part i

PUBLISHER'S COLUMN


This column is going to be a 3 or 4 part series.
I will try to put the entire thing up at etext.org
as soon as I can for those who want to read the
entire thing right away instead of let it unfold
like Harry Potter or the StarWars NINilogy.

PART i OF "IS THE CATHOLIC CHURCH SCAPEGOATING
S/11 OR ENRON? WAHT ABOUT BOTH, WHAT ABOUT THE
WHOLE NATION? MERRILL LYNCH, IS THAT YOU???"

I can handle corruption above me. I've done it.
I once chose quitting a corporate job rather than
become a whistle blower like I perhaps should've.
  It cost me a career. A good one, but not my soul
and not any arms, legs, or my physical life or anything
else.
  Do I have regrets? Some. But not often.
  It is time to blow though. If someone has to kill me
over it, oh well. I've risked this kind of stuff before.
I just hope I quickly enough blow such a huge hole in
the house of cards so big that before its even an option
to kill me, any willing conscripts for my death will be
already dead, retired or vacationing in Tahiti, Trinidad,
Tobago or East Timor.
  OK, corruption above me, so what?
  You meet with your superiour, she says just go with the
flow. You try, no go. Back to the super. She sends you to
HER super. S/he sends you to his/hers. At some point you're
visiting the person in charge of your entire state, or
region.
  He tells you, what, you have a new idea??? Listen. ALMOST
everyone else is doing it. Just go with the flow and when
YOU'RE a manager, instead of an AM (assistant manager, or
manager trainee) then if you wish, you can run the place
the way two or three impoverished shops do, instead of...
   (CON'T in issue 321 and some others)




PART ii OF "IS THE CATHOLIC CHURCH SCAPEGOATING
S/11 OR ENRON? WAHT ABOUT BOTH, WHAT ABOUT THE
WHOLE NATION? MERRILL LYNCH, IS THAT YOU???"

...the three or four hundred who do it, that's your
business.
  Is he serious? He seems to have meant it.
  Like I said, he had me, and I chose to quit rather
than take the whole place down including him, her,
him and all the others.
  What are their names? What's the corporation? Soon,
soon. Soone on the company, but you're not getting
names, sorry. That part just ain' my job.
  If you've read my columns before, you'll probably
try guessing Subway, Taco Bell, First Investors
Corporation. You're wrong, but very close. Soon,
I promise.
  So listen, corruption above me. That I can handle.
What about systemic defilement, collusion, bribery,
essentially the "caligulaism" below? Mmm. I don't 
think I can stomach that. Not when it's such a 
clearcut indication that the entire ship is made
out of veiny horrendous purple and white petrified
dog shit, OK?
  Army, you're going to guess next. My shortened
but honorable stint in the signal corps? Nope. Wasn't
there, but I can warm you up with a half-way decent
army analogy here as a minute or two digression if
you would like.

  In basic training I was a teamchief (squad leader)
because I had two and a half years college behind me. 
I was fully in charge of 10 or 11 men. The same went
for A School with about the same amount of people but
that was men and women. I think, wait. Did we see
women in A School? Yeah. That's right.
  We'd be given a task to do as a team and there I'd
be telling my entire squad they must help me. I would
work just as hard or harder than all of them for as
much of the same time as I could. I might give myself
regular breaks that they dind't get because afterall
I was the chief, right? But that's it. They were very
short breaks, just long enough really, to keep me 
going for a 10-12 hour day before sleeping for the
next day of the same old, same old. Back at it quick
enough to get in there and lead by example.
  Our squad was in danger of getting things done too
quickly, too efficiently. I came to the attention of
all three drill sergents pretty quickly. The head of
the three would take me aside at least 10 times in 
the last half of the 8 weeks and remind me that my
job was NOT to do the work, but to stand around, be
a little bit meaner, and make sure it all gets done.
IN THE TIME ALLOTTED. NO MORE, NO LESS.
  I pretended to learn and apply this valueable,
important, profound and almighty lesson. Then I
repeated my "errors" in A School. Same results only
this time in Georgia instead of South Carolina. 
Worse results actually. I guess the stakes were a 
little higher. I think I was taken aside there at
least 15 times in those 8 weeks.
  So essentially I waited out my time toward re-up
where I would opt out. Basically quitting the army.
Or the closest you can come to such a thing.
  Fortunately for my world, a medical discharge came
my way, presenting itself when they ruined my right
knee's ligament and cartilage badly enough to become
useless to them. Two operations and I was out in my
three years instead of the four I'd upped for. 9 or
10 months early if I remember right. Thank you, I'll
take it.
  Never looked back. So that points a little to the
NATIONWIDE corruption I wish to discuss here.
  Please stop trying to guess what company. I'll tell
you that soon enough. 
  So corruption below me, wow. You go to your super's
supervisor's super and discuss someone lower "ranking"
than you. 
  "Give her to me, I'll take care of her," she says.
  (TO BE CON'T In 322 and others.)


part iii


You're starting to realize what they'll do because it's
the third or fourth person of at least nine that this has 
happened to in front of you.
  You find out next that she's been moved to another part
of the same state and like you she's now in charge of half
a dozen people below her. What? Parallel to you? Woah. 
Another similar incident, you go to the same "her:"
  "Lemme have him, I'll take care of him." This time you'd
gotten to know him a little. Kept in touch through the 
years. 
  Lo and behold they moved him to a different state and 
he's no in charge of you really, but way up higher than
you in the "chain of command," so to speak.
  Yes, I said "chain." Years or decades ago, most companies
weren't run like military wannabes. But these days more
and more are.
  A military structure can get rid of bureaucracy but not
corruption. Remember that -- you might need it some day.
  A corporation run this way just might as well be called
a paramilitary like the Boy Scouts or the KKK but I digress.
  Radio Shack had what was called "stealing." Your store's
shrinkage could not be above 6% a third month in a row or
"Texas" would come up and audit the hell out of you. No one
I know had ever suffered one of these audits, but it was 
one of those scenes NO ONE wanted to find out about.
  Hence, stealing. The store I was an A.M. to usually 
hovered between 2% and 4%, so we were seldom on the receiving
end, but often the "giver."
  "You've got a pickemup truck, right Prime?"
  "Yeah."
  "I have some items that need to go to store #432. Load up 
these items from the stockroom and deliver them. Take the
whole day, I'll clock you out."
  He said he'd float me a few small commissions too, from 
batteries and telephones throughout the day so I didn't have
a big hole in my afternoon or evening.
  After a while I was entrusted with the phone call itself.
  "Radio Shack #435, Prime Anarchist speaking, how may I 
help you, sir or ma'am."
  So the voice on the other end is "we're at 5ish for the
month. How're you looking?" 
  "Not sure," I tell him, "I'll check." "Hey boss, how are
we looking this month?" Store #408 is over 5ish again."
  "One or two," my boss tells me, "give 'em whatever the
heck they need."
  This time around it was something like seven Tandy TX
computers, six SX's, five telephones, four shortwave radios,
three discontinued turntables, two microphones and a partridge
family promotional record album.
  Well, something like that. Not precisely, but I assure you,
it was in the low thousands. The lowest I'd ever conspired to
"steal" was high hundreds.   Last I checked, a felony in NY,
CT, RI areas was theft over 300. I'm sure it's higher now, but 
surely not quite into the thousands.
  Anyways this was stealing but not quite that kind of stealing.
Or is it? Yeah. Ask me then, I didn't know. Ask me now? That's
why I'm writing this up.
  So every other month or so a store would steal enough from
our store to bring us nearer to 6% but never over.


         [finish later]

Theirs would go under 6 by stealing from us and/or another
store or two.
  Thousands of dollars every other month or so just floating
around from store to store well by itself in a vacuum it 
probably doesn't look so bad, but lets look at a couple other
things here at Radio Theft. Tandy Corpse. Realistic. Pilferage
'r' Us before we tumble the whole house of cards. Now I know
there's going to be hardly any outrage to speak of from the
mainstream here. Heck, when Oliver North who's at least 500%
more corrupt than Radio Shack could EVER be, 
  woops! runon sentence, ok, when he admitted that the entire
Untied States of Alimony stinks there was a small outrage.
A wimper, and a tiny bang really. 
  And when Coretta Scott King won her decades-old lawsuit 
against the FBI and the CIA proving there was conspiracy having
killed her husband there was even less outrage.
  So who cares, right? But it has to be told no matter what
happens, because I woke up this morning realizing it's a
metaphor for everything else around me. Enron, Vatican,
Merrill Lynch, McDonalds, Sikorski, the Pentagram, you name
it. But I'll get to that in a second.
  Back to Radio Hack. Let's put this stealing into context.
What else makes up shrinkage? "Ohp, careful with that monitor,
that's state of the..." Oh man, just put it by the door, a
part-timer can bring it to the dumpster later... "No, don't
open that package. I'm sure it's broken. No, I'm sure..."
  He doesn't need to double check. It's going into the 
dumpster. Yeah, right. And/or for how long???
  "Oh boss, I hope that doesn't bring our shrinkage up..."
  "Don't worry, it'll be ok."
  "He boss, I think she stole that fone, did you see the
size of that purse?"
  "Don' worry."
  "Hey boss, I know neither of us steal and no one else worked
for us today, but the register is exactly 72.13 short. Isn't
that the same after tax as two of those cute little..."
  "Don't worry..."
  There were ohter corruptions all around those stores that I
won't bother going into, involving paychecks, ticket stubs,
commissions, utility bills, fone and internet...
  Suffice it to say I was being groomed to manage a brand new
Radio Shack in some suburb of Providence, RI. But alas, it 
never happened. I couldn't take all the management down
whistleblowing which might risk my getting beaten to death
or shot, or worse -- having to live with knowing I helped
cause the suicide of half a dozen moms and dads around 
Mass/RI/Conn. People fearing for their career, their "bacon
on the table."
  So I cut my next lucrative career short and signed up on
Delayed Entry Program in the US army signal corps. 
  3-4 months I worked odd jobs and temp positions for Olsten
and also Kelly Girl when the "shady was slim" for Olsten 
corporation.
  One dollar more per hour and no corruption I could sense
around me. Not bad. I'll take it while I wait.
  So for the next 11 years I minded my own business, and kept
my mouth shut. But now the Vatican is going down in flames,
perhaps as a scapegoat so Dick Cheney doesn't have to admit
all HIS wrongdoing the past 12 or more years.