OUTSOURCING! IT'S THE AMERICAN WAY! THE AMERICAN WORKER?!? COLLATERAL DAMAGE, BABY!!!

First of all, I apologize for not having a new blog yesterday. I get up a little before 3:30 each morning to go to work on this blog. Yesterday, I found myself looking at an avalanche of junk mail on my computer screen. An avalanche I couldn't keep up with no matter how fast I continued to pound on my delete button.

When I made the decision to not write a new blog, I decided to seek help.

You know what happens then, right? When you call the American company that's in charge of computer maintenance for your computer, if you speak to an American, you feel like you've hit the lottery.

Outsourcing! It's the American way! Screw American workers by hiring people in India and other countries and pay them one tenth, one twentieth or one fiftieth of what they would have to pay an American worker who was living and working here.

After going through the off the charts exasperating procedure of having to try to get a robotic phone creature to understand my problem so that this female robot can transfer me to the proper foreigner who can help me, I ended up speaking to four different people. After answering a lot of questions, all four admitted they couldn't help me. Finally...a 5th person sounded like someone who could help me and after spending about an hour or so with me, a little progress was made, but at the end, she said there was nothing else she could think of and no, she didn't know who else I could call. Not counting the attempted communication with robots, the total time spent by me was close to four hours.

Outsourcing! Wonderful for big business and their bottom line while we, the American consumer, bend over and take it in the bottom.

Yesterday afternoon, a good American friend of mine from Entertainment Tonight spent a little more than an hour on my problem and got things cleaned up enough to make computer life (for me) functional again.

IT'S BUH-BYE FOR "JOHN FROM CINCINNATI":

Have you been entertained by HBO's "John From Cincinnati" for the last couple of months or so? I've seen all of what I think have been 9 episodes of this show. Good acting, very strange writing, very strange directing. This is a David Milch show. Milch brought a lot to "NYPD Blue", he created "Deadwood" and he created "John From Cincinnati". I take a lot of acting workshops. Several people from the casting office responsible for hiring actors for "John From Cincinnati" have preached the "party line" to us actors about David Milch. They all refer to him as a "genius". Well...because I've seen every episode of "John From Cincinnati", I'm reminded of someone who once said, "There's a fine line between genius and insanity."

I tell you all of this because HBO has given "John From Cincinnati" an early end date. This Sunday. The promos HBO are running tell us that all the "questions" will be answered. Uh, huh, and the first question I think of when I hear that is, "And you're going to do this in an hour?!?"

ROBIN ROBERTS WILL BE BACK TO WORK ON MONDAY:

I'm sittin' here gripin' 'bout outsourcing, telling you about a show cancellation that'll put more people out of work, our headlines scream about stock market fears, this good economy we keep hearing about is good if you're making more than 6 figures and along comes this uplifting story about "Good Morning America's" Robin Roberts.

A week ago, Roberts had surgery for breast cancer. Monday, Roberts will be back to work on "Good Morning America". Yessss!!! Let's hear it for our American Doctors!!!

EDITOR'S NOTE: Don't forget! You can HEAR this blog! The links to the stations broadcasting today's blog can be found at the bottom of my links section which is to the right of what you're reading now. It's the last links.

A new blog is written every morning, Monday through Friday and is posted between 7 and 7:15, Pacific Time. Sometimes earlier. Questions and comments can be sent to scottstjames@sbcglobal.net. I do write back.

MONDAY: I'll tell you if I thought all the questions were answered on "John From Cincinnati" and anything else that makes me say, "Whaaaaat?!?"