September 14--half past another month

They promised us rain today and we haven't had any yet. It might show up later. Mom got her reminder to renew the car tags and her license. We went to the Bureau of Motor Vehicles office first thing this morning and got it done. The clerk who took care of her drivers license wanted her to take the paperwork over to the self-serve kiosk to finish off but she refused. Didn't see why the clerk couldn't do it right there while they were doing the rest. The staff are trying to move people as much as possible to the do-it-yourself model. After balking the clerk did finish the transaction.

I wonder if the BVM is having the same trouble we are seeing in the stores. I think most have signs up saying they are hiring. We stopped off at the grocery store to pick up a few items we needed ahead of our regular shopping at the regional big box chain store (not Walmart or Target) at the end of the week. Mom asked if I had seen the notice on the door as we went in. It asked for customer patience as the lines were likely to be longer because of the "labor shortage." I hadn't seen that one but while we were in line at the BVM waiting to get in one of the other people said that that grocery was going to put the self-check-out stands back in. They had taken them out several years ago after a run of three or four years because the customers refused to use them. We were among those who didn't like to use them. We like to gossip a bit with the clerks many of whom we had seen and talked to for years. But the clerk we talked to this morning noted that those clerks had quit in droves over the last few months. She gave the usual litany of reasons: low pay, long and/or uncertain hours, and a lot of very rude customers. Since most could qualify for Social Security the decided they could do without the job and its headaches.

I think about that situation at the grocery store and articles I have read, often by former wait staff or store clerks, which describe the same thing all over the country and in other countries. On flatly told the pundits (if they bothered to read her article) that people wanted to work but for themselves and not for the employers who paid little and demanded much. I also think of the article from last year in the Guardian which talked about the roots of the opioid crisis which the author described as "shit life syndrome." But it is so much easier for the politicians to declare that people are simply lazy. Sen. Joe Manchin demonstrated that when he said the the "child tax credit" people are now getting and the Biden Administration wants to make permanent should be contingent on people working. I guess he doesn't realize that to get a tax credit you have to file taxes which means you have to have an income which means you are already or have been working. How f***ing clueless can you be?

TomDispatch has another good article dissecting our misadventure in Afghanistan. Unfortunately, I think it will go into the same memory hole that similar articles on Vietnam went into. It is obvious that we really didn't learn anything then and probably won't now and in the future. If you change the names, it reads the same.

I read something about this yesterday. A new report from 18 experts have issued a report which calls into question the notion that most of us don't need to get COVID booster shots. A few with specific conditions are an exception. I remarked to Mom that the decision to get a vaccination was an easy compared to the decision to get a booster since jury is still out.