Designated day creep: it’s a thing
In one of my earlier posts about designated day creep, I cited evidence of a trend wherein the number of special days we mark in the union movement is growing…
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Is Heartbleed really as bad as all that?
Okay so there is a vulnerability in OpenSSL. And that’s bad. But the extent of alarmist rubbish out there about it is making me bonkers. This Globe piece is not…
Laurie Kingston: That could have been me
The courageous, honest and brilliant Laurie Kingston writes about her experience with depression and anxiety in response to the obituary Andy Jones and Mary-Lynn Bernard’s wrote for their son. My…
Special day statements: go big or go home. Why I say go home
I have to admit the one year moratorium on special day statements wasn’t my first idea about how to handle the burgeoning busy work of creating statements to mark the…
Back in running shoes
My first bit of proper exercise since January 19th. Nathalie Belanger, the most excellent physiotherapist told me yesterday evening I was okay to “resume activity” unless I encountered pain. So…
Flaherty’s legacy? Ideological, reckless and just plain lucky – Armine Yalnizyan
In the people’s republic of Chris, Armine Yalnizyan is finance minister. I really love how she dissects this “Jim Flaherty steady hand on the tiller” narrative that so many commercial…
Georgia spring break trip redux: Savannah, Okefenokee, Cumberland Island
A lot of Canadians think “Florida” when they think spring break. And we have done that. But this year, I was the grateful passenger on another Irene Jansen organized travel…
Why I’d support a passenger bill of rights: two words United Airlines
It’s true there are much more serious problems in the world. Poverty, rape culture, climate change. But this morning I want to put that out of my mind and complain…
Comment trolls might just be NSA agents
Or CSIS, CSEC or whatever. Glen Greenwald (The Intercept) has this item on some of the Snowden docs which would seem to be a training manual on how to discredit…
Proof that special day statements are pointless
A cost benefit analysis of why we must have a one year moratorium on special day statements in the house of labour.
Hudak drops ‘right to work’ policy
CBC is reporting that Ontario PC leader Tim Hudak has dropped the mandatory representation, voluntary dues policy for union membership from his party program. It’s nice to know that he…
Supreme Court says ‘unions represent you, they have a right to talk to you’
The Supreme Court has ruled against a tax auditor who has spent the last thirteen years trying to keep her employer from giving her contact information to her union, Kathryn…
For a moratorium on commemorative day statements
I think what pushed me over the edge is the UN’s International Day of Happiness. When I saw it I hoped I’d been pranked and that it wasn’t real. Alas…
In defense of web content, or “don’t give me your binder and ask me to put it on the internet”
Over a yummy lunch a couple of weeks back some colleagues and I were talking about web content. They’d been at a how-to workshop where the facilitator seemed to have…
Nikon AW1: So I have a new travel/tripping camera
The Nikon AW1. I like it. A GPS, waterproof, shock proof, with interchangeable lenses, 14MP resolution in a half pound package. Here are my observations, impressions and notes.
A minor tear in my right, outer meniscus
We expect. We hope. We being me and the awesome physiotherapist I saw today at the Carleton Sports Therapy Clinic. The meniscus is the donut-shaped bit of padding between the…
There’s a credit union at Bank and Somerset again
Back when I moved to Ottawa in the early 1990s I did all my banking with one of the big commercial banks. I realized how wrong that was but what…
Ex-soldiers hold sit-in to protest Veterans Affairs office closure
I suppose if you’re used to facing gunfire, police removal isn’t so bad. Though I think it’s an embarassing shame for the federal government that the veterans are having to…
Pete Seeger is missing, but not really
Pete Seeger has died. It’s trending everywhere. Which in a sense is all the proof I need of my thesis. It’s heartening to see that a life well lived, an…
CBC’s saying Canada Post will start killing door to door delivery in early February
CBC Ottawa is reporting this morning. But doesn’t say where. Allow me to guess – no swing ridings, no otherwise vulnerable government MPs. Because superboxes suck. CPC spokesmuppet Jon Hamilton…