openpolitics.com

Not long after the iPad went on sale in early April, the Ilinois Institute of Technology announced that it would be providing each member of next fall’s freshman class with one of the new Apple devices. School officials said that the iPad would allow students to take notes, check email, and read books. Which books they had in mind is not precisely clear except for this: they are not likely to be textbooks. While a number of publishers, like McGraw-Hill and Houghton Mifflin, have signed on with software developer ScrollMotion to produce textbooks for the iPad—works that would exploit its multimedia capabilities with video lectures, historical film clips, educational games, and interactive quizzes—almost none of those books yet exist.

But after seeing clips from a June 1, 2010 CNN report, in which the harsh realities of life at Foxconn are revealed, Stewart quickly changes his tune. According to the segment, Foxconn employees work up to 35 hours at a stretch for $.31 an hour. If they try to form a union they could get 12 years in prison, which Stewart points out wouldn't be much of a difference from life at the factory where workers live in 8-person dormitories.

"This is an abomination and yet I am complicit," admitted Stewart, who goes on to say he must abandon his gadgets

.. Siri informs Stewart that were Foxconn to implement humane conditions, his iPod would cost 23 percent more.

Stewart is aghast: "Wow! I would expect if we were working people to death, we'd be getting like 30 to 35 percent savings," he joked.

Collect and Highlight, Then Remember

Because when you fire a person the wrong way — that is, without generosity and respect — you can be sure of two things.

1. You’ve hurt someone unnecessarily.
2. And you’ve set up your organization for a future relationship from hell. After all, terminated employees don’t just fade away. They usually reappear, and pretty rapidly, as customers, suppliers, distributors, or in the worst-case scenario, competitors with an ax to grind.

By the way, this is a column about Ron Paul.

.. But Paul is not really the GOP’s problem. It’s his followers, perhaps as much as 15 percent of the general electorate, many of them young, vocal and highly energized. Like Paul himself, they’re not exactly party regulars. No, Paul and his followers promise to be a lot like that fired employee who, if “handled” incorrectly at farewell, will make it his life’s work to, if not bring your organization down, at least show you how very wrong you were to cut the cord.

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