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Hoping this one escapes the scalpel of Redstate’s censors, I submit the following:

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Those who have been following the saga of my rhetorical battle with brainless baristas might conclude that the conflict has escalated to outright war when they learn that I marched out of a Starbucks yesterday without completing my purchase. Some suggest a liberal soaking in addictive drugs, others post-hypnotic suggestion, but for whatever reason, to me no coffee tastes quite as good as Starbucks’ French Roast. So, no matter how irritating the purchase process, no matter how firm my resolve to never darken a Starbucks door again, each time the beans run low, I slink back to the store in defeat.

There, I grab the bag of beans and approach the counter, dreading the inevitable exchange. I try to forestall it, answering their “What can I do for you?” with a forthright “Just the beans, please,” with an emphasis on the word “beans.” Then comes the four words I dread to hear. “You want those ground?”

It is at this point I am inevitably reminded of the episode of “Monk,” in which the obsessive-compulsive-disorder-suffering detective is confronted by a precocious little girl who says, “Pete and Repeat are sitting in a boat. Pete jumps out. Who is left?” To which Monk must reply, “Repeat,” upon which, she does. The scene repeats itself several times, and Monks facial gymnastics are priceless as he recognizes the consequences of his answer, yet is incapable of avoiding it.

And so it is, against my better judgment and best intentions, I respond to the inquiry in the affirmative. When the barista reaches for the bag, I say “I don’t want them ground now.” Sometimes I’ll mix it up, by responding, “Yes, I do. Not all at once, though, and none right now.” Or, just once, I answered, “Of course I do. How much Ouzo do you think I drink?”

Obviously, the simplest response would be simply to say, “No,” despite it being essentially a dishonest reply. However, since it was just the other day that a friend called me Chief of the Word Police, I confess to a perhaps irrational resentment of baristas who consistently ask a question whose most efficient answer is a lie. You’d think after six years of studying literature, they’d know better.

Well, the battle will no doubt continue, unless I join CA and break this caffeinated addiction. However, that was not what propelled me from the store yesterday. In fact, I finessed the whole “You want that ground?” issue quite nicely. Rather, it was two attempts to scan the bag, followed by the barista’s blithe announcement that “The computer’s updating itself. We have to wait.”

“Oh, no we don’t,” I thought, announcing that I’d return, but I had other items on my agenda. It’s a curious state we have achieved where people respond to computorial recalcitrance with such passivity. The computer says we must wait, they intone, as if they were the machine just slipped into sleep mode. Something has gone horribly wrong in our technological world, a dysfunction best summed up by the smart phone commercial featuring the two smug males sitting in their chairs, gazing at their phones and announcing to all news, “That’s so 42 seconds ago,” as if paying passive attention to one’s phone is the highest duty of mankind; as if self-absorption is the essence of self-awareness.

No doubt many are chuckling at the contradiction inherent in my typing this essay on a computer, and then sending it via email to my thousands of readers, while then posting links to various manifestations of social media. Yes, I get that, but somehow we seem to be drifting perilously close to the rim of a chasm of enslavement. Technology was supposed to be a tool to make our lives simpler. Instead, it seems an ever greater portion of our lives is consumed in acquiring and learning how to utilize the latest breakthrough. No longer are we manipulating machine; they now seem to be manipulating us.

I can’t wait to send this one out, as soon as my computer allows me to do so.

Go For Broker
by Michael Goodell

http://www.mlgoodell.webs.com

South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint, the Godfather of the Right Wing of the Republican Party, informed CNN’s Soledad O’Brien this morning that, given the way the primaries are set up this year, it may well be that no candidate will have the 1,144 delegates required for nomination. The way things are going, a brokered convention may prove to be the salvation of the Republican Party, and the nation as a whole.

Maybe then we could pull someone in from the sidelines, some responsible adult who would like to be President, could potentially be a great President, but has too much self-respect to submit himself to the demeaning, debasing, debilitating process of modern American politics. It’s hard to imagine a system better designed to keep qualified people from running for office. Then again, in a culture as broken as ours, why should our politics be any different?

The Republican Party ought to be prescribed a heavy dose of Ritalin, because they seem to be incapable of keeping their minds focused on the main objective in this election, which is to wrest control of the country from Hosni Mubarack O’Bama and his henchmen while there is still a country worth salvaging. Instead, three of the candidates seem to be committed to destroying the fourth candidate, the only one who might have had a chance of winning.

It is really hard to imagine Newt Gingrich or Ron Paul as the standard bearer of any party more rational than the Monster Raving Loony Party, while Rick Santorum, though well-intentioned and sincere, looks more like a Baptist Youth Minister than the leader of the free world. You can almost hear his Inaugural Address, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but–say, do you kids want to play volleyball?”

Romney at least looks the part. In fact, if he could just learn to keep his mouth shut, he would be the candidate straight from central casting. Unfortunately, he has a tendency to speak honestly and openly with reporters. This is almost criminally stupid. He has to understand that he can’t say things like, “I like to fire people,” or “I’m not concerned about the very poor.” It doesn’t matter what the context is. It doesn’t matter how reasonable the statement is.  Seriously, how unproductive, if not disastrous would a domestic policy be if it focused only on the bottom ten percent of the population, on the drug-addicted, the mentally ill, those who chose to drop out of society and now are on the outside looking in. Romney is right, there is a safety net for them. Still, he has to understand how bad that sound bite sounds, and he also has to understand that this year it’s not just the Obamafied media who will quote him out of context and twist the meaning of his words in a way they know is false, but do it because it brands him as an unelectable plutocrat; this year it is his fellow Republicans doing that, too.

The fact is, you can’t defend him for his comments, because he has made them, and either he doesn’t understand how bad they make him look, or he genuinely doesn’t care. Unfortunately, what this string of gaffes suggests is that Romeny is in fact just that out of touch. One cringes to imagine him in a debate with O’Bama, announcing that “some of my best friends are Negroes,” or that he recalls having long talks with Erma, his mother’s maid, which really helped him understand the African American community.

To be honest, the worst thing imaginable would be a President who understands what it’s like to be just an average Joe, who’s just like the guy next door. Being President is tough work, requiring good judgment and the ability to tap the talents of thousands of individuals. Rarely does the President fix his own plumbing, or paint the White House himself. There are other people to do that. Theoretically, he needs to spend his time doing more important things, like playing golf, and basketball, and flying the wife and kids to Hawaii for vacation.

Most Americans realize they wouldn’t want their next door neighbor to be President. Most Americans don’t even want their next door neighbor serving on the Neighborhood Watch Committee. But they want a guy who can at least pretend he could be their next door neighbor. Lately Romney seems determined to convince us that he’d rather eat a tuna casserole than be that pathetic guy.

So, lets keep our fingers crossed, and hope the four remaining Republican candidates continue to bludgeon each other all the way to Tampa, where a grown up with common sense and good Conservative values can step from behind the curtain and save the day.

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It is hard to imagine a more tawdry example of political venality than that on display by the Republican no-hopers in the South Carolina primary. It actually started in New Hampshire, when the little yappy dogs got tired of snapping at Romney’s heels and went for the jugular instead. Gang tackling him for his work with a private equity company? Really?

One would expect to hear such rhetoric from the former graduate student currently Occupying the White House, but from Republicans? Especially from Republicans whose major complaint is Romney’s not conservative enough? Yes, Virginia, our President thinks that the main, the only function of business is to give people jobs, and if a company is profitable, it should use those profits to hire more people. Whether there is anything for those new employees to do is immaterial. The important thing is to give people jobs. That’s how wealth is spread around, and let’s face it, the whole country would be better off if we could just spread that wealth around a little bit. Strange for Republicans to be spouting that line of drivel.

This is what anyone who cares whether our nation has any hope of regaining its historical dynamism and opportunities must confront in November. It is unconscionable that we must confront it on what passes for the right wing of the Republican party. The latest stunt, driven by Old Fencepost himself during last night’s debate, is to call on Romney “to release your income tax,” as if his income tax had been sequestered. Why, hell, if ole Mitt the Job Raper would just release his income tax, it might just wipe out the deficit.

What the Texas Tumbleweed is actually asking is for Romney to make his income tax returns public, so, he claims, “the people of this country can see how you’ve made your money.” What Perry really wants is for Romney to show how much income he derived from interest, dividends and capital gains. What he wants Romney to reveal is that, horror of horrors, he is one of the 1%. How on earth can anyone on the Republican side of the debate think there is anything to be gained from fanning the flames of class warfare? This is the Obama strategy. Even Perry, back in his air force days was smart enough not to walk into a turning propeller. Yet that is exactly what this strategy is designed to do.  Hard to believe some people still think this guy has what it takes to be President.

Then there’s Newt Gingrich, who, whenever he isn’t attacking Romney from the Big Government left, is boasting about his status as “a Reagan Conservative.” Yes, the same Newt Gingrich who dismissed Paul Ryan’s attempt to get a handle on medicare before we all start growing grizzled beards and dancing on tables, as “right wing social engineering.” Note to the Newt: A Ronald Reagan Conservative doesn’t use “right wing” as an epithet. In fact, unless she’s discussing airplanes or hockey strategy, a Reagan Conservative doesn’t use “right wing” at all. It seems ever more apparent that Gingrich doesn’t want to rein in the scope and power of government, he just wants to get his hands on the reins.

Rick Santorum welcomed Jon Huntsman’s retirement from the race by using the term “moderate” at least 83 times in a two-minute statement, as in Well, Huntsman’s a moderate, just like Romney is a moderate, and the Republicans don’t want moderates, we want someone with good conservative values, someone who realizes no matter how shaky the economy is, and how dangerous the world is, if we can just ban gay marriage, all those other problems will solve themselves. When did moderation become a bad thing in conservative eyes? Isn’t moderation a defining characteristic of a Conservative? Why does Santorum, or any other conservative, think that a conservative imposing extreme policies against the will of a large portion of the population is going to be any less of an affront to a civil society than when Democrats imposed their extreme left wing policies against the will of a large portion of the population?

Ron Paul’s only function in this race is to allow Obama to look like a tough guy on foreign policy. It really is pathetic that as many as one out of four Republicans might take him seriously. You hear people saying all the time, “Well, yeah, his foreign policy is a little bit off, but I like his stand on the Fed.” Children, his stand on the Fed is immaterial if he hands China our head on a platter. It’s a dangerous world out there, and just because we’ve run away from Iraq and are actively appeasing the bloodthirsty theocratic nutjobs in Iran doesn’t make it any less so. In fact, quite the opposite. Now is not the right time to retreat inside Fortress America.

It really is essential to keep one’s eyes on the prize, which in this case is taking the White House, the Senate, and the country back from the far left Occupiers. Tea Partiers are so isolated from the mainstream, so focused on only listening to the like-minded, that they can’t conceive of a situation in which Obama can be reelected. I can think of at least four situations, which involve nominating any of those ninnies waging class warfare, playing the populist card, and whining, “America, it’s time to come home.” Someone needs to sit these guys down and explain there’s no future in trying to out Obama Obama. He’s got a couple decades’ head start on you. The party line comes naturally to him, it doesn’t to you.

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The New York Times claims its motto is “All the News That’s Fit to Print,” but when it comes to Conservative strengths or liberal failings, it’s more a case of “We’ll Get Around to it Eventually.” Though not foolproof, (cf. Walter Duranty), the motto does a good job of conveying the editorial staff’s reluctance to print any news that doesn’t fit their particular bias.

Thus, after eight months of doing little but campaigning, the Times in a front page article last Sunday, finally deciphered President Barack O’Bama’s reelection strategy. O’Bama, according to the Times, has taken a look around the Oval Office and concluded, “My work here is finished,” and  done lit out for the territories. His message: “I can’t get anything done in Washington because those lousy Republicans won’t cooperate.”

It really is amazing that in three short years the President has transformed himself from a powerful force for hope and change, the avatar of a new era of post-partisan cooperation, the shepherd standing watch over his flocks while they graze cheek by jowl with lions, to an old crank muttering, “I can’t work with these people.”

According to the Times, the President’s chief advisors, having finally been evicted from Zuccotti Park, have concluded that a campaign based on driving a wedge between the wealthy and the middle class is a winning strategy. It might not be good for the country as a whole, it might result in civil unrest, urban violence and class-hatred-fueled murder and mayhem, but what the hell, if it buys this gang four more years, that might be enough. Start enough fires, and maybe you can do away with that whole democracy thing altogether.

Usually those who Occupy the White House use the power of incumbency as a weapon against those who would seek to evict them. The current Occupier plans to run as an outsider, as a grubbing have-not, as the chief defecator at the Occupy Anytown encampment. In the past Presidents who didn’t face a primary challenge remained in the White House, acting like a President, thereby driving home the difference between themselves and the little men who would presume to take their place. They would use the incumbency to distract people from the other candidates.

This is the first time in American history that a sitting President, let alone one who in a fit of modesty allows the possibility that two or three others might have been more impressive, has used the campaign to distract people from the fact that he is the incumbent. He has appropriated the language of the Occupation Class Warriors, and painted his opponents, or “enemies” as he has been known to described those with whom he disagrees, as the Party of the 1%.

This person currently Occupying the White House claims to represent the other 99% when in fact he knows he is the President of perhaps 20% of the population. He was elected to espouse the dreams and further the goals of those who seek the destruction of the American economy and the utter dismantling of American power and influence in the world. These are his true constituents, but by trundling out his Hope and Change wagon he hopes to convince enough of the rest of us that he still is on our side. He doesn’t have to fool all the people some of the time, or some of the people all of the time, he just needs too fool enough of the people one more time so he can get back to work and finish the job.

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In its initial reports of the North Korean Dictator’s demise, the Associated Press wrote, “Kim Jong Il, North Korea’s mercurial and enigmatic longtime leader, has died of heart failure. He was 69.” Mercurial and enigmatic? I suppose it tells part of the story, but it’s kind of like starting a notorious mass murderer’s obituary by calling him “the well-traveled Ted Bundy.”

Now that the “Dear Leader” has departed for that slave labor camp in the sky, it is important to remember the moral principle that one should never speak ill of the dead. Therefore the balance of this obituary will focus on Kim’s good qualities. And so it goes.

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One of my favorite memories of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, back before the players transformed Orchestra Hall into a UAW Union Hall, is of Neeme Jarvi conducting “O Fortuna,” at the end of  “Carmina Burana.” Jarvi was a most entertaining conductor, who threw himself into the music with even more enthusiasm than many of the musicians. I will always remember Jarvi reaching up and out to cue the clanging gong and clashing cymbals. Casting thunderbolts, I called it.

Casting thunderbolts is fast becoming a Newt Gingrich specialty as well, as each week he seems committed to making some statement so shocking, so outrageous, so terrifying true that it threatens to cause Rachel Maddow’s head to explode. As certain as the White House obscuring proof of felonies and treason beneath huge dumps of documents each Friday afternoon, Newt is going to say something provocative.

Two weeks ago, it was his Scrooge-like “call for the repeal of child labor laws.” This was Newt’s suggestion of how to instill good working habits among the very poor. Not only did the leftist media misinterpret the gist of his comments, they also condemned him for being racist. Now, to refresh your memories, Newt said “Really poor children in really poor neighborhoods have no habits of working and have nobody around them who works.”

It is instructive that when liberals hear “really poor children in really poor neighborhoods,” they think Black People. Then they condemn the speaker for being racist. “This is not the way Black People live,” they sputter. “You’re using stereotypes.” Uh, right. Let’s move on.

In this week’s Gingrich Answer to the Document Dump, Newt announced that “I think we have an invented Palestinian people who are in fact Arabs and historically part of the Arab community,” sending liberals and Lutherans and Arabs around the world fulminating and gesticulating, and looking for Dutch film makers to murder. Sunday’s talk shows will give off a Fukushimaniacal glow, so impassioned will the condemnations be.

It doesn’t matter that his statement is true, which any serious student of the region’s history will acknowledge, and any honest advocate for peace will concede. The land of Palestine was occupied by Arabs, Jews and Christians. None of these constituted a separate race. Palestinian National Orchestra was formed by Jews in Jerusalem. Jews called themselves Palestinians until they formed their own nation, at which time they called themselves Israeli. So, basically, Newt is right again.

This is why he will not be elected President. He is a conversational saboteur. He delights in making outrageous statements which have the advantage of being true. It’s an endearing quality to have in a dinner guest. It’s a great quality to have in a teacher. But it is a lousy quality to have in a Presidential candidate. The American people don’t want an know-it-all in the White House.

Actually, it’s hard to tell what the American people want. They don’t seem to like the competence and professionalism Mitt Romney brings to the job. Herman Cain has demonstrated that while they may like pizza, but they don’t care for anchovies. Michelle Bachmann has proved that Americans definitely don’t like scary eyes. With Rick Perry we learned that while Americans don’t like people who are too smart, they don’t like them when they’re dumber than a fencepost, either. And Obama has shown that the American people respect a sincere man, no matter how often he lies.

It won’t take long before people get tired of Newt’s smirk, his gotchas, his intrinsic need to turn heads and reduce normally inarticulate TV personalities to sputtering incoherence. Newt would probably make a good HHS Secretary. He would be refreshingly wonky when it came time to start dismantling the atrocity which is Obamacare. HHS would be a good office from which he can cast his thunderbolts. In the meantime, enjoy the flying liberal spittle.

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Trash-Talking Santa
by Michael Goodell

http://www.mlgoodell.webs.com

I’m a great student of advertising, especially that found on television. More than just about any other medium, advertising can provide an accurate picture of contemporary society. Now, this is not a foolproof device by any means. For example, just the other day I remarked to my wife that the economy must be improving. When she asked why I told her I had been seeing a lot more jewelry, champagne and luxury car ads. It was clearly an indication that more people had more disposable income, and fewer concerns about their economic future.

“No, you idiot,” she replied sweetly. “It’s the holidays.”

Holiday ads do offer a snapshot on our society, though sometimes we might not want to look at the picture. Take the series of Best Buy ads, running under the slogan, “Game on, Santa.” These ads feature a woman gleefully stuffing her cart with incredibly affordable electronics. One of the Best Buy employees says, “Santa better watch out,” followed by a scene in which Santa Claus himself is trying to leave presents in a room and under a tree already heavily laden with gifts.

He sees the woman, sipping tea (though not offering him any), and rudely, contemptuously saying things like, “Oh, I didn’t leave any room in those stocking for your gifts, did I? Oh, awkward.” or “Daddy don’t want no cologne.”

Clearly, whoever came up with this campaign was going for humor, but it failed miserably. Why on earth would anyone think it would be funny to be cruel to Santa? Now, what is also clear, and this I have known for at least the past five years, is Santa Claus doesn’t really exist. Yet Santa represents niceness, kindness, generosity and love. Not a negative thing about him.

So what does it say about someone who comes up with an ad like this, let alone the executive who, laughing, signed off on it, or the marketing expert who thought it would resonate with a substantial portion of the consumer electronic purchasing public? In other words, isn’t it disturbing to think that decision makers have such a negative, cynical and bleak view of our society?

SPECIAL BONUS HOLIDAY ADVERTISING COVERAGE:

General Motors is running an ad right now featuring one of the special safety features on one of their Cadillacs. Not sure what it is, maybe an battery fire early detection system or something. Anyway, the ad shows a couple driving a Cadillac on a dark, snowy road when suddenly they manage to stop before hitting a team of reindeer standing in the road. There’s no sign of Santa, though he is definitely the implied pilot of this herd (no doubt he ‘s inside getting mocked and ridiculed by a Best Buy customer). The ad implies that without Cadillac’s special safety features the driver might have run over the reindeer. Thus, in addition to getting a good buy, you “Might save the holidays.”

Sorry, but in this case the holiday the prudent driver would be saving is Christmas. Yes, there are many different religious and faux-religious holidays around the Winter Solstice, but in only one of them do eight tiny reindeer feature prominently, and that is Christmas. Thus the driver is saving Christmas, not Hanukkah, not Kwanza, not Slip On a Suicide Vest and Blow Up a School Bus Day, nor any other holiday celebrated by any of the world’s major religions not listed above. Santa equals Christmas. Go ahead, say the word. Nothing really bad will happen to you.

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It’s just a little over a month until the first official contest in the 2012 Republican primary season, which in this i-Pad culture means things should have been wrapped up by now. It’s gone on too long. Why, all the other Reality TV shows, from “Iron Chef” to “Survivor” to “Dancing With the Hollywood Chefs,” are  in reruns by now. So let’s just get it over with and declare Mitt Romney the winner.

At least that seems to be the position the mainstream media have taken. And now the Obama campaign has adopted the same view. But I repeat myself. Actually, it makes you wonder what they have on Romney, given their eagerness to concede him the nomination. While never actually coming out on his side, the media have contented themselves with destroying any candidate who threatens to smudge Romney’s aura of inevitability. The Obama campaign, on the other hand, is pursuing the Brer Rabbit strategy. “Oh, Lawzy, Lawzy,” they seem to be saying, “Please don’t throw me in that briar patch.”

Which makes you think whatever they have must be pretty good.

Lately under the guise of leadership,  Obama has been going around the country, wailing, “We Can’t Wait,” while signing Presidential orders demanding that unemployment fall at least as fast as the level of the seas. Not to be outdone, the Democrat National Committee has embraced the spoiled brat theme by unveiling mittvmitt.com, a video claiming Romney has changed his views on abortion, illegal immigration, gun control, auto bailouts, bank bailouts, the NFL tuck rule, whether to hold on 16 in Blackjack, and, most critically, boxers v. briefs. It is a devastating compendium of contradictory statements, or at least contradictory sound bites. It could conceivably halt Romney’s campaign in its tracks.

Or, possibly, convince Republicans that the Democrats really are afraid of him. Which means they really believe Romney can beat the grad student currently Occupying the White House. Which means  all Republicans ought to throw their support to Romney now, even before the Iowa caucuses. Which means Obama’s people must have something terribly devastating to throw at him. Lawzy, Lawzy indeed.

As to the flip-flop charges, Romney should address it head on. He should say, “Have I changed my positions on several issues over the years? Yes, I have. As I have studied them, and learned the facts, I have changed my view. It’s called leadership. The last thing we want is a President who is unwilling to listen to facts, who refuses to adapt to a changing environment. Even the current President has changed his views on rare occasions. You may recall one of his first acts as President was to announce that he would close Guantanamo Bay within the first year of his administration. Well, guess what? Gitmo is still open, and we are fortunate that it is.

“I give Obama credit for realizing how incredibly naive and dangerous his position was. He adapted, for once, to a changing environment. Over the past 20 years, as I have learned, and grown and matured, I have changed my view of the world many times. What is astounding is that our President still has the same basic world view that he did when he was 25.”

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The President says to.

You have to pity the poor kid currently Occupying the White House. He is desperately seeking reelection, not for his own glory, but out of a sense of duty. His Work is not yet done here. His people still need his transformative gifts. Yet it grows ever more difficult to get through to those wayward subjects. They look at his Works and see a train wreck. They don’t understand how hard his job has been. They don’t realize just what a mess the last guy, the dread Bush, left for him to clean up.

And what about the lousy Japanese? Why did they let that tsunami happen? And BP! They caused that oil spill. Now the Europeans, having overspent recklessly for decades, are threatening to plunge the world into another recession. The fools. Why couldn’t they see how dangerous their policies were? Now we’ll never get a national medical plan, cradle-to-grave welfare or a system of high speed trains. We’ll never get to be like Europe, because the Europeans screwed up so badly. It’s just not fair.

And another thing. Why don’t people understand that it’s not his fault the economy is so screwed up? You know what is really causing high employment? Technology, that’s what. Why, just look at ATMs. How many tellers have lost their jobs because of them? Or the scanners in grocery stores. Or how about the Internet? Companies like Expedia and Orbitz completely wiped out the travel agent industry. (Incidently travel agents throughout America were quite offended when the President declared that their industry had disappeared).

Anyway, you can’t blame him for the lack of jobs. Technology did it. Which makes it doubly curious to learn that the guy’s reelection campaign is urging people to stay home this holiday season. Yesterday, Rufus Gifford, National Finance Director for the President’s reelection campaign, sent an email promoting the campaign’s online store, where you can do all your holiday shopping.

Want some Biden Ear Muffs? Check. A Hillary bed warmer? You can get it here.  Maybe a Tim Geithner Tax Planner? How about a nice, toasty warm Biden/Obama fleece? Just log on. Speaking of fleeces, know anyone who wants a shiny new Stephen Chu Green Energy Loan Guaranty? Oops, sorry. That item is out of stock, at least through Kwanza.

What’s the best thing about the online store? Well, let’s let Rufus himself tell us: “The best part? You won’t have to fight the crowds, or even leave home.”

There you have it. Boycott the malls this Christmas. Stay home and shop on line. By order of the President. You know, somebody really ought to vet this stuff before they send it out. Or maybe it’s by design, to give that poor kid currently Occupying the White House one more excuse to cite when trying to explain why it’s not his fault that Americans can’t find work.