Europe-Closed on Sunday

Fred wrote:
You logic stinks. The American 24/7 system stinks.

For my money it's the single biggest contributor to quality of live in the
USA. Being able to do things on my schedule is incredibly liberating. It
gives me much more free time to enjoy life rather than get stuck on work and
chores.

12/6 is a good enough system to satisfy most people. The exceptions
are either workers with exceptional working hours - who have already
solved their shopping problem without resorting to 24/7
or they are arrogant self-orientated disorientated ****s who haven't
got the brains to plan more than 10 minutes into the future.

Why can't I decide when I want to work? Maybe I want to enjoy my days lying
in the sun or dancing through the clover and then work after dark. Why
should I be bound by your ideas about when it's best for everyone to work
and rest?

miguel
--
Hit The Road! Photos and tales from around the world: http://travel.u.nu

Ronald Hands writes:

As I understand it, the statistics don't count those who have
given up looking for work, nor do they count the 3 million or so
who are in prison.

Many people in prison are employed; from what I've heard, it's a
significant part of the Texas workforce. I guess something had to
replace all those black slaves.

--
Transpose hotmail and mxsmanic in my e-mail address to reach me directly.

On 2/04/04 23:41, in article ,
"Miguel Cruz" wrote:

Fred wrote:
You logic stinks. The American 24/7 system stinks.

For my money it's the single biggest contributor to quality of life in the
USA. Being able to do things on my schedule is incredibly liberating. It
gives me much more free time to enjoy life rather than get stuck on work and
chores.

A cultural conservative might point out that one of the problems in modern
society is the seeking of and obtaining instant gratification.

This would show itself in being able to eat when "I" want to, shop when "I"
want to. So it eventually revolves around "me-ism", possibly the dominate
ideology of this age.

In this way of doing things we do not wish to be restrained in any fashion.
We are, then, "liberated" but also become a "slave" to ourselves.

Earl

On 3/04/04 0:01, in article ,
"Mxsmanic" wrote:

Many people in prison are employed; from what I've heard, it's a
significant part of the Texas workforce. I guess something had to
replace all those black slaves.

Many a truth made in jest.

In France there are insufficient work opportunities in the prison. Not
everybody who wishes to work is able to.

The man we help works in the prison shoe factory, however, but he can
only work half-time. Some social conservatives will stress the fact
that work in prison has a moral value of teaching work habits and
good behavior. The one irony in this shoe factory is the approved
sewing on of labels saying "made it Italy" since Italian shoes
are thought to be better. Thus the prisoners are being trained in
fraud!

Earl

Earl Evleth writes:

A cultural conservative might point out that one of the problems in modern
society is the seeking of and obtaining instant gratification.

A cultural liberal might point out that one of the advantages of modern
society is the ready availability of instant gratification.

I've never seen anything intrinsically bad in instant gratification.
It's only a problem when you want it and can't get it. But if you can
get it, why not?

This would show itself in being able to eat when "I" want to, shop when "I"
want to. So it eventually revolves around "me-ism", possibly the dominate
ideology of this age.

That is the dominant ideology of every age.

In this way of doing things we do not wish to be restrained
in any fashion.

Artificial constraints serve no purpose. If you want to shop at 3 AM
and someone else wants to keep his store open at 3 AM, where is the
problem?

--
Transpose hotmail and mxsmanic in my e-mail address to reach me directly.

Earl Evleth writes:

The one irony in this shoe factory is the approved
sewing on of labels saying "made it Italy" since Italian shoes
are thought to be better. Thus the prisoners are being trained in
fraud!

What brand are the shoes sold under?

--
Transpose hotmail and mxsmanic in my e-mail address to reach me directly.

On 3/04/04 9:22, in article ,
"Mxsmanic" wrote:

Earl Evleth writes:

A cultural conservative might point out that one of the problems in modern
society is the seeking of and obtaining instant gratification.

A cultural liberal might point out that one of the advantages of modern
society is the ready availability of instant gratification.

Like the US obesity problem?

I've never seen anything intrinsically bad in instant gratification.

Self-slavery.

It's only a problem when you want it and can't get it. But if you can
get it, why not?

You perhaps don`t know that there is a body of sociological research on this
whole area.

One book which is reasonably informative of the studies which have
been made on this subject is

"The Overspent American: Why We Want What We Don't Need" by Juliet B. Schor

One result of research in this area is that people are not really satisfied
by their consuming. In fact the advertising media is based on the idea
of getting people to buy, and they buy again, since what they buy
does not satisfy their needs. The idea is to keep the ³rats² pressing
the ³pleasure button². It is the habit of pressing the button which is
the driving force to maintaining the habit. The pleasure of purchasing
a Rolex can be greater than actually having it. An addiction to gambling
has the same kind of psychology.

Thus in "shop while you drop" shopping itself becomes the pleasure
object of consuming not the thing purchased. Those driven to obesity suffer
from the same condition, they eat but eating does not ultimately satisfy
their needs so they eat more.

In this sense, an ideology of self-restraint is anti-thesis of the consuming
society.

Certainly the sellers do not want this to occur. The overwhelming mass of
advertising is devoted to instant gratification. The message to ³save² is
much less diffused than to ³buy².

In the absence of self-control one becomes the victim of external control.

This would show itself in being able to eat when "I" want to, shop when "I"
want to. So it eventually revolves around "me-ism", possibly the dominate
ideology of this age.

That is the dominant ideology of every age.

Not so. Man is a social being. We live in groups, with other human beings
so we find a balance between ego-centrism and socio-centrism. Sometimes
we act as a group, for group interests, some go off and die in war because
that is part of our social responsibility to do so.

In this way of doing things we do not wish to be restrained
in any fashion.

Artificial constraints serve no purpose.

Self-constraints serve a number of purposes.

Sometimes they prove to ourselves that we are in control
of ourselves. This is an old fashion puritan concept.

Some people actually find pleasure in saving money,
rarely is it carried out in excess. Maxing out one's credit
card, a common excess, brings pain of some kind. Being debt
ridden, not only having to pay it back but also interest can not
be an instant gratification process.


If you want to shop at 3 AM and someone else wants to keep
his store open at 3 AM, where is the problem?

It helps sustain a culture of instant gratification.
Night is a time to sleep, not joining the powers of darkness.

Long live Benjamin Franklin!

Earl


PS: this discours certainly establishes I have not lost my puritan
American roots nor that I am knee-jerk anti-American as some claim.

Following up to Paul Dwerryhouse

Unfortunately Australia and the UK are being forced by commercially
aggressive profit-hungry American businesses to adopt the same
de-civilising and denegrating profit-profit-profit systems.

Rubbish. Melbourne has seven day shopping because people *want* it.

Which people? The staff?
--
Mike Reid
"Art is the lie that reveals the truth" P.Picasso
Walking, Wasdale, Thames path, London etc "http://www.fellwalk.co.uk" -- you can email us@ this site
Spain, food and walking "http://www.fell-walker.co.uk" -- dontuse@ all, it's a spamtrap

Following up to Gorazd Bozic

both approaches have faults. What seems to be happening in the
24/7 world is that people are working more and more. What for?
Americans and Brits have plenty of "stuff". Why the hell do we
want more?

Well, Karl Marx would say that consumerism is a futile attempt to
remedy unhappiness caused by alienation that is inherent in capitalist
societies and how this attempts are bound to fail as they always
give short-term effects and do not address the cause of the problem.

But he was always wrong, wasn't he? :-/

Perhaps time will tell? I don't see how capitalism or consumerism
can meet the challenge of our environmental problems or are able
to address any wish to channel affluence into "free time" rather
than "stuff".
--
Mike Reid
"Art is the lie that reveals the truth" P.Picasso
Walking, Wasdale, Thames path, London etc "http://www.fellwalk.co.uk" -- you can email us@ this site
Spain, food and walking "http://www.fell-walker.co.uk" -- dontuse@ all, it's a spamtrap

On 3/04/04 9:27, in article ,
"Mxsmanic" wrote:

Earl Evleth writes:

The one irony in this shoe factory is the approved
sewing on of labels saying "made it Italy" since Italian shoes
are thought to be better. Thus the prisoners are being trained in
fraud!

What brand are the shoes sold under?


Don`t know, at least the one's with Italian labels. They make shoes for the
guards and other objects which require the same general leather
and sewing-gluing techniques. I can`t remember the other brands were
but when I knew it was not recognizable.

Theoretically, prison labor is not supposed to be competitive to
labor in the same country.

Right now there is some complaint about the exportation of American
jobs to cheap labor countries. Ironically, in the US now, there
is prison labor manufacturing items which are only manufactured
in foreign countries because US prison labor is cheaper than
foreign labor! The labor is of poor quality, many prison workers
are not enthusiastic. The US government contracted some military
wiring done by US prison labor but the reject rate was very high.
There is an ³attitude² problem with prison labor. The Germans
found the same thing with slave labor in WWII.

Earl