The Gig Economy

[Editorial]

Jobs have changed. We have gone from a company being the bedrock of the community to chasing the lowest common denominator.

All around were bedrocks of industry—Stanley Works, North & Judd, United Aircraft, Aetna, and Travelers. But like other businesses, they fled to states with lower taxes. Then many of them fled overseas.

There are things that can use the gig economy, like construction, and there are jobs that are conducive to working from home, while others require all employees to work together as a team, such as in a factory.

In 1978, I got a job building control systems for all types of plants, including nuclear. There were some employees who had already been there for ten years. I worked my way up to running a testing department with 24 technicians, and we had very little turnover so we all knew our jobs. When you do one-of-a-kind designs, you have redesigns; we even had a fancy name for it: Problem Disposition Report (PDR).

It was for "Oops!" You know, you go to mount something on a cabinet wall and there is something in the way... so you write a PDR. The engineers go and battle it out, then send the PDR back and say, "Do it this way instead." We say okay and go on and do it. But with a job shop, they get out their pens and start adding up the changes... um... let's see... taking that off and moving it there will cost you... hmmm... 4 million dollars. Therefore, a company of bean counters who never ran a custom engineering shop ran the company over 9 billion dollars into the hole! The company that bought us out is known for TVs.

So what I am getting at is that when these gig people go from job to job, the company loses tribal knowledge. When a problem is found, the people who designed it are no longer around to help fix it.

We are also in the beginning another revolution: the AI and robotic revolution! I tie them together because I think very, very shortly the two will be merged.

I urge you all to read the 1952 book by Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Player Piano:

Why you should read: Player Piano, Kurt Vonnegut

by Rachel Bradley

 

Before writing his breakout work Player Piano, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., an American science fiction writer, worked in Public Relations at General Electric.  He observed the cutting-edge automation of what was traditionally machinists’ work.  According to Vonnegut, GE’s decision to have a computer “make all the decisions wasn't a vicious thing to do . . . But it was too bad for the human beings who got their dignity from their jobs.”  So summarizes the heart of Player Piano, Vonnegut’s first novel, a book that arguably came well before its time (published in 1952) and now deserves a second consideration.

Goodreads put it this way:

Kurt Vonnegut’s first novel spins the chilling tale of engineer Paul Proteus, who must find a way to live in a world dominated by a supercomputer and run completely by machines. Paul’s rebellion is vintage Vonnegut—wildly funny, deadly serious, and terrifyingly close to reality.

What good science fiction does is suggest possible futures, and Mr. Vonnegut nailed it!

[/Editorial]

It Is Not A Spectator Sport

We are in a quagmire! Going to hell in a hand-basket! Or whatever other clichés you want to use, we are in another election cycle and the same thing is happening now as it did in 2024, and the election before, and before that, and…

Take a look at the current crop of political ads. Do any of these sound familiar?

• "Lowering costs for working families," "bringing down the price of everyday goods," and "making the American Dream affordable again."
• "Bringing back American manufacturing," "putting American workers first," and "building an economy from the middle out and the bottom up."
• "Bringing common sense back to Washington," "fighting for the forgotten communities," and "taking on special interests."
•  “I will stand up to Trump!,” "Standing up to executive overreach," "Protecting our democratic norms and institutions," and "Serving as a check and balance in Washington."

How many of these have you heard just today?

Okay, let me ask you a question… how are they going to do it? As they say, the devil is in the details! Yet the campaigns tell you nothing about the how. They purposely don’t tell you. Because if they don't, your mind fills in the blanks: "Yeah, cutting my taxes!" or "Yeah, they are going to make billionaires pay their fair share!" But the moment they specify what they actually want to do, they risk losing the other half of the voters who think the opposite. So, they keep voters in the dark by relying strictly on buzzwords.

Also, have you noticed that they don’t even mention their party anymore? It happens for the exact same reason they use empty buzzwords. If a candidate says the party name out loud, half of the voters immediately turn off their message. A mental buzzer goes off: "Oh, that's from the party I don't vote for," and they tune out completely. So, candidates now drop the party label altogether.

Meanwhile, the local newspaper gives candidates space to write about the upcoming election. But what do they write about? My two kids, Dick and Jane, our lovely dog Spot, and how they know the issues facing the town firsthand because their kids are in school! Um… okay. So what are the actual issues, and how will you deal with them? Zip.

Boycotting elections is self-defeating because it just hands power to the status quo, and staying silent leaves you vulnerable to manipulation by buzzwords. So how do we actually push back against the cycle? How do we bring substance back to elections?

The answer is looking at you in the mirror.

It is you!

Elections are not a spectator sport—you have to get off your couch and do the research! What has the candidate done in the past? If they have never run before and have no track record, and tell you nothing except platitudes, that also tells you a lot.

When I wanted to look up candidates, I started with Ballotpedia. When I found out who was running against Governor Lamont & Ryan Fazio, I checked his background, and then looked up his voting record on the Connecticut General Assembly's website. 

Well, there is this fabulous new tool called AI, where you can ask weird questions like, "How do I find a candidate's voting record?" Seconds later, I had direct pointers to official government portals and tracking resources:

•     The Connecticut General Assembly website for official bill tracking and session votes.
•     The LegiScan Connecticut Page to view sponsored legislation and past roll call votes.
•     Public legislative tracking databases like BillTrack50.

WOW! That was easy.

I then asked it a couple of follow-up questions: "Has Ryan Fazio said anything on abortion?" and "Has Ryan Fazio said anything on trans rights?" For the second question, it replied that he joined other Greenwich officials in condemning hateful signs at Town Hall, but otherwise, his primary legislative record and platform steer clear of culture-war debates, focusing instead on state economics and local policy.

The thing is habit and tribal loyalty are powerful forces. When people feel overwhelmed by work, life, and daily stress, falling back on party lines feels like a safe shortcut, even if it means buying into the exact buzzwords and empty promises you write about.

The bottom line is that you cannot sit on your butt and vote based on who has the prettiest ad on TV. We have to stop falling for family photo-ops and start digging into actual records.

Hypocrisy

Two faced, double-dealer, smooth-tongued Donald who was the antithesis of what Dolly Parton stood for.

Donald Trump Is Lowering Flags for Dolly Parton While Desecrating Her Legacy of Inclusion and Respect

The president’s political career has been spent countering many of the values Parton held so dear.

them

By Samantha Allen

August 25, 202

There are few celebrities whose passing could inspire such universal mourning as Dolly Parton. The country music legend and renowned philanthropist died today at age 80, turning all of our social media feeds into a sea of black-and-white portraits and tearful remembrances.

Surprisingly, those grieving Parton’s passing included one figure whose entire political career runs counter to her legacy of inclusion and respect: Donald Trump, who ordered the flag of the United States of America to be lowered for a one-week period beginning tonight.

“Very sad to report that Dolly Parton, one of the greatest Country singers, and far beyond, EVER, has just passed away,“ Trump wrote on Truth Social. “This is a true loss for millions of people. There has never been anyone like her, and never will.”

Broken clocks are right twice a day and so, apparently, are failed presidents. But what Trump doesn’t realize is that the reason so many people will experience Parton’s death as a “true loss” is because she stood for love, compassion, and kindness — all qualities that are especially lacking in Trump’s second administration.

[…]

And, of course, on LGBTQ+ rights, Donald Trump has seemingly made it his sworn mission to attack our community at every turn, with the vitriol and hurtful policymaking only ramping up in his second term. His administration has reserved its worst attacks for transgender people, targeting rights to restroom use, to obtaining correct identity markers on government documents, to employment protections, and so much more. Dolly Parton, meanwhile, adored the LGBTQ+ community, frequently collaborating with queer artists, defending her queer fans, and embracing her status as a drag icon, as The Advocate has documented.

She also had LGBTQ+ family members and employees herself, as she told The Hollywood Reporter in 2023 when asked about anti-trans legislation in her home state of Tennessee. “I have some of everybody in my own immediate family and in my circle of employees,” she said. “I’ve got transgender people. I’ve got gays. I’ve got lesbians. I’ve got drunks. I’ve got drug addicts — all within my own family. I know and love them all, and I do not judge.”

With her trademark humor, she added, “They cannot help that any more than I can help being Dolly Parton, you know, the way people know me.”

The only reason Trump lowered the flag is for “optic”

Saturday 9: Animal Crackers in My Soup

Saturday 9: Animal Crackers in My Soup (1935)
On Saturdays I take a break from the heavy stuff and have some fun… 

Unfamiliar with this week's tune? Hear it here.

This month Saturday 9 will be tasty, featuring songs with food in the title.
 

1) Do you eat soup all year round, or do you consider it a seasonal dish?
Well… two things.
The first is that I’m on Cape Cod and we have “chowdah.”
The second is that I haven’t had soup in a long time… I went trough my cabinets and half of the soup had expired.

2) Gazpacho is a popular cold soup. Made with water-rich tomatoes, cucumbers and bell peppers, it's considered a good choice for hot weather because it's hydrating. What are your favorite summertime foods?
Well ah… it is really a year round favorite… lobster. In the summer it is lobster roll and in the winter it is lobster Newberg.

3) This week, Shirley Temple sings of the delights of having crackers in her soup. How often do you add crackers to your soup: always, sometimes, never? 
Now with every order on the Cape you get oyster crackers which I toss in a big jar. When I get the munchies I split them open and put cream cheese on those little halves.

4) "Animal Crackers in My Soup" was the big musical number in the 1935 movie Curly Top. Shirley played Elizabeth, who helps her older sister find love with a handsome millionaire. Have you ever played matchmaker? If yes, were your efforts successful?
No, I haven’t tried being a match maker.

5) Gertrude Temple, Shirley's mother, was her daughter's onset hairstylist, creating the famous "curly top" with pin curls. What's your hair care regimen? 
Well every time you talk about hair… you got to have hair before you can style it.

6) Bartenders are still called upon to create the non-alcoholic Shirley Temple, made with ginger ale, lemon-lime soda, and grenadine. What's the most recent alcoholic beverage you drank? 
Whoa, another hard question. It has been so long ago that I can’t remember. Probably some sherry when I was making some Newberg.

7) In 1935, when this song was popular, Amelia Earhart flew from Honolulu to Oakland, California. Are you a nervous flyer?
Nope.

8) Also in 1935, The Hoover Dam was dedicated. Today it's a popular tourist attraction, with more than 7 million visitors each year. Have you ever been to Las Vegas?
Nope.

9) Random question: You get a spur-of-the-moment invitation to a meal with your best friend. Could you go wearing what you have on right now?
No… it is 2AM.

---

I woke up at around 1AM with voices! ????? they sound like right outside. I do a walk around inside the cottage listening. There are some men sitting out on a deck kitty-corner across the street. It is so quite that sound travels.

During the day you can’t hear the traffic on Rt. 6 (The very same Rt. 6 that ends in California, we have

the beginning of it. Where Rt. 6 begin is the Atlantic Ocean. If you keep going east you will come to Spain.

It is like night and day on the Cape now that schools back in session. I was at the grocery store the other day when there was a traffic jam at the end of Aisle 3. Someone joked about not having to worry about traffic anymore now that’s summers over. I quipped… the end of the “no left turn season” which got a laugh.

I had company all last week and company for Labor Day, then I’m home for two weeks. Then back up to the Cape until around the end of October.

A Tail Of Two States

A Synopsis:

In the first state, an ICE agent shot a man and lied about it. ICE argues that agents have “absolute immunity” for their actions on duty and then spirits the agent away to another state.

The first state indicts the agent for assault and falsely reporting a crime and sends an extradition order to the state where ICE shipped him. That state says, “We will think about it,” and releases the agent from custody.

So that is where we are now: The ICE agent is somewhere, maybe even in Mexico.

ICE officer’s release from Texas jail opens a new front in the escalating fight over extradition

AP News

By MICHAEL GONZALEZ, VALERIE GONZALEZ and SUDHIN THANAWALA

August 27, 2026

The release of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer from a Texas jail on Thursday despite Minnesota’s request for his return could set a dangerous precedent, increasing friction between states and helping criminal defendants avoid justice, legal experts said.

Christian Castro was released from a detention center in Brownsville after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott declined to immediately sign his extradition warrant. A federal judge also declined to block Castro’s release or order Abbott to sign the warrant.

Minnesota officials say they believe Castro could flee to Mexico to avoid prosecution on charges he shot a man and lied about it during an immigration crackdown in Minneapolis in January. Extradition from Mexico would require action by the Trump administration, which opened an investigation into Castro’s actions but also has argued ICE agents have “absolute immunity” for their actions on duty.

And no way in hell will Trump extradite him!

But this goes way beyond this case. Texas and other Republican states have been trying to get health care records on women having abortions and children going to trans clinics in other states. Some see this as tit for tat.

The decision is alarming because it injects politics into the extradition process, said Marsh Halberg, a criminal defense attorney and former prosecutor in Minnesota.

“Something that’s been a routine process may now turn into a political card,” he said in a phone interview.

In recent months, California and New York have rejected extradition requests from Louisiana for doctors accused of mailing abortion pills.

But legal scholars say those cases are different because the doctors weren’t in Louisiana and never fled the state and became fugitives.

Is Texas looking the other way in a case of perjury and attempted murder because of the denial of a witch-hunt for medical records?

But it gets even more convoluted… the feds jump in!

Judge denies Minnesota's request to halt release of ICE officer charged in Minneapolis shooting

CBS News

By Aki Nace, Stephen Swanson

August 26, 2026

A federal judge on Wednesday denied Minnesota's request for a temporary restraining order to halt the release of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent sought for extradition in a shooting earlier this year in north Minneapolis amid Operation Metro Surge, and then lying about the circumstances under oath.

[…]

In U.S. District Court Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr.'s 13-page ruling, he denied Minnesota's request because the "matter does not present an issue ripe for adjudication," saying Minnesota's case is based on claims that Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has violated the Extradition Act by refusing to sign Castro's rendition warrant.

"The record reflects only that Governor Abbott has neither agreed nor refused to sign the rendition warrant as to Castro. Instead, Governor Abbott has requested that the Texas Secretary of State 'investigate [Minnesota's] demand and report to [the Governor] concerning Mr. Castro's situation and circumstances and whether he ought to be surrendered,'" Rodriguez wrote in his ruling.

So that’s where we are now… in limbo.

A Disturbing Trend

[Editorial]

Have you noticed that the Trump administration is going after care for minorities?

First, it was getting the homeless off the streets in Washington, D.C. Now it is the disabled. Home care has revolutionized the lives of senior citizens. No longer do they have to be institutionalized in nursing homes; they can live in their own homes. But that program is being cut.

The latest attack is focused on home care for the mentally and physically disabled. It is cheaper to institutionalize them. What the Trump administration is trying to do is what Project 2025 said to do: do away with federal mandates, like the number of nurses required per patient. Instead, they want to throw a block of money at the states with no strings attached and say, “Go to it!”

Lawmakers Knew All Along They Were Voting to Cut Medicaid for Older Adults

Justice in Aging

March 4, 2026

Last July, Congress voted to pass the Budget Reconciliation Act of 2025 (H.R. 1) and enact the largest Medicaid cuts in history. For months before the vote, advocates, older adults, and people with disabilities repeatedly warned lawmakers that cutting federal Medicaid funding would put home and community-based services (HCBS) first on the chopping block. But lawmakers took to the airwaves dismissing these claims, asserting they were only cutting “wasteful” spending, and promising that key Medicaid programs, including HCBS, would be protected and even strengthened as they cut federal Medicaid funding to states by $1 trillion. This was always an empty promise.

Medicaid’s coverage of HCBS is not a luxury. For most people, it’s the only option for at-home care. HCBS help with everyday activities like dressing, bathing, cooking, and taking medications that allow older adults and people with disabilities to remain at home and part of their communities. HCBS save money too, relieving costs for families who can’t afford to pay for care out of pocket and avoiding far more expensive institutional care that Medicaid would otherwise have to pay for. Research shows people who need but don’t receive HCBS are far more likely to have to go into nursing facilities.

At the same time, they are driving seniors out of their homes and into long-term care (LTC) facilities, such as nursing homes. The Center for Medicare Advocacy reports that;

LTC) facilities such are nursing homes. The Center for Medicare Advocacy reports that;

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) repeals the 2024 nurse staffing rule, specifically, the numerical staffing requirements (3.48 hours per resident day, divided among various categories of nurses) and the requirement for registered nurses 24 hours per day, seven days per week. The numerical requirement reflected a modest change and would have required additional staffing, primarily in nursing homes that have the lowest nurse staffing levels. The registered nurse requirement reflected a recommendation made by experts for many decades.

The staffing rule was a key component of a comprehensive nursing home reform agenda in 2022. The rule and reform agenda responded to the hundreds of thousands of residents and staff who died during the COVID-19 pandemic, revealing problems in nursing homes that could not be ignored. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania calculated that implementation of the final staffing rule would save 13,000 residents’ lives each year and reduce residents’ adverse health outcomes.

It is a squeeze play, forcing seniors and the mentally and physically disabled out of their homes and into institutions while, at the same time, cutting staffing!

NPR in "They grew up with disability rights. Now, they're fighting to keep them" talks about how disability rights are once again under attack;

And in 1999, the year Cody was born, the Supreme Court handed down the Olmstead decision. It reinforced the ADA's integration mandate, which says people with disabilities should get to learn, live and work in their communities rather than in institutions. The government made that promise after people with disabilities fought against segregation in institutions, which have a long history of abuse and neglect.

"That affects everything," said Kaleigh. "The integrated setting affects school. It affects where you can work. It affects community-based programs like what my brother uses."

Now, the integration mandate — and an entire system of community-based disability services that more than 8 million Americans rely on — are being challenged.

The Trump adminstration is running it like a business: minimize costs, maximize profits! And not like a government that cares about its citizens.

[/Editorial]

I Only Text

[Editorial]

How many times have you heard that from people? How many times have you had to verify something through a “two-step” process involving a text?

So, stop and think for a moment. Where does that statement come from? What are its assumptions? Or look at it from a “privilege” perspective. Not from the smartphone have/have-not perspective, but rather from how many texts a person receives.

If you look at my phone, you will see that I have seven unread messages. I can tell you exactly what those seven messages are:

Hi, this is CVS…

Hi, this is CVS…

Hi, this is CVS…

Hi, this is CVS…

Hi, this is CVS…

Hi, this is CVS…

Hi, this is CVS…

Then we have the people who say, “I only text! I don’t do voicemail.”

Here is what I say: “What is your preferred way to be contacted?”

You know, it is simply about showing respect.

For the holidays or a family function, I know to check my texts. But my family knows that to get in touch with me, they should use email or Facebook.

Show some respect. Think about others.

[/Editorial]