So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

[LizzieMaine]

Rockland's economic evolve since ship building, hewn granite, light manufacture, fishery, toward service and tourism
has continually disrupted the established status quo-so whats newsz?

The sad thing is, the service and tourism sector has really screwed those of us who live here all year round, and have since the place was a dirty, smelly old fishing-and-manufacturing town. Selling overpriced food and bad art to people from Connecticut can only go so far before we start kicking back. Right now there's a scandal brewing over the local Big Art Musuem trying to muzzle a critical article by a local reporter by threatening the newspaper that published the piece. Big New York Fish think they can splash into a little small-town pond and all the minnows will willingly serve themselves up as dinner. Not quite.

 

[tonyb]

With all the money getting tossed around in the destination resort towns around here (Aspen, for example), there ought be enough to more satisfactorily compensate the workers who keep the whole damn circus going.

I’m not big on small-town living, no matter how spectacular the scenery. My sister and her family live in a small resort town in Washington state, as does my Dear Old Ma. Nice place to visit, but I’m thoroughly urbanized. And really, with my health status, having a major university medical center a 10 minute drive from home counts for more than a clear mountain lake.

 

[Harp]

The sad thing is, the service and tourism sector has really screwed those of us who live here all year round, and have since the place was a dirty, smelly old fishing-and-manufacturing town. Selling overpriced food and bad art to people from Connecticut can only go so far before we start kicking back. Right now there's a scandal brewing over the local Big Art Musuem trying to muzzle a critical article by a local reporter by threatening the newspaper that published the piece. Big New York Fish think they can splash into a little small-town pond and all the minnows will willingly serve themselves up as dinner. Not quite.

Rockland profits by Wyeth and The Farnsworth Museum and local colony artists, dealers, and galleries
contribute proportionately to the municipal coffers. Coffeeshops and other spillover tourists trap part
and parcel, all collective coin of the realm. Add to this the natural scenic beauty of coastal Maine.
Perhaps not exactly quite a town-n-gown hand in glove incestuous relationship, maybe not all residents
applaud, but hard times, bad times, good times, dealer's choice economic hard factual shirtfront poker.
And this particular game isn't going to end or simply disappear anytime soon.

Scandal like sex sells. The Farnsworth against The Wire or Pilot?

 

[Harp]

Alas, that doesn't sound like anyone I know. The people I know are young working people, desperately trying to survive on multiple low-wage jobs and getting either royally screwed by landlords (a small cartel of property-management "entrepreneurs" control the bulk of rental housing in my town) or being forced to burn up a large chunk of their wages on gas money to drive into town from whatever places they've been able to find twenty miles away. A co-worker at the theatre once spent a winter living in a barn. Not a "loft." A barn. Because that was all she could afford..

Rockland is a town in transition, losing population through economic displacement or other cause(s),
its youth hard pressed for opportunity. But what's present is past and past is present.

Chicagoans are experiencing unaffordable higher property taxes and forced to sell and relocate
because of inept one-party political rule. Covid has turned table on landlords, many forced to sell
their real property assets; corporate tenants have folded downtown lease cards; landlords scramble
to rent space out to artists and lower income folk previously displaced by gentrification.
I've been displaced, and have had two apartments shot out from under me by fast-buck landlords
and gentrification for whatever rhyme or reason. Life isn't fair. Economics is dynamic. The strong survive.
And the weak fall by the wayside and die. 'Twas ever, 'twill ever be. Sad to say but true.

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^^
Well, I guess that settles the matter.
Smoke ’em if you got ’em, eh?

 

[Fifty150]

As usual, there's always more than 1 story.

Here in SF, there was a lot "blame" assigned to tech workers. Allegedly, people working in the technology sector, were "pushing out" the "people of color".

Okay, there were no roving gangs of tech workers beating up minorities and burning their homes. San Francisco has rent control, so the renters who have been there for generations, paying rent from 1960's market rate, can't be evicted.

We have a neighborhood which was predominantly populated by Spanish speaking people from Central and South America. This is the home of the famous https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_burrito . At a certain point in time, that very same neighborhood was mostly Irish & Italian. There are still Irish bars, Pizzerias, and Italian bakeries. Then came the panaderias, carnicerias, and taquerias. "Gentrification" brought coffee shops with poetry, https://www.missionchinesefood.com/ , sushi, tapas, and oyster bars.

Through inheritance, a Hawaiian fellow I know, "Shorty", owned a 3 story Victorian home which he lived in, and a mixed use commercial building with tenants in apartments and a retail space. He's always at various political rallies and known within the community for his activism. He is very outspoken against "gentrification", and the poor people losing their homes. He sold both of his properties within the last 2 years. Cashed out at well over 6 figures......$5 million. He only moved a few miles down the road, to a little village where the cemeteries are, right outside of The City. I get it. He wanted the money. Shorty says, "at least I didn't sell to some yuppy scum, I sold to Chinese".

A friend of mine is a real estate broker. He is African American, and bases his agency in The Bayview, which for decades was known to be an African American neighborhood. People know him, and know his family. They trust him to sell their homes, and get the highest price possible. 3 bedroom, single family homes. To put it into perspective, this is a neighborhood where the public housing projects are. There are no banks, grocery stores, or pharmacies. There are liquor stores, check cashing stores, gangs, crime, shootings, prostitution, open air narcotics sales, and people laying all over the sidewalks. As he tells me, the people in the neighborhood see "an out". There's money on the table to restart their lives somewhere safer, with a lower cost of living. Anyone who wants to "preserve the neighborhood"? They're more than welcome to be the highest bidder, buy the property, and "preserve the neighborhood" by whatever process.

 

[BobHufford]

Want to raise the rent (and maybe push out the current residents)? A little siding, a couple of plants and a modern sign can go a long way. And this is in small town Mountain Grove, Missouri...

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^
Is it on the market?

 

[Harp]

The hood CVS Pharmacy no longer sells Brillo soap pads for washing dishes....
And TCF bank branch down the street no longer allows its coin return machine to count change.
But they do accept rolled coins for members only....
Coupla times every year I'd lug a plastic Maxwell House coffee jar filled to the brim and pour in coins.
Loved that electric coin counter gizmo. So-s, gonna use the coins each and every day for those first
cups of joe at Starbucks downstairs. Whiskey tango foxtrot time....

 

[Fifty150]

In The Great State of Oregon, high school diplomas will be given to everyone. No more proficiency requirements. Nobody in Oregon needs to be able to read, write, or add & subtract. Here' your diploma. Good luck with your life.

Supposedly, it levels the playing field for minorities, who otherwise would have failed and not received a diploma. As a human being, I'm offended. If anybody, of any race, is not able to read, write, or do basic math by the age of eighteen, there is a problem. It needs to be addressed. That kid needs to be taught to read, write, and do math. It's not as if non-white children are so stupid, that they just can't be taught.

No excuses for the education system failing. You can't just shrug your shoulder, and give those kids a diploma like a participation trophy at a no-contact karate tournament.

Now the education system is trying to sweep their own failure under the rug, by awarding high school diplomas to these children, so that they can statistically keep the graduation rate up. It's not politics. It's money. If the school system had to fail all of those students, the graduation rate would fall, and so would their funding. You would think that someone in Washington who doles out the allowance for education spending, would notice that an entire state has publicly announced, "no proficiency requirements".

 

[tonyb]

It is not to defend the developments in Oregon to note that there were no proficiency testing requirements for a high school diploma when I was a kid. None whatsoever. As I recall, graduates had to have passing grades in core classes and some minimal overall grade-point average. “D” stands for diploma, as the saying goes.

I have proofread copy from people with advanced degrees whose spelling and grammar might embarrass a fifth grader. This is not to say these people are unintelligent. Rather, their skills lie elsewhere.

A few years back a friend’s kid was studying for his GED. A quick look at the materials left me knowing I couldn’t pass the exam without a whole lotta boning up. That’s true of most of us, I’d wager.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I can't do math beyond a fourth grade level. I graduated high school forty years ago, and I couldn't do math beyond a fourth grade level the day I graduated, and I still can't today. But somehow, I've survived.

(Incidentally, my high school lost its accreditation due to poverty about ten years after I got out. This was not because they spent all the money trying to teach me how to do math beyond a fourth grade level.)

 

[tonyb]

At Lowe’s last night not a one of the “regular” checkout stands was open, while three store employees were chatting among themselves by the self checkout.

 

[tonyb]

I can't do math beyond a fourth grade level. I graduated high school forty years ago, and I couldn't do math beyond a fourth grade level the day I graduated, and I still can't today. But somehow, I've survived.

(Incidentally, my high school lost its accreditation due to poverty about ten years after I got out. This was not because they spent all the money trying to teach me how to do math beyond a fourth grade level.)

An exceptionally articulate, insightful, and politically savvy person of my acquaintance can’t do math beyond simple arithmetic and sometimes struggles with that. Had this person been denied a high school diploma on account of that want of mathematics skills, there would have been no bachelor’s degree, no master’s, no professional occupation, and likely no financial self-reliance.

 

[Harp]

I can't do math beyond a fourth grade level. I graduated high school forty years ago, and I couldn't do math beyond a fourth grade level the day I graduated, and I still can't today. But somehow, I've survived.

Understood. I never liked math myself-or any other subject since I was bored in school. But today:
I key off a two furlong speed at 440 yards/1,320 feet factoring dead or live rail for a feet per second constant.
With commodity and stock price, Elliot's Five Wave count at the third hits 1.617% of the 1st Wave;
retracement according to Fibonnaci at 37.5%; 50%; and 61.7-8% serves for recognizable play.
In the service, nights are calculated down to minutes and seconds, and for fun during the Persian Gulf War
latitudinal velocity at the Gulf of Sidra within geographic constrict discounted an amphibious landing so
the surmise of a psychological feint was at play.
I never thought I would use math after school but it has proved valuable and even fun.

 

[Bushman]

At Lowe’s last night not a one of the “regular” checkout stands was open, while three store employees were chatting among themselves by the self checkout.

Lowe's, a store I used to shop at because their departmental staff actually KNEW what they were talking about, has slowly been becoming your average retail store. They hire only part-time college kids so they don't have to give them benefits, and staff the stores on a skeleton crew, even on the weekends. They try to do as much as they can with as little as possible. It's to the point where if even one employee doesn't show up, the entire staffing schedule is thrown into a catastrophic breakdown. And Lowe's isn't the only one doing, this either. It's the name of the game in retail these days. Lowe's now might as well be Walmart with an extra large tools section.

Thankfully, some employees ain't having it, anymore.
https://www.kron4.com/trending/we-a...ees-walk-off-job-leave-farewell-note-on-door/
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-new...g-staff-leaves-note-management-store-n1273869

 

[tonyb]

I’ve found very little expertise among the staff at the big box stores. The person working in appliances today was selling paint yesterday and got hired the day before that.

Ace and True Value market themselves as stores where customers might actually get reliable advice on whatever little project at home has them in the store in the first place. And, in my experience, it’s not all marketing. The floor staff is available without searching high and low for them and they at least know where to find the merchandise without consulting their smartphones (which the customer can do himself, and as I have at the big box places pretty much every time I shop there).

I recently had to replace the over-the-range microwave. I might well have bought one at Lowe’s had there been anyone there to assist me in a timely manner. I ended up buying one online, and arranging for delivery and installation online as well.

 

[Harp]

As earlier referenced, yesterday I stopped at the hood CVS for a prescription, which was incorrectly
filled so I asked to correct and would pick up today. The pharmacy obviously short staffed, by half,
at least four staff are required to adequately serve customers, floor and window.

Moments later I learn that Brillo SOS soap pads are no longer carried there, why dunno.
This bachelor needs Brillo whenever willing to do dishes, which is exceedingly rare since I am a slob
by nature and lazy as hell. At checkout there is a computer machine for self-checkout, fine.
I am a former cashier and understand the process. But a cashier always walks over to check if the
customer is honest-injun, so whyz even bother installing this machine if the cashier is required
to become involved? Whatsoever...

 

[ChiTownScion]

I can't do math beyond a fourth grade level. I graduated high school forty years ago, and I couldn't do math beyond a fourth grade level the day I graduated, and I still can't today. But somehow, I've survived.

(Incidentally, my high school lost its accreditation due to poverty about ten years after I got out. This was not because they spent all the money trying to teach me how to do math beyond a fourth grade level.)

I was never good at math either-- except for Geometry which I found to be entertaining. Believe it or not, it was lessons gleaned during a philosophy course that provided the eureka opportunity as to Algebra during my college freshman year. Four years too late, arguably, but the sun finally dawned.

My wife had "math issues" and had to take one of those grad school test prep courses where a very clever professor showed her a few methods that made it easy. Her attitude was that if high school teachers could have communicated those methods as skillfully over the course of two semesters that she managed to pick up in an afternoon later in life, things would have been better.

This is going to sound harsh... but I am convinced that a few of my high school faculty became teachers only because they wanted to avoid the military draft of the 1960's. The algebra teacher- who had a class of about 40 students- couldn't teach to save his life. He was finally let go: sadly, not before a lot of damage was done.

My takeaway on math teachers is that there are comparatively few good ones, because being good at math and being good at teaching math are two distinct talents. Unlike teaching, say, history or English lit, teaching math is really teaching problem solving. A math teacher who can impart a love of that- even if it's only on a level of motivation sufficient to positively impress a teacher that a student respects- is more than halfway there. We had a teacher like that at my school: he ended up teaching until he died in his upper 90's, so clearly he had a passion for his work. I had him for a summer school session, and I am convinced to this day that if I had him as my freshman Algebra teacher I would have done well.

Interestingly, that good teacher's attitude was "If you want to learn you WILL learn, no matter WHO is teaching!" which I still believe is nonsense. A truly great math teacher inspires students to learn: he refuses to give up even with those kids who gives up themselves. He would scoff at that, I'm certain. Some people are too damned modest.

 

[Harp]

Looking back, I was at fault. My teachers in school were all top-notch, the nuns and Christian Brothers
all cared and strove to inspire. Some like me, apathetic, lacked initiative. If I could go back in time
and have a talk with myself....