Adventures In Recycling

Early in my career, I worked on a large project with consultants from a well-known firm, a company whose name started with A. After the Enron scandal, Company A rebranded to a different name which also starts with A.

Company A was leading the project, so we worked side by side with their people. I sat in a room with three of the A consultants, collegial young fellows who enjoyed talking about sports and sharing movie quotes. We got along pretty well; they invited me out for drinks a few times.

Another consultant from Company A was young lady named Holly. Holly’s desk was elsewhere on the floor, but she stopped by our room frequently. One of the guys was her boyfriend.

In our room, not far from my desk, was a recycling bin for papers. One day, Holly threw trash from her lunch into the bin. I mentioned to her calmly and politely that the bin was for papers. Trash should be tossed elsewhere.

There was a tense silence in the room. Holly didn’t acknowledge my comment. No, “Oh, I didn’t realize that.” Just silence.

Boyfriend didn’t take this well. For the next hour, he raided file cabinets all through the building, bringing back ream after ream of paper which he threw violently into the recycling bin. He’d disappear for a few minutes and return with more paper. Slam! Right into the bin!

When the bin was stacked to the top with what must have been fifty or sixty pounds of paper, Boyfriend brought two coffee pots from the cafeteria and dumped the coffee into the recycle bin. It was a huge mess. None of the paper could be recycled.

I can only guess at Boyfriend’s intentions. Perhaps he thought that he was teaching me a lesson for daring to criticize his squeeze. It was the most unprofessional behavior I have ever seen.

Every time I see an ad for Company A, I still think of that guy. “Hire us. We’ll run your project, quote ‘White Men Can’t Jump’ all day long, and if you criticize us, we’ll act like angry toddlers.”

Let's Solve A Puzzle!

Let’s solve a puzzle! Here are the clues.

1. The administration deported hundreds of migrants and asylum seekers to a country that is not their country of origin. This seemed random. Why would they do that, and why were these people given no due process before being shipped off to a foreign prison?

2. The president signed an executive order ending birthright citizenship. This seems frivolous, as it’s a right guaranteed in the US constitution, but the supreme court has already ruled against provisions in the same amendment. They could do it again. They used this case to ban federal judges from issuing nationwide injunctions. When a president issues an illegal order, it will be more difficult for the courts to block it.

3. After numerous legal battles, the supreme court ruled that the president does indeed have the authority to deport people to random countries.

4. The president publicly threatened to strip Americans of their citizenship and deport them. This raises the stakes considerably. Now, in addition to deporting non-citizens to random countries, they want to extend this practice to US citizens. If the high court rules that citizens can be stripped of their citizenship, this will not only be possible, but it can be expedited.

5. The bill recently passed by the congress massively increases funding for immigration agents and detention centers, a.k.a. concentration camps.

6. Project 2025 suggests that the US population should be limited to 100 million. Currently, there are 350 million US citizens. How are they planning to reduce the number to 100 million? 

The logical conclusion is that the administration, at the behest of Project 2025, plans to reduce the population of the US dramatically through all available means, including denaturalizing and deporting citizens.