tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6421367977598373300.post5507200751051651287..comments2023-08-22T05:06:48.916-07:00Comments on JR Snyder Jr: Working for The ManJR Snyder Jrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09825473115986190389noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6421367977598373300.post-65299104554477465462011-09-06T12:51:08.663-07:002011-09-06T12:51:08.663-07:00First I love that photo and am pleased that someon...First I love that photo and am pleased that someone else appreciates it also and said so.<br /><br />"I feel like an immigrant to a country I don't understand, sometimes." Wow...as an immigrant I'm just now beginning to understand why after decades of assimilation and "Americanization" (thanks to my American dad and aunt who prepared all of us from the time we were born) since 9-11 I've felt that way. More like asking the question "Who ARE these people?" who went on the biggest borrowing and spending spree I've ever seen after that calamitous event. <br /><br />Thomas Friedman answered it recently with we went from my parents generation of "spend and invest" to my generation of "borrow and spend." The latter values are not what I was brought up with, I suspect you weren't either, so that somewhat answers the sense of being an immigrant in our own land.JR Snyder Jrhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09825473115986190389noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6421367977598373300.post-26697864421484471452011-09-05T22:52:18.274-07:002011-09-05T22:52:18.274-07:00First of all, that rain-through-the-windshield pic...First of all, that rain-through-the-windshield picture is a beautiful thing. It looked like that around here today, rainy and dark and cool and I loved it.<br /><br />There seem to be an awful lot of people who would try to have you believe that rainy, cloudy days aren't as good as sunny, cloudless ones. I do my best to avoid these people.<br /><br />Life needs dynamics. You need some rain once in a while, and a head cold, and the neighbor's dog barking. These things serve purposes much more meaningful than a weatherperson saying, "you might want to bring the umbrella".<br /><br />I'm sure we're in an interesting time right now. I know I've never felt both so hopeful and so disturbed by what I see; some people spend their days striving for minimum wage and some people wear their thumbs raw texting. Maybe they're sometimes the same people. I feel like an immigrant to a country I don't understand, sometimes.<br /><br />It's a lonely feeling but there are worse things. You are right that working for the man is at best inadequate; we each and all truly work for ourselves and (if we're lucky) some people we love. I know it's politically popular to thrust people who think like I do work-wise as OPPONENTS and THREATS of government workers and members of the AFL-CIO. But if you gathered you and I and all the rest of us in a room and gave us truth serum I doubt that anyone would say, "I'm doing all of this for someone else." The artists in the crowd might try to say it but if they're sane they'd know that on some level they were lying.<br /><br />Self-interest is at the base of every great thing that ever came out of America or anywhere else. We never work for the man unless the man is me. Then, the badlands treat us good.<br /><br />I can't imagine what this thing says, but I'm not editing.<br /><br />Thanks, JR!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com