I would never want to be a young adult having grown up the last ten years, though.
What a hell-hole we are leaving them, and they know it.
"Beginning to check into it; InterContinental program gives students a glimpse of life in the hotel industry" by John M Guilfoil, Globe Correspondent | June 14, 2008
Too bad the web doesn't post the picture of the kid hauling glasses with a great big exhale!
Welcome to the world of future work, kiddo (unless you are drafted).
.... The program is intended to give students valuable experience doing a variety of jobs in the hospitality industry.... Along the way, they have learned from their mistakes - even the little things count toward the overall appearance at a luxury hotel...."
And so much for cruising during warm summer nights:
"Teen drivers running on empty; $4 gas is now taking the joy out of the ride" by Irene Sege, Globe Staff | June 14, 2008
There was a time, not long ago, when 17-year-old Jennifer Ogle of Braintree drove her Mercury Mystique to her part-time job at a local
No more. With the price of a gallon of gasoline having crossed the $4 threshold, teens are deriving less joy from riding around in automobiles. Ogle now walks to work. Gill takes the bus to Shawsheen Valley Technical High School in Billerica and has virtually forsworn those daily sodas. "I only drive to work," he says. "I bought myself a drink twice last week, and I paid with quarters and nickels." Warren now asks his passengers for gas money. "Back when I first started driving," he says, "it wasn't a big deal."
That classic icon of American youth, the teenager in a car, is a bit tarnished these days....
Translation: Today's kids are GETTING SCREWED out of the GOOD THINGS about being a YOUNG ADULT!
"Sometimes, if we're bored, we'd go around and drive," says Colleen Casey, 18, of Braintree. "There's none of that any more."
Anthony Pagucci, 18, of Ashland, eating burgers with his best friend at the Natick Collection's food court, is worried, too. "I'm paranoid about it. It cost me $5 to come here," Pagucci says. "I have to make gas part of my budget. That's how bad it is."
Indeed, when pollsters asked teens what three issues most concern them this election year, the price of gasoline topped the list, followed by global warming and then the war in Iraq, according to a survey conducted this spring by TRU, a youth-focused market research firm in Illinois.
If they are concerned about global-warming, why the joy rides?
Not making the connection, kids, or know it's bull?
Or have they just bought the intractable lie of global-warming?
Great BRAINWASHING, MSM!
As for Iraq, even the KIDS see through that PROP!!!
"The driver's license is an important milestone for teens," says TRU's Rob Callender. "It symbolizes freedom, fun, coming of age. With gas prices being as high as they are they feel their freedom is being eroded simply because they can't take advantage of it."
It used to; with the RFID and National I.D. Card crap, it is now a symbol of totalitarianism!
Not surprisingly, teenagers who pay for gasoline themselves feel the pinch more than those whose parents pitch in. Gayleen Conover, 19, drives her parents' car while she's home in Brookline for the summer. "If I really need gas when I'm in the car, I buy it," she says. "I don't buy more than $20 worth of gas."
In Braintree, Michael Ryan, whose parents gave him their old minivan, cringes whenever he goes to the gas station and anticipates riding his bicycle more this summer. "I find myself not offering to give rides home any more," says Ryan, 17. "I'll try to get rides." Sometimes, he adds, he drives his parents' car and doesn't fill the tank. "It's terrible to say, but it's true."
Casey's parents, on the other hand, have been asking to use her car lately. "I have a little Altima," she says, "and they have SUVs."
David Abbott, 18, and his friends still carpool even though many of them have their own wheels now. Mike Witkowski, 17, of Billerica has changed how he drives, not how much he drives: "I can't romp on it like I used to. Go too fast. Instead of 45 I do 30." Last month he bought a 1995 Jeep Cherokee that gets 15 miles per gallon to replace a Chevy pickup truck that got 8 miles. He's having trouble finding a buyer for the truck.
Witkowski, Gill, and Warren, classmates in the auto shop at Shawsheen who all have afterschool jobs, have cut back on fixing up their cars. "Nothing to make it look nice," says Gill. "Just to make it work."
Gill likes his job repairing golf carts in North Reading too much to look for work closer to home. He likes the way his big car handles in winter too much to switch.
"I drive half an hour to work. I can't afford anything else," Gill says. "I feel bad. I took my girlfriend to dinner once. I feel terrible. I can't buy her flowers."Well, THAT SUCKS!!!!
Aaaaah, don't worry about it, kids.
Soon they will be limiting your travel anyway to push another fraudulent agenda.
Besides, the draft issue might be your top priority anyway, boys AND GIRLS!!!
"Trying to make the blacktop greener; States working to curb pollution from road runoff" by Beth Daley, Globe Staff | June 14, 2008
Every time it rains, a soup of chemicals washes off roadways: Brake fluid, oil, salt, antifreeze, and heavy metals from tens of thousands of cars pour off the asphalt and, often, into rivers and streams.
Until recently, this form of pollution received little attention from regulators and environmentalists, but a movement is slowly building to create what may seem a contradiction: green highways....
WHO PAYS? Taxpayers again?
Environmentalists are focusing on a problem that is more dispersed: runoff, carrying everything from dog waste to fertilizer, from lawns, sidewalks, roadways, natural areas, and farms. It is the main reason about 40 percent of rivers, lakes, and estuaries are not clean enough to meet fishing or swimming standards, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency....
"Most roads have no controls at all," said Nancy Stoner, director of the Clean Water Project at the Natural Resources Defense Council. Her group is involved in a long-running lawsuit seeking to force the EPA, which enforces the Clean Water Act, to require anyone building roads, schools, and any private construction to use specific, proven technologies to minimize storm water runoff.
There are many highway contaminants. Chloride, sodium, and calcium can accumulate on the pavement from salt and sanding operations. Ordinary wear and tear causes cars to shed oil, grease, rust, and rubber particles. Once the contaminants are washed into waterways, they can be consumed by fish, frogs, and other aquatic life, or settle in the water, contributing to contaminant levels.
The green highway movement also includes advocacy for the use of recyclable materials for pavement or the creation of wildlife crossings. But environmentalists and scientists say storm water runoff is by far the most pressing problem - and the most expensive to fix.
I'm sick of these guys forcing their short-sighted "solutions" to the problems they keep "discovering?"
Case-in-point: ETHANOL!
How about GETTING RID of the CHEMICAL CORPORATIONS, for starters, dick weeds?
Solutions can be difficult in highly urban areas where space is at a premium. Headway is being made around the country. In January, California promised to reduce runoff pollution from its freeways in Los Angeles and Ventura counties by 20 percent to settle a lawsuit the Natural Resources Defense Council brought in 1994. Two years ago, the EPA, the Federal Highway Administration, several mid-Atlantic states, and other groups formed the Green Highways Partnership to test small-scale green highway programs that can serve as national models....
In its lawsuit, the Conservation Law Foundation, a Boston-based environmental group that sued the Highway Department, said the state wasn't doing anything about runoff from the vast network of roads.
The Globalist plan in action!!!
Federal District Court Judge William G. Young agreed... [and] praised the agency for doing a good job given fiscal and other constraints, but said "best efforts, of course, is not the standard."
Then why are they putting up with Bush?
MassHighway officials said they were pleased with the decision because the judge took pains to compliment them on many of their efforts. They acknowledged that they have not initiated new storm water management technologies on roadways that aren't undergoing any other work because of its prohibitive cost, probably hundreds of millions of dollars if storm water controls were installed on state highways in urban areas.
Yeah, and WHO is going to PAY the cost?!
HOW MUCH FLEECING can TAXPAYER'S STAND?
They are now waiting for a US Geological Survey report that will help determine where and how pollution is running off highway segments so they can decide where to focus clean-up efforts.
"I think [the judge] was saying, given the breadth of our responsibility, we are doing a pretty good job," said Highway Commissioner Luisa M. Paiewonsky. "[We are] improving a plan already underway."
One that the vast majority of America has been snookered by.
