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We get letters
KAI RYSSDAL: It can be hard work sifting through listener letters. Especially when many of them were about work. Last week we reported on a new policy at Best Buy. It’s called “Results Only.” Employees work pretty much whenever they want, wherever they want. Management’s fine with it as long as the job gets done. But K.G. Heintz from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, saw it another way.
K.G. HEINTZ: What a thrill as your dinner congeals because the waiter stops mid-stride to have a light-saber battle. Few would benefit from these policies; the rest of us must actually answer the phones, run the assembly lines or change the oil.
Not the oil, but health care is what commentator Newt Gingrich wants to change. Earlier this month he argued for what he called a “300 million-payer health system.” Kellie Newton, from Seattle, Washington, had this to say:
KELLIE NEWTON: 300 million payers would drive down the cost if everyone paid. And there are too many people scraping by who, while not destitute, will not afford health insurance. Who will pay for those people when they have medical mishaps? Oh yeah, taxes, the government, and hmmmmm, there you have the government-managed-healthcare-conundrum again.
How about the Havana Club rum conundrum? Didja hear about that one? Just after Thanksgiving we told you about a dispute over the trademark of a legendary Cuban rum. Bacardi sells it here in the U.S., but it actually makes the rum in Puerto Rico. There’s a lawsuit pending, of course, over whether it’s illegal to market a product that’s “geographically misleading.” Alex Jones, from Cleveland, Ohio, found the irony.
ALEX JONES: A quick trip through my refrigerator revealed that I, too, have been a victim of such deceit. My Ballpark franks actually come from, of all places, a hot dog factory. The Mandarin chicken I am heating for dinner is from California. I suppose that someone will next tell me that Brussels sprouts aren’t actually grown in northern Europe. I will file suit against all involved parties in the morning. I anticipate a quick victory, so that I may retire to a leisurely life of sipping rum.
Drink if you like — responsibly of course — just keep on writing, whatever you do.
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