Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2001/09/03
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]At 04:24 PM 9/3/01 -0400, you wrote: >I'm sorry to have to say this - and I may get thrown off the LUG for >doing so, but Anthony, you are a total and complete asshole. There is no >other way to put it. Anthony has specifically stated that he is speaking of those doing such work permanently. You are speaking of folks who have lacked opportunity and who begin their meteoric careers cleaning toilets -- Anthony is speaking of those to whom this is the high point of their existence. Trust me: there are such. They are called my clients! There are a LOT of folks out there who, from lack of intelligence or lack of drive, settle into menial positions. I will not lecture you, as John D Rockefeller would have, on the virtue of honest labor but, still, these folks are filling a necessary role in society. If you gauge their worth by their income, society does not value them highly but, what the hey: someone has to do the job. But, if my societal parameters were limited by the scrub brush in a toilet, I'd feel differently about risk and societal parameters than I do now. I suspect we all would feel more inclined to take that risk and go for the gold. Still, I'd not under-estimate the knowledge of these guys. My father was stunned, in 1933, to find that the Depression rejects who shared his existence in the 52nd Coast Artillery at Fortress Monroe, Virginia, included some Chess and Bridge whizzes. I have found the same: some of my most delightful Leica anecdotes have been with unemployed dudes who have seen better days. And my son, working a year back at a cannery in Alaska, along with a slew of the homeless, was put in his place to find several -- not one, but several! -- reading Dostoevesky and discussing the works among themselves. So, no, never underestimate the value of our fellow man. And never value his worth for, in the end, we are all worth the same -- be it a soul vital to God or 98¢ in chemistry, we all, when all is said and done, amount to the same. But, still, the self-reliant soul is aware that larcenies,while not unknown to the wealthy, take on a different character among the less afluent: few bankers mug another banker, but many down-and-outers do mug bankers. Bankers WILL defraud one another, but in a less, well, physical, way. In other words, the penchant for crime does not respect class. The penchant for physical theft tends to be restricted more, though, to the poorer folks in our midst. Sorry if this sounds classist .. It isn't. Marc msmall@roanoke.infi.net FAX: +540/343-7315 Cha robh bąs fir gun ghrąs fir!