Another Thanksgiving. Everyone on the idiot tube is falling all over themselves, patting each other on the back for being so philanthropic to their fellow humans in these tough times. Don't take me for a total ingrate, I do have a blog category called "Fate Fairies" in which I extrapolate on experiences in my life that seem to suggest there is a higher power at work in our lives. But now the odious "but." 

    But, over two years ago I wrote to deaf ears about the plight of being an older person in Wisconsin looking for work. We were and still are the canaries in the economic coal mine. ...Got your attention now? I had become and still am frustrated trying to find that "better job" the academic marketeers promise after going to college as an old guy. Over two years ago, mind you. I am just going to say it to the apologists, facilitators, and enablers out there for this economy, "Told you so." 

    Two years ago I wrote: "Quite frankly after two years, I am fatigued by the rejection. For someone like me returning to college was a lure that was a canard, at least in this state. No one wants a 52 year old educated male in their midst. God forbid I may have something to offer. Forty years of work experience now topped off with an education. And, an education that went beyond just one degree." 

    But now, over two years later on Thanksgiving day 2009, my story has evolved to another level. The absence of dignity; there is the static and  wasted lives of perfectly willing and capable former Wisconsin workers. Thousands and thousands of wasted talents. A society with so many needs in a "Great Recession," and so much talent just going to waste. Yes, I know fair readers, that people volunteer to keep busy, if they are not totally disenfranchised. But what advocates of volunteering are afraid to tell you is working for free does not always get one out of their cardboard box home. 

    Tim Morrissey recently wrote about being an older person and trying to find a job. Finding a job when your sixty. Ol' Tim focused on the case of an older woman passed over in lieu of a young chick with no experience. Who'd a seen that coming? The Janesville Gazette's Stacy Vogel did a piece on homelessness in Janesville and focused a portion of the story on homeless men, many of them older - they all seemed willing to work if given the chance. I love to read between lines. We Americans (especially Wisconsinites) often define ourselves by what we do - our jobs. And that seems to especially apply to men. This "Great Recession" antagonizes a culture already in full gear to de-construct the American male. But in fairness, since the '70s, women have as everyone should know, for better or worse occupied half the work force. So older men and women with all their talents and experiences I believe, are thrown under the employment bus in normal times - and now the rest of the working culture gets a taste of it. 

    And do not forget the "new norm" that is being foisted on us now. A "new normal" that awaits us in the great economic recovery just around the corner (I know its a com'n because "they" say so). - No pay increases in the foreseeable future (assuming you are lucky enough to find a job); less hours; non-benefit; minimum wage; seven day a week work week at four hours a day wrecking the whole week for 28 hours of pay; a 30-something work force who has never had a weekend off in their lives; and finally, relentlessly buying Chinese junk products probably for the rest of all our lives. 

    Little of this situation we are in was an accident. We are reaping what we have let our leaders in government, and in business, and in academia, and in culture, and in Human Resources sow for the past 20 years. You know who you are. We have been gutted as a middle class and a working class. It is time after years of cowering to literary and social writing etiquette to kick the reader in the head. Call me crass. Call me negative. Call me what you will. I have no incentive to care what you call me. Here then is my head kicker: I give no thanks on this Thanksgiving Day for society's inept banality in throwing its talented and experienced out with the Turkey carcass. 

                               Wisconsin Military Service Person Special Mention of the Week
          (each week Cooldadiomedia mentions a Wisconsin service person killed in Iraq or Afghanistan) 

    This week's Wisconsin military service person to remember is Private First Class Isaiah R. Hunt, 20 of Suamico (just north of Green Bay) died when the driver of his military vehicle accidentally struck another vehicle north of Baghdad, Iraq, on November 15, 2004. Isaiah was a member of the 782nd Main Support Battalion, 82nd Airborne Division out of Fort Bragg, North Carolina. He was a driver and gunner in Iraq. Pfc. Hunt was thrown from the turret of his vehicle when it collided with a civilian contractor vehicle. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel mentioned Hunt died en route to a hospital. He joined the military in July 2003. Isaiah graduated from Bay Port High School in Green Bay Wisconsin. Isaiah is the son of former Green Bay Packers linebacker Mike Hunt who played for the Packers from 1978 to 1980. At the time of his death, Hunt was survived by his dad Mike and mother Pamela. Private First Class Hunt was the 28th Wisconsin military service person to die in Iraq since the start of the war in Spring, 2003.
                                        
                                                As of this blog entry's posting date:

    94,279 Iraqi civilians have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
    
    9,316 Iraqi Security Forces have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.

    4,368 Americans have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003. 

    923 Americans have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.

    317 Coalition soldiers have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.

    595 Coalition soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001. 

    31,572 U.S. troops have been wounded in action in Iraq since Spring, 2003. 

    4,565 U.S. troops have been wounded in action in Afghanistan since October, 2001. 

    101 Wisconsin soldiers have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.

    16 Wisconsin soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.

    139 journalists (several nationalities) have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.

    17 journalists (various nationalities) have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.

Wisconsin military service person special mention of the week, military casualty, and journalist casualty information sources: Committee to Protect Journalists; cnn.com; Milwaukee Journal Sentinel; washingtonpost.com; thehighground.org; Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs; iraqbodycount.org; and, icasualties.org.