And thanks to Comrade Misfit of Earthbound Misfit, the blog that called my attention to this story, called The Teddy Bear Incident.
Just one observation, if I may: there was a time when Americans, even corporate Americans did the kind of stuff that's in the Teddy Bear story as a matter of course. In fact, when I was about five years old, I had friends, still young enough to wear short pants, who deliberately got on the subway and got lost, then walked up to a policeman and reported themselves missing, just they'd get taken to the precinct house where the cops would go out and buy them ice cream. Yup, that was when the only people who couldn't create outrage and total opprobrium by gaming the system were five year olds, and when people at big companies answered the phone and tried to help callers with their problems.
But you're probably not old enough to remember any of this. And your congressional representative probably calls it Socialism.
Just one observation, if I may: there was a time when Americans, even corporate Americans did the kind of stuff that's in the Teddy Bear story as a matter of course. In fact, when I was about five years old, I had friends, still young enough to wear short pants, who deliberately got on the subway and got lost, then walked up to a policeman and reported themselves missing, just they'd get taken to the precinct house where the cops would go out and buy them ice cream. Yup, that was when the only people who couldn't create outrage and total opprobrium by gaming the system were five year olds, and when people at big companies answered the phone and tried to help callers with their problems.
But you're probably not old enough to remember any of this. And your congressional representative probably calls it Socialism.
