Broken Men

[Tinker]

[Hapax Legomenon]

Nice passage. I am a broken man in some respects, but I am not yet beaten. As a felon, I don't have the same rights as an average citizen, nor do I have the same opportunities. I am on parole right now, until May of 2012. I have no problem paying my pound of flesh, but I have a problem paying 200 pounds. As Burroughs said in Naked Lunch, the last pride of the defeated man is he hasn't lost his bitterness, though I wouldn't call it that. It is more of a sense of the difference of justice and mercy. Justice in my case would have been to just take a baseball bat to my head and whack me real hard one time. Instead, I have a lifetime of collusion between the private and public sectors to make sure that unless I invent the next great thing, I am finished. Well, if that is the case, I might as well join the French Foreign Legion. Life goes on, man, even for us subhumans, subcitizens. I'll do what I need to survive, within the law, until the law becomes the impediment to my survival. Haters always gonna hate.

[Tinker]

Thank you for sharing. I have always found our treatment of felons to be in poor form. It makes it quite hard to become anything except for a felon if they drastically limit your options the way that they do. A felon should be able to vote whether in prison or not. They should have a voice in the conditions in which they persist.

[Hapax Legomenon]

[amos]

I'd like to hear of more of what you are saying. Turn up the volume.

[CgDs]

[Ibrahim]

[Tinker]

[crashtech]

I have a good friend who once pled no contest to a felony charge, but years later was able to obtain work with the .

I don't know if other utilities are the same way, but thought it worth mentioning.

[Hapax Legomenon]

Thank all of you guys for your responses. I'll return with my own in about an hour or so to respond with the same consideration.

[Hapax Legomenon]

Amos/RT:

Thanks for your ears. I need to vent.

CD:

When I was in school, they told us any degree mattered and that an English degree was well-rounded for career in business. My experience has led me to believe otherwise, though I would say that my education was excellent, as well as my full professors in the study. None of this means anything today.


Ibrahim:

Your thinking is exactly my experience. It make absolutely no sense to disenfranchise felons unless you desire them to go back to prison.

Tinker:

I wish contractors would hire felons, but it is not reality at the moment, especially considering the cheap wages of illegals.

Crashtech:

Thank you for your insight and example.

If the basic retail, the military and and the state won't take me, then I'll choose another route. I'm not a criminal per se, so I'll choose any other option otherwise, including the FFL, but if that doesn't work, well, I'll have no choice but to become an American Mongolian.

[CgDs]

[noddy]

not really sure about the conditions on the ground in america, but in your position over here id be getting as far away from the middle class cities as i could get myself and doing mining/farming work in a mind your own business place.

[amos]

Give this a look Hapax.

http://www.elance.com/q/find-work/online-work-overview/

[Hapax Legomenon]

Thank you guys for your responses.

CD:

If I knew what I wanted to do, ever, I doubt I'd be in this predicament. In school, I specialized on Joyce, which is an extreme niche, but very useful for general education, as Joyce was a genius. Understanding much of Finnegans Wake doesn't mean much in a our reality without a PhD and a professor position. I just want a normal life. I am not averse to manual labor, but they just don't want to hire anybody right now that has "blemishes" on their record. Baseball/football writing is a very competitive market, where without the right connections, you got no shot. In Philly, the same ten guys hold ALL of the jobs.

noddy:

Yeah, I'm looking for that, but no resources to get there means no job and I'm running out of options. Gotta pay the bills. That's why I'm looking at the FFL as a real possibility. It may be hell on earth, but it is at least a clean slate, if you get in.

amos:

Thank you for the link. I'm gonna check it out--I might be able to write about beating the spread (winning about 5 out of 9 the last two years ).

[Tinker]

[CgDs]

[Tinker]

If you want to survive and thrive in modern society, you need to have a lot of different revenue streams. Photographers can contribute to stock photo galleries. Sure it's only a few bucks per year, but if you can get up to a hundred every year from your stock photos then that's extra money. There are lots of ways to make small amounts of money on the internet. You can become an ebay trader. If you're good with your hands make art and sell it on etsy. Get yourself a small plot of land, grow some food then sell it at farmer's markets in the city. Generally a combination of multiples will do best in that case.

[Hapax Legomenon]

Thank you guys for your responses.

Tinker:

I'm not sure I'm up for that level of technical knowledge. I'm much more of a grunt.

CD:

I can only do so much, especially with a specific mentality that you and I share. I do have an idea, though (not sports).

Tinker again:

Thank you for your multiple revenue stream suggestions. I WILL try, but I have little faith. Are you ready for our great downturn? I'm not, as well as 99% of the people I know. But I've read Mako, B9K9 and trav7777's comments on Zero Hedge, and I believe they are correct. We are facing a whole new world.

[Tinker]

No I am not ready for the downturn. I don't think there really is any being 'ready' for it.

[Hapax Legomenon]

[Hapax Legomenon]

Thank you to all that participated in this thread. I just got a job today, after fourteen months of looking and applying, at Applebee's as a line cook. $12/hr to start and I am delighted to have it. I start as soon as they call me for a day shift--tomorrow or Friday. Thank you all for your concern, especially Amos. Thank you very much for your link. The American Man, at least in my life, continues to endure.

[crashtech]

Win!

[Hapax Legomenon]

[Torchwood]