Podcast NYC: Pop Culture Rant #46
We move from George Clooney to Tom Cruise this week on the PCR. What's up with this dude? He's responsible for censoring a really funny and very irreverent cartoon called South Park. I even hear that he got a director to edit an indie film that contained a nudie scene with his paramour Katie Holmes. This is all alleged of course, but in the world of Tom anything is possible.Plenty of other celebrity foolishness this week including Sharon Stone's return to full frontal nudity at 48 and a raft of celebrity divorce announcements.
Finally, because I don't want to be outdone by major news organizations I'm weighing in on the French Employment Riots and the Moussaoui Terrorism Trial.
4 Comments:
Immigration: very good points brought up. I think Americans can do many of the farming and constrctuion jobs (the jobs we all usually associate with this issue) but they realistically know they can't make a living on less than $11 or 12 an hour and in the crappy conditions the supervisors force on the illegal immigrants.
PLEASE talk more about this issue, there's SO much to it. The more I learn about this issue the more I worry about the US ebcoming a country with no middle class and a race to the bottom in wages.
Sure Americans can do those jobs...but will they? I doubt it. And if they did deign to do those jobs then an apple would cost $10 due to what they'd want to get paid.
Here in Australia we've got the exact same situation...there a swags of jobs we simply won't do for the money that is available. And consumers won't pay what it would cost if the wages were higher.
So, if you get rid of the "illegal" immigrants doing the jobs we don't want to do then those jobs will simply disappear.
What does that achieve?
I guess the security issue is a bit of a concern. Then again if we all stayed at home and looked after ourselves and stopped running around the world bringing "freedom" and "democracy" to people who never bloody asked for it I suspect we would have far fewer people wanting to blow us up.
This is not just an anti-US rant...us Aussies are in the stupid coalition of the willing too...and we have never been at higher risk of terrorism than since we joined up.
As for the scientologists I wish them the best of luck. If I could think up a belief system that had morons like Tom Cruise handing me great wads of cash I'd do it in a heartbeat. Caveat Emptor and all that.
As always your show gets us 'debating' issues on our drive home...we love it so thankyou.
Thank you all for the intelligent feedback on these issues.
I remember being in Australia in 2001 and meeting a number of students and people from overseas who had found jobs working in the fields. Maybe you get someone a little bit more transient doing those jobs when you have to take a plane or ship to get somewhere.
The (very relative) ease of crossing a land border seems to be very enticing. Personally I don't mind people coming over to do honest, low paying work if that's what they want. After all, to them the pay is not so low.
We need to have these folks properly documented and paying their share of taxes. That would lessen the security risk and lower the burden on taxpayers who sponsor the social programs that support many new immigrants.
I don't know that shifting forces from Iraq would help us achieve more security on the borders. In the U.S. individual states decide if federal troops can be deployed and almost all governors say "hell no" to the possibility of the Armed Forces conducting operations in their States.
On Scientology, Cruise is certainly the best recruiter they've got having convinced Jamie Packer to join the hive.
The whole Cruise/Packer/Scientology thing is certainly a laugh. I suspect that's what killed Jamie's dad who was one of our biggest media moguls (and Australia's richest man) and died a few months ago. He was a hard-nosed business man who wouldn't have had anything to do with the Scientologist rubbish.
As for the illegal immigratns and all that...to me the problem is not the immigrants..it's the fact they are taking an "unfair" slice of welfare or other government handouts. So my answer is to do away with governments. They are, by and large ineffecient wasteful organisations who normally achieve the opposite of their intentions. If we had no welfare then the only people that come would be those who are prepared to work. More people = more jobs ('cos these people need things too) and greater prosperity.
Well that's my solution anyway. I want to keep the 65% of my money that the Government gets. I'm much smarter than they are and I can look after it (and myself) better.
:)
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