Have to admit the magic of baseball pretty much eluded me from the get go.
Ya, back in my Elora Public School days we used to rush out to the playground at recess and play something called "scrub."
A little later in life I was the pitcher for my slo-pitch team in Saint John New Brunswick. We were sponsored by the brewery up the road. Man, did I ever pitch extra slow just for them!
I remember that shit like it happened yesterday!
We have a happy summer of beer and baseball... well, slo-pitch.
We get in the playoffs!
Holy shit! That means we'll probably get more beer from our sponsor!
And at this point you'll actually get a few friends and family members, so on a typical game-day it looks like there's at least a couple dozen folks in the stands.
And suddenly the guy who has been throwing the ball all year just fucking chokes!
Ya, that was me.
How you can fuck up pitching in a slo-pitch game is something I cannot understand to this day.
But I did it!
So it can happen to anybody...
Showing posts with label $15 minimum wage. Show all posts
Showing posts with label $15 minimum wage. Show all posts
Saturday, October 10, 2015
Tuesday, September 15, 2015
Haiti expert admits pot-addled hillbilly had Haiti right all along!
The CBC has a Haiti story on view that pretty much verifies everything I've been saying for years, here and here for example.
Marylynn Steckley, a Canadian researcher, concludes after living in-country for six years that our "help" is destroying the country.
Duh!
And the pot-addled blogger didn't even have to spend six years there to figure out the obvious!
So Bill and Hillary and their Hollywood A-list cheerleaders have brought 5,000 sweatshop jobs to Haiti.
Wow!
5000 lucky Haitians are now working poor instead of unemployed poor!
As Canadians we've been more than complicit in damning the people of Haiti to their never-ending nightmare. We proudly assisted in forcing the democratically elected leader of the country from office. Twice.
That's somehow justified by some vague appeal to a racist truism that assumes us white folks know what's best for everybody else.
(Of course we do! The darkies went and elected the obviously insane Aristide into power... we had to save them from themselves by installing a safe stooge like Michel Martelly.)
Haiti is living proof that we don't.
Not that more proof was needed...
Marylynn Steckley, a Canadian researcher, concludes after living in-country for six years that our "help" is destroying the country.
Duh!
And the pot-addled blogger didn't even have to spend six years there to figure out the obvious!
So Bill and Hillary and their Hollywood A-list cheerleaders have brought 5,000 sweatshop jobs to Haiti.
Wow!
5000 lucky Haitians are now working poor instead of unemployed poor!
As Canadians we've been more than complicit in damning the people of Haiti to their never-ending nightmare. We proudly assisted in forcing the democratically elected leader of the country from office. Twice.
That's somehow justified by some vague appeal to a racist truism that assumes us white folks know what's best for everybody else.
(Of course we do! The darkies went and elected the obviously insane Aristide into power... we had to save them from themselves by installing a safe stooge like Michel Martelly.)
Haiti is living proof that we don't.
Not that more proof was needed...
Saturday, September 13, 2014
Canada's pretend socialists try for free ride on "$15 is FAIR" coattails
The Canadian political party formerly known as socialist has decreed that $15 is indeed fair; a fair minimum wage for Canadian workers... IN 2019!
How this bit of shabby headline-mongering succeeded is beyond me. NDP leader Mulcair got headlines all across the Great White North on his call for a $15/hr minimum wage. In every case you don't get the 2019 part until you read the actual story.
Nor is Mulcair making a principled statement about the need for a decent minimum wage for ALL Canadians, right now; he's limiting his "demands" to that small minority of Canadian workers who are covered by federal instead of provincial minimum wage legislation.
In other words, these headlines are the result of a calculated attempt to steal a bit of the spotlight from the "$15 is Fair" campaign.
The NDP under Mulcair's leadership has been steadily losing the credibility it had under the late Jack Layton. Mulcair's gutless refusal to say anything other than parrot Harper talking points during the recent Israeli war on Gaza, for the ludicrous reason that his wife's family is Jewish, alienated a lot of traditional NDP types who expect the Party offer something different from the one-sided support for Israeli militarism that we typically get from the Harper gang.
As for that $15/hr minimum wage, listen up, Tom; that's something that the working poor in Canada need today, not in 2019, and they need it across the land, not just in federally regulated industries.
How this bit of shabby headline-mongering succeeded is beyond me. NDP leader Mulcair got headlines all across the Great White North on his call for a $15/hr minimum wage. In every case you don't get the 2019 part until you read the actual story.
Nor is Mulcair making a principled statement about the need for a decent minimum wage for ALL Canadians, right now; he's limiting his "demands" to that small minority of Canadian workers who are covered by federal instead of provincial minimum wage legislation.
In other words, these headlines are the result of a calculated attempt to steal a bit of the spotlight from the "$15 is Fair" campaign.
The NDP under Mulcair's leadership has been steadily losing the credibility it had under the late Jack Layton. Mulcair's gutless refusal to say anything other than parrot Harper talking points during the recent Israeli war on Gaza, for the ludicrous reason that his wife's family is Jewish, alienated a lot of traditional NDP types who expect the Party offer something different from the one-sided support for Israeli militarism that we typically get from the Harper gang.
As for that $15/hr minimum wage, listen up, Tom; that's something that the working poor in Canada need today, not in 2019, and they need it across the land, not just in federally regulated industries.
Monday, February 3, 2014
Putin the puppy-killer; anti-Putin propaganda at fever pitch on eve of Olympics
With the opening of the Sochi Olympics mere days away the anti-Putin diatribes in Western media are hitting absurd heights.
If it's not homophobia, it's corruption. Or meddling in Ukraine. Or more corruption. Or stifling free speech. Or slapping the bold activists of Pussy Riot in jail. Or homophobia. Or meddling in Syria. Have I mentioned the rampant corruption?... homophobia?
At the weekend the papers were full of breathless reportage on Masha Gessen's in-depth biography of the spunky anti-Putin self-promoters Pussy Riot.
But the wicked Putin knows no bounds. Among his manifold malevolent failings there has been one kept secret until now; the man hates man's best friend. They are killing the stray dogs in Sochi in advance of the Olympics!
Who can even bear to imagine such evil?
What do you suppose happens to stray dogs in Frankfurt or Milan or New York or Toronto? Are they superannuated in doggie retirement homes? No, they are corralled and disposed of.
"Put down."
Killed.
Is it a pleasant fact to contemplate? No.
Is it newsworthy? No.
But it sure is when it happens in Russia.
If it's not homophobia, it's corruption. Or meddling in Ukraine. Or more corruption. Or stifling free speech. Or slapping the bold activists of Pussy Riot in jail. Or homophobia. Or meddling in Syria. Have I mentioned the rampant corruption?... homophobia?
At the weekend the papers were full of breathless reportage on Masha Gessen's in-depth biography of the spunky anti-Putin self-promoters Pussy Riot.
But the wicked Putin knows no bounds. Among his manifold malevolent failings there has been one kept secret until now; the man hates man's best friend. They are killing the stray dogs in Sochi in advance of the Olympics!
Who can even bear to imagine such evil?
What do you suppose happens to stray dogs in Frankfurt or Milan or New York or Toronto? Are they superannuated in doggie retirement homes? No, they are corralled and disposed of.
"Put down."
Killed.
Is it a pleasant fact to contemplate? No.
Is it newsworthy? No.
But it sure is when it happens in Russia.
Wednesday, December 4, 2013
Sexual assault-prevention officer busted for running prostitution ring
That doesn't sound good, does it?
Only in America!
Well, that's not true. This sort of thing can happen anywhere people think it's ok to exploit other people. To let their misery subsidize your luxury.
I think more and more people are getting fed up with this idea that it's ok for the rich and strong to take advantage of the weak and vulnerable just because they can.
"Working poor" needs to become universally recognized as an oxy-moron.
That's why this move among the most exploited, the fast-food and retail folks, for a $15 an hour wage is the brightest moment for workers since the great human rights upheavals of the 1960's.
Only in America!
Well, that's not true. This sort of thing can happen anywhere people think it's ok to exploit other people. To let their misery subsidize your luxury.
I think more and more people are getting fed up with this idea that it's ok for the rich and strong to take advantage of the weak and vulnerable just because they can.
"Working poor" needs to become universally recognized as an oxy-moron.
That's why this move among the most exploited, the fast-food and retail folks, for a $15 an hour wage is the brightest moment for workers since the great human rights upheavals of the 1960's.
Monday, November 25, 2013
The Resurrection of Captain Ludd
The local high school has about 800 cellphone-carrying students. Assuming that they, or more likely their parents, are paying an average of fifty bucks a month for cell service, that's $40,000 every month floating out of that building into the coffers of the cellphone industry.
Twenty years ago no students at that school had cellphones. That's a school that can't afford new helmets for the football team and has multiple fund-raisers to keep alive its breakfast program which costs somewhat less than $500 a month to operate. But $40,000 every month just wafts up through the ceiling tiles.
This is the result of a completely irrational fetishization of technology. What are these kids actually doing with these cellphones? Are they necessary?
Ask the kids and they'll answer that they can't imagine living without one.
As a society we seem to blindly accept that just because someone has come up with a technology, we are obliged to adopt, adapt, consume, and enrich the providers of that technology. Asking "how is this making the world a better place" would mark you as a senile sentimentalist.
But while it's true that the billions worldwide who have adopted this technology have made an infinitesimally small clique of individuals exceedingly wealthy, how has it improved society?
This goes well beyond cellphones. Usually, new technology will promise enhanced efficiencies in the bouquet of propaganda that heralds its debut.
As a society, we're over-the-top about "efficiency."
Efficiency-seeking investment dollars chased manufacturing from the US and Canada to Mexico and then China, and then on to Cambodia and Bangladesh and Haiti, in a constant quest for greater efficiency.
The never-ending search for cheaper inputs on the one hand, and the constant evolution of technology on the other, have conspired to make North America and much of the "developed world" into a job-shedding wasteland.
If we believe that "jobs" are a valuable commodity in a society, perhaps we should manage ourselves accordingly.
When hedge fund driven mergers, rationalizations, take-overs etc. result in the inevitable "synergies," i.e. drastic lay-offs, there needs to be a place in the discussion about how this benefits society at large. If the only beneficiaries are the hedge-fund operators and their investors, then the only point would be to further enrich the already rich at the expense of a wide swath of ordinary folks.
Why should that be permitted?
The creation and preservation of decent jobs is a worthwhile end in itself. The elimination of such jobs is not.
And what is a "decent" job?
A lot of low-wage employment is not inherently unpleasant. I served a spell in retail myself once. Putting in an eight hour shift at the mall could be eminently agreeable to a lot of people if the pay allowed them to live a proper life.
That's why the movement in the US by fast food and retail workers to up the minimum wage to $15 is such a positive development. If Costco can pay a decent wage, Wal-mart and McDonalds can too.
Even more important, we can't as a society embrace every new "labour-saving technology" without giving some thought to what will happen to the labour that's going to be saved. When we talk about saving labour we are talking about eliminating somebody's livelihood. Shouldn't they have a say in the matter?
For far too long the discussion about workers and jobs has been monopolized by the Chamber of Commerce types who champion profit maximization over employees, communities, society, the environment, and every other manifestation of the common good.
It's time to reboot the discussion.
Twenty years ago no students at that school had cellphones. That's a school that can't afford new helmets for the football team and has multiple fund-raisers to keep alive its breakfast program which costs somewhat less than $500 a month to operate. But $40,000 every month just wafts up through the ceiling tiles.
This is the result of a completely irrational fetishization of technology. What are these kids actually doing with these cellphones? Are they necessary?
Ask the kids and they'll answer that they can't imagine living without one.
As a society we seem to blindly accept that just because someone has come up with a technology, we are obliged to adopt, adapt, consume, and enrich the providers of that technology. Asking "how is this making the world a better place" would mark you as a senile sentimentalist.
But while it's true that the billions worldwide who have adopted this technology have made an infinitesimally small clique of individuals exceedingly wealthy, how has it improved society?
This goes well beyond cellphones. Usually, new technology will promise enhanced efficiencies in the bouquet of propaganda that heralds its debut.
As a society, we're over-the-top about "efficiency."
Efficiency-seeking investment dollars chased manufacturing from the US and Canada to Mexico and then China, and then on to Cambodia and Bangladesh and Haiti, in a constant quest for greater efficiency.
The never-ending search for cheaper inputs on the one hand, and the constant evolution of technology on the other, have conspired to make North America and much of the "developed world" into a job-shedding wasteland.
If we believe that "jobs" are a valuable commodity in a society, perhaps we should manage ourselves accordingly.
When hedge fund driven mergers, rationalizations, take-overs etc. result in the inevitable "synergies," i.e. drastic lay-offs, there needs to be a place in the discussion about how this benefits society at large. If the only beneficiaries are the hedge-fund operators and their investors, then the only point would be to further enrich the already rich at the expense of a wide swath of ordinary folks.
Why should that be permitted?
The creation and preservation of decent jobs is a worthwhile end in itself. The elimination of such jobs is not.
And what is a "decent" job?
A lot of low-wage employment is not inherently unpleasant. I served a spell in retail myself once. Putting in an eight hour shift at the mall could be eminently agreeable to a lot of people if the pay allowed them to live a proper life.
That's why the movement in the US by fast food and retail workers to up the minimum wage to $15 is such a positive development. If Costco can pay a decent wage, Wal-mart and McDonalds can too.
Even more important, we can't as a society embrace every new "labour-saving technology" without giving some thought to what will happen to the labour that's going to be saved. When we talk about saving labour we are talking about eliminating somebody's livelihood. Shouldn't they have a say in the matter?
For far too long the discussion about workers and jobs has been monopolized by the Chamber of Commerce types who champion profit maximization over employees, communities, society, the environment, and every other manifestation of the common good.
It's time to reboot the discussion.
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