Vive la France!
Am I the only one who loves that Chirac has backed down on this labour law?
I actually didn't have any strong feelings about the law itself one way or the other. When you assess it in context of French employment conditions it did make some sense, but I could certainly see why students would be opposed to it.
One of the reasons that France's unemployment rate is so high, particularly the student unemployment rate, is because they have laws which make dismissal difficult which discourages employers from hiring anyone in the first place. Some of the other reasons are because France has benefits packages and vacations that are far and away in excess of anything North Americans could even dream about - also discouraging to the average potential employer. Then there is the whole lack of intervention in the economic environment, idle production capacity...blah, blah, blah.
So Villepin's labour law made hiring a little more attractive to employers. Hire students and we will let you summarily dismiss them anytime within three years. Ok, so everyone thought that seemed rather excessive. Chirac offered to compromise. Ok, you have to at least have a reason for dismissing them and we'll shorten the window from three, down to one year. Students weren't going for it. I don't blame them. Villepin was clearly not thinking very long-range anyway.
But what's important in this situation is that the masses spoke - and spoke, and spoke, and spoke. They snarled traffic, they shut down the schools, and they made the government listen. Government isn't supposed to be able to IMPOSE laws on the people. The people elect the government. The people agree to be governed with the stipulation that the government will represent their interests. Here's the cool thing:
France made their government work!
I don't think many people could argue that the United States government has been broken for some years now. It's not even just because of George W Bush - much as I'd like to blame him, he's just a symptom really. Slowly, the masses have let government gnaw at its cage and spill out into places it doesn't belong and was never meant to be in the first place. The Constitution has been eroded until we are back where we started, with King George over there, spying on citizens, suborning the torture of innocent-until-proven-guilty people, taking wives hostage to gain access to husbands, holding prisoners without access to legal remedy, telling the public any old lie with complete arrogant impunity. Any day now I'm sure he'll be taxing your tea and snatching your men off the street to press them into military service. Maybe that will wake Americans up - I don't know.
But I take heart because France made their government work. Vous avez l'�me d'un chef!
Happy April 11 everyone.
I actually didn't have any strong feelings about the law itself one way or the other. When you assess it in context of French employment conditions it did make some sense, but I could certainly see why students would be opposed to it.
One of the reasons that France's unemployment rate is so high, particularly the student unemployment rate, is because they have laws which make dismissal difficult which discourages employers from hiring anyone in the first place. Some of the other reasons are because France has benefits packages and vacations that are far and away in excess of anything North Americans could even dream about - also discouraging to the average potential employer. Then there is the whole lack of intervention in the economic environment, idle production capacity...blah, blah, blah.
So Villepin's labour law made hiring a little more attractive to employers. Hire students and we will let you summarily dismiss them anytime within three years. Ok, so everyone thought that seemed rather excessive. Chirac offered to compromise. Ok, you have to at least have a reason for dismissing them and we'll shorten the window from three, down to one year. Students weren't going for it. I don't blame them. Villepin was clearly not thinking very long-range anyway.
But what's important in this situation is that the masses spoke - and spoke, and spoke, and spoke. They snarled traffic, they shut down the schools, and they made the government listen. Government isn't supposed to be able to IMPOSE laws on the people. The people elect the government. The people agree to be governed with the stipulation that the government will represent their interests. Here's the cool thing:
France made their government work!
I don't think many people could argue that the United States government has been broken for some years now. It's not even just because of George W Bush - much as I'd like to blame him, he's just a symptom really. Slowly, the masses have let government gnaw at its cage and spill out into places it doesn't belong and was never meant to be in the first place. The Constitution has been eroded until we are back where we started, with King George over there, spying on citizens, suborning the torture of innocent-until-proven-guilty people, taking wives hostage to gain access to husbands, holding prisoners without access to legal remedy, telling the public any old lie with complete arrogant impunity. Any day now I'm sure he'll be taxing your tea and snatching your men off the street to press them into military service. Maybe that will wake Americans up - I don't know.
But I take heart because France made their government work. Vous avez l'�me d'un chef!
Happy April 11 everyone.
Willowmist
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Canadian Walk of Fame
It's been forever, I know. But I have finished the term paper discussing African-American Vernacular English as a dialect; I have finished the Economics midterm relating the theory of business cycles to recent trends in the US economy; I have finished the green cardigan with the lace front panels meant for me (and only me,) and I have miraculously cleared the backyard of all the Spring melt dog poop! Hold your applause, please, it's just what I do.
So, raise your hand if you knew that Canada has its own Walk of Fame. Right. Everyone with their hand up has to be able to tell me where it is located...
The first fourteen inductees, in 1998, were:
Bryan Adams (musician, Kingston, ON)
Pierre Berton (author, Whitehorse, YT)
John Candy (actor, Newmarket, ON)
Jim Carrey (actor, Newmarket, ON)
Glen Gould (musician, Toronto, ON)
Norman Jewison (director, Toronto, ON)
Karen Kain (ballet dancer, Hamilton, ON)
Gordon Lightfoot (musician, Orillia, ON)
Rich Little (impressionist, Ottawa, ON)
Anne Murray (singer, Springfield, NS)
Bobby Orr (hockey player, Parry Sound, ON)
Christopher Plummer (actor, Toronto, ON)
Barbara Ann Scott (skater, Ottawa, ON)
Jacques Villeneuve (race car driver, St-Jean-sur-Richelieu, QC)
Ok, and the inductees for this year are:
Pam Anderson ("actress", Ladysmith, BC)
Jann Arden (singer, Calgary, AB)
Crazy Canucks (Olympic ski champions, Calgary, Toronto and Canmore, AB)
Brendan Fraser (actor, Indianapolis, Indiana, a dual citizen with cdn parents)
Robert Goulet (actor, Lawrence, MA - moved to Edmonton at 13)
Eugene Levy (actor, Hamilton, ON)
Paul Shaffer (musician, Thunder Bay, ON)
Alex Trebec (game show host, Sudbury, ON)
Alright, so here's my problem - I think we're reaching a little with the Brendan Fraser and Robert Goulet thing. And the thing is, we don't have to reach to find really quality Canadian stars. You know who isn't on the Canadian Walk of Fame? Patrick Roy, Kim Mitchell, Guy Lafleur, Peter Jennings, Graham Greene, James Doohan, (c'mon Scotty from Star Trek doesn't get a star??) Donovan Bailey, Bachman-Turner Overdrive, Blue Rodeo...are you kidding me? We have to put dual citizens who weren't born in Canada and barely even lived there on the list before some of these guys??? Pam Anderson rates a star before Peter Jennings? What message are we trying to send here Canada? Last year we inducted Alanis Morrissette, and she was so grateful that she became an American citizen.
So for the love of god, go HERE and nominate some real freakin' Canadians for next year, ok?
By the way, is anyone else surprised to find out that Paul Anka and Fay Wray are Canadian?
Happy April 3 everyone.
So, raise your hand if you knew that Canada has its own Walk of Fame. Right. Everyone with their hand up has to be able to tell me where it is located...
The first fourteen inductees, in 1998, were:
Ok, and the inductees for this year are:
Alright, so here's my problem - I think we're reaching a little with the Brendan Fraser and Robert Goulet thing. And the thing is, we don't have to reach to find really quality Canadian stars. You know who isn't on the Canadian Walk of Fame? Patrick Roy, Kim Mitchell, Guy Lafleur, Peter Jennings, Graham Greene, James Doohan, (c'mon Scotty from Star Trek doesn't get a star??) Donovan Bailey, Bachman-Turner Overdrive, Blue Rodeo...are you kidding me? We have to put dual citizens who weren't born in Canada and barely even lived there on the list before some of these guys??? Pam Anderson rates a star before Peter Jennings? What message are we trying to send here Canada? Last year we inducted Alanis Morrissette, and she was so grateful that she became an American citizen.
So for the love of god, go HERE and nominate some real freakin' Canadians for next year, ok?
By the way, is anyone else surprised to find out that Paul Anka and Fay Wray are Canadian?
Happy April 3 everyone.
Trouble
Trust me on this - I probably don't have your email address anymore, any of you. It's sort of a long story and it doesn't make me look good, so I'm not sharing it with you. Suffice to say, that Netscape has updated itself without including a bloody email client!
So, if you are my friend, or a family member, or an ally of any sort and wish to stay in touch with me:
So, if you are my friend, or a family member, or an ally of any sort and wish to stay in touch with me:
EMAIL ME!!!
It Runs in the Family, Obviously!
If this isn't the stupidest weather that I have ever been witness to than I don't know what to expect next! Monday it was 70 degrees farenheit. (that is roughly 20 celsius for my Canadian friends and family) Today, which is Wednesday, a mere two days later, it is 40 degrees farenheit with little bits of snow swirling around in the ridiculously blustery wind.
By the way, Chicago be damned, the suburbs of Philadelphia are the windiest places on earth. Just more evidence of their having been completely forsaken by God. I live in a godforsaken state.
Tom and I met with Vaughan's teacher yesterday for a final conference before my baby actually finishes his Kindergarten year. His social skills are improving. Apparently, his classmates just love him, and he listens well, follows direction well, and works well independently. He needs to work on his self-control, however. Let's face it, the boy talks incessantly. He even talks in his sleep! If silence were the only thing between him and death, that would be one dead little boy! I can't imagine where he gets that from! He is also a very sensitive little soul. He cries at the drop of a hat, quite honestly. Mrs. Creneti has been reading them Old Yeller. Last week, Travis shot the wild hog that had the hydrophobie. I can't tell you what this woman is thinking by reading this book to these children, particularly as she sits in the conference room discussing my child's oversensitivity with me.
His reading skills are well advanced for his age. They do some sort of a test on the kids and Vaughan rated an F, I believe. Mrs Creneti explained that she likes her graduating students to score a D or so. Sooooo...in this case, the A, B, C system is backwards and an F is better than an A. Got it! She pointed out that his vocabulary is very complex for his age as well. I've never particularly talked down to the kid, and when he asks me what something means, I find a way to explain it to him. He couldn't very well be my kid and not have an advanced vocabulary, could he?
His writing skills are also advanced for his age. In the same sort of test, with yet another scoring system, Vaughan rated a "Level 6 - Transitional". There was only one other level above that. Levels four and five are considered proficient for Kindergarten. The score was explained as follows:
"At this level, your child is writing words the way they sound, representing most syllables in words. He or she may sometimes be adding an extra silent e at the end of a word or doubling letters when they're not needed while trying visually to remember how spelling works. Now your child usually leaves spaces between words and is spelling many words correctly as he or she writes more than one sentence."
His math skills are outstanding. No special tests for this one. Apparently, if you're a math whiz or a math dope, it's obvious without formal testing. He got O (for outstanding) for understanding mathematical concepts, recognizing numerals 0 through 20, and writing said numerals. Little does Mrs. Creneti realize that my kid can recognize and write three digit numbers with relative ease - HA! I hate to admit this, but, he learned his three digit numbers by getting high scores on the Chicken Hunter game...*sigh*
So, it all boils down to the simple fact that I have given birth to the next great Einstein of our age, and it is now up to me and the school system to keep him challenged and interested enough to keep learning. Like I needed a fifteen minute teacher conference to tell me this!
Happy March 15 everyone.
By the way, Chicago be damned, the suburbs of Philadelphia are the windiest places on earth. Just more evidence of their having been completely forsaken by God. I live in a godforsaken state.
Tom and I met with Vaughan's teacher yesterday for a final conference before my baby actually finishes his Kindergarten year. His social skills are improving. Apparently, his classmates just love him, and he listens well, follows direction well, and works well independently. He needs to work on his self-control, however. Let's face it, the boy talks incessantly. He even talks in his sleep! If silence were the only thing between him and death, that would be one dead little boy! I can't imagine where he gets that from! He is also a very sensitive little soul. He cries at the drop of a hat, quite honestly. Mrs. Creneti has been reading them Old Yeller. Last week, Travis shot the wild hog that had the hydrophobie. I can't tell you what this woman is thinking by reading this book to these children, particularly as she sits in the conference room discussing my child's oversensitivity with me.
His reading skills are well advanced for his age. They do some sort of a test on the kids and Vaughan rated an F, I believe. Mrs Creneti explained that she likes her graduating students to score a D or so. Sooooo...in this case, the A, B, C system is backwards and an F is better than an A. Got it! She pointed out that his vocabulary is very complex for his age as well. I've never particularly talked down to the kid, and when he asks me what something means, I find a way to explain it to him. He couldn't very well be my kid and not have an advanced vocabulary, could he?
His writing skills are also advanced for his age. In the same sort of test, with yet another scoring system, Vaughan rated a "Level 6 - Transitional". There was only one other level above that. Levels four and five are considered proficient for Kindergarten. The score was explained as follows:
"At this level, your child is writing words the way they sound, representing most syllables in words. He or she may sometimes be adding an extra silent e at the end of a word or doubling letters when they're not needed while trying visually to remember how spelling works. Now your child usually leaves spaces between words and is spelling many words correctly as he or she writes more than one sentence."
His math skills are outstanding. No special tests for this one. Apparently, if you're a math whiz or a math dope, it's obvious without formal testing. He got O (for outstanding) for understanding mathematical concepts, recognizing numerals 0 through 20, and writing said numerals. Little does Mrs. Creneti realize that my kid can recognize and write three digit numbers with relative ease - HA! I hate to admit this, but, he learned his three digit numbers by getting high scores on the Chicken Hunter game...*sigh*
So, it all boils down to the simple fact that I have given birth to the next great Einstein of our age, and it is now up to me and the school system to keep him challenged and interested enough to keep learning. Like I needed a fifteen minute teacher conference to tell me this!
Happy March 15 everyone.
But Can They See?
And so the great spectacles-saga ends rather anti-climatically, oddly enough with me in a pair of glasses experiencing normal vision for the first time in, what, six weeks? The doctor was right - I possess overtaxed eye muscles, and why not? For those of you not fortunate enough to see me on a regular basis and revel in my extra pair of eyes, I grant you the extra special treat of, not only a rare photograph of myself, but one such of myself in a ratty old pink bathrobe at the end of a long day. Tom only had to take about a dozen before we found one that I was willing to look at more than once.
Foureyes
In other news, they have returned Coupee to me and she is supposed to be, at long last, in solid working order. It only cost about $900 of our tax refund. Easy come, easy go, I suppose. I drove to my first intermediate-level knitting class last night and did NOT smell the heavy, sweet smell of burning coolant for the first time in weeks! I have come to understand that Coupee's leakage problems were probably my own fault because I drove her while she was overheating. Don't yell at me! I didn't know she was overheating, lord knows she was anything but warm inside!! Poor ol' Coupee.
I have decided to put myself in the running for the Rhoda Edwards Award for Academic Excellence in Social Sciences. I don't know why I have decided to do this. Apparently, I don't have enough stress in my life and I felt that I needed more. You have to admit that it is cool to be able to say that you have graduated with honours and are the recipient of the Rhoda Edwards Award for Academic Excellence in the Social Sciences...
So now I need two letters of recommendation from faculty members with whom I have taken classes, which sounds easy enough if you haven't taken most of your classes online, and tended to sit quietly in the back of your in-class classes, listening more than you tended to contribute just out of a desire not to sound like an opinionated know-it-all. I'm going to ask my second-year French professor and this semester's Political Science professor. I'm taking Politics online, but I can't help but be an opinionated know-it-all in a Politics class, and I'm already aware that the professor appreciates this about me.
Yesterday, Vaughan's school sent home a cool little magnet that some company had professional made out of a fingerpainted butterfly that Vaughan had created. Neat, right? Vaughan certainly thought so. I was livid. We don't actually get to keep the magnet - unless we want to buy it for a mere $5.50. Of all the manipulative, calculated, sneaky and underhanded tactics I have ever seen, this just about takes the cake. I have just been blackmailed into buying an overpriced magnet. They also have the unmitigated gall as to send a little catalog of other cutesy little items they can make Vaughan's butterfly into - t-shirts, mousepads, totebags, coffee mugs, keychains - all ridiculously overpriced of course. I intend to write a note both to the school and the company. There really ought to be some sort of regulation as to what can be done with children's work before obtaining my permission. Then we could avoid this whole exploitive mess altogether. There isn't even any explanation as to whether these sales benefit the school in any way. Obnoxious!
Happy March 10 everyone.
Foureyes
In other news, they have returned Coupee to me and she is supposed to be, at long last, in solid working order. It only cost about $900 of our tax refund. Easy come, easy go, I suppose. I drove to my first intermediate-level knitting class last night and did NOT smell the heavy, sweet smell of burning coolant for the first time in weeks! I have come to understand that Coupee's leakage problems were probably my own fault because I drove her while she was overheating. Don't yell at me! I didn't know she was overheating, lord knows she was anything but warm inside!! Poor ol' Coupee.
I have decided to put myself in the running for the Rhoda Edwards Award for Academic Excellence in Social Sciences. I don't know why I have decided to do this. Apparently, I don't have enough stress in my life and I felt that I needed more. You have to admit that it is cool to be able to say that you have graduated with honours and are the recipient of the Rhoda Edwards Award for Academic Excellence in the Social Sciences...
So now I need two letters of recommendation from faculty members with whom I have taken classes, which sounds easy enough if you haven't taken most of your classes online, and tended to sit quietly in the back of your in-class classes, listening more than you tended to contribute just out of a desire not to sound like an opinionated know-it-all. I'm going to ask my second-year French professor and this semester's Political Science professor. I'm taking Politics online, but I can't help but be an opinionated know-it-all in a Politics class, and I'm already aware that the professor appreciates this about me.
Yesterday, Vaughan's school sent home a cool little magnet that some company had professional made out of a fingerpainted butterfly that Vaughan had created. Neat, right? Vaughan certainly thought so. I was livid. We don't actually get to keep the magnet - unless we want to buy it for a mere $5.50. Of all the manipulative, calculated, sneaky and underhanded tactics I have ever seen, this just about takes the cake. I have just been blackmailed into buying an overpriced magnet. They also have the unmitigated gall as to send a little catalog of other cutesy little items they can make Vaughan's butterfly into - t-shirts, mousepads, totebags, coffee mugs, keychains - all ridiculously overpriced of course. I intend to write a note both to the school and the company. There really ought to be some sort of regulation as to what can be done with children's work before obtaining my permission. Then we could avoid this whole exploitive mess altogether. There isn't even any explanation as to whether these sales benefit the school in any way. Obnoxious!
Happy March 10 everyone.