They Are All Gone Now

Good By Senator Kennedy.

I will admit that when I herd the news this morning I was at work and I am not ashamed that when I told a friend about it I cried.

My interest in politics started when in 8th grade I stayed up all night watching the 1962 results. I remember sitting in the rocking chair, in out "TV room." I could not tell my mother and father that I was pulling for Kennedy as the were Nixon people.

I remember the day he was shot. Finding out in typing class and then being mad as hell that I had to go to the high school basketball game and play in the band. That is right the Random Lake school's played a game that night.

I remember going to bed that night in June thinking that Bobby was going to be the next President of the United States. It was going to be all right. He would end the was and would solve all our "civil rights." It was good. I woke up the next day and nothing was good.

Senator Ted Kennedy made things better by telling all of us not to give up the dream and to honor both John and Bobby by fighting for that dream.

I stayed in politics for several years fighting for that dream. Today, like many days I fell like I have let down John, Bobby, Martin and now Ted by not staying and fighting. I am not talking about working for a politician but working for a politician that was out fighting for a cause.

You know that many politicians run away from the word Liberal. Not Senator Ted Kennedy. He wore that like a BADGE OF HONOR.

So as sad as I am now I think we all need to take a deep breath and look to the future. The dream is not dead. It lives. Without Senator Ted Kennedy it may takes us a little longer and we may have to work a little harder. But we can get their.

Farewell Senator.

Why WALMART is Green only for the camea

Two years ago or so the then president of WALMART made a big splash about going green.

He had seen the light.

He had gotten religion.

He was going to save the world.

The company has made some good first steps. They tell truck drivers that they can not idle your engine in their docks or parking lots. They recycle all their shrink wrap. Good. Installed energy efficient lights in most if not all their buildings. Another good. They asked all their employees to fill out a personal sheet in what they were going to do to save the world. Good idea. Very poorly done. They now have containers in their break room for plastics, paper and regular garbage. Another very good idea but again very poorly exacted.

My guess is that nearly every "green" project has had a positive addition to the bottom line. If you take into account the free press they have received then they have made mega dollars on every project. Sometimes doing good requires you to make a sacrifice and and not just ask others to make them for you.

A couple of other things they could do. Re-cycle the waste heat for their refrigeration unites in each store.

Paint the roofs white in all their stores.

Quite watering their plants and shrubs in the middle of the day. (do it aster dark)

Invest in training the management staff of all their units in how important this is to the company as well so the world.

Install "curtains" on all the open refrigeration units so they can be closed off at night. Then demand that they be used. Presently they had tops for their "spot" freezers which are never used.

The most important tool they have is the power of their morning meetings. Meetings to motivate everyone to work harder and make more money for the company. A meeting to help the workers work safer and help the bottom line.

Maybe the need to think of a new bottom line. Not one that will just line their pockets with some extra cash but a bottom line that 20 years from now their children will have a sane and safe world so that they can shop at WALMART.

The problem with this thought is that the company would have to hire manager or train managers to have to be concerned with things other than the bottom line as their only reason for existence. This needs to come from the top down. So every day when the Vice Presidents are calling and talking about payroll they need to call and talk about carbon.

A general manager will care nothing about saving energy or even saving money if the money saved is not saved in an area that the Market Manager cares about that day or week.

But just think what could happen if just 10 or 20 percent of the workers took the message to heart and went home and practiced them. They each may get one or two more people to join the band. And as Woody would have said pretty soon you have a movement.

I just do not think that this company has the courage to be the leader of such a movement.