The Panda Bear on Ending the US War in Afghanistan, Career Advancement(Lack of) and The Panda Bear Blog Movie

The Panda Bear Blog is a blog about a overly busy but kindly Panda Bear who is a humble office worker.   It is about her struggles with life.

The Panda Bear had been tired over the weekend and was looking forward to a quiet night at home doing her dreaded home chores.   Longstanding readers of the Panda Bear blog knows the thing in life the Panda Bear hates most is home chores.   She was going to try an experiment to see if by doing more of these dreaded chores after work she could free up more of  her weekends.

However, then she received some e-mails from groups in the United States who oppose the war in Afghanistan.   The Panda Bear has come to believe that the most important political issue in the US is ending the war in Afghanistan.   People are being killed and lives are being ruined.   Furthermore, it is a drain on our resources which are already in short supply.  

The first e-mail came from United for Jobs and Justice asking the people to call or write President Obama asking him to end the war in Afghanistan.   The Panda Bear went to the White House website where it said President Obama was committed to the most transparent administration in the history or the US.   The Panda Bear then e-mailed the President:

I am writing to request that you end the war in Afghanistan.   Too many Americans and Afghans have died in this war.  President Karzai is not a trusted partner and has been highly critical of the U.S.    We have many problems at home and need to put our efforts here.   Our greatest recent security threats have been internal not external.

The US should not make the same mistakes as the British and the Russian have made in Afghanistan and get bogged down into an never ending war in Afghanistan.   Our country is in crisis now.   We need to put our own money and resources here.

Sincerely,

Panda Bear, USA.

She requested a response from the White House.

The second e-mail was from Emergency USA asking supporters to contact their US representatives to cosponsor HR200 a  bill that aims at withdrawing all US troops from Afghanistan.   The Panda Bear e-mailed her representative  asking him to cosponsor this bill stating that the ending the war was the most important issue facing the US because it is a burden, people are getting killed and it serves no purpose.   She also requested a response from her representative.

Readers of this blog will see how the supposedly democratic government of the US responds to the Panda Bear's exercising her rights and responsibilities of a US citizen.

In some of her volunteer projects she has advanced but not in her paid work.   The Panda Bear has read to move ahead in one's career one needs to visualize success and rehearse it in one's mind.   The Panda Bear prides herself on being a realist and finds it hard to dream about the future.

However recently the Panda Bear was at the movies(she only goes to the movies once a year).   She saw the movie The Butler(which was good).   Suddenly, the Panda Bear had a flash of inspiration.    Wouldn't her life make a good movie?   It would be the story of a humble office worker who by blogging at night changes the world.   Is this not a popular theme for the movies about how an average person hits the big time?

She can see the movie now.   The Panda Bear would be played by either Julia Roberts or Juliana Moore.   They would show the Panda Bear in very average office job being criticized by Ms. Patronizing -and -Nit- Picky.    Then the splashy theme song and the Panda Bear would be shown blogging night.  The Panda Bear's messy apartment would be shown as a luxury townhouse with a few things out of place.    The climax of the movie would be  Ms. Patronizing -and -Nit- Picky finds out that the Panda Bear's harsh indictment of the corrupt oligarchs have made the Panda Bear loved and respected all over the world. Suddenly,  Ms. Patronizing -and -Nit- Picky changes and becomes Ms. I-Know-How-To-Kiss-Up to the Panda Bear.  The Panda Bear is not fooled but is happy enough her  new success to be forgiving to all.

Sigh....Time to awake from her dream.   The Panda Bear needs to get ready for work tomorrow and face her average and humble job. 

 

 

The Panda Bear on the Fall, Bullying and the AFL-CIO

In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.-Martin Luther King Jr.

A few days ago, the Panda Bear was priding herself on escaping the tiredness and lethargy that comes with the Fall season.   Well pride cometh before a fall.   Today the Panda Bear feels both tired and hungry.  Her body feels like she is getting ready to hibernate.

The Panda Bear was talking with a friend about the number of people who are dropping out of the US workforce as soon as they come into some money.   The Panda Bear herself believes that most people are in the work force now solely for the money.   Gone are the days where bored housewives, rich people and retired people were in the paid workforce because they needed something to do.   Nowadays, the Panda Bear thinks people are in the paid workforce strictly for the money.

Recently more has been written about workplace bullying.   The recession is making it harder for people to leave jobs if they feel they are badly treated.   The Panda Bear has experienced bullying at work and has seen other people bullied at work.  She thinks most organizations have an unwritten policy not to intervene when a superior is abusive to a subordinate.   High level people who bully have to be very calculating and opportunistic in their bullying.   The could not hold the positions they have without being very sweet and agreeable to the right people.   They could not be a certain way with their bosses and keep their jobs.

The Panda Bear believes that only a minority of people are bullies.   However, if they people around bullies  who are not bullies keep quiet about the bullies behavior it empowers the bullies.   It makes both the bullies and the victims feel like more people support the bully than really do,   Let us say for the sake of argument that a quarter of the population has some tendency to be bully while another quarter of the population has some tendency to be bullied.   If the half that are neither bullies or bullied keep quiet about bullying, it can make the bully seem like they have the majority of people behind them when maybe the actual majority of opinion is against them.

The Panda Bear has read that for children the goal of some anti-bullying programs was to create an atmosphere where children feel empowered to speak up against bullying when they see other children being bullied.   Something similar should be done so adults feel free to speak up when they see other adults being bullied.

The Panda Bear has never worked for a unionized workplace but it has always been a dream of hers to work in a unionized environment for over twenty-five years since a supervisor once refused to correct the Panda Bear's production statistics for which the supervisor admitted that she total them wrongly and should have been higher.   The Panda Bear felt she might have had some recourse in an unionized office.  

Well the Panda Bear has just  joined the AFL-CIO's mailing list.   Will the union set her free?  Or are unions another branch of the corrupt oligarch 'that run the US?

The Panda Bear on Denise Austin, the US Government Shutdown, Windows 8, and the Panda Bear Blog

Before, the Panda Bear gets into her main post, she would share with her reads two books that she thinks are worthwhile.    The first book is Denise Austin’s Get Energy!: Empower Your Body, Love Your Life.    Denise Austin has some good ideas on how to increase energy which is an issue for the Panda Bear as she struggles to reduce her caffeine level.   However, the favorite part of the book for the Panda Bear is that Denise Austin admits that her house is not a priority and is that it can be messy.    The Panda Bear hates household chores and does not have time to keep her apartment as orderly as the Panda Bear would like.

The second book the Panda Bear found interesting is Last Train to Istanbul by Ayşe Kulin.   It takes place during the Second World War.   It is about two upper class Muslim Turkish sisters one who marries a Turkish Diplomat and the other marries a Turkish Jew.     The sister who marries the Turkish Jew has to move to France with her husband.   A big part of the novel is based on the true efforts Turkish diplomats to get Jews out of occupied France which is a piece of history which the Panda Bear knew nothing about.

When we last left the Panda Bear Blog, the Panda Bear was trying to restart her blog but having problems with Windows 8 and her new computer.    The Panda Bear has gotten better at Windows 8 but she still thinks it is a travesty.    It does not work well if you don’t have a touch screen.   Why does not the computer industry not understand that some people don’t like tablets but would like a good old fashioned lightweight laptop with a full keyboard for typing?

Also the Panda Bear not like the fact more information has to go over computer networks especially in light that the NSA is monitoring all our transactions.    For example to play as simple game of Free Cell(a form of solitaire) the Panda Bear has to now connect to a network where it retrieves information on her prior games on another computer.   Why can’t it simply be a program one computer rather than on a network?  The Panda Bear is hoping that the NSA is enjoying tracking her computer card games.   Seriously, the Panda Bear thinks doing things on paper is going to make a comeback because people won’t feel that their computers are secure because they need to be connected to networks for most functions.

The Panda Bear Blog has also been impacted by the US government shutdown.   How has the US government shutdown effected the Panda Bear Blog?    Mr. Panda is a Federal Worker.    It caused the Panda Bear and Mr. Panda Bear much stress that they did not what was happening at Mr. Panda’s work.   They were planning to go on vacation this week (another ripple effect of shutdown-a hotel lost money because of the shutdown).   Most of all Mr. Panda not working was depriving the Panda Bear of the quite solitude needed for her for the Panda Bear to write her blog.  

Thus, with her new computer and the Federal Government back to normal the Panda Bear hopes to return to regular blogging.