Where Have All the Workers Gone?

One of the stories in today's Wall Street Journal 10-Point (a daily WSJ eNews update), has to do with Americans traveling again. An accompanying article carries the headline "Travel Is Back, but Airline and Hotel Workers Are Not." 

In separate article, the same theme rears its head. Railroad gridlock is bogging down U.S. farm shipments. Why? The railroads can't find workers. "Delayed trains and scarce railcars are impeding crop shipments this spring, causing grain-storage facilities to fill up, backing up fertilizer shipments and temporarily shutting down production at ethanol plants. Railroad operators said they are working to fix the problems, but struggling to find enough workers."

Where have all the workers gone? When I did a quick search, the first thing I saw is that a large swath of jobs require Covid vaccinations in order to work there. This may be a contributing factor to many employment situations including the childcare worker shortage. On that particular front there was a push a couple years ago to require childcare workers to have 2 years of college experience. I personally think having experience as a mom would be better than college. College costs money so working parents will make even less money going to work if they pay more for childcare.

When you add up childcare, suitable clothing and transportation costs, one wonders how necessary that second job really is. Especially after taxes. And maybe this is another part of the labor shortage.

I saw a Tweet today that says the problem isn't a shortage of workers, but "a shortage of jobs that aren't awful." 

So here's the another question. Are there systems in place to import workers? Yes, there are. But then we face the next hurdle, the dearth of affordable housing. The lack of housing stock is creating a new housing bubble. Prices are going up faster than wages, and faster than builders have time to build them. (And they have a shortage of workers, too!) 

Here's a Tweet about the restaurant trade. This comment was in response to a comment about high school baseball games being cancelled because of the shortage of umpires. "Same thing with the restaurant worker shortage. People have spent years talking about flipping burgers like it’s the lowest form of existence, and treating people who do accordingly. Now those people are mad that no one wants to work anymore."

Round and round and round it goes, where it stops nobody knows.

Time Capsules: What Would You Conceal For 100 Years?

This car was underground (and sometimes underwater)
for 50 years in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

A big story in the news this week has been the unearthing and opening of two "time capsules" that had been placed beneath a statue of General Robert E. Lee in Richmond, Virginia. The statue was being dismantled because it symbolized the oppression experienced by blacks under slavery.

But it was the time capsules that were the interesting feature of this story. They were 130 years old. What would they contain? In what condition were their contents?

I found the story intriguing because in 2007 I attended the opening of a time capsule in Tulsa, Oklahoma. A gold and white 1957 Plymouth Belvedere had been placed in a concrete vault that was to be opened in 2007. Boyd Coddington, an L.A. car-builder with a television show was on hand to help get the car started after its 50 year sleep. Inside the trunk were the "time capsule" contents.

Media gathered round to see what treasures might
be found in the trunk of this 1957 Belvedere 

The car and its contents had been buried as part of the 50th anniversary of Oklahoma statehood. It was to be opened on the state's 100th anniversary. 

One item in the time capsule was a list of guesses as regards what the population of Tulsa would be in 50 years. The winning guess would win the car. There was also some gasoline, to make sure the car would run if cars of the future did not use gas.

Needless to say, when the lid was pulled from the coffin -- I mean vault -- one could readily see from markings on the walls that the vault had been filled with water to varying depths numerous times over the years. If you know anything about cars, they have a lot of parts that can rust... like the frame, the body, the engine.

The late Boyd Coddington had a team of assistants who managed to pry the rusted hood up enough to see that the engine was a block of rust. They then made a gallant effort to open the trunk to retrieve the contents of the time capsule. This was achieved and 

You can read here my account of the Tulsarama celebration. And here's a related story: Entombed 50 Years, Miss Belvedere Still Turns Heads

As for the 130 artifacts concealed in the Robert E. Lee, coins and bullets from the Civil War were among the various items unearthed, along with an 1875 Almanac and some books. The backstory on this second box (the first was found a couple months ago) can be accessed here at the Wall Street Journal site.

Which leads us to the question: What would YOU place in a Time Capsule that would be opened in 100 years? 

What about the original lyrics of Bob Dylan's "Desolation Row"? Or an iPod filled with the entire Beatles catalog? How about a box of unused N95 Covid masks? Plus a copy of last Sunday's New York Times with my daughter's 10th crossword puzzle published there.

How about you? 

Flash Mob Crime a Sign of the Times

Mob: a large crowd of people, especially one that is disorderly and intent on causing trouble or violence.
"a mob of protesters"

* * *

Do you remember Flash Mobs? They didn't appear by accident. They were orchestrated events that were designed to appear spontaneous happenings involving lots of people in a public space. These flash mob eruptions had been taking place in various spaces around the country so that it was almost a fad of sorts. The aim, it seemed, was harmless entertainment. 

We even had one in Duluth, directed by Crystal Taylor who had been designated "Flash Mob Organizer" by Mayor Ness, if my memory is accurate. The event took place in the summer of 2011. The flash mob occurred during Sidewalk Days, an annual event that draws people into town for a week of shopping and real life face-to-face socializing. 

A darker form of flash mobs has been happening recently in San Francisco and Minneapolis. You may have heard about mass shoplifting events in San Francisco in which groups show up and steal as much merchandise as they can then flee. Now the police are saying that criminals are using Snapchat and other apps to organize these stealing sprees. 

On November 20, 90 people showed up to overrun a Nordstrom's store in San Francisco. These were people who didn't know one another, but responded to the announcement of a flash action. Today's Wall Street Journal stated, "The thieves stole more than $100,000 of merchandise in one minute before escaping in 25 separate cars that had their license plates removed or covered, prosecutors said." 

I remember reading about how revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya were coordinated through Twitter and other social media. If these flashmob robberies were to continue unabated, it could easily result in copycat events around the country. 

How would this play out long term? Would the government use A.I. to gather intel ahead of such events in order to intercept these organized mobs? To do so would require a further intrusion into our privacy in the name of security.

Chicago and Los Angeles have had similar mob crime events as well. It seems to me that if the thieves continue to get away with it, what's to stop it from spreading?

You can read the WSJ story here: Flash-Mob Thieves Use Apps to Plan.

Here is the article I wrote about the Flash Mob in Duluth ten years ago: Flash-Mob Invades Duluth

Here are some videos from various places showing how quickly thieves can snatch and go.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6d5wGaT2Qo (2019)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQclP8fREWk (3 weeks ago)

https://www.foxnews.com/us/repeated-organized-flash-mob-robberies-san-francisco-security-experts

Miscellaneous Observations on Green Cards, Homelessness and the Eviction Moratorium Extension

According to the WSJ "about 100,000 green cards are at risk of going to waste this year as the application backlog grows." Having a Green Card is what enables you to permanently live and work in the U.S. The Washington Post published an opinion piece on this last week. The problem is primarily caused by slow processing of paperwork. 

What it actually shows is that government officials excel at making pronouncements but all too frequently haven't done the heavy lifting of HOW TO IMPLEMENT their noble plans. As nearly everyone knows, the devil is in the details. 

* * * 

Businesses can be guilty of this as well. The consequences can be costly and even damage a company's future, though more often it simply produces frustration amongst internal staff. The Fed has no such concern. When too many people notice a failure to deliver, they just point to another crisis over there and this one over here to divert our attention. There are more than enough crises to go around.

* * *

The ongoing Eviction Moratorium is a strange and convoluted story. Reason magazine published a story this week titled After Claiming It Didn't Have the Power To Impose A New Eviction Moratorium, the Biden Administration Imposes a New Eviction Moratorium.

The lead editorial of the WSJ's weekend edition succinctly addresses this matter. The first eviction moratorium was illegal, but went forward anyways because the president stated he would not do it again. The Supreme Court explicitly said "any further action would need legislative steps." In other words, you can't just do this via executive order.

Needless to say, Biden did it again but  says he didn't because it's different this time. It only applies to 87% of U.S. counties. (Including all the most crowded ones.) 

I am reminded of the Peanuts comic in which Lucy persuaded Charlie Brown that she won't pull the football away this time. She always does, of course. 

* * * 

Los Angeles does not have the highest homeless population in the world, but it certainly has a large one. Over 66,000 according to this article, which places it 2nd behind New York City. This YouTube video gives you a visual overview of the way homelessness manifests itself in L.A.

This is not just a U.S. problem. Mumbai, Moscow and Manila have massive numbers of homeless people. Is this ever-growing homeless population our new normal?  

Here are a couple comments from the YouTube video cited above:

1.  Being a Filipino, i've gotten quite used to seeing homeless people on the streets but seeing them in large numbers for the first time in an affluent and world renowned American city like L.A. is quite shocking. Makes me realize how lucky i am for having my own home in my 3rd world country, no matter how humble it is.

2. I live 15 minutes away from downtown and it’s been 5 years since I’ve been down there and two weeks ago I passed by at night and let me tell you I was so shocked at how downtown looks it’s sad

3. I wish someone would do this for Seattle (YouTube vid) to bring more awareness to how bad it's getting. Our homeless situation is headed for this as well. We used to be the clean and green city. Now I hate going into downtown. smh

4. It is insane for American government to spend money on foreign charity, while ignoring the homeless problem Americans face everyday!

* * *

As for me, painted apartments in South Minneapolis in the early 80's and do not recall ever seeing people living in tents. Two years ago I drove through the "old neighborhood" and was quite surprised at the size of the tent city there near the freeway. 

All this raises questions such as...
What are city governments doing to alleviate this problem? 
What are the underlying causes of this problem? 
What should politicians be doing about it?

Perhaps you have suggestions. Feel free to leave a comment.

* * * 

Wild Elephants on the Loose in China

Some stories stimulate the imagination more than others. Yesterday I heard about a herd of elephants on the loose in China and several tag-along thoughts popped into my head. One of these was the film 12 Monkeys with Brad Pitt and Bruce Willis. Wild animals on the loose. Sharknado came to mind as well, just because it is so bizarre. 

What happened is that 15 elephants left their nature preserve and began a road trip. As of today they have done about 1.1 million dollars damage to farmland, plundering and pillaging. According to a story in Travel & Leisure, 675 police, 62 emergency trucks, 12 drones and 11 tons of food have been deployed in an effort to keep the elephants from ransacking the city of Kumming, capital of Yunnan province.

The story also appeared in today's Wall Street Journal, with a somewhat comical observation that perhaps the leader of the herd "lacks experience and led the whole group astray." (This wouldn't be a veiled, tongue-in-cheek barb regarding our government leaders, would it?) The title of the piece is, "A Herd of Wild Elephants Wandering Across China Captivates Millions."

Now actually, they have only traversed about 300 miles and China is roughly the size of the U.S., so they've hardly wandered too far across China. And when you dig further, this herd is only about 15 in number. Whether the herd be large or small, the elephants are large and the story does have a weird factor.

Evidently millions in China have been watching this story unfold. Now, the story's been carried to the four corners of the world via news media and social media. Here's an ABC account with some footage of these lost vagabonds.  And here's a photo on Twitter of the sleeping herd with that darling little toddler scrunched between them.

I can't help but wonder what these elephants are thinking as they explore some of the cities they're passing through. 

To close this out, George Orwell once had to deal with an elephant out of its element when the young Orwell was stationed in India. I first wrote about that unhappy story here: Shooting An Elephant. My hope is that this unusual event will have a happier outcome for everyone, because the world world is watching.

Agatha Christie's last crime novel was titled Elephants Can Remember. Will this herd remember how to find their way home?

Here's a link to the WSJ story.

Nobel Echoes: Bob Dylan Is Second Writer From Duluth to Receive Nobel Prize in Literature

Gabe Rubin in front of Dylan's boyhood home in Duluth.

This week a journalist from the Wall Street Journal flew into town to gather material for a story on Bob Dylan's home town's, to appear next week on the day the Prize is to be officially awarded, December 10. Dylan fans come from all walks of life, from knighted university professors to Pulitzer Prize winning authors so it should not have been a surprise to find WSJ's Gabriel Rubin to be so thoroughly enthused by the assignment he acquired, to do a first-hand research on Dylan's roots here in the Northland.

Before heading to Hibbing, Mr. Rubin met with several members of the Duluth Dylan Fest committee and long-time Duluthians Steve Goldfine and Craig Grau. The latter two shared several stories and insights I'd not heard before, so I took notes and did a lot of listening. Afterward, we gave Mr. Rubin a tour of the various points of interest related to our theme.

One of the items that came from the encounter was a new realization about a Sinclair Lewis-Bob Dylan connection I'd never recognized before. It's only natural that I'd not previously had this thought because up until this fall Bob Dylan had not yet been honored with a Nobel Prize.

What Mr. Grau highlighted for our guest was that Duluth was not only the home town for Bob Dylan for a season, but was also home town for another Nobel Prize winner, Sinclair Lewis, who lived here in the mid-1940s. Once you recall that Dylan was born in Duluth in 1941, it doesn't take much figgerin' to notice that Lewis -- the first American to win a Nobel Prize for Literature -- was here in the Zenith City at the very same time.

When Sinclair Lewis won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1930, he was the first American ever to do so, the award mainly a result of his novel "Babbitt" (1922) set in the fictional city of Zenith, which happens to be a popular nickname of our Northland home town.*

Lewis was born in Sauk Centre, Minnesota in 1885. He received his accolades from the Nobel Prize committee in 1930 at the age of 45. Many people are unaware that in his fifties Lewis moved to Duluth and lived here at 26th Avenue East and 2nd Street for a few years in the 1940s. The book he wrote while living here, Kingsblood Royal, happened to be a book about race.

A book about race while living in Duluth in the 1940s? Only 25 years earlier Duluthians broke into the jail and lynched three black workers from a travelling circus that was in town that summer. This incident, is re-painted in Dylan's haunting Desolation Row's opening lines, "They're selling post cards of the hanging.... the circus is in town." Anyone else hearing an echo?

* * * *
The Wikipedia entry on Sinclair Lewis begins...

Harry Sinclair Lewis (/ˈluːɪs/; February 7, 1885 – January 10, 1951) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and playwright. In 1930, he became the first writer from the United States to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature, which was awarded "for his vigorous and graphic art of description and his ability to create, with wit and humor, new types of characters." His works are known for their insightful and critical views of American capitalism and materialism between the wars. He is also respected for his strong characterizations of modern working women. H. L. Mencken wrote of him,"[If] there was ever a novelist among us with an authentic call to the trade ... it is this red-haired tornado from the Minnesota wilds."

A little further down Wikipedia describes the nature of Lewis' writings.

In 1930, Lewis won the Nobel Prize in Literature, the first writer from the United States to receive the award, after he had been nominated by Henrik Schück, member of the Swedish Academy. In the Academy's presentation speech, special attention was paid to Babbitt. In his Nobel Lecture, Lewis praised Theodore Dreiser, Willa Cather, Ernest Hemingway, and other contemporaries, but also lamented that "in America most of us—not readers alone, but even writers—are still afraid of any literature which is not a glorification of everything American, a glorification of our faults as well as our virtues," and that America is "the most contradictory, the most depressing, the most stirring, of any land in the world today."

And in this description of the novelist I hear echoes of Dylan's "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)" and other songs, which is why so many disenfranchised young people of the Sixties so resonated with Dylan's music.

* * * *

Dylan tribute on the elevator doors in the lobby of the downtown Holiday Inn.

History is about people, times and places. The people in this instance are Nobel Prize winners from Duluth who shared this town for a brief space of time. The houses where they lived remain, even if the now famous residents have moved on.

If you're taking notes, be sure to review them next May before Duluth Dylan Fest. At least one detail here will be the answer to a question in our Trivia Contest on the first evening of the week.

EdNote: The Hibbing Dylan Project wants everyone to know that Will Call tickets are still available for the December 10 Nobel Laureate Reception at the Androy Hotel. Details here.

EdNote 2: Be sure to pick up a Wall Street Journal, December 10. It might make for a good collectible if you're a Dylan fan.

EdNote 3: Breaking News. The info in EdNote 2 is incorrect. Due to a schedule change, the article will go online tonight and appear in print in tomorrow's Wall Street Journal.

Meantime, life goes on all around you.

*A silly aside: Whether you look at history backward or forward, these two American Nobel Prize for Literature winners are first and last to receive it, and both from Duluth. 

Who's the Bad Guy Here?

"This world is ruled by violence, but that's better left unsaid." ~ Dylan

When my brother Ron was eleven and I thirteen, there was a lot of conflict between us because though we had been close, I was now imagining myself more grown up. For sure I had more school work to do, and my passion for sports and interest in girls wasn't as fully developed yet in my younger sibling.

We used to get into a lot of fights during that period. I remember vividly on one occasion where I was at my desk doing homework in my room. Ron came in, hit me on the back and scampered out. I ignored him. A little later the imp repeated the annoying attack, and I continued to ignore him. It must of been five or six times this happened before I sprang into action. Actually, I was waiting for him at this point and when he hit me, like an uncoiling spring I leaped up, chased him down and gave him a very solid punch on the arm. My intention was to hurt him and I hurt him. He cried and ran to mom.

Mom could be wise in these things. She knew what was going on and listened to both sides of the story. I was not punished in this instance. This is not to say that I was always right nor even right to use violence. The story is intended to note that there is more than meets the eye to even a simple incident like that one.

Today, Israeli ground troops entered Gaza after a week of air strikes. The Pope has called for a cease fire. The ELCA Presiding Bishop has called for a ceasefire. The British Prime Minister has called for a cease fire. London demonstrators are calling for a cease fire. Hollywood stars are even weighing in, calling for a cease fire.

If one compares the Hamas to my brother's annoying interruptions, who is going to stop them if not the one who continues to be hit? Despite the pummeling by the Israeli army, the Hamas has not discontinued lobbing missiles into Israel.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Israel's policy is perfectly proportionate and that Hamas are the real war criminals in this conflict. (As if violence that destroys innocents can ever be "perfectly" proportionate.)

Another variable here is the upcoming Israeli election in February. My brother, who visited Israel in December, says that the fighting will continue until the election. There's a political aspect to this invasion that to my knowledge has not appeared in the U.S. press.

I am not one who believes in the notion of "Israel right or wrong." I do know that both sides have an axe to grind. And I have no clue how we will ever see peace in the Middle East, which is pretty sad.

At a blog for the United Church I read this statement yesterday: "We at Churches for Middle East Peace mourn the loss of life on both sides and call now on the United States to exercise bold leadership to immediately end the violence, restore the cease-fire and lift the blockade of Gaza's borders."

But amidst the comments at the United Church of Christ blog, this one shines light from a different angle. "It's time to stop pretending that a cease fire equals peace. A cease fire to Hamas only gives them time to re-arm and attack Israel when they are stronger militarily. They do not desire peace with Israel - they do not desire a co-existence with Israel. They do not even allow for Israel's right to exist."

Which is why there is weeping in Jerusalem.