And--no I am not participating. We will do our usual weekly shopping and errands but we aren't buying, on-line or otherwise, anything beyond our normal needs. A bit of the news amused me--last night the economic segments almost joyfully announced a wonderful increase in sales year over year but this morning the new readers were saying that the sales were actually down. Shoppers were out in record numbers but "they seem to have left their wallets at home." BBC just provided the numbers and the decline in the dollar value of the Black weekend was about 3% compared to last year. They did try to supply an explanation: deep discounts.
The news this morning about how improved the HealthCare.gov site is raised a question in my mind. One of the interviewees (I didn't catch who it was) said that the site was not up to private industry standards. Why the hell not? Private industry was contracted to build it. They got paid for a substandard product. Again--Why?
I suspected this when I was reading a couple of the bloggers from the U.K. I follow. Too bad. I wish there was a cure for this kind of insanity and punishment for the retailers, ad men, and others who whip up this kind of frenzy.
Buzz Feed had this list of 13 skills your grandparents had which you don't. Actually I think they mean "grandparents" to mean people my age. And I can perform most of them. My hand writing is legible though not so as my parents or grandparents. I can't do auto maintenance but then my high school shop classes were very strictly divided by gender: home ec for girls, auto and other such for boys. As anyone who has read earlier blogs here knows, I garden. I also sew, crochet, embroider, and do other needlework. Many of the skills are rusty but I could get up to speed quickly. Some of my younger brothers and sisters and their kids? No, I don't think so.
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