Prognosticating out of this mess

If the $5.15 hourly minimum wage had risen at the same rate as CEO compensation since 1990, it would now stand at $23.03. A minimum wage employee who works 40 hours a week for 51 weeks a year goes home with $10,506 before taxes. (A look at the numbers)

Have you ever thought about what the future might hold? In all your thoughts and dreams about the future, did you ever imagine it like it is today? How do you think the future will look?

Back in the 1960’s when I was growing up in upstate NY, I spent many an hour in the back seat of my father’s car, looking out at the sights. I saw miles and miles of rolling corn fields, cows grazing, all cut out of the forest in neat squares, yet the forests dominated the landscape. My face would wrinkle in disgust at the smell of a dairy farm and stay in my nose long minutes after we passed.

Narcissists beware: I bite.

Have you heard? The next version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) will eliminate the Narcissistic Personality Disorder classification. Narcissists aren’t going away; they’re just getting tucked in with five other equally as appetizing personality disorders. People with NPD, roughly, think very highly of themselves, love the limelight, and believe that they are entitled to special attention, even if their abilities are common. It is antagonistic, deceitful and manipulative type of personality, to say the least. They demand that you think as highly of them as they think of themselves, or else.

That little tidbit of information came flying into my head when one of our elderly office helpers backed herself into my cubicle today saying, “Now, I told you you have to wait out front and you can’t just walk back here.” Her slight, short stature was reflecting her helplessness as this tall, dark and handsome man, much like the man in this photo, pushed his way to my cubicle anyway.

Looking for answers to “why” Loughner did it

The NY Times put together an in-depth article, Behind Jared Loughner’s Mug Shot Grin, in an attempt to begin understanding why someone would choose to shoot into a crowd in front of a grocery store on a Saturday morning. Police, school officials, friends and neighbors tell reporters what they know of a 22 year old that they barely knew, producing a small collection of snapshots of the person that pulled the trigger and forever changed so many lives. The article traces out the series of steps Loughner took leading up to the shooting that morning and includes statements of people from his recent past.

Let me offer up a few thoughts and opinions based on a bit of arm-chair psychology. I am an observer, so perhaps I can shed some light here.

“The computer did it. It’s not my fault.”

“The computer did it, not me. There’s nothing I can do about it.”

Silence, for just a moment before a voice, deep, low, asked a muffled question.

“Hey, I have nothing to do with it. It’s not my fault.” Louder than the other voice; clipped, staccato, indignant.

Over the cubicle wall, the exchange, half heard, reached my ears. I held my breath as I listened to the rise of vocal tones that dragged my tension level up with them. A few more muffled back-and-forths and the person stomped away. I didn’t let my breath out until I was sure that man had left the building.

Actions and reactions and on and on and on

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

If only an action were isolated; but once set in motion, the domino or ripple effect comes in to play, and the reactions are exponential. That is natural law. We live with it constantly, it is what life is, yet it’s forgotten as a matter of course. We forget life. How can that be?

My fingers hover over my laptop’s keyboard, waiting to spring into motion to hammer out what I hope is a coherent stream of thought. Fingers press down on plastic keys that strike a circuit board that in turn zips into the computer as input than then is spit out as output to my computer screen, all generated by electrical current and a series of 1’s and 0’s. But the magic is in the storage of every keystroke of my flying fingers, and once I press that “Publish” button, it becomes stored somewhere “out there” in the cloud, available for all to see and read.

Happy New Year!