Skip to content

What’s 21 Months Overdue at RPL?

CUPE 1594, which represents the in-scope workers at RPL, launched an advocacy campaign today.

Entitled “Check Us Out” with a slogan of “What’s 21 Months Overdue at Regina Public Library?”, its purpose is to draw attention to the fact that union members at RPL have been working without a contract for nearly two years.

You can browse the site to learn about some current bargaining issues as well as read comments from current and former staff as well as patrons and other supporters.

If you are so inclined, please feel free to add your own comment to the “Patrons & Other Supporters” page.  As with similar campaigns for Calgary Public Library and Toronto Public Library, I think it’s nice for people involved to know they have support, not only within Regina but from across the country.

Posted 19 October 2011 § Library § Work ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged:

The End of the Canadian Wheat Board…maybe?

Probably one of the best (and worst) things my dad ever did for me was when he didn’t push me to follow in his footsteps by becoming a farmer.

My great-great-grandfather homesteaded in 1883, taking advantage of the famous Dominion Lands Act that offered 160 acres for $10 which drew so many settlers to the west.  This land has been farmed by our family continually since that time.  Well, at least until I came along… 🙁  Now, my dad still owns the farm but instead of me taking over, he now rents it to a neighbour who farms it instead.

I think my dad knew when I was fairly young that I wasn’t made out to be a farmer – I was more interested in computers than motors, books than tools.  Add in sky-high interest rates, rising input costs, low commodity prices and the writing was even starting to be on the wall for the small family farm, even way back in the 1980’s.

Now, it looks like the slow death of the family farm will be accelerated yet again.  The Harper Conservatives are about to introduce legislation to end the monopoly of the Canadian Wheat Board,

The idea that a wheat board can survive without the single desk is (an) absolute chimera,” said New Democrat MP Pat Martin (Winnipeg Centre), pointing to Australia, where a similar board went bankrupt three years after becoming voluntary, as an example of what is wrong with this approach.

So we’ve got one monopoly that worked in favour of Canadian farmers and they’re handing it over to another monopoly, the agri-food giants who will gouge and pillage the Prairie economy.”

Prairie farmers will lose clout with grain and rail companies here at home and in markets around the world,” Saskatchewan Liberal MP Ralph Goodale (Wascana) said in a news release.

There’s a slim ray of hope.  The legislation governing the Wheat Board apparently requires a plebiscite  for any significant changes.  The Wheat Board held a mail-in vote and 62% of grain farmers and 51% of barley farmers voted in favour of keeping the Wheat Board.  But the Conservatives are saying they have a mandate to move forward with these changes because they’ve campaigned on doing this and the majority of western Canada still voted for them which gives them their mandate (though their math, as usual, is faulty.)

To bring it back to my original point – although I grew up around farming, I never was immersed in farm life.  And that means I don’t have the level of understanding of farm-related issues that I probably should when topics like major changes to the Canadian Wheat Board come up.

But I do know this.  I, like 62% of farmers who voted to keep the CWB in a plebiscite, am in favour of keeping the Canadian Wheat Board.

Here are just some of the many reasons to keep the CWB:

  • Agriculture can be boom and bust and pooling grain to sell helps everyone get the best price in good times and in bad
  • CWB helps protect smaller farmers who can’t negotiate better prices as well as bigger farmers might be able to in an open market
  • CWB helps ensure food security for Canada
  • CWB prevents evil agri-business companies like Monsanto and Cargill from becoming even more dominant than they already are

(There’s obviously lots of info about this situation out there but I was surprised to see the story hit MetaFilter twice – once on the main site and once on their AskMF section giving a slightly distanced, more inquisitive view of what the impacts will be.)

Posted 18 October 2011 § Family § MemoryLane ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , , ,

Music Monday – “I’m putting all my fears down/I can hear the cheers now/See peace signs when I look around”

X-Factor is the new Simon Cowell owned-show he’s imported from the UK to compete with American Idol, the top-rated franchise he left last year.  Although both shows have similar formats, X-Factor allows groups, a wider age range for contestants and holds auditions in front of an audience instead of just the judges’ panel among other major differences.

Both shows are some of my guilty TV pleasures and the audition by Chris Rene, doing that soul/pop/freestyle rap-style exemplified by Jason Mraz and Jack Johnson is especially cool.

Posted 17 October 2011 § MusicMonday § PopCulture § Video ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , , , , ,

The Tribesman Who Facebook Friended Me

A really interesting story about how Facebook has reached into places where you would least expect it.

(I sometimes feel like I need to add this to any story I post that I find on MetaFilter but seriously, the MetaFilter comments make the original story 1000x better!)

Posted 16 October 2011 § Randomness § Technology ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , , , ,

Saturday Snap – Halloween Comes Early?

I’m dressed as “guy who doesn’t know what he’s doing!” 😉

(I was also going to make a joke about my coveralls being the most orange I saw in Weyburn this weekend but that’s a bit off-side.  I’m sure the NDP have a candidate down here…somewhere!)

20111015-044111.jpg

Posted 15 October 2011 § Family § SaturdaySnap ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: ,

Friday Fun Link – “Dad Dancing”

Evolution even has an explanation for why your old man dances the way he does!

(h/t to SM on Twitter)

Posted 14 October 2011 § Family § FridayFunLink § PopCulture ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: ,

We are the 99%

Depending on where you live (and where you get your news), the Occupy Wall Street movement, may or may not be on your radar. These protests, which started in New York but have since spread to other cities around the world, are “mainly protesting against social and economic inequality, corporate greed, and the influence of corporate money and lobbyists on government, among other concerns.”

One main slogan coming out of these protests is “We are the 99%” which is a reference to the fact that the vast majority of people today are being screwed by the multi-millionaires and billionaires who make up the top 1% of income earners in our society.

Worried about the possible impact of this growing protest movement, right-wing mouthpieces, some of whom are part of the 1% and some of whom just think they are, have responded that the protests are “muddled”, “nutbars” and worse.

Right wing operatives have even set-up a counter site called “We are the 53%” which is a reference to the fact that only 53% of Americans apparently pay federal income tax (conveniently ignoring that a) many still pay a variety of payroll and other taxes and b) that still doesn’t explain why Warren Buffet pays a smaller percentage of his income in federal income tax than his secretary!)

The irony is that many of the contributors to “We are the 53%” don’t seem to get that they are still part of the 99% and working 2 jobs or for 80 hours a week, all with no health insurance, doesn’t mean you’ve achieved the American Dream!

In fact, the most important message that the Occupy Wall Street folks need to take forward is that, for all intents and purposes, we are all part of the 99%, no matter our politics or personal financial situation and when we battle each other in terms of right vs. left or hard-working vs. unemployed or old vs. young or whatever, we are falling into the trap of exactly what those 1% want us to do.  (Er, Mr. Buffet excepted of course! 😉 )

Posted 13 October 2011 § Politics § Work ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , , , , , , ,

Amazon, You Magnificent Bastard

An article on how Amazon’s use of their Kindles as loss-leaders for the digital content within their own “walled garden” ecosphere is a winning strategy that makes them a strong contender against Apple.

Posted 12 October 2011 § Library § PopCulture § Technology ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , , , , ,

Reddit, Free Speech and “Child Porn”

It’s no secret that I’m a big fan of the site, Reddit. In fact, I’d go so far as to say it’s currently my favourite site on the Internet.

One of the reasons I like the site so much (and one of the site’s greatest advantages) is the fact that it literally has an unlimited number of “sub-Reddits”.  These are sub-communities that anyone can start on any topic from atheism to Saskatchewan to the TV show Breaking Bad (just to name three I check regularly.)  That doesn’t even do justice to the full scope of Reddit’s sub-sites – if there’s a topic you’re interested in, I bet there’s a related sub-reddit.

I even created my own sub-Reddit the other week just to see what the moderator interface was like.  (I made a sub-Reddit called “LibraryLandProblems“, modeled on Reddit’s very popular “FirstWorldProblems” sub-reddit.)

As enjoyable and popular as Reddit is, one of the disadvantages challenges of a system which allows anyone to create a sub-Reddit on any topic is that inevitably there will be some sub-Reddits with subject matter which is disturbing or troubling for all manner of reasons.

Recently, Reddit hit the news on CNN’s “360 with Anderson Cooper” program for one of these particularly challenging sub-Reddits – one called /r/jailbait (link safe to click).  This was a sub-Reddit that contained pictures of teenage women, likely between the ages of 15-18, who were scantily clad although not naked or engaged in any sexual activity.  Instead, it was bikini shots, pictures of teen girls in their underwear and the like.

Now, there are numerous sub-Reddits that feature NSFW (not safe for work) images including one called (quite obviously) /r/nsfw.  Another called /r/gonewild features nude photos submitted by Reddit members which can occasionally move beyond titillation to be quite empowering.

Most of the NSFW sub-Reddits are labeled as such due to nudity but there are also others which also have other types of provocative content – on subjects from right-wing extremism to illegal substances to blatant racism and worse.

Originally, after the Anderson Cooper piece aired, the Reddit administrators came out with a strong pro-free speech argument:

Reddit.com general manager Eric Martin responded in a written statement: “We’re a free speech site and the cost of that is there’s stuff that’s offensive on there. Once we start taking down some things we find offensive, then we’re no longer a free speech site and no longer a platform for everyone.”

But even as debate raged back and forth across the wider Reddit community on how to proceed, /r/jailbait was shut down a few days ago (sparking new debates).  This coincided with a new post to the official Reddit blog on “How Reddit works“.   (This also wasn’t the first time /r/jailbait caught the attention of the wider Reddit community.  The knowledge that a Google search for “Reddit” brought up /r/jailbait as one of the site’s main sub-pages caused considerable embarrassment for many.)

The shutdown provoked an outraged response from user, ViolentAcrez, who had created and moderated /r/jailbait as well as another infamous sub-reddit, /r/PicsOfDeadKids.  In his response, ViolentAcrez said that jailbait-esque content was scattered throughout various sub-Reddits and the site administrators were just caving to media pressure.

There are all sorts of inter-connected ideas around this issue:

  • the role of corporate media in policing the internet (Reddit is now owned by Conde Nast, publisher of “The New Yorker”, “GQ”, and “Teen Vogue” magazines among others – and I probably don’t have to point out that these magazines often also feature pictures of scantily-clad underage females.  In fact, some would argue that magazines like Teen Vogue promote the mentality that leads to jailbait-style poses and photographs being so prevalent among teen girls in the first place!)
  • the impossibility of controlling information online (researching this post, I read that there were at least two alternate “jailbait” sites that have already sprung up to replace the original.)
  • the role of journalists in defending free speech versus their role in creating and/or sensationalizing news (one commentator on the Cooper segment kept saying /r/jailbait featured “child porn” and should be shut down while the other admitted the sub-Reddit “probably wasn’t illegal”.  Anderson Cooper didn’t try to answer the question definitively either way but instead, just seemed to hone in on the alleged “seediness” of the site.)
  • the role of language in perception as well as the arbitrary lines we draw as a society in making our laws.  If the sub-Reddit had been called /r/cutegirls, it may not have drawn the same negative attention as /r/jaibait which deliberately evokes our society’s laws about how much changes (in a legal context) from when a young woman is 17 and 364 days and when she turns 18 (even if very little changes physically).  (Along the same lines, why is the speed limit 100kph and not 105?  110?  90?  You have to draw a line somewhere but it’ll always be arbitrary.)
  • the role of copyright in the Internet age (more than the legality of what the /r/jailbait images depict, a more relevant question might be how are these photos obtained in the first place – from teenager’s Facebook profiles and elsewhere – and is this a copyright violation or even theft?  IANAL but likely yes in both cases.)
  • possible double-standards relating to male versus female sexuality
  • of course that ever-present question of the changing nature of privacy in the Internet age also rears its head as does the issue of informed consent.  Does every teenager know the risks of posting photos of herself (or himself) in a swimsuit or pyjamas?  Do some teens not even consider this a “risk” and that’s more of a concern for mom and dad (and Anderson Cooper?)
  • MetaFilter has some discussion on the subject too – though I’ll be honest and say that MetaFilter sometimes has a smugness, especially towards Reddit, and this comes through loud and clear in this particular discussion.

Ultimately, if you’ve read my blog for any length of time, you’ll probably know which side of the fence I come down on whenever a topic like this arises no matter how hard it is to defend the much more offensive side of the ledger.  That’s why I find Reddit’s decision to remove the sub-reddit, whether I agree with it or not (I don’t) so disappointing.

Posted 11 October 2011 § Politics § PopCulture § Technology ‡ Comments (3) ° Tagged: , , ,

Music Monday – “You know she’s there waiting/Just anticipating/The things you’ll never ever ever possess.”

Love those A/V Club covers…

…although in this case, Peter Bjorn and John don’t hold a candle to the original…

…or even to my own personal favourite version, originally featured in one of the greatest music movies of all-time and now in a clip from The Commitments’ live tour:

Posted 10 October 2011 § MusicMonday ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: ,