When I got to college they called me “undecided.” I wasn’t undecided. Undecided is vacillating between options, you can’t make up your mind – bacon, ham or sausage? It wasn’t that, I didn’t even know what the choices were, I was uninformed, unaware, unfocused. The world could call me undecided but I was unfazed, I mean, how much different could it be from high school? Turns out, not that different, especially if you never go to class and blow off most assignments.
If you have to fire someone at a small company, the process is pretty straightforward, informal, just point and shoot. It goes something like, “Hey man, I’m gonna have to let you go. I’m giving your job to my girlfriend’s son, he’s kind of a dumbass, but I’ll get more sex this way. Sorry. But it works out kinda good because you’re not eligible for paid vacation until your 366th consecutive day on the job and you’ve worked here 364 days, so no vacation check, sorry. It’s not personal, oh ya, today’s your last day, I mean right now’s your last day. We would have taken you to a last-day lunch but the guy replacing you will be here in fifteen minutes. I feel bad, here’s twenty bucks, go get Bunch-A-Lunch at Shakey’s. Good luck bro.”
Firing people works differently at a big company, it’s more awkward (If you can believe that) and complicated.
Twelve U.S. Presidents owned slaves, eight while in office.
This is tough to reconcile. How do liberty, freedom and equality coexist with enslavement? Perhaps it is not to be reconciled. To be sure, it is not to be excused. John Jay Chapman said, “There was never a moment in our history when slavery was not a sleeping serpent. It lay coiled up under the table during the deliberations of the Constitutional Convention …” Another axiom that was often tossed about was that (paraphrasing) slavery was like holding a wolf by the ears, you didn’t like it but you didn’t dare let it go. I call bullshit. What would have happened if someone would have shot the “coiled” snake or released the wolf?