Deep Thoughts On the Wedding
Last year I wrote a column here about wedding bills, of which the father of the bride has many.
Recently the wedding bills gave way to the wedding bells. With all of the checks signed and my tendonitis easing, I offer this postscript.
If you are planning a wedding for more than 20 people, get a wedding planner. It will save you time, energy, anxiety and worry. They know all the steps of what is a major production. Avoiding one mistake in selecting vendors or sites will pay for the wedding planner and more.
While I anticipated some of the fiascos humorously captured in movies such as “Meet the In-Laws,” “My Best Friend’s Wedding,” “Wedding Crashers” and “Big Fat Greek Wedding,” none of these materialized.
The humor and problems came from the guest list.
You would think three months is a long enough time for anyone to respond to the invitation. Not so. The polite Midwesterners answered quickly, but the Californians dallied, waiting to see if the wedding date aligned with their horoscopes.
Also frustrating were the single people who wanted to bring a date despite our attempt to enforce a “no ring, no bring” policy. One guest in the process of getting a divorce asked if she could bring her boyfriend. “We’ve been going out a long time,” she explained. Hmm
Then there were the seating requests. In one case couple X called and asked to be seated by couple Y. Couple Y called to ask they not be seated with couple X. Figure that one out.
Through it all, try to remember that lots of love and lots of taste do more to make a wedding memorable than lots of money. However, all loving presents will be accepted.
Michael Arnold Glueck
M.D. and FOB (father of the bride)
Newport Beach
Legal Deadline
An important deadline is looming for employers throughout California: A new sexual harassment training requirement mandates that all organizations with 50 or more employees, including contract personnel, put all supervisory employees through sexual harassment training by the end of the year.
Even if it hadn’t been signed into law, training your employees is an essential step toward avoiding needless litigation and helping ensure that sexual harassment does not occur in the workplace.
AB 1825, signed by the governor in 2004, mandates that by Jan. 1 each supervisory employee needs to have completed at least two hours of training unless they had received some sexual harassment training during 2003 or 2004. Thereafter, companies will have to provide two hours of training every two years.
The law applies to all organizations,businesses, government and nonprofits,with 50 or more total employees (the law does not specify that the 50 employees must be within the state).
Employees with “supervisory authority” are broadly defined in California. An estimated 1.7 million California employees are covered by the law.
Organizations that don’t complete the training are subject to a corrective order from the Fair Employment and Housing Commission, as well as the potential for harassment claims, lawsuits and increased damages for harassment claims.
With just a few weeks left to comply, the California Chamber of Commerce is working to educate California employers on its requirements and help employers comply with its provisions.
The chamber is providing businesses with a cost-effective, online training program to meet this requirement. Since the program was rolled out in May, more than 30,000 managers have been successfully trained.
In addition to the mandate provided in AB 1825, we encourage employers of all sizes in California to train their employees to help prevent sexual harassment in the workplace.
If you need more information on AB 1825, please visit our Web site at www.calchamber.com.
Allan Zaremberg
President
California Chamber of Commerce
Sacramento
Evolution, Cont’d
I read the Oct. 17 letter on evolution from Assemblyman Ray Haynes of Temecula and, for a moment, thought I was in Kansas or Mississippi.
It is a classic piece of writing and logic, except that everything in it was completely backwards from reality.
The theory of evolution is a scientific theory that has proven itself over and over to be accurate. The presentation of “intelligent design” is a religious concept by the members of a minority of the Christian religion.
He criticizes government as being destructive to people’s lives. He might be right there, if his religious views are allowed to replace true science and mix religious theory into scientific teaching.
As for there being no intelligent design in government, well, his election seems to prove that point.
Mr. Haynes says that the defenders of evolution are attacking those that question it. No, attacking theories is the way of science. Any legitimate, scientific attack on a theory would be welcomed, debated and a conclusion formed.
The proponents of intelligent design are attacking the scientific community, with an improvable religious theory and insisting that it be taught as science.
Without the theory of evolution we would not have developed the bug-resistant strains of wheat, and other fruits and vegetables we have today, as well as high-yield crops to help feed the world, just to name one area.
What would the theory of intelligent design lead to? Maybe book burnings.
Maybe us left-wing “friends” prefer to allow each person to make up their mind about the religion they choose and to keep religion and science, and also government, separate.
It is, you might remember, the American way.
Ed St. Amour
Mesa Verde
