Ola, Vikram. (The power of Duo Lingo)

My Duolingo streak is now over 200 days. 

How's my Spanish?

Not entirely mal, but not exactly muy bien. 

I can understand almost all the sentences, the little stories when I read them. If I slow down the audio, so it's really dragging, I can understand all most all the sentences, the little stories, when I listen to them.

I know a lot of words. Let's hear it for vocabulary building!

My pronunciation skills are pretty damned good - at least according to the Spanish-speaking staff at St. Francis House, who when complimenting me always have a look of astonishment on their face when they hear my accent. For whatever reason, I'm a reasonably good mimic, and can generally convince someone I know more Spanish than I do. 

But my English to Spanish translation skills are mucho limited. When presented with a sentence in English, I pretty much can return the basic elements en español. I'm mostly okay with soy v. estoy, and conozco v. sé. But I fall down on the nuances. E.g., when to use me. 

Most of this is my own damned fault. My focus is totally lacking. I'm really not concentrating on anything much other than keeping my streak going. On many (most?) days, I do the absolute minimum. Minimal listening lesson. Minimal speaking lesson. Minimal word recognition lesson. Guapo = handsome.  Film = pelicula.  Bravo, me! Streak continues! Olé, Olé, Olé, Olé!

I don't get involved in contests. Other than keeping the streak alive, I don't get into competitive mode so that I can beat complete strangers to get elevated to the Pearl League. Or whatever. 

Often, I scoot through my streak-continuation task in the middle of the night when I get up to pee. Get it over with, back for more Z's. Sometimes I do a bit more during the day, but mostly I'm satisfied with my half-baked approach. 

Despite my half-baked approach, I am using my rudimentary Spanish to communicate with the Spanish-speaking guests when I'm volunteering. So I can ask whether they need a cepillo de dientes. I can tell them that we have no more tickets for a clothing appointment, so they should come back mañana, temprano. 

Which is not to say that Duolingo isn't both brilliiant and fun.

Which was not always the case.

A few years ago, I tried Duolingo to learn German. I'm not sure why. I had no trip planned to Germany, Austria, Switzerland, or Frankenmuth, Michigan. If my mother were still alive, I might have been trying to get in touch with my inner German so I could sprecht with her in her mamaloshen. (Ok, that's Yiddish, but close enough.) But for whatever reason, I started to "learn" me some Germans.

When I was doing the German, it was a drag. I got into the streak thing, but I also got maniacally competitive, trying to outdo those complete strangers to reach to top of the daily/weekly/monthly heap. But German is hard. A lot harder than Spanish. So to keep on top of the heap, after I got through all the easy-peasy lessons, I resorted to cheating, using the Duo app on my phone while furiously looking for answers on my laptop. Which is when I decided that my efforts to learn German were kaput. So I quit.

But I do have a reason to learn Spanish. Many of the guests I work with at St. Francis House are from Latin America or Caribbean. Others are Haitians who - because they live in close proximity to the Spanish-speaking DR and/or have spent a few years living somewhere in Latin America before making their way to the USA - speak some Spanish. (I can do a bit of limping along in high school French for the French-Creole speakers.)

And the new and improved version of Duolingo - new since I was struggling/cheating my way through German - is greatly improved. The lessons are more engaging. It's a lot more fun. They've introduced a group of characters, including Vikram and Priti, the idiotic Junior, the annoying Lily, who present the Spanish sentences, who tell the stories. 

The illustrations are funner, too. 

I may not be learning all that much, but I'm enjoying it. And I'm enjoying keeping my streak going. (There is a bit of competition at hand. I'm in a family group set up by my sister Kath that includes my sister Trish, and nieces Molly and Caroline. Other than Caroline, who's doing Italian, we're all doing Spanish and are all streakers. We also pepper our convos with occasional palabras.)

Duolingo is really, really, really good at getting its users to come back day in, day out. 

The ability to get people hooked and keep them engaged is one of the holy grails in business. Few companies do it better than Duolingo, the world’s most popular app for learning another language, which takes advantage of two concepts that translate to lots of other industries: streaks and notifications.

It’s why Duolingo has become one of the biggest winners in the global battle for your attention. 

...It’s not just because you’re intrinsically motivated. It’s mostly because behind that cartoon owl named Duo is a large team of engineers, researchers, strategists and product managers giving you that extra push.

...The best way to learn a language is getting in the habit of daily practice, and the best way to form that habit is getting a well-timed nudge, which makes streaks and notifications essential to Duolingo’s surprising business success.

Humans are so wired to look for streaks that we see them even where they may not exist. Duolingo takes our propensity for streaks and turns it into a motivational tactic. It turns out people are willing to do all sorts of peculiar stuff if they have the incentive of a streak—like sneaking out of a bar right before midnight to speak a few minutes of Japanese.  (Source: Wall Street Journal)

I'm certainly someone who's gotten sucked into streaking. But I don't seem to get all that many notifications. 

In fact, I don't seem to be getting many of them at all, even though - as far as I can tell - I don't have notifications turned off. 

Maybe it's because I'm usually doing my minimal streak-keeping at 2 a.m. According to the article, most Duolingo-ers  - and there are 30 million of us - don't get around to Duolingo until late in the evening - 10 p.m. or so. 

Anyway, my streak is really nothing compared to my sister Kath's - she's more than double my meager number - let alone when compared to the person who's up to over 4,000 days. 

Notifications or not, I'm going to keep my streak going. And I'm really going to try to do a better job of focusing, of concentrating, of not taking the quick and easy way out. I really want to get more serious about what Duolingo can offer. Maybe I'll actually learn enough to have a simple, multi-sentence conversation with one of the folks at St. Francis House. 

Bravo, Duolingo! I'll never be able to do it without you!

I know, it's only work 'n' roll...

My first job out of business school ws with an offbeat little consulting firm (specializing in econometric and financial modeling), and about as Cambridge as Cambridge could be.

Among our traditions was Friday Party, a beer-wine-junk-food gathering held each Friday late in the afternoon. Although  illegal at the time, it was okay to light up a joint and mellow out. Over time, if you wanted to smoke, you had to removeyourself from the party area, and hole up in the "production room," where our designers (who worked on brochures, presentations, and documentation) had their shop. Over more time, coke replaced weed as the drug of choice. If grass was casally illegal, then coke was really illegal, and its use was at least quasi-frowned upon.

One time - on a Friday afternoon, still during pre-party work-ish hours - I had a business need to meet with one of the designers and found the door locked. When I was let in, a saw a couple of my colleagues leaning over a mirror, using a tool of the production room trade (an Exacto knife) to line up a few rails. Oops!

(Note: I was neither a smoker nor a snorter. I might have a beer or a glass of wine at Friday party, but I was mostly there for the junk food, especially if it included M&M's.)

I also had a stoner colleague who would smoke in his car during lunch, and spend the afternoon in a daze. (The company was just outside of Harvard Square, and if we were heading into the Square for lunch, we passed the parking lot, where this fellow would be sitting in his car, windows all rolled up, toking away. His job was in finance, and one time he left a printout with everyone's salary info on it, in the communal computer room (where we worked on paper-based DECWriter terminals to connect to a mainframe computer). I discovered the listing while working late, and shoved it under his office door for him. (Not, of course, without giving it a good long glance. No one's perfect.)

I know that, over the years, I worked with other folks who were stoned while in the office (or drinking heavily at lunch, or who kept booze in their desks). 

But even though I do drink, and even though in the past I was an occasional smoker, I don't think that being out of it is the recipe for productivity and effectiveness. I'm all for socializing a la Friday party, and doing a bit of post-work chillaxin' over a beer, or even a passed joint. But high at work? Ah, no.)

Others disagree. And among the others who disagree is an outfit called Work'n'roll. (Website: https://worknroll.nyc/)

Work'n'roll is a co-working and event space located in the Chelsea section (where else, other than possibly Brooklyn) of Manhattan. 

Redefining Work and Community! Experience the pulse of New York City's creative scene as we break stigma and embrace Coworking and Events. Our dynamic spaces foster collaboration, creativity, and connections. Join us in shaping the future of work – where innovation thrives and community flourish.

So far, so...neutral. Who doesn't want to redefine work and community? Who doesn't want to work in a dyanmic space that fosters collaboration, creativity, and connections? Who doesn't want to innovate, thrive, flourish?

Well, when it comes to work, not I. But that's only because I'm retired. If I were just starting out, well, sure. 

About that stigma thang, apparently old cluckety-clucketing old biddy work geezers don't approve of being stoned at work. And Work'n'Roll's out to do something about that. 

Smoking and working is a way of life, a ritual that humans all over New York cherish, perhaps without realizing it. Too often in today’s world of hustle, stress, grind and judgement do we forget to be ourselfs. Our coworkers look at us with condemnation when they see us enjo[y]ing a blunt and our family thinks that cannabis makes us lazy.

That’s why we are on a mission to dismantle the negative stigma behind cannabis. We hope to remind people to carve fifteen minutes from their busy lives to simply... pause. Experience calm. Then take a hit.

Maybe if I were young and facing the specter of AI taking my job, I'd want to be carving out fifteen minute per diem to light up a big fat old blunt. But I'm persnickety enough to observe that whoever put the info up on the "Our Mission" page omitted the "y" in "enjoying," and old biddy enough to wonder whether they were stoned when they wrote that copy. (Not that my blog isn't filled with un-stoned typos galore. But this is my playspace, not my workspace.)

Truly, Work 'n' Roll sounds like a most excellent co-working space. It's chill. There's unlimited tea (hopefully normie tea like Irish and English breakfast, and not just stuff like Chai). It's pet friendly (which is great, as long as there are no skittish, high-strung, aggressive male standard poodles like the one who gave me a Level 3 bite in the arm last month while I was chatting in our building's foyer with his owner). 

It's not clear to me whether Work 'n' Roll welcomes those who aren't in the cannabis biz, as their website does state:

At Work'n'Roll, our creative environments provide you with everything you need to achieve business success in a cannabis industry. Be part of a thriving entrepreneurial community and benefit from exciting opportunities to learn, network and relax during the workday and at one of our events.

Other than that, I do have my doubts on whether it makes all that much business sense to be one toke over the line (sweet Jesus) while attempting to work. Good thing I'm an old, crotchety, non-working geezer.

Magnifique? Formidable? Just plain fou? (How about that Olympics Opening Ceremony!)

I suppose I should be more interested in the sports, but mostly what I like about the Olympcis is the Opening Ceremony. 

My favorite part is always the parade of the athletes - the poky little countries with a handful (or even a fingerful) of competitors; the places I've never heard of (Eswatini, which used to be Swaziland); all those young folks with their joy and pride on display - where I love seeing (and critiquing) the uniforms.

This time around, the parade was something different, as the teams cruised down the Seine in boats of all shapes and sizes, from cool little wooden speed boats to massive tourist bateaux mouches. Most of the countries shared their transpo with another country or two, but some - from itty-bitty 
handful/fingerful delegations to major cohorts like the US of A - got their own.

None of the outfits stood out particularly, but that may have been because it was harder to see the full regalia when folks were standing behind a boat rail, especially once it started to pour and the clear plastic ponchos came out and on. 

The American uniforms were okay - a bit bland, a bit boring, a bit safe. Ralph Lauren Polo preppy: never in style, never out of style. At least this time around the polo-player logo is not as prominently featured as it has been in the past. 

Beyond the march (or, this year, the float) of the athletes, and the outfits, I'm always interested in seeing what the Opening Ceremony has to offer in terms of beautfy, grandiosity, and out-and-out weirdness. And the Paris Olympics didn't disappoint. 

What's French for what a mish-mosh?

I understand that there was an attempt at thematic coherence (more or less) through a dozen tableaux based on the words enchante,synchronicity, liberty and equality, fraternity, sisterhood, sportsmanship, festivity, darkness, solidarity, solemnity and eternity. And I will admit that my attention wasn't exactly rapt. 

But most of the time while the different tableaux were scooting past, I was shaking (or scratching) ma tête at the silliness of the goings on. 

Pink squishies cavorting on the river's banks. Lady Gaga doing a fan dance. A headless Marie Antoinette. Faceless parkour. In a move borrowed from Night at the Museum and/or Harry Potter, Louvre art works throwing off their frame or pedestal chains. Someone singing Imagine while on what appeared to be a floating garbarge barge. Heavy metal guys playing from balconies. Drag queens (mais oui!). An extremely long build to the lighting of the torch. (Where's that speed boat on the pitch-black Seine heading, anyway?)

This is France, so outré was to be expected. Still, I came away feeling that the experience of watching four hours of the Opening Ceremony was as close to an acid trip as I'm every going to take.

It sure didn't help that the narrators included Peyton Manning and Kelly Clarkson who, charming though they may be, had about as much to add to the narration as I did. Wow! Cool! Look at that!

And it sure didn't help that the only French athletes that I recognized were former NBA star Tony Parker, perhaps the most American of French athletes (he holds dual citizenship), and footballer Zindine Zidane. 

There were some things that I liked a lot.

I've heard some complaints that the French turned the traditional torch bowl into a hot air balloon, but I got a kick out of it. 

And I'm 100% in favor of lighting up the Eiffel Tower. That I could watch 24/7.

My favorite moment was when Celine Dion, who has been experiencing some pretty grave health issues, absolutely torched an Edith Piaf torch song. Magnifique et formidable! Nothing fou about that performance. Brava, Celine, and welcome back to the stage.

Inevitably, there were some who took offense. Some American right-wingers criticized the drag queen scene that they interpreted as an anti-Christian attack, making fun of the Last Supper. (It was supposed to replicate a Dionysian banquet, but the drag queens would have raised hackles even if the pissers-and-moaners had been aware that Dionysus wasn't even at the Last Supper.) 

And I read that some folks complained that Celine Dion - a Canadian and native French-speaker - sang in French. While in Paris. Which is in France. Imbéciles!

Anyway, I guess now I'll just settle into my usual Olympic watching mode, which includes keeping a vague eye on the medal count and occasionally checking in on some sport or the other. (Sure, track, field, basketball, and swimming performances are great. And there's generally a clear winner. But give me the absolutely 100% subjective sports any old day. How else can I develop instant expertise and start second judging the scores awarded in sports I may not have even been aware were part of the Olympics (or even sports) before I tuned in?)

For me, Olympic mode also means keeping an eye on any scandals: the Canadian women's soccer team and their spy drone; the Dutch beach volleyball player who, a few years back, at the age of 19, served a one-year prison sentence for raping a 12 year old; the British dressage queen banned from the Games when a video of her maltreating a horse emerged.

(Dressage? Hmmmm. What kind of a sport is it that involves training animals to perform maneuvers that are entirely unnatural to them? Skateboarding's more of a sport than this is.)

I can't imagine the circumstances where I'd be caught chanting USA! USA! But, of course, I want to see the Americans win a lot of medals. 

But I also want to see those poky little countries win a few, especially the ones that've never won one in the past, the ones that had just a handful/fingerful of athletes in their speedboat. 

And I'm already looking forward to the Opening Ceremony of the 2026 Winter Games in Milan. Bet it will be gorgeous - and a lot less outré than what Paris put on display.

That said, rain and all, I'm guessing the Parisians had a lot of fun putting their show on.

C'est si bon!

Ready for your closeup, Sandy? ARF!

Rudd Weatherwax.

Now there's a name from my childhood. My childhood and that of every Baby Boomer who grew up watching Lassie on three-channel TV.

Weatherwax was Lassie's trainer, and his name appeared in the credits of each and every Lassie episode where the brave and brilliant pooch rescued Jeff or Timmy from some perilous situation or otherwise staved off doom in the mythic town of Calverton.

There were plenty of other animals - mostly dogs and horses - on the TV shows of my childhood. Rin-Tin-Tin starred in the eponymous series. (I liked Rinty just fine. I was amused by one of his co-stars who played the character Sargeant Biff O'Hara. I had a crush on the guy who played Lieutenant Rip Masters. But for some reason I was colossally creeped out by the kid who played "Corporal Rusty." I was generally enthralled by child actors, but for some reason, Lee Aaker was an exception. But. I. Digress.)

Roy Rogers had both horses (Trigger and Buttermilk), and a dog (Bullet). Gene Autry had his horse, Champion.

After Lassie, the most famous dog of my era had to be Old Yeller, another eponymous star - this time of a tear-jerking Disney film. 

Over the years, I've seen plenty of animals on the small and large screen, but none of them standout in my mind - other than the cutie-pie in Marley & Me.

And there are plenty of animal "stars" that I've never seen "act." The rats Willard, Ben top this list.

What I've never done, other than knowing the name of Rudd Weatherwax, is given a moment's thought to the human behind the animal. Until I read a recent New Yorker article featuring "Bill Berloni, who has been supplying, hiring, and coaching animals for stage and screen for nearly fifty years."

Berloni was recently brought in to manage Bing, the Great Dane who'll be co-starring with Naomi Watts in an upcoming film, The Friend. 

Berloni has had one hell of an interesting career. 

Berloni started out, nearly fifty years ago, wanting to be an actor. When he couldn't afford drama school, he got work at Connecticut's Goodspeed Opera House building scenery. In 1976, Goodspeed was premiering Annie, and they needed a dog to play Sandy. 

“There was a part for a dog, but they had no trainer,” Berloni said. “I was nineteen. I had no experience. They gave me thirty-five dollars to buy a dog and feed it all summer. I went down to the Connecticut Humane Society and found a dog that was going to be put to sleep the next day. They wanted seven dollars for the dog. That was the first Sandy.” Sandy had apparently suffered abuse and spooked easily, so Berloni kept the dog with him at all times, leashing him to the stage while he built sets.

That first attempt to musicalize the Little Orphan Annie comic strip flopped, but Sandy's performance wasn't panned, and the following year, when Annie was given another go, "Sandy and Berloni were asked to reprise their roles." 

This time, the show took off, and if it wasn't a matter of a star is born, it sure was a matter of a professional theatrical animal trainer is born.

And Bill Berloni's charter goes way beyond just the Sandies and Apollos (the dog Bing plays) of the world. While filming The Friend, here's what else he was up to:

“On Monday morning, I have a go-see in New Jersey,” he said one afternoon. “It’s a cow I’ve never met. A milking cow.” He had to drop off his bulldog Myrtle, who is a regular on “And Just Like That . . . ,” the sequel to “Sex and the City,” for an A.T. & T. commercial shoot in New Jersey. He was also rehearsing “an animal” (an N.D.A. prevented him from saying what kind) for “Only Murders in the Building” and arranging a falcon shoot for a show called “The Savant” (which he referred to as “the hawk job” when he mistakenly texted me about it).

He was consulting on a hit play from London, “The Hunt,” which was opening at St. Ann’s Warehouse. He showed me a photo of the setup on his phone. (As he did so, a text popped up on his screen, from Nguyen: “You texted the wrong thread.”) In the play, a hunting dog has to sit patiently inside a glass house, with a trapdoor underneath, without moving or turning his head, while men with deer heads run around the stage. 

When I was at the peak of my tech my freelance tech product marketing writing career, I sometimes found myself juggling a dozen projects from ten or twelve clients. It was hard enough shifting my mindset from one project to the other, let alone experiencing everything like this. And my work never involved cows, let alone men running around wearing deer heads. (Metaphorical chickens running around with their heads cut off, but sure. But never anything as intense as Berloni's work.)

Berloni is both an animal trainer/manager and an agent. His animal roster includes, but is not limited to:

Dogs and cats: most breeds or mutts, all sizes and colors.

Farm Animals: Horses, Donkeys, Cows, Pigs, Sheep, Goats, Llamas, Ducks ,Chickens

Small Animals: Rabbits, Hamsters, Guinea Pigs, Rats, Mice

Birds: Macaws, Parrots, Cockatoos, Parakeets, Finches, Canaries, Pigeons, Doves, Owls, Hawks, Falcons, Crows

Reptiles: Snakes, Lizards, Frogs, Turtles, Iquanas

Insects: Spiders, Butterflies, Cockroaches

Please Note: We do not handle big cats, bears or primates. (Source: Theatrical Animals) 

I have some questions. As in, how do you train a cockroach? But mostly, I'm pretty impressed. I'm also impressed that he's dedicated to rescues, "animals of all species and sizes, found in shelters, humane societies or rescue leagues, for Broadway, off-Broadway, national tours, regional theatres, special events, the New York City Ballet, motion pictures, television and commercials."

Then there's this:

"When their careers are over, the animals return to Bill’s Connecticut farm."

This is remarkable, admirable, fascinating. But I still have some questions. How do you return a cockroach to the farm?

Priya B's insights...

By the standards of most folks, Priya Bhambi was having a successful career for herself.

With an undergraduate degreee and an MBA from Northeastern University, she was a VP at Takeda, a well-known pharma, where her role was working on the company's overall technology foundation, with a particular focus on digital transformation. I'm not privy to her salary info, but I'll make a quasi-educated guess here

that her total compensation package was well north of $300K.

Now that figure is not as mind-boggling as it sounds. It costs a lot to live here. 

Still, you can certainly live pretty darn comfortably in Boston on $300K.

But it wasn't enough for Priya and her boyfriend Samuel Montronde, especially when they were hankering to live in in the trendy Boston Seaport District and especially when wedding bells were starting to chime. 

Whatever the motivation, the duo wanted to live much larger than they could on a meager $300K (and whatever Montronde was bringing in). 

So they cooked up a fake consulting company to do some fake consulting work - approved by Bhambi, un-performed by Montronde - to the tune of $2.3M, which was:

...used the fraudulently obtained funds to purchase a Mercedes-Benz Model E; purchase a diamond engagement ring; make a down payment on a $1.875 million condominium in Boston’s Seaport neighborhood; and place a deposit on a wedding venue. (Source: US DOJ) 

Bhambi has now pleaded guilty. Sentencing to follow. (She's facing up to twenty years and a hefty fine...) Plus:

In connection with the charges, the Court issued seizure warrants for the Mercedes, over $1 million in fraud proceeds from accounts the defendants controlled, $49,985 from the wedding venue deposit and issued a restraining order to preserve the Seaport condominium for forfeiture.

Recently, when the news of her plea deal came out, after shaking my head at wonderment about what a freaking fool she is, I went to the Google to see if I could find a bit more info on Priya Bhambi. 

Among the goodies I came across was an article by Bhambi published on a LinkedIn site last summer - months after she was indicted - in which she blathered on about how "Digital Transformation is Fostering Workplace Diversity." Great if that's the case,  but EmployabilityLife might want to stop taking advice from Priya Bhambi. 

For example: she writes about how those hoping for a more inclusive and diverse workplace should focus on monitoring and metrics. Focusing on monitoring and metrics is likely what tripped up Bhambi and her co-conspirator. I mean, while they managed to get away with their theft for a while, somewhere it looks like there were some controls at Takeda that kicked in. Some monitoring. Some metrics.

And Bhambi was quite a bit up on "remote and flexible work arrangements... granting personnel more freedom over where, when, and how they work, resulting in greater job satisfaction and better mental health." Wonder if it was those remote and flexible work arrangements that enabled Bhambi to get away with their scam for a while. And stealing a couple of million bucks no doubt gave her "greater job satisfaction" but probably not, in the long run, "better mental health."

And amazingly Priya Bhambi's personal/professional website is still up, where we learn that:

Priya Bhambi is a highly accomplished executive in the biotech and pharmaceutical industry...[who] has consistently achieved remarkable results and contributed to organizational growth.

She goes on to tout her "innovative mindset" - I'll give her that - and her ongoing ability to "achieve cost savings." Ummmm....Then there's the fact that she's "deeply committed to giving back to the community." You don't say. (One hand giveth, one hand taketh away.)

Oh, and she's "a passionate baker" who's also "passionate about dance," particularly Bhangra - a really fun-looking form of Indian dance, which I'm guessing would have factored into the dream wedding she was planning on throwing for herself.

Reading about Priya Bhambi, she comes across as highly intelligent, highly accomplished, interesting, driven, good. WTF went wrong? 

I really don't get embezzlement. Even if people think it's just okie dokie to put their hand in their company's till right on up to the elbow, don't they worry that they'll get caught???

What a moron, what a fool, what a fraud...(What a disgrace to her family...)

Pretty insightful when it comes to the digital technology world. Wonder if she's equally insightful when it comes to thinking about what motivated her to toss her life away.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Prior Priya Pinkslip. 

Worcester Man

Joel Kaimakani Libed is an entertainer - singer, dancer, actor. And like a lot of entertainers - the ones who are plenty talented but we've never heard of - he pulls together a life in the arts by going on the road - touring with musicals, appearing in local dinner theaters, entertaining on cruises. (And, naturally, augmenting his living in the arts by working as a waiter.)

Although Joel Kaimakani Libed is a native of Hawaii, somewhere along his way, he made his way from the Island Paradise to the Heart of the Commonwealth, and now makes his home in Worcester, Massachusetts (a paradise in its own right, of course).

Recently, Libed was on tour with a troupe called A Taste of Ireland, which I take is akin to River Dance and/or Celtic Thunder. 

One of their stops was in Austin, Minnesota, home of Hormel Foods - makers, among other things, of SPAM.

As a kid, I loved SPAM. I'm embarrassed to admit that my sibs and I would clamor for it. Alas, my mother would only make it when my father wasn't around. As a WWII Navy vet, he'd had it with SPAM, thank you. But we all loved it, and I can still conjure up the burning, chemical tastes of SPAM on the tip of my tongue. And that's after decades, as it's been a good long time since I tasted SPAM, and I have zero interest in changing that.

But that's just me.

Joel Kaimakani Libed, on the other hand, is a big fan.

So when his Taste of Ireland tour landed in Austin, Minnesota and he figured out just where he was, he was all in on taking advantage:

When he looked up the area before the visit, Libed noted that the SPAM Museum — an institution fully devoted to the precooked meat products made by Hormel Foods — was near the venue where they would be performing. During a 30-minute break, he invited the dancers to join him.

“I’m from Hawaii, it’s a big deal,” he explained. (Source: Boston Globe)

And apparently SPAM is a big deal in Hawaii. When my father was gagging over Not SPAM Again meals in the WWII Navy chowline, Hawaiians were being introduced to this, ahem, delicacy, by the colossal military presence in the Pacific. And the islanders embraced SPAM, turning it into a pillar of their local cuisine. Lately, it's become quite on trend. 

Anyway, Libed loaded up on SPAM merch at the museum, and:

After the troupe returned, arms full of SPAM merchandise, Libed began talking about his love for the food with a woman who was working on their costumes. She briefly left the theater, and when she got back handed Libed a SPAM variety pack, including a couple of a limited Hawaiian Collectors Edition. He carried the hefty gift with him throughout the tour — in addition to the shirt, mug, and magnet he purchased — and it was only while packing to come home that he realized the cans would have to go in his carry-on.

Bacon? Teriyaki? Maple flavored SPAM. Be still my stomach. 

For some reason, the presence of all that SPAM - 15 pounds of canned goodness - triggered a TSA inspection when Libed got into the security line at the airport in Minneapolis. And when the TSA agent started pulling the cans out of his carryon bag, Libed (what else?) video'd the inspection. 

 “I instantly just started thinking of everything bad that could happen. How do I explain myself? This is going to look super suspicious. They’re going to probably think I’m really weird,” said Libed, 32...He later posted the video on TikTok [where else?], where it has now been viewed more than 5 million times — and even caught the attention of the SPAM brand.

SPAM representatives have "sent him clothes, a slicer, and other varieties as thanks for his high-profile support.

“Seeing Joel’s TikTok just shows how incredible of a fan base there is for the SPAM brand, or as Joel calls it, our ‘SPAM fam,’” Jennesa Kinscher, senior brand manager for the SPAM brand, said by email.

“We especially loved his dedication to getting our products home with him to Worcester!” she said. “He is a true fan, and we are so lucky to have him in the family.”

So Libed is not just an entertainer. He's not just a part time, when-not-on-tour waiter. He's now a SPAM influencer. And he may even be influencing the restaurant where he works to add a SPAM item to their menu. It will be a Joel-inspired hamburger that comes with pineapple and teriyaki aioli that was already on his restaurant's menu, but will now come with a slab o' SPAM larded on. It may not take off. After all, even Worcester's own Joel Libed acknowledges that SPAM is not so popular in Massachusetts, as folks around here understandably associate it with WWII peasant food. (C.f., me.)

Meanwhile, Joel Kaimakani Libed is hearing from folks back in Hawaii that's he's now something a a "hometown hero." But he's a Worcester Man now, and the Heart of the Commonwealth can always use another hometown hero. Aloha, Joel. Aloha, SPAM. 

So much for my immuno-superiority

After so many years of dodging the covid bullet, I started to chalk it up to a my superior immune system. This was, of course, a ridiculous assumption, espectially given the evidence that my immune system is not all that superior. I have a couple of minor - and harmless, harmless-to-me anyway -  auto-immune conditions: sarcoidosis (which has been in remission for decades) and vitiligo (white patches on my arms and legs that aren't really all that noticeable, given how white I am to begin with). If anything, my immune system is a tad wacky. Maybe even wacky enough to ward off covid.

I also thought it might be some weird genetic thing. Even though almost everyone I know has had covid, until this year (when my sister Trish had a minor case) my 4 sibs and I have been covid-free. Even after Trish's outbreak broke our run, I thought it could still be some genetic thing. After all, Trish has the gene that makes cilantro taste like soap, while I don't.

But that theory of the case perished last Monday, when I tested positive.

I had been feeling punk on Sunday - tired, soar-throaty, swollen-glandy, head-coldy, coughy-coldy - so mostly I laid low for the day. Not a bad cold. I've had a lot worse. But annoying. 

By Monday morning, still feeling tired and crappy, I decided to call in sick to my volunteer job, letting them know I would probably be in on Tuesday. All I needed, I told myself, was some rest and OJ. And, salt. Yeah, salt. That's the ticket: potato cihps.

I didn't think whatever it was was much of anything, but decided I should probably take a covid test to make sure I was okey-dokey and well enough to go into St. Francis House.

Turns out, when I got out my supply of covid tests, all the kits were  expired - a few months past the FDA extension -  so I went out to my local and got a fresh one. 

BINGO!

Even before I started the 15 minute timer the test line had turned dark pink. As in almost black pink. An indication that I was carrying a good-sized viral load.

Truly, I was surprised. After all this time, I really had started to think that I was immune. 

Ah, no.

I emailed my doctor to get her advice on whether to Paxlovid or not to Paxlovid, and one of her PA's got back to me, suggesting a virutal visit with another PA. 

We talked through the pros and cons and although, by virtue of age, I was eligible for the drug, given my good health and minor symptoms, it was entirely up to me. So I took a pass. Why gunk up my system when the risk of covid turning into a hospital stay, let alone a death sentence, was nano-low.

All that was left to do was text my near and dear to let them know the news, and settle in.

I was concerned that I may have passed germs on to my brother Rich and niece Caroline, as I'd seen them on the prior Saturday. But so far so good. 

Alas, I had to back out of Friday's Noah Kahan concert at Fenway. 

And, of course, I had to beg off my volunteer work at St. Francis House until I test negative.

But mostly, since my covid bout has been so mild, there's been nothing to do but kickback. So I've been lolling around, mostly reading - can't bear to watch the news - and watching some baseball (including the All Star Game, where Jarren Duran of the Red Sox was named MVP). 

And ordering a bunch of small things from Amazon:

• More covid kits
• Lysol anti-bacterial wipes
• A few books (not like I don't have plenty of books sitting around, but I wanted to finally finish the Don Winslow Rhode Island trilogy, and a friend had just texted me a recommendation - Jeannette Haien's The All of It - and while I normally try to get all my books from my indie, desperate times...)
• Marcona almonds (amazingly difficult to find in person)
• Vicks VapoInhalers

Fortunately, my larder is always stocked and, as I'd done a good-sized shop last Saturday, I had plenty of fresh fruits and veggies. Bonus when I remembered that i still had a couple of loaves of Irish soda bread in the freezer. So, nummers. 

Too hot to do much walking outside, but I've been managing to get 5 miles a day in by just pacing around here. (I do have a treadmill, but it needs to be oiled, and I'm not up to that at the moment. Cough, cough.)

Once I test negative: back to my normal life. Back to St. Francis House which is, in all likelihood, where I picked up covid to begin with. Not pointing fingers, but this is the most crowded place I frequent and there are a lot of germ vectors floating around those halls. Regrettably, I haven't been wearing my mask since winter, nor have I been hand sanitizing my hands as regularly as I once did. This when there was a small outbreak at SFH a few weeks ago. Back to masking, once I return - which is too bad, because it makes it a lot more difficult to communicate with our guests...

Anyway, while I've awaited negativity, I've mostly been lazing around, feeling like some combo of the Seven Dwarves: Sneezy, Sleepy, Dopey, Grumpy. Maybe a teensy-weensy bit Happy, given that my case has been so mild. Luckily, I haven't needed Doc. (All that's missing is Bashful. Aw...)

On Friday - Day Five - I tested, and the positive popped instantly and "loudly" (if an immediate dark line can makes a noise). 

On Friday evening, I was able to attend the Noah Kahan concert via livestream. Not as much fun as being live at Fenway, but it was a great concert and a lot of fun. (When Noah's family all came on the stage for the finale - Stick Season - and sang and danced with him. Then, as Noah was leaving, they played the Red Sox anthem, Sweet Caroline, and all 38,000 fans sang along in good old Fenway fashion. As I did, sitting in my den.)

Yesterday, I took another covid test, and I'm still strongly and instantly positive. So, still no St. Francis House. Maybe later this week...

Mostly, when it comes to covid, I'm thankful. Thankful that the regular vaccinations I've gotten have kept this manageable, as has also been the case for millions upon millions of others. While some people are claiming they were better off four years ago, they must have forgotten the NY scenes of the ambulances careening through the streets, the makeshift morgues.

And I'm still a bit bummed o find that my immune system ain't all that superior.

Sigh...

When dreams die hard

After I graduated from college, I started out in a PhD program in political science at Columbia. 

I can't remember what I was thinking, other than that I wanted to live in New York City. But I must have envisioned myself as a college professor.

It didn't take me long to figure out that, although I did enjoy living in NYC, I wasn't cut out to get a PhD.

Given the era, and the demand for professors, and the fact that my PhD would have been a prestigious, Ivy League one, I might have landed a job teaching somewhere. Probably not at a particularly high-end school, but maybe at a nice, middle-tier liberal arts college somewhere.

But other folks near and dear to me were cut out to get their PhD.

My husband was a PhD economist; my brother Tom -  mid-career as an engineer on large scale construction projects -  got his doctorate in civil engineering. 

Although he took a couple of occasional adjunct jobs at BU and Brandeis as favors, and enjoyed his teaching stints, Jim never pursued a career as professor. Tom ended up shifting to academia and spent many years happily teaching at Northern Arizona University. 

And a friend of mine from business school had a doctorate from Stanford, and had been a tenure-track professor at BU when she decided that she'd had it with academia.

But PhD was just not for me. I had no idea where my ambitions lay - 50+ years on, I'm still trying to figure that one out - but it wasn't with me in the baby-blue and black Columbia doctoral robes and a natty velvet beret.

There are plenty of folks out there who do want to get PhDs, who do want to teach. And most of them, in the current environment, are out of luck, stuck on the boulevard of broken dreams.

Maren Wood, who founded a firm that helps those with doctorates find jobs, says that the market for full-time professors has collapsed. Between 2007 and 2020, the number of openings in philosophy dropped by roughly half. The number of openings in English fell by about 60 percent.

Universities staffed up to accommodate millennials, she says, and now they’re trying to cope with declining enrollments, which are predicted to continue indefinitely. “There’s nothing wrong with a PhD,” says Wood, chief executive of Beyond the Professoriate, whose platform is currently used by Harvard and BC. “The problem is there are no jobs.” (Source: Boston Globe)

Which leaves those who so dearly want to teach hustling for whatever part-time, adjunct jobs they can string together, scuttling from one ill-paid job at College A to another ill-paid job at College B. 

Wood comes by her knowledge the hard way: up close and personal. With a PhD in history.

... her breaking point was in 2011 when she came in second place for a job thousands of miles away. The gig was a one-year position. In Reno. And she was told the pay wouldn’t even be enough to live on.

The woman doing the hiring encouraged Wood. “You came in second place!” she exclaimed.

“For what?” Wood asked.

Wood was smart to get out, and smarter still to figure out a business that would help PhDs find work outside of academia.

Over 30 percent of nontenure-track educators in higher education make under $25,000 a year, according to a 2019 survey by the American Federation of Teachers. Another 30 percent make between $25,000 and $50,000 a year. But over the past few decades, the number of adjuncts has grown much faster than the ranks of full-time faculty.

I know a number of poets and writers who are adjuncts, and it can be brutal. They stay in for love of writing. Those with PhDs stick with it for love of the field they've chosen. 

It's easy to see why the schools keep the PhD pipeline going. The students they're churning out with degrees are a source of cheap labor while they're pursuing their degrees. My husband, like all graduate students of his era (mid-1970's) taught sections of economics classes when he was at Harvard; I actually don't recall if he got paid, or whether it was a requirement at the time. And, once they've earned their doctorates, those newly minted PhD's are a cheap source of labor as adjuncts off the tenure track.

And for the full, tenured professors who work with grad students, advising them on their research and theses, well, it's probably more satisfying than teaching grade-grubbing undergrads who may only be taking their course because it's required. And in many fields, it's a great source of free/cheap labor to work as research assistants. 

But given that so few are going to be professors, the students are better off looking elsewhere for employment. 

In some fields, there are many lucrative positions in industry. I don't imagine that there are many biochemistry PhDs who can't find a job in pharma. 

Others will end up in positions that may only be tangentially related to their interests. (My friend from business school was a Jane Austen scholar. She ended up in tech product management.)

I feel bad for those who'd set their sights on jobs as professors when there are so few of those jobs out there. But that's life. And while they were pursuing their PhDs, they at least got to spend their time working on a topic that they were likely passionately interested in, which is more than a lot of folks ever get to experience. 

Still, hard to see dreams die hard for anyone. Glad I was never such a dreamer (but maybe, just maybe, I should have been...). Too late now! I'll have to live and die content with my little old non-academic master's.

Patagonia - one way to force the issue

If I were asked to imagine the work culture at Patagonia, I'd say it was outdoors-y (duh!), crunchy-granola, do-goody, and young. And very conscious of and committed to their workplace culture. 

But even the most crunchy-granola, do-goody companies sometimes have to have lay-offs. And Patagonia recently had to thin the ranks and pinkslip one-third of their customer service reps. During the pandemic, when we were all stuck in doors except for the times when we were all out experiencing the great outdoors on our own or with our pods, Patagonia had hired a lot of CSR's to staff their CX (Customer Experience) department - to the tune that they were "running 200-300% overstaffed for much of the year." I don't know how "200-300% overstaffing" gets resolved by getting rid of one-third of the workers, but layoff math does tend to get a bit squirrelly.

Anyway, a couple of weeks ago Patagonia informed 90 of their CSR's (CXR's) that they had a choice: they could relocate to live closer to one of Patagonia's seven hub cities or accept a severance package. 

All 90 of the pinkslipped are remote. But so are the 160 or so other CSR's/CXR's who didn't get the heave-ho offer. The other guys just happen to live within 60 miles of, and in the same state as, a hub city. (The hubs are Reno, Salt Lake City, Dallas, Austin, Chicago, Pittsburgh or Atlanta. None curiously, in California, where Patagonia HQ is located.)

Amazingly, for a do-goody, crunchy-granola company, Patagonia is as sucky at layoffs as almost every other company in the whole wide world, as demonstrated by the way the pinkslips were delivered.

On layoff Tuesday:

...the affected workers had their customers service calls shut down and were told to join a video conference “town hall” meeting with management.

"For the half an hour between when they turned the phones off and when they had the meeting, it was super anxious," the customer service employee said. "Nobody knew what was going to happen. They never do anything like this, an unscheduled meeting." (Source: Ventura County Star)

Oh, there are suckier ways - mass emails or texts, anyone? - but turning off systems access is right up there. (I once worked for a company that, a couple of days before a big layoff, edited the company contact list and put a "Z" before the names of everyone scheduled for the RIF. It didn't take long for someone to figure out that all you had to do was scroll to the bottom of the employee roster and see if your name had a "Z" in front of it all of a sudden.)

The reasoning behind locating closer to a hub was the importance of in-person culture. But the reps near the hub cities will still be allowed to work remotely, except for one in-person day per month.

“What we learned, with all of these employees being fully remote, is that our culture and some of the things that we really hold dear in our culture were suffering, because people weren’t together,” [spokesperson Corley Kenna] said.

The hope is that the remote reps will flock into the hub to:

..."participate in community events, film screenings, yoga, group runs, everything we offer at our locations,” Kenna said. “We’re Patagonia, so we love to encourage people to get outside together and engage with the community.” 

But, but, but...how does coming into your local hub once a month save the held-dear culture from suffering? Why couldn't a worker remoter-than 60 miles get into the hub for "in person connection" once a month and stay put in their home. (Employees at the California home office are expected to work in-person three days a week.)

I'm guessing that even though the reps will only be required to come in one day a month, they'll see the handwriting on the rock-climbing wall and realize that they better get their quarter-zip selves into the office a lot more than that for the group fun-fests.

The kicker here was that the impacted employees were given just three days to make the should I stay or should I go decision. Three days!

During the meeting, everyone listened in disbelief, according to the customer service employee who spoke with The Star. Having just three days to decide whether to move to Reno, Pittsburgh or any of the other cities was particularly upsetting, the employee said.

"It’s a huge decision to make if you're going to uproot your life and go to another city, and you're supposed to decide that in two or three days?" the employee said.

No surprise that most of the 90 CSR's/CXR's are taking the severance package. (Three days!!!) 

The package is reasonably good - a minimum of 13 weeks, 2 weeks per year for those who've been with Patagonia more than 6.5 years - and includes a year's work of medical insurance. So there's that.

And don't get me wrong. I'm a believer in workplace culture, and I think a strong, positive culture is best achieved when employees are all under one roof at least a couple of days a week. I like the hybrid model that many companies now have in place, with a couple of days working from home (eliminating commuting stress and giving employees more flex for running errands, etc.) and the rest in person.

It's just that Patagonia's way of forcing the issue strikes me as strange. Between the three-day take-it-or-leave it offer, and the only one day in person, I just don't get it. Not for a do-goody, crunchy granola company like Patagonia.

Making a buck - make that a pound sterling - off kids in need

There are certain services that shouldn’t be privatized, shouldn’t be profit-making, shouldn’t be under the control of rapacious capitalism.

Take healthcare. We have an excellent current example of what happens when private equity takes over a healthcare system. Steward, which runs a number of hospitals in Massachusetts (as well as in a few other states), has filed for bankruptcy. The owners have been pillaging the system for years, with proven profit-enhancing techniques like setting up an entity to acquire the buildings and grounds, then renting them back to the hospitals for bigger bucks than would be spent on property that the hospital still owned. Steward has also been cutting costs with practices that put patient care at risk. Case in point: a woman gave birth at a Steward-“run” hospital and experienced life-threatening complications that required a certain piece of equipment. Alas, that lifesaving piece of equipment had been repossessed for non-payment. By the time the poor new mom was transferred to a hospital that was paying its equipment bills, it was too late. She died, leaving a bereft husband and a baby girl who would never know her mother. Meanwhile, Steward’s CEO was swanning around in a $45M yacht.

Take prisons. Private ownership of prisons comes with a truly perverse incentive. In order to reap greater profits, the system needs to grow. And that means more prisons, and more prisoners. Which means supporting lengthier sentences for more and more crimes. Criminalization for everyone! Cost cutting matters, too. Which means worse food, fewer opportunities for education, and prisoners and their families paying outrageous fees for phone calls home and reading books online.

Take education. Profit-making schools can cherry-pick their students while siphoning off funds that should be going to cash-strapped public schools. It’s not all that difficult to imagine a local government giving a foundering public school system over to a private company, which decides that the best cheapest way to educate poor kids is to plunk them in front of a computer – at home, or in a hall – and interact with a remote teacher (maybe even a robotic remote teacher), depriving them of authentic learning opportunities. Meanwhile, rich kids will continue to have top-drawer teachers and first-rate learning.

Etc.

But I hadn’t thought about farming out care for children in need of special services to private entities until I saw a recent article in The Guardian about the increasing use of privatized children’s services in the UK.

Children’s residential care, foster care and special schools have steadily been taken over – with the blessing of successive governments – by profit-making companies. Private agencies now own 36% of the fostering sector in

England, while profit-making corporations own 83% of children’s residential care. “Blocks of provision” – which means numbers of children – are traded from one company to another. How much is a human being worth? The value of a child on the books, as the dedicated journalist Martin Barrow documents, is £100,000.

The UK is not alone. I couldn’t find comparable numbers for the US, but there’s plenty of this going on here as well.

Kids as commodities, chewed up and – once they no longer have monetary value –  spit out by capitalism. Because, when it comes to generating big bucks/big pounds, children’s services are where it’s at. Swell. Just swell.

Children in residential care, on average, generate £910 each of profit a week for the corporations that control them. Large commercial providers of children’s residential care make average profits of 19%, according to a report commissioned by the Local Government Association – an astonishing rate of return. Ordinary businesses do well to make 5%.

One local council in England pays an average of £281,000 to put a child in residential care. (That’s $357 USD, by the way.) Yes, these children have profound problems – physical, mental, social – with complex needs. Still…

And despite the enormous fees paid by the local governments, the private companies are driven by profit making. This often means putting their institutions in low cost areas. Which means that while a local government may be paying a lot for the care of their child citizens, those child citizens may be sent hundreds of miles away from home, depriving the child citizens of the comforts of homes: relationships with their parents, sibs, other friends and family, pets, familiar locations, community. All the things that make life worth living.

As with the Steward situation in healthcare:

In some cases, their business model looks like that of the privatised water companies: loading themselves with debt, sucking out profits and dividends, dumping risk, and creating what could be a highly unstable system. In some cases, their ability to service these debts relies on their enormous rates of profit. Were these to falter, they would collapse. Because a few large companies now dominate the sector, if one of them fails the effect could be catastrophic for thousands of their “transferable assets”, known to you and me as children in care.

All this is predicated on the warped notion that a private, profit-making entity will be better run and produce better results that anything the public sector can do. But if making money is the prime motivator, "better run" will translate into often brutal efficiencies. As for producing better results, if the prime result is making money, the metrics cited will likely be skewed. And there'll be no accounting for the isolated kiddo whose folks have to drive 300 miles to see them (or the new mother who dies because a $45M yacht for the CEO is more important than paying equipment bills.)

Making a buck  - make that a pound sterling - off kids in need is pretty disgraceful. The commoditization of children for sheer greed...Sadly, there doesn't seem to be any end in sight for privatization schemes. 

Sigh...

Not THIS sliced bread

I don't always buy sliced bread.

Sometimes I get a baguette. Sometimes I go down to the North End (Boston's Italian section) and buy an unsliced loaf of something or other. But in truth, sliced bread is just a lot easier to manage. When I'm slicing bread, I tend to end up with pieces of pretty widely varying widths, varying from thick to thin between slices, and often within an individual slice that starts off at a reasonable width at the top before tapering off to next to nothing at the bottom. This makes my DIY sliced bread less than ideal for making a sandwich. Which, 99% of the time, is what I'm using the bread for.

So yay for sliced bread!

Unless, of course, the bread is sliced white from Japan's Pasco Shikishima Corporation (one of the country's leading bread brands), which recently had to recall over 100K loaves of white bread goodness "after black rat parts were found in at least two packs."

“It has recently come to light that a foreign object (a part of what appears to be a small animal) has been mixed into the ‘Super Mature 5-Slice’ produced by Shikishima Baking Co., Ltd.'s Pasco Tokyo-Tama Factory,” the company wrote in a statement on Tuesday, May 7 on their website. (Source: People)

Admittedly, two out of 100K is pretty good odds that you're going to find rat remains in your loaf. But if you're one of the unlucky duo to discover a "foreign object" when you're all set for a PBJ - or a tamago, the egg sandwich that's the most popular sammie in Japan. (I wouldn't have guessed that Japan is much of a sandwich society, but towards the end of the 19th century, when aspects of Western culture (like baseball) were being adopted, sandwiches crept onto the menu.) 

Anyway, I'm intrigued by the name of the infested loaves: Super-Mature 5-Slice. 

Why can't we have interesting names for our loaves of bread. Wonder. Pepperidge Farm. Dave's. Boring!

Not that Super-Mature 5-Slice makes all that much.

Maybe's it's lost in translation, but Super-Mature bread sounds like it's just about to go completely stale or moldy. (On the other hand, it could be aimed for old folks. In which case...)

I'm also curious about the 5-Slice thing.

I really like the idea that you can buy small loaves of bread. If a half loaf of bread were available from my brands of choice (Pepperidge Farm, Nashoba Brook Bread), I'd be all in. But five slices? That's 2.5 worth of sandwiches, which makes no sense. Sure, it could be five days worth of a piece of morning toast, but from a sandwich perspective, it just doesn't work.

But the Google reveals that Super-Mature also comes in 4-Slice and 6-Slice versions.

Wish we had these options. 

Needless to say, the company's mea culpa was super polite:

“We deeply apologize for the inconvenience and inconvenience caused to our customers, business partners and all concerned parties,” they added. “We will strive to further strengthen our quality control system and take all possible measures to ensure that such a situation does not occur again in the future. We appreciate your understanding and cooperation.”

Even though I'm unlikely to ever buy a Super-Mature 4, 5, or 6 Slice loaf, I'm relieved that the company is going try "to further strengthen our quality control system."  

After all, I'm a super-mature fan of sliced bread, wherever it comes from and goes to.

Anyway, this sitch got me wondering where the phrase "the best thing since sliced bread" came from. So I looked around, and was super disappointed to learn that the phrase became popular after comedian Red Skelton used it in an interview in 1952. He used it in comparison to TV, which he dubbed "the greatest thing since sliced bread."

Now, I'm not going to argue with the proposition that TV is great. But I wish the phrase had been uttered by someone I was a bit more enamored with than Red Skelton. Admittedly, when I was a very little kid, I found Red Skelton hilarious. (God Blessth Clem Kadiddlehopper.) As a grownup, I'm embarrassed that I ever found him funny. (Ditto for Jerry Lewis.)

Although, given the Red Skelton provenance, I'll be reluctant to ever utter the words "[X] is the greatest thing since sliced bread," I'll remain a fan of s.b. Just not ‘Super Mature 5-Slice’ from Shikishima Baking.

Has American considered paying its flight attendants a living wage?

I don't imagine that anyone becomes a flight Iattendant for the money. Adventure, sure. Glamour. Travel. Meet the man/woman of your dreams. But the money? Nah. 

Everything I've read about the flight attendant's work life is pretty terrible. Drudgery. Tension-filled. Doors disguised as windows blowing out midflight. Nasty passengers. Crappy food. Climate change making flying more turbulent. Ghastly on-the-ground living conditions in which a bunch of flight attendants pool together to rent a cruddy crash pad, where they take turns sleeping in whatever beds available. (It's called hotbedding. Sounds charming, eh?)

And, yeah, if there's a terrorist attack you can end up losing your life when some evil maniacs decide to crash your plane into the World Trade Center. 

You really have to want to see the world to put up with the downsides of the job. 

And now this:

American Airlines is reportedly issuing so-called ‘poverty verification letters’ for some new-hire flight attendants based in the most expensive metro areas in the United States, urging the recipients to help out the flight attendant because they are only set to warn little more than $27,000 per year before tax.

The leaked letter is being provided on official American Airlines letterheads to recently hired flight attendants based in cities like New York, Miami, Boston and Dallas in an attempt to help them find accommodation.

The letter states: “The projected annual salary is $27,315 per year before incentives and taxes… Any courtesy you can provide would be appreciated.” (Source: Paddle Your Own Canoe)

$27K? The Federal Poverty Level for a single person is $15K, and there sure aren't many folks living on that. And $27K in Boston is likely the equivalent of $15K in plenty of other towns. $27K is Boston poverty level. Folks making what should be a comfortable living - $70K, $80K - aren't living in Boston unless they're quadrupling up on roommates, or have a spouse making at least an equivalent salary, or living with their parents. (Flight attendants can earn more than that $27K, but it requires working crazy hours and grabbing whatever flights they can get their hands on.)

So unless those flight attendants are living in those slum-level crash pads, if they're based in a pricey town like Boston, they "are forced to ‘commute’ from cheaper towns and cities, using jump seating privileges to get to and from work."

As reported by View from the Wing late last year, some Boston-based flight attendants are even eligible for food stamps because their take-home pay is so low.

Thus the "poverty verification letters." Sheesh. 

Then there's the way that flight attendants are paid:

Because flight attendants are only paid an hourly rate from aircraft pushback to arrival, they could be working many hours a day during boarding and in between flights without getting paid.

Wait a minute. They. Don't. Get. Paid. For. Boarding. Or. If. They're. On. The. Ground. Waiting. For. The. Plane. To. Push. Back. 

Wow, just wow.

And remember what I said about the crappy food? Apparently, some airlines - looking at you, American - don't even provide meals for the crew. They get fed if they're on long-haul flights, but on shorter domestic hops, which no longer come with anything that resembles a meal, I guess they get the same food us steerage-class passengers are entitled to. On American, that's pretty much a tiny bag of pretzels or a couple of Biscoff cookies. (Good thing I like Biscoff cookies.)

The last pay raise for American flight attendants was way back in 2019. And, by the way, they're not paid at all for their six-week training course. Yowza. 

No wonder they need food stamps and "poverty verification letters."

Here's a thought. Maybe, just maybe, rather than asking the taxpayers to subsidize their employees, American Airlines should consider playing their flight attendants a living wage. (While they're at it, maybe subsidize housing for those based in the more expensive cities they operate in. And for godsake, feed these poor folks.)