I'd chainsaw that cashier.

not a perfect process... but what is seen in the video seems reasonable

as an american living overseas for many years, i've seen american bureaucracy at its worst in our consulates, embassies and trade offices ... what is seen in this video pales in comparison

try this one on for size before complaining of invasive, unfair requirements and possible conspiracy:

my son is born overseas and i want to apply for his us citizenship / passport

i try to phone the embassy to ask what documents i will need to bring by three-hour train ride - i get a 10-minute phone tree that answers nothing and simply refers me to their website, which is rattled-off so quickly that i need to listen to the 10-minute phone tree two more times to jot the url down

the website explains that answers cannot be given over the phone, and i can only speak to a human in an emergency circumstance - the website gives me some ambiguous answers, and states that if i have questions i will need to make an appointment online - an online calendar appears showing me possible appointment dates/times - all monday to friday between 9-11am and 2-4pm... also the american citizen services section is closed for all american holidays AND those of the host country - yay for having to take unpaid time off from work!

i get a date and time to appear, and i try to collect all relevant information to only make a single visit

at the appointed time, i appear and am told to surrender my bag and phone, pass through a metal detector, and then i am frisked - upon arriving at the proper office, i am given a number and told to wait - when my number is called, i approach the proper window and speak to an 'american' through a speaker system embedded in the 1-inch bulletproof glass

i have somehow managed to have most all of the necessary documents (not to the website's credit, but to my overkill), but one requirement stops me... they don't accept that i am a us citizen... what the hell?!

i show them my original us birth certificate, my valid us passport, my valid us driver's license, my social security card, proof of my us address, my us high school and university diplomas, my voter registration card, etc...

all are unacceptable proof...

i am told that to satisfy their requirement, they will need at least five-years' worth of us school transcripts from a single us location... since i was a military brat, and changed schools often, this was an impossibility

i finally get through to a supervisor who i had phone my state senator, who is a family friend, and he rips them one and they finally relent

clear? nope... one further requirement is that my son's notarized foreign birth certificate needs to be translated into english and notarized - i have the translation but not the notary seal (this can only be done at the embassy) - i ask them to notarize it and they inform me that i will have to leave and mail it to them with a check and pre-paid, express-mail return envelope - once i receive that, i should set up a new appointment and return... with their assuring me that the process (CRBA) would be complete at that point

i do what they said, and two weeks later I receive the now-notarized translation and set up a new appointment - i return at the stipulated time with all the proper documents and go to pay the fee...

then i am told that my infant son has to be present as well... and so the process can't be completed at that time

i return home, a 6-hour roundtrip commute by train, and set up a new appointment... returning with my 6-month-old son so that they can see him through the bullet proof glass, and then i can pay the exorbitant fee

as if all of this isn't enough, the cashier will not provide change... and they want me to leave, set up a new appointment and return with exact change - i offer to leave 'a tip' of close to us$20 in order to finalize this ridiculous process without having to return... they refuse

having read all of this... can you still complain about what this woman and her son had to go through?

nonsense

"i dont know where you were on the east coast but when i lived in brooklyn, walmart was trying to get in and the community came out everytime to protest."

I used to live in PA. It was chain stores and outlets for hundreds of miles to Pittsburgh, to Philly, to Baltimore, to New Jersey. I remember my parents loved it. They used to take me to SAMs, one of those Costco-esque places and the immense size of those places used to almost give me a panic attack, as I would repeat in my head "this is what is wrong with world". Even creepier when they pretty much got rid of cashiers. I mean even if I had enough money to buy shitloads of stuff - I wouldn't even have enough space to put away the sort of things you could buy at a place like that. I've only room for like 4 boxes of cereal of hopefully different varieties.

>> ^jonny:

What I was saying is that he abandons the idea at sort of a crucial point. He's assuming that the cashier or cop or whatever is somehow unable to fully express their talents because the job they have doesn't require it.

Not to belabor the point, but you're mistaking rhetorical device for abandoning the argument. The title of the article isn't just "Is the world really a stage?" it's "Why I call myself a Socialist: Is the world really a stage?" He's not really in doubt about where he stands on the answer to the question, he in fact is saying that this observation he makes is one that fundamentally defines his own political identity.

The bit at the end where the flash of insight slips away, that's more of a concession that just because he sees the potential for us to live in a vastly less constrained world doesn't mean that the world has actually changed in any meaningful way.

However, if we were all to get that same flash of insight at the same moment...

>> ^NetRunner:

>> ^jonny:
I'm pretty sure the cashier at the corner store is a lot more than her job.
That's actually the point Shawn was making, on grand scale. Everyone is more than they appear, and there's nothing inherently different between the people at the bottom of our class structure, and the top. It's more about costumes and the script we've written, than any sort of truly consequential difference.

Yeah, I got that. What I was saying is that he abandons the idea at sort of a crucial point. He's assuming that the cashier or cop or whatever is somehow unable to fully express their talents because the job they have doesn't require it. In the extreme case, look at Albert Einstein. While working an incredibly dull job in a patent office, he writes two of the most important scientific papers in history. I'm not saying this invalidates his entire thesis, just that he needs to look at a larger picture of life.

As a tangent, this also brings up the definition of poverty. The living conditions of many people we might consider the working poor today would be looked upon longingly by people only 100 years ago. Now, I'm not suggesting that means we can ignore the problem, just that we need to understand the context. Certainly there are many people today that are in conditions as bad or worse as the working poor of 100 years ago. My point with this tangent is that it's important to clearly define specific goals you want to achieve when talking about eradicating poverty. Some of those goals are obvious, like food and shelter adequate to maintain reasonable health. But then there are some goals, like access to information (via internet, libraries, whatever) that you may want to include and aren't obvious to some, or are understood but rejected due to a lack of understanding of why they're important.

To try to tie all this together, poverty isn't just about money, just like a person's life isn't defined just by their job, and a person's character isn't defined just by their upbringing.

>> ^jonny:

I'm pretty sure the cashier at the corner store is a lot more than her job.

That's actually the point Shawn was making, on grand scale. Everyone is more than they appear, and there's nothing inherently different between the people at the bottom of our class structure, and the top. It's more about costumes and the script we've written, than any sort of truly consequential difference.

>> ^NetRunner:

I'm with Wallace Shawn. Our world really is a stage.

That's weird - that's two somewhat obscure occurrences of Wallace Shawn I've seen in less than 24 hours (Inconceivable!). I saw part of "My Dinner With Andre" last night. Weird movie.

About his article, though, it's odd that he points out that actors, by definition, are not their job, but he doesn't seem to subscribe to the same idea for everyone else. I'm pretty sure the cashier at the corner store is a lot more than her job. She probably even expresses it while at her job.

[redacted]

So, you're using human reasoning to decide the correct moral path.

What part of that comes from the bible then? If you use reasoning to decide your morality, then your morality comes from man.

>> ^Toshley:

>> ^Drachen_Jager:
If all of your morality comes from the bible, why aren't you out stoning the cashiers who work at Wal-Mart on Sundays? That's what the bible tells you to do after all.
If you question it, or make up your own mind then your morality doesn't really come from the bible at all does it?

You're misinformed about the Bible. If you're going to criticize a religion, it might be best to read the literature, in this case... know the reasoning for the Old and New Testament.

"The LORD then gave these further instructions to Moses: 'Tell the people of Israel to keep my Sabbath day, for the Sabbath is a sign of the covenant between me and you forever. It helps you to remember that I am the LORD, who makes you holy. Yes, keep the Sabbath day, for it is holy. Anyone who desecrates it must die; anyone who works on that day will be cut off from the community. Work six days only, but the seventh day must be a day of total rest." (Exodus 31:12-15 NLT)

I can't find the spot where it says they should be stoned to death at the moment. Is killing them enough to satisfy you?

>> ^Mcboinkens:

>> ^Drachen_Jager:
If all of your morality comes from the bible, why aren't you out stoning the cashiers who work at Wal-Mart on Sundays? That's what the bible tells you to do after all.
If you question it, or make up your own mind then your morality doesn't really come from the bible at all does it?

As Toshley said, that is a pretty poor attempt. I don't have the Bible memorized to know what quote or implied idea you are talking about, but I'm pretty sure cashiers were never intended to be stoned. Not to mention the complete difference in the old and new testaments.
I do, however, disagree with morality comes from God. Here are the two possibilities that seem plausible to me: Morality was an evolutionary occurrence, as in creatures and animals had to make decisions that would further them among a species. Naturally as animal societies grow more complex so do choices, and as such you often have a "moral" and "immoral" choice to make. The second one is that morality was a result of sin entering the world. Naturally, if sin had not entered the world all would be perfect, and as such no choices would need to be made because it would be the only instinctive choice. However, when sin corrupted the world it opened up the ability to make "immoral" choices.

In fact, I'm really interested to hear why you think the Bible "tells us" to stone Wal-Mart cashiers.

[redacted]

>> ^Drachen_Jager:

If all of your morality comes from the bible, why aren't you out stoning the cashiers who work at Wal-Mart on Sundays? That's what the bible tells you to do after all.
If you question it, or make up your own mind then your morality doesn't really come from the bible at all does it?


You're misinformed about the Bible. If you're going to criticize a religion, it might be best to read the literature, in this case... know the reasoning for the Old and New Testament.

If all of your morality comes from the bible, why aren't you out stoning the cashiers who work at Wal-Mart on Sundays? That's what the bible tells you to do after all.

If you question it, or make up your own mind then your morality doesn't really come from the bible at all does it?

So who is the fail here ? the robber or the cashier who left his cash register ??

>> ^lucky760:

In other words, in the many queue method, your wait time is directly proportional to the checkout speed of your one cashier (which may be fast or slow), but in the central queue method, your wait time depends on the checkout speed of all the cashiers (which are not likely to all be delayed simultaneously).
You have a much better chance at a speedy checkout with a central queue.


That is well put, and pretty much what I was trying to say. The risk of delay is distributed among everyone, but also felt by everyone. Personally I'd prefer a nearly certain 4 minute wait to a wait that may take 1 to 8 minutes. It does seem less random and more egalitarian.