I mentioned yesterday some of the companies that use use extremely cheap labour and barbaric conditions to produce goods cheaply in Bangladesh. The workers are mostly women who work seven days a week, ten hours and more a day, have no holidays, get paid only a few dollars a month,
Continue readingAuthor: Graeme Decarie
The Moncton Times@Transcript - Good and Bad: Jan. 2, 2014: A feast for the mind…
I came home to see a mouth watering pile of TandTs waiting for me. And I was intellectually starved after a week of seeing nothing but the Toronto Globe and Mail. (Actually, the GandM was not impressive. It had a bit more foreign news than the Irving papers do; but
Continue readingThe Moncton Times@Transcript - Good and Bad: Dec. 23: I should add….
to yesterday’s blog that when I suggested we need political parties based on moral principle, I did not mean parties based narrowly on any religion in particular. Churches certainly should be more active than they are in communicating to the congretations about the immorality (by the standards of any religion)
Continue readingThe Moncton Times@Transcript - Good and Bad: Dec.22: The most important provincial election ever……
….and, no, the big issue is not the provincial budget. It’s not Mr. Alward’s fault (not directly) that we have a deficit. Anyway, he doesn’t have an answer for that problem. It’s not Mr. Gallant’s fault, either. In fact, Mr. Gallant’s Liberals are quite devoid of any thouoght about anything
Continue readingThe Moncton Times@Transcript - Good and Bad: Dec. 21: Dynamite on page one?
Or fluff? “Oil, gas industry facing roadblock.” says the headline. It seems there are problems in disposing of toxic waste water – you know the stuff filled with secret chemicals for fracking. What a surprise! What Alberta has been doing with a similar problem is dumping it in lakes or simply
Continue readingThe Moncton Times@Transcript - Good and Bad: Dec. 20: The best column I have ever seen in the irving press…
…..is by Gwynne Dyer on the op ed page. It’s one of the best I have seen in any press. And, in dealing with Melson Mandela, it is far superior to any of the mindless gush we have been reading, hearing, and seeing about him for the past of couple
Continue readingThe Moncton Times@Transcript - Good and Bad: Dec. 19: the inevitable headline: Snow buries metro again….
Good thing I read the paper before going out. I was planning to go for a stroll in my bathing suit and bare feet. The only story of interest in Section A is the one about our Annual Christmas Box Campaign – with some quite impressive pictures of the intensive
Continue readingThe Moncton Times@Transcript - Good and Bad: Dec. 18: I know how the Irving press could save big money.
Instead of delivering a newspaper in the morning, it could distribute earplugs with a recorded message built into them. “You are tired. you are very tired. You are getting sleee….” There’s not a damn thing in it worth reading – well—except for a quite professional column byAlec Bruce. Quite apart from
Continue readingThe Moncton Times@Transcript - Good and Bad: Dec. 17: Damn me for a fool….
….yesterday, as I commented on the news of Canada Post laying off almost everybody, I didn’t have the wit to do the simple, ten minute check I should have done. Luckily, a reader sent me a post that sent me back to my computer to get some basic information. It was
Continue readingThe Moncton Times@Transcript - Good and Bad: Dec. 16: It starts on p. 1….
..where a story (which is otherwise a good one) carries the headline “Bird counts tally species” which means, roughly, bird counts count birds. (Note that headlines are NOT written by the reporter, but by the page editor – who has the wisdom to keep his name a secret.) That’s it
Continue readingThe Moncton Times@Transcript - Good and Bad: Dec. 15: Lots to to think about….
…none of it though, in the Irving press. On Dec. 14, several stories appeared in The Guardian, a British paper. They appeared because fracking has come to Britain. And it’s a carbon copy of the experience here. Large numbers don’t want it. The British government says – guess what? – it will
Continue readingThe Moncton Times@Transcript - Good and Bad: Dec. 14: Egg on my face…..
When I heard it on CBC news, I chortled with joy. (You chortle a lot as you get older; it’s less tiring than laughing.) It was a story about how the Board of Transport got a warrant to search the St. John offices of Irving. There was no way, no
Continue readingThe Moncton Times@Transcript - Good and Bad: Dec. 13: This is actually being written on the evening of Dec. 12 because…
…Dec. 13 is the day I see the doctor to determine whether it’s time to alert all the used body parts dealers that there’s a big sale coming – and to take my son to the dentist. It’s going to be a crowded day. Besides, I feel guilty that my
Continue readingThe Moncton Times@Transcript - Good and Bad: Dec. 12: A collector’s item…
Some day, the edition of The Moncton Times and Transcript for this day, Dec. 12, 2013, will be worth big money. I’ve been thinking of buying a bunch for all those to whom I give Christmas gifts. Some day, they’ll appreciate it. Check out the editorial cartoon. It’s the same
Continue readingThe Moncton Times@Transcript - Good and Bad: Dec. 11: Check your mail carefully…
In recent days, I have had delivered to my house an expensive brochure (our taxes at work) giving me information I need for this winter. For example, as a form of entertainment, I can go for walks in the snow. Who would have guessed it? And it has the rules
Continue readingThe Moncton Times@Transcript - Good and Bad: Dec. 10 Is Alward a liar?
The banner headline on p. 1 reads “Alward pleased SWN ‘persevered’ through protests”. Yes, those are the words from the lips of the man who represents all the people of New Brunswick. And just imagine the ordeal those executives had to survive, standing out there in the rain and the
Continue readingThe Moncton Times@Transcript - Good and Bad: Dec. 9: Mandella would be so pleased….
…at the plane load of official mourners from Canadian government circles going to his funeral. And the Irving Press has nothing but wonderful things to say about him. There is no mention that Canadian intelligence gave South African racists the information to put Mandella in jail for 27 years. Nor
Continue readingThe Moncton Times@Transcript - Good and Bad: Dec. 8:My life is in ashes….
… I forgot to buy a lotto 6/49 yesterday. I mean, what is Sunday without a chance to look up my losing ticket? Mr. Mandella spent 27 years in prison, a period that did nothing to weaken his sense of compassion for people ( including his white enemies who treated
Continue readingThe Moncton Times@Transcript - Good and Bad: Dec. 7:
Well, let’s start with Jana Giles on p. F3. That’s in Whatever, the high school section. She wonders how sports have become so important in high school and university, and there’s little interest in the arts. There’s a story in that. Going back to the 1700s – at least –
Continue readingThe Moncton Times@Transcript - Good and Bad: Dec. 6: Just briefly on the TandT – and then….
What’s to say? It’s the usual TandT. On the death of Nelson Mandela, Stephen Harper says, “World has lost one of ‘its great moral leaders’…” So it has. But the irony is it’s hard to imagine a man with less moral leadership than Stephen Harper. I’ll be talking more about that later.)
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