I confess that I am not much of a sports fan, with the exception of the Red Sox of course. But I still know enough to know who Stuart Scott was and to appreciate what the man contributed to sportscasting.
Tag: corporate fail
Municipal broadband for Cambridge?
Oh, please please please let it happen. We did notice a question about our internet service on our last resident survey so it got us thinking about it again.
As some of you may have noticed, Kelly and I have had repeated issues with the quality of our Internet service here in Cambridge over the years. It is something that both of us care deeply about as both of us have worked in IT and both of us are everyday users of the Internet for personal and business purposes. But considering that we live in what I would consider the technology capital of the East Coast, the quality and quantity of Internet service providers is terrible, frankly. Cambridge considers itself a major center for innovation and it certainly is, but it is also somewhat ridiculous that for many people Internet connectivity is both expensive and unreliable.
I am a Second Class Citizen – This is what I am going to do about it
Today the Supreme Court decided to enshrine in law the idea that 1) if you are a rich, business owning, angry, ostensibly christian white man you are sexist special and 2) if you are a woman you’re not a real person. God forbid you be a person of color, non-Christian, and female, war has just been declared on you.
Coupled with the unanimous decision from last week that killed the 35-foot buffer zones around women’s clinics that provide abortion, among other services, I’m ashamed to be an American right now. Free speech, my ass.
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Winter’s last hurrah
We got a slight covering of snow today, maybe an inch or a little more. And the temperatures plummeted a good bit from the mid-50s we had the other day. Right now it is about 18 degrees Fahrenheit, and the temperature tonight will probably drop down to around 9 or 10 degrees.
So while I was doing laundry and crafting cover letters, I popped in a movie that is just about as far away from winter, cold, and reality* as I could get…
Sharknado.
As Long As an Unlivable Wage Exists, Someone Will Be Forced to Earn It
And as long as there are people willing to believe that we should just be thankful for work of any kind, this will continue. As long as there are people in positions of power who fight to keep the disenfranchised that way, this will continue. As long as those who claim the power, the money, and the moral high ground continue to do this, this will continue. I can refuse to apply for all the high skill/low wage jobs I want, but it doesn’t get my family any farther away from the edge when I stand on principle, it just means that somebody else more desperate is going to end up taking that job.
Wake up, America.
~Kelly
Image by Bettmann/CORBIS
In a society that lacks solidarity, misfortune, except that of the most random kind, is viewed as the fault of those who suffer from it. If we believe that poorly compensated workers somehow deserve lousy wages, then we absolve ourselves of the impoverishment we have inflicted upon them. Edward McClelland notes (boldface mine):
If you try hard enough, you can usually come up with a reason a low-wage worker doesn’t deserve to earn a living. If Kim Brown had been willing to move to Cleveland, she would still have her Web support job; if she had chosen a more marketable major than creative writing, she might have found full-time work in Chicago. But no matter Brown’s life choices, her $8.50 an hour job would still exist, not providing a living for someone else.
This is why the belief that education is the primary way to reduce…
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Internet in Greater Boston – fewer options for more money
Greater Boston, and especially our home of Cambridge, is undoubtedly one of the technology capitals of the United States, and certainly of the East Coast. And yet Kelly and I have struggled for years to find a decent, reliable Internet provider for a reasonable price. Currently we are using Comcast, because we simply could not get reliable service from Verizon no matter how hard we tried. It was depressing, but at least we figured it probably wouldn’t get any worse.
And then earlier this week I read that our Internet/phone/cable provider, Comcast, is going through yet another merger.
Sigh. No good can come from this.
Continue reading “Internet in Greater Boston – fewer options for more money”
Poverty and the polar vortex
Today I read two very different but still related stories about things that happened in Hammond, Indiana due to the polar vortex. Both stories emphasize the plight of the working poor in the United States, and how extreme cold affects them in ways that many people may not have even considered.
The first was about a house fire that claimed the lives of three small children and put two others and their father in the hospital. The second was about a warehouse where workers were forced to continue working – without heat – even after the state had declared an emergency.
Because Indian food is always associated with the birth of Jesus
For the last 5 or so years a group of us has managed to fit in a feast of Indian food between singing services on Christmas Eve. For the first few years, however many those were, we went to Bukhara. The food there is reliably good and the service is always excellent. It’s a short drive to the place where we sing midnight mass, and they have a parking lot. Restaurants with parking lots are key in Boston.
Then things changed in 2013.
Continue reading “Because Indian food is always associated with the birth of Jesus”
This IS your Christmas Card
For a whole lot of very good reasons in the last few years, it’s proved impossible to get it together to send out our annual 100+ Christmas cards. Between the time investment, which requires starting shortly after Thanksgiving, and the cost of the postage, we just haven’t been able to do it. So, we’re going digital again this year. Yep, this is your card.
A few more stores decide to keep Thanksgiving
Both Apple and Radio Shack have decided to not open on Thanksgiving. Good for them.
Like Kelly had mentioned earlier, too many stores are trying to maximize their profits by extending hours as much as possible on Thanksgiving weekend. And they are doing it at the expense of their lowest-paid employees. It’s not like the CEOs are going to pull a late shift themselves that day. But the CEO class really can’t relate to their employees most of the time anyway.
And the supreme irony of this is that being open longer this Thanksgiving weekend is not likely to make the weekend more profitable. Things sold on Thanksgiving are generally done at the expense of Black Friday sales, rather than generating new sales. It’s not like people who avoid shopping that weekend or on Black Friday will suddenly decide to go shopping on Thanksgiving Day itself.
Of course, I don’t see a lot of people asking the question “what would happen if ordinary people had more money to spend?” either. In fact, there’s no shortage of people who complain about the lack of consumer spending without asking “how are regular people supposed to increase their spending when they are broke?” These same people trash talk the idea of raising the minimum wage while talking about how tough a time the very wealthy have with their taxes. Actually, not so much – especially when you look at the historical patterns.
As one of the broke people, I can definitely say that yeah, if I had a better paying job (or jobs), I would be able to spend more. And we’re trying to get that better job or jobs.
-Geoff
The Books are Taking Over... 