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Vol 1, Issue 1 |
 Page 5 |
Monday, July 31, 2006 |
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Sections
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The Mediocre Housekeeper TM
By Heidi Taskmaster Greetings, busy housekeepers. When I received Editor Bernie’s email requesting my thoughts on a speedy home cleaning, I kicked off my shoes (one of which almost hit Jezebel, my two-year-old calico-I miss her all the time), poured some Chardonnay in a questionably-clean glass, plopped down on the sofa, spilling some wine that added to the stain pattern on my off-white (really off-white) cushions and smiled. So, I was finally going to be recognized for my genius. Bernie and I are old friends. We dated for four days and thirteen hours in the sixties, twelve days and three hours in the seventies and two days and seventeen minutes in the eighties—but who can remember these things? In those days, I was a starving artist, living on a limited budget, earning a living by the sweat of my brow. Yes, I have a rare condition that builds up excessive sweat on my brow, and I would drip for donations on the street. I progressed through the years to jewelry-making and finger-painting and, in the nineties, achieved financial success as a motivational speaker. When I dated Bernie, I knew he was impressed with the way I cleaned. He used to call me his favorite Dirt Dervish. But enough chitchat; let’s get down to cleaning. Here is my secret 45 minutes-or-less weekly cleaning guide for homes that may not, after cleaning, pass the heightened scrutiny of a boot camp sergeant or a mother-in-law, but will do just fine for a spouse, partner or a significant other whose sense of smell or sight has been diminished. Assume your home—apartment or house—has a living room, a dining area, a kitchen, a den in which you use your computer, two bedrooms and bathrooms. The master bath is exclusively yours, not used by guests. If you are living with a spouse or significant other, the cleaning chores are not shared unless I talk about sharing them. From start to finish in 45 minutes—let’s go! You must assume the proper mental attitude. Forty-five minutes is the limit. Send this message to your mind, and your body will follow.
2. Cleaning above the floor such as wiping grease marks from walls and dusting (you may want to read “Dust and Clutter Can Be Your Friends” in our next issue). 3. Straightening up objects in the room, such as sofa cushions, toys and dirty dishes. Five minutes for this phase only. It helps to have a wristwatch that has an alarm. It may take longer when you start this process, but you’ll get it down to five minutes. I guarantee it. 
5. Pick the next important rooms, but your bedroom and the living room usually have priority after bathroom and kitchen, with a second bedroom, the den and the dining room to be cleaned if there is time. 6. If you’re preparing dinner for guests soon, move up the dining room priority.
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Need, Greed continued ...
Lay subsequently transferred over the Enron CEO position to Jeffrey Skilling, who employed all kinds of “whiz-kids”-bright young men and women with MBAs from highly-prized academic institutions – to expand Enron’s business into exotic hedge, derivative and futures financial products. As we now know, most of those products and services used pie-in-the-sky algorithms and practices that produced such tempting financial/legal gimmicks as SPEs—special purpose entities. These off-balance sheet financing contrivances employed brilliant strategies to hide debt, but had little, if any, business purpose, value or common sense.
Enron’s business became much more management-intensive without little, if any, administrative leadership. Remember, this is a company that “got drunk on the smell of its own corporate cork” by holding itself out as an expert who could accurately predict the future of virtually everything, including broadband and climate. The jury, trying Lay and Skilling for criminal charges, didn’t believe their attempt to employ a new version of the “Twinkie Defense,” e.g., “Golly, we didn’t know what was going on. We were only the CEO and Chairman of the Board. We had no idea that so many people beneath us were dishonest and doing things they should not have done. Yes, we were hands-on; no, we weren’t hands-on. We’re very important people, you know, and we can’t be blamed for what we didn’t know or even what we did know (nod, nod, wink, wink).” The jury didn’t buy their protestations. Their convictions give great credence to business basics, namely that responsible executives cannot escape reality and run away from the morally and ethically bankrupt, corrupt corporate culture they’ve established. It’s the culture, the business environment, that caused Enron’s demise. And, now, for the rest of the story.
The Bush Administration rode into power on a great, white stallion representing purity of mind, body and soul and those great G.O.P. principles: less government; free trade without governmental regulations or restrictions; and make the rich and powerful richer and more powerful, and they, in turn, behind their gated communities, will take care of the common, working stiffs. And, if uncontrolled spending and tax reductions, credits and perks benefiting the rich helped to expand a budget deficit, so much the better. It may be necessary to balance your personal checkbook and maintain a positive balance, but this is government, and checkbooks don’t need to be balanced.
Vastly oversimplified; less government, less taxes and less governmental regulations. We, the vast public majority, didn’t get the first; received some “crumbs” from the second and have taken a sizeable beating from the third.
Much before the tragic events of September 11, 2001, the Bush Administration had established the culture, the business environment in which it chose to lead and pursue its policies. No administration can be blamed for 9/11 events. (Subsequent independent committees and their reports have strongly indicated serious pre-9/11 governmental and intelligence community communication breakdowns that may have prevented the 9/11 catastrophic events.). Bush and his people seemingly did most of the right things thereafter. Afghanistan was a proper move; Osama bin Laden and his ilk, who caused the horrendous human tragedy, had to be stopped. But, then, a funny thing happened on the way to war; Bush and his people got all caught up in their own arrogance and hubris which men of wisdom and true leadership lack. They refused to accept honest intelligence and understanding of the world in which people live, and that wonderful white stallion was discovered to be masquerading as a gelding whose colors were black and blue. Bush and his minions caused intelligence information to be skewed, reasons rationalized and misinformation communicated to the American public. War was declared on Iraq and the focus to complete our mission in Afghanistan was derailed. Now approaching its 41st month—our involvement in World War II was only 49 months—our country is on a fast track to third world status. Let us explain.
Freedom is the right to be wrong, not the right to do wrong. John Diefenbaker The environment established by President Bush has been based upon unethical and morally bankrupt misinformation and corruption. The needs of the people, particularly in the areas of education, health and employment have gone unanswered. The No Child Left Behind Program has been under-funded for years, and at least one state has sued to enforce the Bush Administration’s commitments. Study after study show that the health coverage of more Americans has deteriorated during Bush’s watch. Although, our economy appears to be hitting on eight cylinders, we are driving a V12. True, the economy is producing new jobs, but many are lower-paying positions or those directly connected to our defense efforts. In addition, many of our major corporations are not only outsourcing jobs, but are actively establishing subsidiaries and divisions in less-developed and developing countries and employing cheaper, experienced and educated labor. Our “academic and technical clocks” are being cleaned by many superior academic institutions in both India and China. In fact, the United States just recently hit its cap of 65,000 visas for temporarily skilled (high-tech) workers, and the year is young.
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