Maggie's Farm

Remember, Tuesday is Soylent Green Day.

Regarding the Ukrainian's visit. I recognize much of that article is related to a vet getting some benefits from his service (which I hope we've all provided them from time to time - when I see sailors during Fleet Week, I buy them their coffee/rolls/drinks).

Yesterday I had lunch with a friend of mine from work. She was my vendor rep for 2 years, then moved on. She's Bulgarian. Eventually, 2 years ago, she returned to Sofia to be with her boyfriend who works for IBM. He proposed and they got an apartment together in a very nice part of Sofia.

During lunch, she told me how she is returning to the US. As she explained, all her jobs in Bulgaria have been 'good' but they are 'a step backward' mainly because between the tech culture and the general culture, she doesn't see herself moving forward. As she put it to me, living there is like going to the US 20 years ago. Between the way she was treated, as a woman (and told 'what do you expect, this is how things are'), and as someone with substantial experience preparing clients for implementation (which required firms there to do things in a substantially different manner than they were used to), she found herself not so much unwelcome as much as an aberration.

Her fiance is trying to determine if he will come to the US with her, he does have the opportunity. But as she told me, it may make the difference in their relationship whether he chooses to come or not.

It is no surprise to me that people from those nations find ours to be so welcoming - even though many here think our nation is so horrible. I visited my first former Communist nation 2 years ago, and then visited Cuba shortly afterward. Anyone who thinks they had it 'good' or that they are on a par with the US is, simply, incorrect. The people there are just like us, in many ways. They are friendly, they are caring, they want what they want out of life. But their governments, over time, have not exactly been very caring enough to leave them alone.

I can think of many places in the world where I'd like to spend extended periods of time. I can't think of any other place I'd want to live full time, though.

I was in the Newhouse School at Syracuse. I can attest to this fact as far back as when I was there.
I had professors who pushed, and pushed hard, the 'liberal agenda' - such as it was back in the day. As a fairly conservative (though being in college, my parents viewed me as a radical activist liberal...social justice is always an item for college kids), I was frequently offended at the agenda the professors pushed. I even sat out of a production, and was told it would affect my grade, because I was angry with the liberal agenda they were pushing (plastering posters with GOP elephants with bombs in their trunks, while poor people starved and asked for food). With Reagan in office, the 'story' was pretty obvious, and the professors pushed it.

This is a very old story, and it is one reason why Fox News exists. The bias has been growing for years, because the students coming out of the school are so heavily pushed in that direction.

On another note, since I had a dual degree from Newhouse and Maxwell, a very good friend of mine was ultra conservative and in the Maxwell School with me. When he graduated, he got a job with a Representative from a southern state. A Democrat. Job availability being what it is, he took it. When we met years later, he'd shifted his views, saying "you do what you have to do when you're in politics." That's when I realized they were all, basically, whores.