Ethics Debate

A Facebook friend from Connecticut posted this link on her profile today, a blog post by Chris Durant about football player Michael Vick.

First, a who's-who: Michael Vick is a star quarterback who spent 21 months in jail and 2 months of house arrest after being involved in a dog fighting scandal, for which he was found guilty of financing the gambling aspect of the operation, participating in dog fights, and participating into ''6 to 8'' dog executions.

Chris Durant is a diva actor who has walked out halfway through a season of a TV show and hasn't really done anything since a few cameos in 2009. Less cameos than extra work, really. Oh, and he models on the side because he's pretty. He now has more blog posts about Michael Vick than he does about his acting in a TV series.

And in yesterday's interminable post, he pretty much recaps his hatred of Vick by calling him:

a diseased human, a sadist, a user, and a fraud.

''User'', of course, because Vick tested positive for marijuana, which was a violation of his conditions. Pot. Maybe it's because I live in a real city, but weed, man, really?

As for ''diseased'', you can take it as ''in the head'', but I think Durant refers to Vick's genital herpes condition, which is something he got from someone else at some point - because that's how these things spread. Some may see he was a victim in this case, but since he did transmit it to at least one other person, I wouldn't go that far myself.

''Sadist'' because the man killed dogs. And not quickly, some by hanging. He went to jail for it.

And ''fraud'' possibly because he doesn't buy Vick's remorse.

Then he goes on and on about Vick's treatment of dogs, in graphic detail sure to turn your stomach over before going on a rampage, attacking everyone remotely connected with paying Vick (his team, the Philadelphia Eagles, his sponsor Nike, ESPN) or anyone who has accepted his apologies (Congressman Jim Moran, Humane Society CEO Wayne Pacelle) all in a holier-than-thou tone that implies ''if you disagree with me, you hate puppies and you should die a horrible death''.

I was raised to think for myself in a system that believes a crime deserves a punishment, but once it's done, the individual can be given a second chance. Harder times for harder crimes, sure, but even murderers, rapists, pedophiles and terrible actors are allowed to try to turn their lives around.

What do you think?

The WikiLeaks Cables' Fallout

Want to know how fucked up the ''War On Terror'' has made people? Look no farther than the recent WikiLeaks' revelations about messed-up diplomatic relations and how numb-tongued politicians actually talk to one another behind closed doors - and the unhealthy alliances and company they keep.

Sure, the White House says it could ''put peoples' lives in danger'', it's their job to say that. However, they said the same thing about the first three MegaLeaks (about the Afghan and Iraq wars, respectively), but as The McClatchy Company's (home of the Sacramento Bee) Nancy Youssef has said:

U.S. officials concede that they have no evidence to date that the documents led to anyone's death.

The problem doesn't lie with the White House, though, neither does it lie with the Russian government, who said it will study the leaked cables and use the material contained in it as they see fit.

No, the problem comes from the Reactionaries, usually right-wing, highly-Conservative politicians who seem to forget we live in an age both of high-speed mass media and fucking Laws.

Mike Huckabee, who could very well be the next President of the United States said, as he was signing copies of his new children's book (I kid you not, that's how fucked up this world is) Can't Wait Till Christmas:

Whoever in our government leaked that information is guilty of treason, and I think anything less than execution is too kind a penalty.

It's right here on politico.com. Again: Anything LESS than execution is TOO KIND. Keep in mind most of the world no longer has the death penalty. The only ones who do are what Americans call ''those damn retarded Arab states'', ''the socialist anti-human-rights evil China'', and the good ol' U.S.A. So most of the planet doesn't see the death penalty as any less a crime than murder.

Speaking of which, Tom Flanagan, former advisor to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper - the ideas behind the face, if you will - even left video evidence of his reaction, but I'll still quote it:

I think (WikiLeaks head honcho) Julian Assange should be assassinated ... I think (Barack) Obama should put out a contract and maybe use a drone or something ... I wouldn't feel unhappy if Assange disappeared.

Not only is it a crime pretty much everywhere on the planet to murder somebody, it's also one to conspire to murder. It's also still a crime to hire someone to murder someone else. Many people have been arrested for trying to hire hitmen to kill others. This ''political scientist'' (obviously not ''rocket scientist'') has publicly opinionated that another human should die, and specifically called out for a ''contract'' to be put on his head. Which, of course, is 1970s mob-talk for ''pay to kill''. Which, of course, is illegal in most countries.

But because we live in ''dangerous times'', because we have ''enemies'' everywhere, because everyone with a tan is dangerous (although I, for one, fear the douchebags from Jersey Shore more than Arabs), because every single secret is both important to discover and must not be read by others - suddenly, it's ok to rape people who want to board a plane to see their families for the Holidays, and it's surely fine to forgo the most basic fucking laws in the history of mankind (''Thou shalt not kill'', anyone?).

And preachers are praying for Obama's death. Two things/questions: 1. How fucked up are you? 2. Obama's still alive; A. where's your God now? B. Could you be on the wrong side of the argument?

Make peace, not war. And let's pray for Tom Flanagan's death.

The Treacherous Journey From Employment To Unemployment, Volume 2 - Painting Yourself Into A Corner

I've been a fucking ghost.

The people in my office love me (or so it seems, at least), I've been the mediator-who-brings-sunshine in quite a few conflicts of late, and always got the job done on time, oftentimes working overnight, sometimes non-stop for a whole weekend.

I'm respected by my immediate bosses, those who co-sign the work I do on my own and get paid ten times my salary, because they know what they ask of me and they know no one else could do it as well for so cheap. And it suits me, too, because I almost never sleep, so working at night on some absolutely-due report after having had the time to write, play a show, spend time with the Lady Of The House and maybe even see friends and/or watch a hockey game is worth less money.

But that means that I'm rarely there when the Real Bosses from the Toronto Office call in, so after a while, as the job kept getting done on time, they sort of forgot about me.

Some tasks I shared with others, one of which was supervising a complete crew as they collected data, something I've been doing on my own for 6 months now. But for the first seven and a half years, it was teamwork, a stask I shared with at least one other person, many times taking less shifts than the other person because I had the other, usually pressing, things I needed to do - on time, usually for the next morning before my immediate superiors got in.

Every single other supervisor was fired. That's at least five of them, maybe even up to eight. Yet I remain. Because every other supervisor's 'extra' tasks included contact with the Toronto Office - not me. 9AM to 5PM on weekdays is my time off from work, time where I could be sleeping. I may be working during those hours, but never there, always from home or a remote location where I could concentrate, as I wasn't allowed any mistakes; the fruit of my labour went directly to our clients, and bore my bosses' names, but they never even reviewed it - they rarely had enough time to anyway.

Recently, The Boss came to town and called a complete staff meeting. It was serious shit, Monster News. Everyone who was there was given an ultimatum, and most were told they only had two weeks of work left, the others were given a choice of moving to Toronto if they wanted to continue with the company. The Montréal office was closing down.

What news awaited me, personally? I wasn't even invited to the meeting. Eight years working for The Boss, and on the Day Of The Big Overhaul, I was at home, sleeping. My whole division and I only had a shift the next day, anyway.

And when I did get there, I had no idea, so it felt strange that everyone looked like they'd just been told they had terminal cancer. And it took hours before anyone filled me in on the details.

Lucky me, though, I wasn't there. I had been forgotten, so The Boss made it seem like it was on purpose, and that my staff and I were going to remain. The rest of the company, a whole floor above a shopping mall, 16 desks, 4 closed offices, 2 reception counters, 3 meeting rooms, a kitchen, an IT room, a printer room - all rendered useless, still paying rent for, while me and my crew took up a space that was barely bigger than my living room, working for our last remaining client. Makes sense.

Only our last remaining client told me, three days ago, that they were thinking of going in ''another direction''; online. More straightforward, more random, better odds of getting the exact sample they were looking for.

Sure, I became a ghost, and sure I'm probably going to outlast my peers by a month, but I did so by painting myself into a corner.

Then again, I thought ghosts could fly. We'll see what happens next.

Third Reich To Fortune 500

Ah yes.

Some facts you know so well they get stuck behind your brain and you never bring them back in conversations. Some actually don't belong in any conversation.

And some websites rehash old known facts in case there are still people who aren't aware of History, and take a slightly humorous twist and cute kittens to drill their point in further.

One such site is cracked.com and this article, in particular, which exposes five still-existing mega-companies that have benefited from Nazi cash for providing them with, essentially, things they couldn't have existed/ruled/killed without.

The Cuban Revolution: 50 Years Of Freedom

There's a nice page on the BBC's website about the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution. It's rather complete for a one-page blurb, and offers insights into both sides of the long-standing argument, which are on one side that the Revolution actually brought freedom to Cuba, and on the other, the U.S.' opinion and pledge to ''free Cubans''.

Once more, the U.S.A. is alone on their side of the equation, pissed off that a tiny island can survive on its own despite a communist government and little else, 145 kilometers from their shores.

Reacting to the anniversary, a White House spokesman said the US continued to seek freedom for the Cuban people (...)

"The Castro brothers have not treated their people particularly well," said White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe on the eve of the anniversary.

"Many political dissidents are in jail. The economy is suffering and not free. And the United States will continue to try to seek the freedom of the people of Cuba, and support them."

Yeah. And people who disagree with the U.S.' policies for the past 60 years haven't... right. They wiretapped John Lennon, for fuck's sake. They imprison political dissidents daily with their Patriot Act, where they can abduct people from their homes without charging them with anything and have no rights to attorneys. Much better.

The article goes on to say

Fifty years on, the legacy of the revolution is complex. There is free education and health care but the state-controlled economy means wages for many Cubans are very low, on average about $20 to $25 a month.

yet doesn't mention that even the lowest wages amount is enough to provide with more essential stuff than welfare would in the U.S., and that the education and health care part will always be lacking in the States - and is going out of style in Canada too, as a matter of fact - along with the levels of quality it was known to have.

It also fails to mention that there are few nations and peoples as happy with their life as Cubans are - anywhere on earth. That a vast majority of them view the Castros and Che Guevara as both heroes and founding fathers, with an added touch of ideals to achieve and pride. That before this year, even natural disasters couldn't put a dent in the island's residents' spirit.

The article, though, mentions a kind of hope that change will occur, as Barack Obama could loosen up parts of the embargo, which would definitely be a step in the right direction.

So we solemnly celebrate 50 years of Freedom in Cuba, as the country was hit with its most difficult year in a long while, and hope for a much better one to come, and plenty more anniversaries in both the near and distant future. They have shown us that living on this planet can be done outside the American model without having to skimp human rights (unlike, say, China) and focusing on what is essential to create independent individual human beings - food, lodging, education and health care. Bravo.

The Day Democracy Died

I'm usually pretty fucking quick to respond to political events - especially the really big ones. I've been asked by many how I felt about the current situation in Canada, what with the prorogation and not having an actual government in place for the next month to month-and-a-half.

It's funny because both sides of the argument, at one point or another, have used the same arguments and same metaphors to describe opposing points, usually something about the ''rape of our democracy''.

It started with angry Albertans who blindly believe what ''their'' leader has to say, even when it's dumb, even more so when it's a blatant lie. By using Karl Rove's tactics that did so well for the Republican Party in the U.S. for a decade or so (but ironically got whooped just a month ago...), Stephen Harper has managed to divide the country... by blaming all of Canada's problems on 'separatists'. And since Quebecers have been the target of most campaigns of fear in this country since the '70s - the Albertans bit on the hook again, only this time, they're alone, because it really hasn't been an issue since 1998.

What was an issue, though, was addressing the current worldwide economic crisis. Stephen Harper, who was elected as a minority Prime Minister with barely 25% of the voting public's votes, thought doing nothing was best. Not just that, but to prove he was serious about silencing the opposition right off the bat, he came in with aggressive confidence motions in the first session of Parliament that go against most Canadian values, including but not limited to women's rights to equal pay.

The opposition, who represent not only more members than the ruling party but a vast majority of voters as well, decided to not let themselves be backed into a corner and reacted accordingly with Canadian law - by banding together to represent the vast majority of voters and change the course of where the country was headed. Because in Canada, contrary then in the U.S., we can stop mistakes like most of George W. Bush's decisions from happening, when they are contrary to what the majority of elected officials want. And all elected officials have to represent the district they came from, the voters who elect them - and their values.

What is difficult to understand is why the Governor General, the Queen of England's representative in Canada, went against the wishes of most Canadians' (and, therefore, a majority of elected officials') wishes and decided to give Harper time to either settle down and be more reasonable and convince others to join a more reasonable plan - or to call another election, 2 months after a useless one, two years after the last one. And have no government to deal with the economic crisis in the meantime.

Just last Friday, 1000 people in Grand Falls-Windsor lost their jobs, and there is no government in session to either help them or comfort them, and there will be none until some time in January. Who knows how many more will be let off in the meantime.

What's scary is this: So far, by using the same tactics that failed the Republicans just a month ago and diverting blame on his opponents, Harper has been able to not only keep his supporters, but also make them more angry and militant, ready for groundwork to their Cause, which in itself is wrong, but that's beside the point.

My guess is he'll be able to convince them that if the economy fails because we've had no government, it'll be the coalition's fault for not letting him rule as the (not really, but hey, it works) ''elected'' leader.

And if the economy doesn't really fail, he'll be able to convince more idiots that his no-plan wasn't all bad since no government didn't even kill the cash flow.

He's in the driver's seat, not realizing he's drunk, and refusing to let the designated driver drive. And he knows that, statistically, he has less of a chance to die than the car he'll be hitting in the one-on-one collision. Problem is, most Canadians will be pedestrians by the side of the road by the time this is all finished, and many of us will be collateral damage.

Too bad Stéphane Dion is hated by so many people, me included, the whole ''coalition saving the country'' thing will die just because he would have been the one in charge of it.

After capitalism showed us its limits in the past couple of months, this is democracy at its finest, I guess.

Wash The Dirty: The Treacherous Journey From Employment To Unemployment, Volume 1 - Etiquettes To Firing Someone

How would you fire somebody? And when? There has to be some sort of etiquette if the person has given you all they had to give, no?

If it's a lazy-ass troublemaker, no question, you boot them out. Take them aside - or not; then tell them straight-up: you suck, it won't do, you've had enough chances, get the fuck out, thanks for your time.

But a good worker? Someone's who's done everything you've asked of them at all times, regardless of the variety of tasks, of the degrading nature of said tasks? Someone's who's been burning themselves out to the point of obvious health issues doing the work of three people at once in five grueling 9-hour shifts per week (and who would be underpaid in the market for the work of just one of those three people)?

Today I witnessed a firing that not only made no sense in and of itself, but that seemed a little harsh (to say the least), considering. I saw the most respected member of an office middle-management team, who had been under employment at said company for just about three years - that the company had in fact stolen from a competitor - get the boot 5 minutes before the end of their shift, in the middle of the week, with a shitload of work due the next day at various times between 9AM and 8PM.

''We're no longer going in the same direction'' is the only reason given to the rest of the management team, also grossly underpaid and overworked, some of whom cried. Apparently, they had subtly offered the worker a(nother) new position in previous weeks, a proposition that was declined. But when you've had 8 job titles in the past year or so and had responsibility over 3 different departments in that span, I can understand wanting to stick to one thing, especially if the offer isn't all that clear to begin with and sounds more like a vague possibility than an actual threat.

It seems like company policy to tell people 5 minutes before the end of their shift with a few working days left in the week. To not give them time to clean out their emails and voicemails, to make sure they don't forget their lucky pen, to say goodbye. It's happened quite a few times in, say, the last couple of years, but this one is a lot harder to take. And I say this while I've had actual friends that I had brought to the company myself get the same treatment.

I've played hockey long enough to see people get traded, cut from teams, replaced. Heck, I've been traded (and fired too!) myself. Sometimes it's because you no longer ''fit in the plans''. Other times your value may be so high that you're now worth the same as someone who fills other needs better than you fill your hole. Sometimes you just don't get along, or maybe they just want to ''change the culture of the dressing room''.

These things happen, they're rarely joyful, but there are ways to do them right. But this... This ranks just about as low on my Chart Of Shitty Ways To Leave A Job as when I was falsely accused of stealing bootleg CDs from a record store I used to work at just because the boss' daughter didn't like working with me - but I'll save that one for a later text.

In the meantime, I've lost the person I had seen the most of in recent years, even if only because we both spent a third of our time in the middle of the same four beige-and-burgundy walls, walking on the same dusty brown carpet, breathing the same moldy air conditionning, drinking the same half-filtered water, bossing around the same nine people, fixing the same computers over and over again, sharing a desk and germs, working for the same greedy bastards, each working our different specialized skills to solve different ends of the same problem.

It's always middle-management that gets the cut. The executives lose clients, lose money, ask for impossible things and get raises. Employees can find their niche between working just hard enough and wasting time on the internet. But middle-management types get fired and the remaining staff members get to see their workload increase. Or, in hockey terms, I guess: it's easier to fire the coach than 23 players, and the GM will go through a few coaches before the President loses patience, and the owner will let the President go through a few GMs before losing patience.

But this coach was an anchor to most, a buoy to the rest of us. The Scottie Pippen to my Michael Jordan. No, wait, the talent has to be reversed: the Peter Forsberg to my Joe Sakic. I have durability (7 years and counting in this place), I'm looking at a Hall of Fame career of sorts, but the work could only be done right with a perhaps more talented but injury-prone superstar who would do all the things I wouldn't, while I'd do what they weren't able to.

And I work better, in most spheres of life, when I have someone who completes me rather than someone I completely share interests with. I'm only a good team player with a reduced team, and I like to exchange ideas to get somewhere. I have no idea if that's what I'll be handed tomorrow. Anyone hiring?