October 6

Still early and I have no idea what I will be doing today. Maybe I will just vegetate. 

This CNN report on Chinese young people leaving their jobs and throwing "resignation parties" to celebrate. This is on top of reports of the "lay back" and "let it rot" movement. Japan has had its own version of the great youth check out movement; I forget what they call it. I wonder how many other countries are experiencing this phenomenon.

To Continue on the theme of labor and its discontent, CNN posted this article that intersects with the strikes in the health care industry. My mother earned her LPN degree about fifty years ago before the powers that be in the nursing industry eliminated those programs. Since that time there have been four or five periods of nursing shortages. Each time the nursing schools enrolled large numbers of prospective nurses and, each time, by the time those new students graduated (those who did finish their programs, found a glutted job market. The current shortage is partly the result of the stress on health care staff during the pandemic and lead to numerous nurses (and doctors) to leave the profession. The complaints that the schools are suffering from a shortage of teachers and can't find enough of applicants with advanced degrees make me wonder if it isn't a bad case of credential inflation. 

Meyerson On TAP, on The American Prospect, has an interesting suggestion for dealing with the violence on our border much of which is driven by the gang cartels. Some of our idiot wing Republicans vying for the party's nomination think sending our military into Mexico to wipe out the gangs. Some think we should do so whether Mexico agrees or not. Hint: Mexico has said repeatedly that we won't have their permission. They suggested we do something about the weapons our gun manufacturers are sending south of the border. They even filled a suit against the manufacturers (joined by several states) that met its expected demise when the court dismissed it. Meyerson suggests sending our military into Mexico to deal with the gangs at the same time we let Mexico sent its military to blow up the gun factories. Sounds good to me.

For a change of pace this post was about the Wara Art Festival in Japan. The sculptures were on a them of The Sea of Echigo and used the straw left from the rice harvest. Take a look.

Well, this is hopeful. May the recovery continue and the rest of the island and its people recover as well.