[Magdalen] Gap year (or more)

[Jon Egger]

One of my hospice nurses is a fellow named Herbert.  He was a medic in the
Army and became an LPN after discharge.  He reminds me of my father.  He is
precise and follows a strict order of doing things.  My father folded his
clothes and placed the in his dresser and made is bed every morning.  Those
old Army routines die hard.

+++
Grace & peace,
Deacon Jon Egger



*“In every age it has been the tyrant, the oppressor and the exploiter who
has wrapped himself in the cloak of patriotism, or religion, or both to
deceive and overawe the People."(Eugene V. Debs, Anti-War Speech, June 16,
1918) *


On Sat, Jun 6, 2015 at 10:13 AM, Jay Weigel <jay.weigel at gmail.com> wrote:

> Actually I know these particular workers were paid well because Bobby and
> David asked Ethel (the lawyer who defends Hispanics and owns the rental
> properties) for the name of a good contractor after they fired the first
> one for shoddy work. She gave them the name of the second guy and warned
> them he'd cost more because he was careful about the people he hired, but
> they were good. He did and they were. And you never answered my other
> question about why carpentry is a respected trade ;->]
>
> As for the jobs "Americans won't take"? Well, in that same town you could
> always tell who was on the bottom of the economic ladder if you drove by
> the local chicken processing plant. When we first moved there the workers
> were almost all poor whites. A few years later they were almost all black.
> Now they are almost entirely Hispanic. When I was in home health, for a
> brief time I took care of a young man who had worked there. He'd slipped
> and fallen and caught his foot in an ice auger. Broke his ankle and chewed
> it up pretty good too--very ugly injury. He was a very sweet young man, all
> of 19 years old, who lived with family that I never saw because they were
> all working when I visited. No instance, Medicaid only. I suspect he may
> have been illegal, but who cared. I taught his girlfriend to dress his
> injury, which was pretty funny because neither of them had more than a few
> words of English and my Spanish was worse than rusty, but that big-eyed
> little teenager watched everything and was a quick learner. Within a week
> and a half she had it down perfectly. I often wonder what happened to them.
>
> On Sat, Jun 6, 2015 at 9:57 AM, Jim Guthrie <jguthrie at pipeline.com> wrote:
>
> > From: Jay Weigel
> >
> >  You don't have to be nasty about it. They were legal, as a large
> >> percentage
> >> of hspanics in that particular town are. Now. Again, guess why carpentry
> >> is
> >> a particularly respected trade among Hispanics, or at least among the
> ones
> >> there. Or do I have to prompt you?
> >>
> >
> > Nothing nasty at all. I certainly support the idea of hiring people
> > regardless of papers, though I object strongly to exploitation which is
> > endemic for those undocumented among us.. And if the workers were being
> > paid less than the others, that counts -- but I don’t think either of us
> > know that answer. I also know that some work on other's Social Security
> > Numbers. I was shocked to get a W2 when I worked part time for ARA
> Slaters
> > while in college. It turns out that the manager of wone of the kitchens
> had
> > simply used my SSN for lots of employees without papers -- and my
> Sophomore
> > Year had a W2 that indicated I must have worked 60 hours a week when my
> > average as actually about 5 hours every 2-3 weeks.
> >
> > The reality of immigration is the U.S. is that all those people who came
> > through Ellis Island and Castle Garden and all the other Ports of entry
> had
> > no more "papers" than a Mexican or Central American sneaking across the
> > Texas border. Anyone who arrived from anywhere would be welcomed with a
> > medical examination and a question as to whether they meant harm to the
> > U.S., and given a Parole Card -- in today's terms an I-94.
> >
> > What's funny is that working with people interested in family history
> here
> > in the anthracite region, people are distressed because they can’t find
> > great-grandpa's citizenship record. That's because great grandpa (and
> great
> > grandma) never became citizens. Some of the coal barons tried to have
> some
> > of these people deported for things like union organizing, but since the
> > borders were open to anyone who arrived -- no passport, no visa no
> nothing
> > -- just show up at the door, even those deported for "threatening" the
> > oligarchy could save a little money and com back if they liked.
> >
> > Those who arrived before the Civil War simply arrived -- nothing more.
> The
> > first immigration law was passed after the Civil War -- not to control
> > people, but to protect those coming to America from terrible conditions
> on
> > the ships carrying them here.
> >
> > Everything post WWI (save for Chinese entering in San Francisco --  a
> > special, sorry case of American History) is tied to racism, xenophobia,
> and
> > the rise of government benefits regarding Social Security, Welfare and
> the
> > like that tend to require more than a simple parole card.
> >
> > But getting back to the original subject, one problem in immigration is
> > the argument that immigrants (particularly Hispanics) "take jobs that
> > Americans won’t take." And the counter among Conservatives is, "Well, if
> > they didn’t take those jobs Americans would be happy to work."  The
> answer
> > is that Americans won’t take those jobs because they are hard and dirty
> > and don’t pay enough even to attract those discouraged workers (mostly
> high
> > school graduates, I might add) who have dropped out of the workforce
> > because those jobs that allowed a high school graduate to make a decent
> > living and support a family are simply gone.
> >
> > What would happen to, say, the market for farmworkers if the job paid old
> > UAW wages instead of exploitive wages?
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Jim
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Jim
> >
> >
> >
> > .
> >
>