I’ve really been enjoying my Nexus 7 tablet. I dislike that tablets have become the norm, and in a perfect world I’d use a desktop, a netbook, and a tablet. But in the real world, my netbook has been phased out, and I’m back to taking notes with pen and
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wmtc: #walmartstrikers + international buy nothing day = don’t shop at walmart
I don’t know when people starting calling the day after US Thanksgiving “Black Friday,” but the expression has become synonymous with over-consumption, empty consumer culture, and the bizarre importance assigned to hunting for bargains. And what a bargain it is: a multibillion-dollar corporation sells a piece of crappy future landfill
Continue readingwmtc: towards a cruelty-free face: switching to products not tested on animals
I’ve begun changing my personal care products to cruelty-free: natural products from companies that are better for the environment and don’t test on animals. I’m not sure how far I’ll be able to go, but I’ve begun the process. After a lifetime of using conventional products, I was moved to
Continue readingwmtc: negative reviews and threats of lawsuits: let’s not give in to corporate bullying
There’s a new bully in town, and he’s not going after fat kids in the school cafeteria. He’s a corporate bully, and he’s gunning for you, his dissatisfied customer. An increasing number of companies are threatening lawsuits against customers who post negative online reviews about their products or services. At
Continue readingwmtc: amazing but true: mlb does the right thing and increases fans’ access to the postseason
The biggest surprise of the 2014 baseball postseason isn’t the absence of both the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees. It isn’t the Baltimore Orioles, making the postseason for the first time since 1997, or the Kansas City Royals, playing baseball in October for the first time since
Continue readingwmtc: sometimes knowing your rights is all it takes: in which we win our landlord battle
We won! And we won so easily, we’re left scratching our heads and asking, “What just happened?” As you’ll recall, our landlord asked for an illegal rent increase – 10.5% when the legal allowable is 0.8%! – and implied that he would resort to dirty tricks if we didn’t pay.
Continue readingwmtc: know your rights, rental edition, part two
Just about one year ago today – July 8, 2013, to be exact – our area was hit with a massive flood that swamped homes, cars, highways, trains, and . . . our basement. The basement had been Allan’s office. The office in which he was working to meet a
Continue readingwmtc: is the food movement elitist? michael pollan connects the dots between labour and our tables
In an excellent interview in Truthout, Michael Pollan responds to critics who accuse the food movement of being elitist. He very rightly credits Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation with explicitly drawing the connection between labour issues, animal issues, and our own food issues. And Pollan calls out the industrialized food
Continue readingwmtc: in which i survive three days without internet, or how rogers (maybe) punishes former customers
Sometime late on Thursday night into Friday morning, our internet went down. This is the worst possible time for such an event, as internet is our lifeline to baseball, and the Boston Red Sox are on their way (I hope) (I believe) to winning the World Series. From the sound
Continue readingwmtc: in praise of freecycle
It’s been a while since I wrote about Freecycle – once as we were getting ready to move to Canada in 2005, then again when we moved from our first place in Port Credit to the Cooksville section of Mississauga. On this last move (Cooksville to Square One), I had
Continue readingwmtc: self-checkout is unpaid labour, gift cards are interest-free loans, and let’s stop using both
There are two current trends that I seriously dislike, and wish we would all organize to change: retail self-checkout and the use of gift cards as thank-yous and gifts. Neither practice will go away any time soon; indeed, I’m sure they only will become more ubiquitous. But both trends are
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