Here is a suggestion for mitigating the effects of the economic depression.

The next contractor who comes to your door cold calling for remodeling projects, hire him or her to do something around your property. There is a great disparity between those who still have their jobs and those who don't. You can probably afford to make some improvements on your property; but the contractor at the door may be trying to put dinner on the table. Be generous.

The Problem of the Modern Spirit.

The problem I have with the characters of Will Farrell and Jim Carrey is they start out as failed miserable human beings and make out everybody else as failed and miserable.

When religion was popular, the moral drama occupied people's minds. The events that went on in their heads everyday was the struggle between good and evil. Now that religion is not around to preoccupy us, we are at a loss as to what to make of ourselves.

The deconstruction of the automobile industry

It is dreadful and awe inspiring at the same time to watch men with powerful machines tearing down and disposing of a huge automobile plant; but it is commonplace in Michigan

Its incredulous to many who have spent the greater share of their working lives and a larger share of their social lives around factory life to watch this destruction. Tens of thousands of workers and generations of their fathers, grandfathers, great grandfathers, aunts and uncles, and brothers and sisters have lived and worked their entire life around the rythm of the of factory. Plant shifts, holidays, vacations, change overs, strikes, retirement and sometimes death on the plant floor made the calendar of their lives.

Many workers can see from the sidewalk of a plant under deconstruction the exact spot where they had worked for many years. They can point out where Charlie Easter died of a heart attack, or where they were when they heard President Kennedy was assassinated.

My father could point out where the sit-down strikes started in Flint, Michigan at "Chevrolet in the Hole" and then spread to other plants around the state. My grandfather could direct your attention, had he lived long enough, to the spot where he worked at the mile long Buick Assembly Plant installing fenders. So it goes, almost everyone living in these factory towns can talk in detail of their relationship with the automobile factories.

Flint, Michigan like many one horse towns lived and died with the pace of automobile sales. When sales were up the community hummed with the excitement of a boom town; but took a breather when sales were down and workers were laid off. Some hated the factories, some relied on them for everything, others were indifferent; but all had a stake in their existence. It was commonplace for people to both work in the automobile plants and despise General Motors (often referred to as Generous Motors).

Since before World War II my uncle worked at the AC Spark Plug plant on Dort Highway; and his wife, my aunt, worked at the Ternsted plant in the Beecher District. They retired from GM with a pension and lifetime health insurance that combined with Social Security provided them a comfortable retirement.

They disliked working in the factories so much (they objected on dubious religious grounds to the way workers conducted themselves in the factories) that once Volkswagens became available in the Fifties they bought one just to spite other union members. This was when it was dangerous to park a foreign car in an american automobile plant parking lot.

The strategy of shutting down local factories and relocating them to cheaper labor markets is a survival strategy that was forced on all the automobile companies in today's international economic realignment. General Motors may leave behind a smaller work force; but they also have one of the largest groups of retirees with health and pension benefits outside the Federal government.

My mother inherited my father's health care when my father died at 62. She lived to be 86 and these benefits helped her lead a comfortable life for another 25 years.