In Thursday's USA Today, I read an article about Walmart and some internal memo recommending that the company consider changes to their hiring policy that would "dissuade unhealthy people from coming to work at Wal-Mart." What is going on with this company?? The article first stated that Wal-Mart's CEO Lee Scott was trying to improve its relationship with the public by offering new health insurance options for its thousands of workers. The memo was written by vice president of benefits, Susan Chambers to the board of directors, and the memo's intent was to try and cut health care and other benfit costs to the company.

The memo contained proposals that would redesign job descriptions and benefits to attract healthy job applicants, and former California congressman Tony Coelho, who was also the primary author of the Americans with Disablities Act, said, "The arrogance of this really trouble me." He further stated that "No company should be able to discriminate against an employee on the basis of age, level of fitness, disability or potential cost to the company."
Princeton economist Uew Reinhardt says many employers are trying to find ways to cut down on company health care costs and many are attempting to force out older workers in favor of younger, less costly workers. The memo included five steps to cut benefit costs to Wal-Mart: health insurance with high annual deductibles, designing all job descriptions to include physical activity, and offering education benefits that would only appeal to younger job applicants. Chambers said, "It will be far easier to attract and retain a healthier workforce than it will be to change behavior in an existing one."

Wal-Mart, the nation's biggest and wealthiest corporation already operates with questionable tactics where its employees are concerned. Critics say that Wal-Mart's tactics are both an economic issue in the United States as well as a moral issue, as America's most successful retail company continues to pay low wages, offer skimpy health benefits, and has a poor environmental record.
I for one would like to see Wal-Mart taken down a few notches but, it will take a concerted effort on the part of the American consumer before this will ever happen....but it could happen. A recent Gallop Poll survey this month saw consumers rating moral values No. 4 among their top economic worries...perhaps Wal-Mart should be more careful about who gets a hold of its internal memos. Even this retail Goliath can be slain!


Note: This 27 page memo was released to The New York Times by a labor union-backed group. This article concerning the memo appeared in USA Today Thursday, October 27,2005 and was written by Julie Appleby.

I was watching a Primetime episode just this last week about two twin girls (approx. 12 years of age) named Lynx and Lamb who wrote their own songs and played the guitar and performed at different rallies and county fairs in an undisclosed region of the USA. There was only one problem with the songs that these pretty blond and blue eyed young girls were writing and performing, however. The songs contained lyrics which promoted white supremacy and furthered the hatred of any race except the white race. The girls were raised by a white supremacist mother who allowed her two children to perform at white supremacist rallies with the belief that the girls were protecting the purity of their race.
As the girls were being interviewed on Primetime, the girls were asked about what they thought of Adolf Hitler and the Holocaust. The twins told the Primetime interviewer that they believed Hitler was a great man and that his ideas were good because he too was trying to retain the purity of the white race. They said that the thousands of Jews murdered during the Holocaust was greatly exaggerated and they seemed to have no emotion at all over the extermination of 6,000,000 Jewish people.
The rallies that these girls performed at were organized by known white supremacists and neo nazis and the twins, according to the Primetime interviewer, were becoming quite well known and sought after inorder to perform their songs and further the cause of these radical hate groups. Oh and by the way, the girl's grandfather rode around town with a swastika painted on the side of his pickup truck saying it was his American right to express his personal views on racism. WOW!!
Anyway, toward the end of the interview, it was reported that the girl's performances at the county fair were being cancelled due to the content of their songs. Thank goodness! And the twins and their white supremacist mother were going to move to the pacific northwest because they had decided that their current neighborhood was not WHITE ENOUGH! Outrageous.
I watched this whole show in the disbelief that this much hate and ignorance still exists in this country. Maybe I am way too naive cause I used to think that we in the US of A had made some strides where racism and hate crimes were concerned. I guess that the age of these young girls just blew me away as well. If these two 12 year old children can already be so full of hate for someone just because of the color of their skin then what does this say about the future. Will we never learn anything????
P.S. The girls and some of their neo nazi, white supremacist cohorts decided to go down to New Orleans recently to help out with the Katrina victims (ONLY the WHITE VICTIMS however!) and their donations were quickly and sternly turned away with disgust. Way to go New Orleans!

Sylvia Hamilton

Yesterday was my birthday. It was my 53rd birthday to be exact. I think alot about the past lately although I would prefer not to...I would prefer to only look ahead. I think back about all the choices I had in my life -- the ones I took and the ones I passed up -- but I guess I do this because, at the age of 53 years, I am trying to reasure myself that I did indeed take the right path through this maze called life.

I often ask myself did I marry the right man thirty something years ago, for the road has certainly been bumpy. But then he is truly the one person who does genuinely care about me and is always interested in my well-being. I certainly would not go back and wish to marry anyone else for then I would not have the same three children who I have been blessed to call my own. I ask myself should we have moved around so much or should we have stayed in Texas and made the best of some difficult, and oftentimes unwise choices. My children most assuredly suffered in this strange move to another state, for they were in their early teens and so very vulnerable, but then I KNOW that they would not have turned out to be the same unique and diverse individuals that I now admire so much. I have to believe that for all of the suffering and confusion there emerged three stronger and more resilient human beings.

So many many times, my entire adult life has seemed like one big mess up full of doubts and indecision. I suppose I chose to go to college -- one of my very best decisions by the way -- because it gave me a focus when there was none (my children are all grown and gone from home now and when you have been a mother for over twenty years you kind of lose sight of who you are). I had control of my life when I was in the student role and no control when I was in the wife/mother role. School has saved my life and this is not an exaggeration. And maybe when I am finished, the diploma and the knowledge will better the quality of the remainder of my life.

And so the more I look back over the course of these last 53 years I must finally come to the realization that every choice and every good or bad decision I made was probably the way my life was supposed to play out. It will be up to me to make the best of everything that has already come to pass or will come to pass. I would like to step forward into a future of promise and joy and leave behind any regrets ... for regrets only serve to destroy the soul. I guess this is the true test of character when we can acknowledge that we have messed up our lives many many times, but we can also pick ourselves up once again and try to move forward into something better. I tell people that I believe that I have already lived three different lives -- my life as my mother's child, my life as my three children's mother, and my life as simply myself. This third life will be the one that will really define and test the fabric of my very being. For my children will always love and respect me because I am their mom, but I still must prove to myself what I am really madeof. This third life, this last metamorphosis, will be the most difficult and hopefully rewarding yet to emerge.

Sylvia Hamilton

45 to 12 WOW! You might remember that I am from TEXAS and, well, TEXAS won the game last night and I am pretty happy about that. I get sick of seeing all those upside down Texas Longhorn stickers and now I only wish I owned a few of these infamous logos so I could display them prominantly on my vehicle Right Side UP! Way to go UT.....sorry OU.
I do like Oklahoma very much and think that this state has much to offer us Texans, but it still ain't the LONESTAR STATE! But I do not like the coach for OU very much. He seems kind of stuck on himself like he's God or something......anyway, forgive my Texas bias and remember I am also an Oklahoman (at least for now). Thanks for listening,
S Hamilton

I got up this morning and heard the news about a suicide bomber at the OU football game in Norman last night! What in the world is going on when you can not even attend a harmless Saturday night football game without worrying whether or not a bomb might be detonated in the midst of thousands of spectators. The Daily Oklahoman said that the man was of course dead and his identity unknown, but the paper also said there was another explosive device found in the same area (the bomb squad got rid of this one without anyone getting hurt). I cannot help but believe that since there was another explosive device found that he intended to take out alot of other innocent people as well. I guess things are getting so bad out there in the world today that we are going to be taking our lives in our hands everytime we step out the door to go ANYWHERE. Where does it all end if people are so desperate that they will attach a bomb to their bodies and just blow themselves to bits and everyone else around them. What does this say about our society and the future of the world. Things are not looking so very good.

S Hamilton