I saw a comment on the NZ Herald's website that said something along the lines of, "we all get drug tested when we start a new job and regularly while on the job and if we fail we lose our jobs, so why don't people on the benefit/dole have to undergo drug tests?"
Firstly, I've never been drug tested at any workplace of mine, and I don't think I know anyone else who has either, so that's the first part of that argument shot down. Secondly, people on the dole generally aren't required to be doing anything all that important, so if their judgement is impaired, more often than not it's not going to matter as much as if say, an air traffic controller or a forklift driver was out of his mind. Thirdly, what are you going to do if someone unemployed fails a drug test? Let them resort to crime in order to stay alive, lock them up and cost the taxpayer four or five times more than what it would to leave them on the dole? Think, people, think. Fourthly, maybe some people on the dole drink and do drugs BECAUSE they're on the dole, not the other way around as is often assumed. It can be pretty boring and depressing for many, not being able to find work.
Grrr.
Next thing: we get a lot of emails from high school students complaining about schools enforcing dress codes strictly - a few a day, minimum, from all across the country. All of them read as if they're written by 13-year-olds, at the oldest, but anyway, none of them describe anything my school didn't pull on us back in the mid-90s... yet we never thought of asking the news media to investigate! Then again, it was so much harder to write a letter back then... in my day...
Next next thing: the new Weezer video is awesome, perhaps the nerdiest three minutes in music history.
Next next next thing: perhaps the last Kittyhawk practise for me is tonight, for our last gig (I think) this weekend.
Firstly, I've never been drug tested at any workplace of mine, and I don't think I know anyone else who has either, so that's the first part of that argument shot down. Secondly, people on the dole generally aren't required to be doing anything all that important, so if their judgement is impaired, more often than not it's not going to matter as much as if say, an air traffic controller or a forklift driver was out of his mind. Thirdly, what are you going to do if someone unemployed fails a drug test? Let them resort to crime in order to stay alive, lock them up and cost the taxpayer four or five times more than what it would to leave them on the dole? Think, people, think. Fourthly, maybe some people on the dole drink and do drugs BECAUSE they're on the dole, not the other way around as is often assumed. It can be pretty boring and depressing for many, not being able to find work.
Grrr.
Next thing: we get a lot of emails from high school students complaining about schools enforcing dress codes strictly - a few a day, minimum, from all across the country. All of them read as if they're written by 13-year-olds, at the oldest, but anyway, none of them describe anything my school didn't pull on us back in the mid-90s... yet we never thought of asking the news media to investigate! Then again, it was so much harder to write a letter back then... in my day...
Next next thing: the new Weezer video is awesome, perhaps the nerdiest three minutes in music history.
Next next next thing: perhaps the last Kittyhawk practise for me is tonight, for our last gig (I think) this weekend.
Current Music: Duffy
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