Where’s Jack Bauer When You Need Him?

This morning’s headline reads that our future Attorney General, Eric Holder, submits his opinion that waterboarding is considered torture. As I read this questionably newsworthy headline, I wondered what the military and other justice officials are allowed to use to coerce their prisoners into providing information necessary for the defense and expedition of justice in our country.

I firmly believe that the majority of the viewers of the popular “24” series are in part wrapped up in the show because of the common sense justice that seems to be dispatched regularly by “the good guys.” Today that kind of justice is an enviable fantasy for many military and law enforcement professionals. Many of us have a longing for what seems to be common sense justice because so many of us seemed to be robbed of it lately.

On “24” you can forget the gratuitous fighting in hand to hand combat style. If the bad guys pull a gun on Jack Bauer, he merely finishes things with an appropriate shot to the head. (Reminds me of a classic scene in one of the Raiders of the Lost Ark Series in which Indiana Jones is confronted by a display of a long fancy sword display, only to have Indi appropriately just pull out his gun and shoot the bad guy. I recall a loud roar of approval in the theatre during that scene.)

I have a really good friend who is a high level agent for the DEA. He has periodically bemoaned the way that their hands are tied in appropriately defending themselves against strung out, maniacal drug traffickers in the name of justice.

While I’m not saying I’m an advocate of waterboarding — I’d have to research it more — I wonder where the line will be drawn when it comes to worthwhile interrogation? Frankly, the mere act of an interrogator making vicious threats to a prisoner in order to get information could be considered “torture” if the case was made that the suspect/terrorist truly believed the threats to be true. I can just hear some attorney now claiming emotional duress. Putting a perpetrator in a four-walled concrete cell having to do “his business” in plain sight could be considered torture because it’s not “humane.” Making Paris Hilton wear prison garb could be considered a form of torture. When my mother was first married and still learning the domestic ropes, my father claims that having to eat her cooking was a form of torture. Recently in the news, a prison inmate claimed the chicken he had to eat from the prison cafeteria was a form of torture. Where do torture claims end and the ability to do a critical job for our nation’s security begin? It’s really beginning to appear today that the criminals have more rights and privileges than law abiding U.S. citizens. We certainly are proving that theory in other aspects of our nation’s operations.

There are actions and there are consequences of those who elect to compromise the democracy, virtue and freedoms of another. There’s torture and there’s effective coercion. There’s inhuman treatment and there’s protecting our freedom. I hope that we don’t lose sight of effective operations at the cost of our souls or our freedoms.

Copyright 2009 Kellene Bishop. All rights reserved. You are welcome to repost this information so long as it is credited to Kellene Bishop.

Our Nations Unemployment Rate: The Manifestation of a Sleeping Giant

Statistically, small business owners provide the largest percentage of jobs in the U.S. — yes an even larger percentage of jobs than all of those bail-out “worthy” industries. In spite of all of the bail out monies that were supposed to loosen up the purse strings of banks in order to strengthen small businesses in extremely tough times, small businesses have become ignored and have nothing to show for any of the so-called efforts on their behalf. In fact, even without the economic crisis that is truly upon us, historically small businesses get very, very little considerations, tax breaks, or other incentives to operate their businesses. As a result, the economic drain our nation is experiencing is merely a manifestation of a long time attitude apathy towards what really makes this country healthy. Is it any wonder that the job loss in the last 12 months has been the worst it’s been since the World War II era? Over 250,000,000 jobs were lost in 2008 and that doesn’t take into account the millions of individuals who were forced from full-time employment to part-time, nor does it take into account the self-employed individuals who have had to hang up their dreams and stand in the unemployment line with millions of others. In my opinion, the economic crisis could have been averted long ago, and even the Wall Street and mortgage disaster impact lessened had national and state leaders paid more attention to the needs of small business owners.

When a CEO runs a company into the ground, it’s an innocuous entity. The CEO is merely losing his regular pay check and other corporate perks. But when a true small business is run into the ground, chances are high that the life savings of the business owner, customers they’ve become friends with, and long-time employees they’ve connected with personally suffer through the carnage of such an event. By the time the doors are finally shut on a small business, great sacrifices have already been for its survival. Great personal financial risks such as mortgaging personal homes to the hilt, stripping it of all available equity only to find the value dropping far below the lien amount months later, and cashing in retirement and savings accounts just to last as long as possible in hopes that a life preserver will come their way. And yet for all of this sweat, tears and sacrifice, small business owners can’t lay claim to appropriate health insurance tax deductions, can’t get access to the same affordable health care packages that large corporations enjoy, and are inundated with paper work requirements while their larger counterparts have enormous legal and accounting teams to deceive their shareholders.

When a small business owner sees fit to terminate an employee who steals from them or conducts themselves inappropriately, the state still requires them to pay unemployment benefits unless such an infraction is specifically outlined in some kind of written form that the employee has manifested the receipt of.

Large corporations have money and staff to handle these items. Many such monies derived by secret government contract negotiations, unfair labor practices, political connections, and international outsource savings. In contract, small business owners are beat up every which way they turn. They pay sales taxes when they purchase items to make their businesses run better, or make their jobs easier, and then they are assessed additional taxes by their cities on those same items merely because they possess them.

Long ignored is the fact that small businesses historically pay better average wages than big corporations, and discounted is the fact that employees are typically more satisfied working for a smaller business. There is absolutely nothing done to throw a rope for small businesses in spite of their obvious strength to the economy which has been historically present for over a century!

We’ve heard the saying “money talks.” The current economic crisis is not as a result of Wall Street collapsing, a residential mortgage scandal, or the ineptness of the Federal Reserve. It’s an inevitable manifestation of ignoring the goose the lays the golden eggs. I wonder how much worse things have to get before the REAL talking money gets listened to.

Copyright 2009 Kellene Bishop. All rights reserved. You are welcome to repost this information so long as it is credited to Kellene Bishop.

Wake up Wal-Mart

The recent drop of Wal-Mart stock proves that you just can’t entice people enough to put up with your shenanigans, even if you’re big box Wal-Mart. If Wal-Mart couldn’t win out over the Christmas holiday with everyone’s pocketbooks strapped, then you have to see that there’s a problem far worse than pricing at this big boxed embarrassment.

The worst thing the big box chain, or any business for that matter, can do is to be oblivious for the reasons behind the drop. Wal-Mart blames their 8% drop in stock value on “inclement weather, poor international numbers, and higher expenses.” Have they not read the astronomical customer complaints that their stores are receiving in record numbers nowadays?

“100% Disabled War Veteran was required to unload his disability cart and reload his purchases into a regular cart in order to take the items out of the store.”

“Customer slipped on water. Customer was scolded by the store manager for not being more careful.”

“Customer returned item due to its malfunction. Item was a replacement for previous malfunctioning item. Wal-Mart employee questioned the customer out loud, in front of large group of customers, as to the proper use of the item. The item? Bed sheets which were missing the elastic around the edges so that they could be put on the bed.

“Customer was called a “liar” by a Wal-Mart employee upon returning 30 minutes later with a bottle of Biotin due to the seal under the lid being broken. Customer had to drive over 20 minutes just to exchange a $7 item and be called a liar in front of other customer service guests.”
“Customer Service” at Wal-Mart has now been deemed broadly on the internet as Customer Torture. In my opinion, sales at Wal-Mart should have dropped more dramatically, but you had so many Wal-Mart customers who didn’t want to fight with the CS reps with a return or exchange so they just ate the money lost and went to Target to buy it instead.

There is a very good reason why Wal-Mart is now a verb, intended to mean a step down from quality ie: “We didn’t have the money to replace it, so we just “wallied” it for now.”

The ineptness runs uphill as well. Tens of thousands of customer complaints can be found on numerous websites including government business sites, and regularly include the accomplice of an incompetent manager or assistant manager. It’s bad enough that these stores bring such strife to the communities, leave behind big empty boxes, and train the consumer to accept the minimum in quality and customer abuse. But there seems to be absolutely NO respite when these valid problems arise either. It just adds insult to injury. Guess it’s high time for the stock prices to wake them up as well. May they continue to fall in accordance to their level of service… after the everyday customers get their money out of the stock, of course.

May Target and other big box stores take their cues from the Wallie Catastrophe and ensure that they do not end up on the same path. If you do, I assure you that you will be dealing with many more smiling customers instead of snarling ones—which by the way makes your employment to your community much more attractive as well.

Copyright 2009 Kellene Bishop. All rights reserved. You are welcome to repost this information so long as it is credited to Kellene Bishop.