Working the System and it’s Legal?

Picture courtesy of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority

How sweet would it be to just work short of two dozen years and retire for life with a full pension. Let’s just sweeten the pot and give you one hundred percent paid medical insurance for life. Would that not be the ultimate job or what?

No you would not be working for some drug cartel or some underworld mob family with friends for life so to speak. Nope, working for this good old boy network in good old Mass A Two Sticks is where you need to fill out an application.

It gets better… How could that be you dare to ask? I’m going to tell you how and you will want to call our 1-800 number and place your order today! You can retire and find state work elsewhere and still collect a full pension without limitations. How can this be Papamoka you might say. Well the Boston Globe has the scoop and this is what they have to say…

MBTA's retirement plan pays off for two
Ex-officials get pension, work government jobs

By Andrea Estes, Globe Staff
August 21, 2007

Two former top officials at the MBTA are taking advantage of the generous terms of the agency's retirement plan, which allow employees to begin receiving a full pension at an early age, while simultaneously collecting six-figure salaries in other government jobs.

Former MBTA general manager Michael Mulhern, 48, who became executive director of the MBTA Employees Retirement Fund after retiring, takes home more than $350,000 a year: a salary of about $225,000 and a pension of about $130,000.

James Rooney, 49, a former deputy manager at the MBTA, now makes $255,000 as executive director of the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority, while drawing an MBTA pension of more than $70,000.

If they were employees covered by the state pension plan, they would have qualified for much less. To get a full pension, most state employees must wait until they are 65, but MBTA workers can receive a full pension after 23 years of service, regardless of age.
If they had retired from the state, Mulhern would have qualified for a $35,000 pension and Rooney just $3,000, and they would have faced strict limits on how much they could earn in a government job.

As the MBTA struggles to pay its bills and has been forced to raise fares three times in six years, some specialists say the pension plan is a fringe benefit the state can no longer afford. The T receives one-fifth of every sales tax dollar paid in Massachusetts. - Boston Globe

WOW! Does anybody think this is not a sweet deal or what? It gets better… using accumulated sick and vacation time that is good for life you can buy into the early retirement with saved time! If that isn't good enough I hear that you can buy into the plan with cash! Place your order today. The MBTA takes Mass sales tax only. Some conditions apply... ummm somewhere but apply for your pension today! This offer (loop hole) may end soon... or not?

I for one thought that the MBTA was a state run agency but apparently they have a different set of rules to go by. Why should the MBTA have such a sweet heart deal when every other state government job is limited to the laws laid down for state pensions?

Then you have to ask yourself, why the hell isn’t the legislature fixing this hideous and abusive loop at tax payers expense? Jim Braude of 96.9 FM Talk Radio hit the nail on the head today when he stated, and I’m paraphrasing, that it is a simple fact of life that the legislature is not going to fix it because it may upset the trough that they one day hope to feed at.

You as a voter don’t even have a say as to fixing this mess and the legislature will turn its back on this issue just as Finneran proved that it could be done when he over ruled the repeal of the income tax rollback voter approved ballot question. When it comes to disgusting waste, you only have to look as far as Beacon Hill and the gutless gentry club that is our legislature.

Years ago they tossed tea into Boston Harbor for just such a similar outrage. Now all we have to do is flip a few tea bags out the window as we pass through the ever leaking Big Dig tunnels. Please stop and pay the toll though at the end of your protest. Our state really needs the money.
Papamoka

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Child Abuse in Mass Continued

This story in the Boston Globe sounded like a trumpet sounding out the call to go to arms and fight the dragon that is the Department of Social Services. That is not the case by any means. This is an extreme case of child abuse and I don’t think anyone will argue with me over that point. DSS when notified does what it has to do to protect the kids.

You actually have to read the entire piece over at the Boston Globe to not fully condemn DSS.

Doctor says DSS sought to send bitten girl home
No bail for pair accused in abuse

By John R. Ellement, Globe Staff
July 12, 2007

NEW BEDFORD -- A Boston doctor who examined a 3-year-old girl whose upper lip was bitten off said yesterday that hospital staffers had to persuade the Department of Social Services not to send the child home, where her mother had allegedly failed to stop months of physical abuse by her boyfriend.

Five days after the girl was brought to Children's Hospital Boston with black scabs on her mutilated face, DSS proposed sending her home, according to testimony by Dr. Alice Newton during the couple's dangerousness hearing in New Bedford District Court yesterday.
The injuries were so severe, Newton testified, that the girl will never fully recover.

The DSS proposed on April 30 to return the child to her home four months after she first came to the attention of the agency's officials in January, when she was seen at a New Bedford hospital for treatment of a broken tooth and bruises that a physician there called suspicious.

DSS officials said last week that they did not take action in the case in the months following the January hospital visit because they did not find the girl at home on several occasions.

“Snip-a-roo”

In a telephone interview yesterday, DSS spokeswoman Denise Monteiro called the disagreement over the child's release a miscommunication that was quickly cleared up by a conference call that hospital staff requested with DSS. DSS officials had not authorized a plan to send the child home, she said.

Doctors, she said "thought the [DSS] worker was going to pick up the kid and take the kid home, and that was not what was going on," Monteiro said. "That was not the plan. There was no plan to take the child anywhere."

DSS ultimately went into court and, on May 3, obtained legal custody of the girl and her 5-year-old brother. The boy has not shown signs of physical abuse, officials said. – Boston Globe

You really have to keep an open mind when it comes to the modern DSS intervention. When abuse at this level occurs then they will take children from the home and with good cause. I can’t say that I am a big fan of DSS but I am a supporter of what they do for the children abused beyond recognition as the child was in this case.

It is pretty obvious to me that the mother in this scenario was no Mother Theresa or even a reflection of her. This mom was just a womb vehicle with a growing cellular structure that just happened to come through the birth canal and after that point something else was on the television that was more important to pay attention too.

How she choose the boyfriend over the child is beyond my thought comprehension but then again I have five baby girls that I love to no end. Put a speeding out of control bus in their way and I would die trying to get them out of its path. That is just me though.

Was this mom to busy contemplating her navel while her baby girl’s lip was being bitten off? Where were her motherly instincts while the boyfriend was attacking this child like an animal? What kind of person would ever allow that to happen even once?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a die hard liberal, but when it comes to kids and someone abusing them like these two people did, I have no mercy in my soul for them. While one person bit this little girls lip off the other pretended it never happened.

Meanwhile, there is a little girl out there disfigured for life. She is safe now thanks to DSS, and I for one applaud the actions they took. As for Bryan James, the animal that bit this little girls lip off, making him a gelding is not even close to what I would like to do that monster!

Papamoka

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Staff Sergeant Daniel A. Newsome

My heart felt prayers are with this young mans family that is left behind. He served his nation and joined the ranks of many brave young men and woman that have paid the ultimate price in service to our nation. There are no greater words to say than a simple thank you to his family.

Just as an outside observer I appreciate the fact that our Governor, Deval Patrick is taking a personal stance on our sons and daughters lost to us in the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Some people might choose to call it politics but I tend to believe that the Governor is a man of honor and respect. Respect and tribute for the life lost is what the families that are burying their dead need most. They above all need to know that the loved one lost in service to America was not just another number on a tote board.

Over at the Boston Globe they had this to say about Daniel A. Newsome and his life…


Chicopee bids farewell to another hometown soldier
By Claire L. Cummings, Globe Correspondent
July 6, 2007

CHICOPEE -- The fallen soldier's little boy smiled as Governor Deval L. Patrick gave him a comforting rub on the back. The 1-year-old, dressed in a gray Army exercise shirt and miniature camouflage pants, is already the spitting image of his father, relatives said.

As family and friends gathered yesterday to remember Army Staff Sergeant Daniel A. Newsome, they recalled that his life's mission was to raise his son to be a great man. For those who love and miss Newsome, who died June 27 in Baghdad from injuries he sustained in an explosion, it is a mission they will now make their own.

"All of us are the mold that made Dan the man he was, and though we cannot make a new Dan . . . a new Staff Sergeant Daniel Allan Newsome, we can do our best to mold and shape a man very much like him," said Eric Ritter, the soldier's stepfather. "He already looks like his Daddy. His little hands and feet are Dan's. He has Dan's eyes. And when he frowns, his forehead wrinkles just like his Dad's did."

Others said the 27-year-old Newsome was a responsible leader who took his job seriously, but thrived on making people laugh. – Boston Globe

This war is taking its toll on the young people serving in our military and the toll it is taking on families is multiplied exponentially. Not one person in America will understand the loss that these families will go through over the next decades of what we all call life. Little boys, little girls, wives and husbands will go through life without the one person that was a very influential part of the small part of the world we call a family. There is only one way for any of us to understand the pain of the Newsome family and that is to bury one of our own. Something no parent, spouse or child would ever want to have to go through.

Their voice may have been silenced in death but the spirit of their life will live on. In service to our nation and with a respectful burial we as the American people need to be thankful for the sacrifice but be diligent in thought when placing our military in harms way.

Daniel will be in my prayers and thoughts along with a long list of other fallen heroes in service to America.

God Bless them all,

Papamoka

Proud Member of the Patriot Guard Riders

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Marketing Voices in your Head?

Graphics courtesy of Holosonic Research Labs Inc.

Put yourself in this scenario. You are at the grocery store picking up a few necessities for your next adventure of cooking for your family. As you pass the bakery section you hear a voice in your head pointing out the scrumptious cakes and fresh baked breads. You know for a fact that you didn’t think it because it wasn’t your voice. Nobody else is around you. Do you freak out or just simply cave in to the new voices in your head and buy a cake and some fresh baked bread?

I first heard about this story from talk radio on Eagan and Braude from 96.9 FM in Boston and I was frankly shocked. The whole discussion revolved around this amazing and informative article in the Boston Globe…

The marketers have your ear
Beam of sound aims its messages
By Jenn Abelson, Globe Staff April 24, 2007

Advertisers have a new way to get into your head

Marketers around the world are using innovative audio technology that sends sound in a narrow beam, just like light, making it possible to direct messages right into consumers' ears while they shop or sit in waiting rooms.

The audio spotlight device, created by Watertown firm Holosonic Research Labs Inc., has been used to hawk everything from cereals in supermarket aisles to glasses at doctor's offices. The messages are often quick and targeted -- and a little creepy to the uninitiated.

Court TV recently installed the audio spotlight in ceilings of bookstores to promote the network's new murder-mystery show. A voice, whispering, "Hey, you, can you hear me? Do you ever think about murder?" was beamed toward customers as they browsed the mystery section in several independent bookstores in New York. – Boston Globe

I’m sorry but this kind of marketing should be made illegal immediately!

This kind of marketing reminds me of the advertising on television that was banned in the late fifties or sixties. Don’t quote me on this because I only recall this from a discussion my mother and grandmother had in the seventies. Advertiser would pay television stations for subliminal ads that would only run for one to three seconds. With the result being that you never saw the ad but something triggered a memory in you head.

My main concern regarding this laser like sound advertising is the many people that are on serious mental health medications because they already have too many voices in their head. This kind of marketing could trigger a relapse of individuals that have worked for years with therapists, counselors and psychiatrists on how to live and function in society with their personal mental health disorder.

My second concern is that if this technology is being used to sell merchandise that you never needed or wanted then what or whom is going to stop the myriad of possible abuses of the same technology? This technology in the wrong hands could be lethal. Picture the scenario of this technology being beamed at men and woman in bars to drink suggested high alcohol content products, they get behind the wheel and drive drunk and could possibly kill someone. Can the person that killed someone while drunk driving after being targeted by this type of marketing honestly and legally held accountable for the crime?

My third concern is the personal invasion of privacy. You can change the channel of a television or radio program that offends you but you can not avoid someone invading your personal space as you shop for your daily needs if they are targeting a beam of sound directly at you to sell products.

I would highly suggest to all stores or places of business that want to embrace this technology to think twice about it. Consumers should be forewarned that this technology is in use at the businesses they visit. Warning signs should be posted that this store and its new marketing technology may just send your twelve year old son or daughter into a relapse but thanks for buying those scrumptious cakes and fresh bread.

What is your opinion on this technology?

Papamoka

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