to the new Panera Bread store for coffee and sometimes a bagel. After a few trips there, it was noticeable that many of the people I saw were the same ones and they were doing what I was doing except many were doing it before going to work. I met an elderly lady (older than me) and she seemed to know me. After introductions she told me that she had worked with my sister-in-law at the university for many years. My sister-in-law was in a nursing home at the time, but this lady I had just met was still working at the age of over 80. From that day on, my coffee time was with her.

ANARCHY

Details: Published: Tuesday, December 03, 2019 11:27; by John Campbell; Hits: 1177

A few years ago the “far right” was considered a group that believed that they did not have to obey US law. I had a friend who did not file income tax returns because he said the US did not have the right to an income tax. We heard of the militant groups that lived by themselves in the wilderness of the Northwest, and there were a few confrontations with the FBI and other authorities. Today we think of these groups as neo-Nazis who spread hate and societal disruption. The anarchists have disappeared it seems…or have they?

HOMELESS ARE WHOM

Details: Published: Tuesday, October 01, 2019 14:50; by John Campbell; Hits: 1877

Back in the 1960s, the courts made it very difficult to put a person in a mental care facility, which in most cases were run as state hospitals. Most of those who were interned were released, and if they had no family they became the first of the homeless who lived on the streets. Many of these people were sane enough to live within our society but were not able to take care of themselves. We saw the first evidence of homelessness in the larger cities, and it soon became a problem that has been growing ever since.

WHO'S A RACIST

Details: Published: Friday, August 30, 2019 14:45; by John Campbell; Hits: 1887

It was 1943, and on my way home from the first grade I was attacked by three other kids from my class. I was a newcomer as we had moved closer to my parents’ work because of the gas rationing. I had been in a one-room school with three grades and now was in a city school with a room and teacher for each grade. I was an outsider, and some of my new classmates were not about to welcome me as part of their group. I was being bullied. This was new to me at six years old and coming from a small town proud of being part of the Underground Railroad with a third of the community being Black. My schoolmates were all considered friends. I was bullied again, in 1989, when l received a new project at work involving changing to a new computer system and software. The people who had been in charge of the IT system asked me out to lunch and proceeded to ask me to tell my boss that I was not capable of handling the new task, and it should be returned to them. I declined their offer and went on to complete the task on time and under budget. Their interference and refusal to aid in the project caused a lot of extra work and cost, but my team worked through it and provided the company with its first MRP system.

Commentary by John Campbell

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IMPEACHMENT

COFFEE CLUB

ANARCHY

HOMELESS ARE WHOM

WHO'S A RACIST

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