Georgia Said:

ct unemployment help?

We Answered:

it can't hurt to file you never know, but with the two write ups you have I would bet you will not collect , but I may be wrong

Johnny Said:

What about the viewpoint of Mayella in "To Kill a Mockingbird" in a modern revision?

We Answered:

Mayella is indeed a victim--of being poor and of being a woman in a time and place where she wouldn't likely have been taken very seriously. Ironically, it wasn't the black man who attacked her, but she made what seems to be a very awkward attempt at seduction by kissing him.

The conventional Southern belief at the time was that white women had to be protected from the uncontrolled sexual urges of black men; white Southerners tended to buy into this belief, no matter what their social status.

As I recall the story, her father came on Mayella kissing Brock (I think that was his name--I haven't read the book in years) and beat her, then filed a false rape report. In the 1930's South, accused was just about convicted in such a case. Even after Atticus offered proof that Brock could not have beaten Mayella, the jury still convicted him.

There is a great deal of irony in the fact that Mayella chose to cross the color line in her attempt to explore her own sexuality. Since the color of her skin was about the only thing she had going for her (her family was likely considered to be 'white trash,' but at least they were white), the reader is left wondering why she would choose to attempt such a thing. It could well be that at some level, she felt that she could always claim that he "took advantage" of her, thereby preserving the illusion that she was just another victim of unbridled black lust.

Now, in a modern version of the story, Mayella might just surprise everyone by asserting her right to be involved with whomever she chose, and might have made her father's incest and abuse come to a screeching halt by speaking up about them to proper authorities. She and her siblings would likely have ended up in foster care.

I don't think, in a modern version, that Tom Robinson (thanks, Silverside--I was obviously confusing the character with the man who played him in the movie, Brock Peters!) would have been charged with rape at all--the evidence was simply not there to support it.

Norman Said:

Who will critique my resume? Feedback Please?

We Answered:

Too much. It should be able to fit on one page. You don't need to be that detailed.

Marilyn Said:

What to do when your boss have a problem using profanity in the worklpace?

We Answered:

If you're female you could hire a sexual discrimination suit (which the doctor would probably want to settle very quickly). Otherwise, you can claim that the employer maintains a workplace in which it's not possible to work. (Cursing won't be looked at kindly by either the NYS or NYC authorities.) And you're eligible for unemployment insurance, due to the fact that the reason you're unemployed is your employer's profanity. (No one is required to put up with profanity in the workplace in NY - not from customers and not from employers.)

Contact the EEOC http://www.eeoc.gov/field/newyork/ to start. They'll tell you who else to contact.

Tracy Said:

What is the argument against saving humanity while creating jobs and increasing national security?

We Answered:

I read your last line first, the goal is never to convince the person you're talking to, just to present your point of view. But of course my point of view would never be convincing if I hurled a bunch of insults your way.

This is where your opposition is coming from:

#1, Lack of information. Most of what people are given when we're first introduced to the global warming debate is statistics on how many people agree with it, like what you've given. As we dig harder and harder, we find liberal interpretations of data made to fit arguments on both sides, and when we apply statistics to the actual data everyone's using, they don't prove anything one way or another within a reasonable confidence interval. The study in Antarctica, for instance.

Which leads us to one of two conclusions: either there isn't enough information to make an informed decision, or there is and most of us simply can't get at it. Either way, we're stuck looking at those statistics and realizing that, for the numbers to be as big as they are, it means a lot of people are making up their minds without examining the issue for themselves at all.

#2, the solution that's presented. The solution is always to take money from Industries, some of which arguably do have too much power, and put it in the hands of governments. The same people that argue for programs such as cap-and-trade and the kyoto protocol, often argue against nuclear power, biofeuls, and sometimes even wind power generation.

The point is, that the aim is seldom identifying the problems, tracing them down to their underlying source, and then trying to find solutions that benefit everyone, everyone meaning the people, businesses, and governments involved. Instead we have political position jockeying and bandwagon arguments.

#3, the term "Global Warming" itself is catch-all. The global climate is something that is not well enough understood to be controlled. We can't, for example, predictably burn a certain amount of oil to raise the global temperature exactly 10 degrees. We simply don't know everything about our atmosphere. Rather than pointing at things people are doing, studying them directly, and then coming up with lists of potential problems and ways to prevent them, we are starting with the potential problems and pretending we can trace them back to their sources.

The problem this causes is policy with a built-in massive potential for abuse. Since policy motivated solely by global warming can be applied any time the Earth's climate, which again we don't fully understand, changes (or even potentially COULD change in the future), it means that you are giving people a do-anything-they-want-and-get-away-with-… card. Until that potential for abuse problem is honestly addressed, and problems are looked at from the bottom up, I can't have any sympathy to people who want to use cap-and-trade to reduce global warming.

In a sentence, the problem has nothing to do with global warming in and of itself; the problem is the political battles and general lack of intellectual honesty.