Labour Days

So, we have recently lost a few people at my work. On the way home from one of the going away parties I was listening to the Aesop Rock album Labour Days (he spells it incorrectly because he is american) and it got me to thinking how management in canada treats us lowly workers.

So, before you start crying about the fact that I haven't worked or whatever let me diabuse you of that notion.

I worked retail - for over 2 years I slung shoes for bata. They tried to call it athletes world and sell sport shoes, but at the end of the day it was me doing my best Al Bundy impression of trying to squeeze women into shoes that didn't fit them.

I built hockey arenas all over america. Talk about a pain in the ass...I worked with rednecks and had to share rooms with them.

I drive a truck. Not a moving van, an 18-wheeler, all over north america. Ya, exactly.

I bartended.

I worked in IT.

I work in advertising.

So, ya, I get labour. Listening to the album tonight reminded me how much management takes advantage of labour. Really if you think about it, without labour, management is just nothing. No productivity, no end result. So how is it that management gets away with treating workers poorly?

Oops, call Senator McCarthy, I don' t think I'm allowed to talk about this in public.

Unions, Socialism and the mystifying Stigma

I was at my brother's house this weekend helping him put up a deck. Not the best way to spend a long weekend but I really didn't have anything better to do...I understand that my life is boring so back off. Anyway, we (my father, brother, uncle and a friend of my brother's) worked from about 1pm to about 6pm, mixing concrete, drilling holes, shovelling dirt and generally having a pretty decent time as far as hard labour goes. When we finished the day's work my sister in law had prepared a meal for us as a "thank-you". She made some excellent pulled pork, which I believe was the first time she had ever made it which made it all the more impressive, and some delicious salads. My brother John threw some burgers on the bbq and cracked me a steam whistle - very nice of him to buy my favorite beer since I know he hates it.

We sat eating and drinking and we got around to discussing the garbage strike in Toronto. As an aside you should know that me and my brother constantly argue about the value of unions. So while my brother and the rest start expounding on how the unions are so greedy and how they should be forced back to work or be fired I came to the union's defence, as I often do. As soon as I started my brother says he doesn't want to talk about it because he is bored with the argument that we always have. His friend and girlfriend then pipe up with "unions make people lazy". Now I have heard this before and it shocks me how little people are willing to apply a little bit of logical analysis to the statement. If unions make people lazy then all people in unions must be lazy. Which is false. If they have met lazy union workers and make the leap that all union members are lazy well that is like meeting Hitler and saying all white people are genocidal maniacs.

But, having heard this statement before (always from Laurier grads, one of whom told me that her business prof taught her that - don't even get me started on that) I switch the question to socialism in general. Is socialism bad? I ask. To which they all reply if I like that I may as well be a communist (to which I chuckled) and I asked them what was wrong with that.

The answer rang down like it always does "Communism (and by extention socialism) is a good idea in theory." This is the most inane statement anyone can ever make and yet it continues to be used. Because past communist countries have "failed" then communism doesn't work. Well tell that to the Chinese who own America, or tell it to the Socialist Scandinavians how have the lowest infant mortality rates in the world, or tell it to the Cubans who have more doctors per capita than any "successful" "capitalist" country.

Anyway, just makes me wonder where (besides from imbecillic Laurier profs) people get their irrational fear of socialism. And why is that the people with the most strongly held beliefs against it are so often practicing christians? Could it be that these people are just susceptible to being brainwashed in their early childhood? I remember being told how evil Russia was and how Jesus would protect me; I also remember being told how generous Santa Claus was but I disabused myself of all those notions as I got older.

The Disappearing Male

I just watched a documentary called The Disappearing Male, really a fascinating look at chemicals that we use in everyday life that are harming the male population of the world, and possibly causing the male birthrate to plummet. Now, ladies, before you start celebrating think of the man you are currently with, no think that he would be with a way hotter girl if there were less men...seriously. Anyway, so while watching this doc I got to thinking...why do these chemicals harm us so much?

Well, most of the chemicals they referred to came from petroleum. What is petroleum? Oil. Ok, smartass, what is oil? Oil is basically dead plants and animals that have been rotting in the ground for eons and have turned into a liquid compound.

As we all know humans (and most animals that aren't carnivores) have an aversion to dead bodies. When we think of them we recoil...we don't want to touch a dead body, we don't want to look at dead bodies and we certainly don't want to rub themselves up against a dead body. However, we don't mind using oil every day nonstop.

So, we take these dead animals and plants and burn them to run our car, use them for lube when we fuck or jerk off and we rub it on us to make ourselves more beautiful. And all this affinity for oil is killing off our species. We should have trusted our old instincts and steered clear of all these dead things and focused on live things; fresh vegetables and fruits should have been the source of our technology but our focus on death may indeed end up causing our extinction. Ironic.

Haruki Murakami

When I was living in Japan there was I guy I hung out with.  He was from Melbourne and claimed to not be gay.  I didn't believe him.  But he recommended Haruki Murakami to me, the book was Norweigan Wood.  It changed my life.  You should read his books.

Recent News - ramblings

Ruby Dhalla - some hot MP apparently mistreated her nannies. So, I didn't know who this woman was before this story, even though she was named the 3rd hottest female politician on the planet by Maxim magazine. After following the story for a bit it seems amazing to me that just because someone has been accused of something - and they are a politician - they are automatically assumed to be guilty by the public. That's like someone coming out and saying I kidnapped them for 3 weeks last year and everyone believing it - absurd. I have no loe for politicians, no matter how hot, but I think this story stinks - and I hope they investigate and find out who stands to gain from this woman's crucifixion.

Swine Flu - why do all the most delicious animals have to be so suseptable to the flu? I mean first I couldn't eat chicken and now pork? I will gladly risk swine flu or any other over hyped virus or killer bacteria for a delicious chicken parmsian wrapped in bacon. End of story.

The Recession - did the economy just get better over night? Job rates are up and the TSX is above 10,000 again. Wow, who knew that all that needed to be done was for people to be distracted by a fake pandemic and the recession would go away. Makes me wonder, if we get distracted enough do you think the USA will get out of the middle east? I guess that's asking too much.

New Star Trek Movie - finally a news story I can get behind. Can't wait to see it and it will make my life better.

That's it for news.

Quarter Life Crises and Other Observations

My younger brother is an interesting fellow.  He is the youngest of 5 children brought up by catholic parents.  Born in 1984 (foreboding possibly), he did most of his actual growing up in the nineties, as did I really...but this post isn't about me.  He was very interested in music.  His first love were Foo Fighters, who are I believe a really good rock band, not great, but really good.  From that he started listening to Nirvana (a little old for him but he was a smart kid and I think he got it mostly).  He learned to play guitar, and does so quite well.  He had friends and wasn't really interested in school despite his obvious intelligence.  

Upon finishing high school he was not really sure what he wanted to do.  I'm embarrassed to admit that at this point in his life I was so wrapped up in my own life that I don't really remember what he did.  I know he ended up trying to go to college but couldn't get motivated to excel there.  He took jobs as a mechanic, a job which I'm told he is great at, but never loved it.  He always said that he couldn't stand hanging with the people that that industry attracted - which I think is fair.  He seemed to be a bit adrift for a couple of years; working jobs but only to pay his bills.

Then he decided to move to Afghanistan and work for the military as a mechanic.  This decision was hard for my family to accept.  Both me and one of my sisters moved overseas for a time after university, probably for different reasons, but maybe both partly because we didn't know what we were going to do with our lives.  My family was supportive of our decisions but because my brother was moving into a war zone they felt a little less than thrilled, no doubt worried about him.  I gained no sympathy from my family when I endorsed his move to the middle east.   My family tried to get me to dissuade him from going, which I politely declined to do.  I figured a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do.  So leaving his mother father and four siblings in Canada he was off for an adventure.

I have always thought is important for young men to have adventures.  Think of all the most interesting people you know.  The reason these people are interesting is because of the stories they have....exotic locations, strange people they have encountered and harrowing accounts of dangerous situations they have found themselves in.  I have a great uncle who would constantly tell us of his years spent in the north working for the Canadian government - run ins with bears and other dangerous animals.  Having adventures when men are young is what allows them to settle down when they are older.  This may be true for women too, but I know it's true for men.

After completing his contract in Afghanistan my brother returned safe and sound much to our collective relief.  He took a job in Calgary and seemed to be finding his way.  

About a week ago he called me and told me he was going back.  He said he didn't know what he wanted to do, and was just spinning his tires so he might as well go back and make a bunch of money while he was figuring things out.  He leaves in about a week.  Now, I know he will be fine, statistically he is probably safer there than living in some of the sketchier neighborhoods in Toronto.  So I'm not worried.  It did, however, remind me of how restless I was when I was his age, and how much I bummed around bartending and traveling and really just looking for a path.  The irony of my search was that I discovered that I don't think anyone really knows what they want to do and end up just settling for something to pass the time......hope his works out a little better.

Harmonized Tax

Wow, who would have thought that this would be the time that a tax increase would be announced.  I am not an economist, by any means, I think, like most people I get what economics is and have a basic understanding of how economics works.  

It seems to me that if the economy is hurting, the mean thing that would help it is for people to spend money.  How would you go about motivating people to spend money??  Well, you could give them more money or make their money worth more.  Now, everyone knows that you can't just print money (everyone except Ben Bernanke it seems), so in order to stimulate the economy what should be done is making people's money stretch further.

Ontario's solution: Raise taxes!!!! Brilliant, man no wonder our economy is falling apart.