True story from a Canadian Call Center

Customer: Hi, I was just wondering if you could tell if cable TV is available at my house. I know it is available in the city, but we are just outside the city limits.

 

CSR: Yes, we have a very expensive and complicated computer program to figure if there is cable TV available at your address. However, if you answer this one question for me, I can predict the answer 99.9 % of the time.

 

Customer: Really, what is the question? 

 

CSR: “Can you see cows from your kitchen window?”

 

Customer: Why, yes I can see cows from my window.

 

CSR: Well sir, you are going to need a satellite system… There is no cable TV available at your address.

Home safe

Got in a brief visit with my Gran and Dr. Filk (who is some filking busy these days, what with recording and travelling) yesterday; listened to Juliana’s new album with my mother; collected a book and two maps of France / Paris; and then got home safe on the ferry.  Jeff came and picked me up.  I had a very relaxing weekend.  Then I got up and tidied my room, as I damned near killed myself getting up in the night to let Eddie in.

To do: read the family history about the bookseller and antiquarian (and friend of Thomas Carlyle) Henry Wake.  Make turkey soup. Email Anne and tell her to rearrange Friday’s lesson as I am going to be at the church gathering Friday night doing registration, or so I surmise. Work on Halloween costume which is work appropriate.  And hack away at the 10 other projects nibbling at my conscience, and consciousness.

Thoughtful

I’m having a Niebuhr kinda weekend – Niebuhr being a forebear name, and also the name of Reinhold Niebuhr, the prominent theologian of the last century.  He’s the dude wot wrote the Serenity prayer.

In its original format, the first part of the prayer goes like this:

God, give us grace to accept with serenity
the things that cannot be changed,
Courage to change the things
which should be changed,
and the Wisdom to distinguish
the one from the other.

Alas, everybody and his dog, including AA, got hold of the prayer.  It has been stuck onto all kinds of consumer goods and started a song by Sinead O’Connor…. her version:

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I can not change
Courage to change the things I can
And the wisdom to know the difference

Niebuhr’s daughter Elisabeth Sifton wrote a book called “The Serenity Prayer” and I URGE anybody who’s interested in social justice to read it.  The dragging down of Germany into Nazism is detailed from a theological perspective, and there were so many times I put the book down and said, “But this is what’s happening in the US right now!” I became quite sad.  The book is amazingly well written.

Here in Victoria…

… birds sing, musicals abound, the weather is gorgeous, and I’m feeling plenty relaxed.

Sad face…. pOp shaved his beard off. His reasons make sense but I’m still pouty.  He expected me not to notice – oh yeah, like I’m not going to notice such a change.  He’s had a beard virtually the entire time I’ve known him.

I’ve been helping mOm upload pix to the family history website, which unfortunately is password protected, so I can’t link you to the Gallery of the Undead, which is what a lot of my rellies look like. We’re mostly industrious and mostly intelligent, but by gar we are an ugly crew.  I’m glad I had kids with Paul and broke up the ugly some.

I just found out I’m descended from Lady Godiva.  Probably most of you are too, but it’s great to think that a character Dunnett wrote about is one of my putative ancestors.  And of course it links in nicely to my casual attitude toward clothing.

Update, and then off to Victoria

Keith was here last night.  I always feels me some better when my peeps are here.  (Cheeze Whiz,  maybe middle aged white women should lay off the ghetto slang.)  More to the point – we watched CSI and hung out.

I spoke briefly to Katie on the phone (I had been communicating with Dax and wanted to give her the update (she was supportive)) and gleaned the intelligence that she’s called the cops on him for phone harassment.  Given that even speaking to her technically puts him in breach of conditions for the last time he assaulted her, his PO intervened and said, slowly and clearly, that if he called Katie again he was going back to jail.  Dax has issues, but a desire to go back to jail isn’t one of them.

To be fair, I have to stay clear of him as well, never mind the temptation of being Evil McNasty to him in emails.  I am not proud of myself at the moment, but I HAD to vent, and Katie, as I said, reviewed my comments and at one point giggled and said, “Go Mom!”   So, the damage is extensive – Katie had 5 years in an abusive relationship, is out about 1700 dollars – most of the school money she saved for herself, which was why she ended up at my door and Paul’s for funds – pawned gifts, broken guitars, assaults by Dax’ housemate, and her relationship with Suzanne going sour…. yeah, she’s done.  For all of you who wanted to know is this it, I think calling his PO and threatening to file a report looks like a stake in the Slayer’s hand.

That said, IF he got and kept a job, paid her back, made amends, abjured violence and verbal abuse, and made peace with me, Paul and Keith, AND Katie wanted him back, I’d accept him as a son in law.  Stranger things have happened.  I believe very sincerely in the ability of people to change for the better, but it seems changing for the worse is easier.  As things stand now, Katie might want him back in an alternate universe, but this one will have to survive without their love.

Sundry and various

Banjos ‘n’ brain surgery (thanks Lady Miss B for tipping me off to this).

Just in time for Hallowe’en… do you find fake snot too expensive?  Make your own!

How to be a member of the new urban poor. (warning, parts of this are emotionally quite roiling.)

It’s an opinion piece about the economy, but I learned some things too.

Mailing dates for Christmas presents.

I’m off to Victoria tomorrow morning, and hope to see Dr. Filk and the Pondside folks whilst there, and a WHOLE bunch of movies, musicals mostly, to assist me with my ‘homework’ from Mr. Music.  He gave me a list of musicals and told me to examine ‘Form and Format’.  I wonder if he wants an expository essay.

muah ha ha!!!!!

oh ho, aha!  Trill!  Squee!!!!!!!!!!!!

Me happy.

me very very very happy!!!!!!!!!!!!

Katie went and got the last of her stuff from Daxus’ place and moved in with uh, someone else, not me, and I met her new housemates tonight and I’m THRILLED.  It appears Katie agreed to marry Daxus under something called duress, or while planning on getting the hell out.

Katie and I had the briefest long chat in recorded history (man, did we cover a lot of ground in four minutes) and then my mandolin teacher and Keith showed up and we all interacted somewhat.  So to answer your page, pOp, NEVER. Does NEVER work for you? Works for me.  Besides, she’s living across from the school now – an extra hour of sleep each night!!!

I know that Daxus is wild with grief and anger right now, and I feel sorry for him.  But he’s young and strong and he’ll get over it.  Suzanne is pretty disappointed with Katie too.  I understand that.

I light a candle for Tom, who is apparently healing up with great speed and effectiveness.

I light a candle for Yvonne, who turned over a big pile of the work she used to do and left it all clean and shiny so I could pick up the traces easily.

I light a candle for Tanya & Battery, having fun in Hawai’i!!!  snorkel with a dolphin for me, kiddo. Yes, I know someone named Battery, and it’s pronounced Battry, thanks.  Kia ora!

I light a candle for Kelsey with a side of hugs.

I light a candle for every struggling family and for the future of our planet.

Blog action day – Poverty

Today is Blog Action Day, and this year’s theme is Poverty.

Poverty is like war and prostitution.  It’s a permanent fixture in human life.  Since we aren’t all equal at birth – thanks to differences in nourishment and inherent fitness for our respective environments – and because our parents aren’t equal, thanks to their inherent fitness, wealth and ability to parent – we aren’t equal in life.  There are two kinds of people.  People who see poverty as inevitable and acceptable, and people who see poverty as inevitable but hateful, and to be fought against.  Anybody who tells you poverty can be eradicated is a credit to humanity, but cracked.  We’ll eradicate war and prostitution before poverty, and best of British luck with that, fellow dreamers!

The challenge then becomes how to pry excess capacity from those who “win the lottery” and encourage them to share it with those who don’t have it – because I’m in the second camp.  I think poverty is inevitable and disgusting, and I’d like it to stop.  It won’t, but I have to do something.

There are six pillars of anti-poverty in the third world.

1.  Land security.  If you can’t, with security, work land to feed yourself, all other measures are wasted.  Anti poverty measures in a war zone are not likely to work.  Land security IMPLIES that there is a judicial system in place to protect you.  That’s not the case in many places on earth.  There may be a judicial system, but it won’t be there to protect poor people; that’s just foolishness.  Without land security, it’s difficult to put up decent housing.  So a thread to antipoverty action is the cold and daunting knowledge that the judicial system IS NOT YOUR FRIEND.

2.  Education for all women up to grade 8 equivalence.  If you educate the child, that’s one kid.  If you educate the mother, it’s more likely all the children will get at least some piece of an education.  You are also more likely to drive the birth rate down and every child that woman doesn’t have increases her life span and her ability to look after the children she has.  She will also be better fitted to care for them in sickness.

3.  Access to clean water.  Hygiene and health are difficult without it.  Poverty is associated with dirt for a reason.

4.  Access to heat or fuel for cooking.  If I had my way, every poor family on earth would be given a solar cooker, or given the tools and materials to make their own.  They would not be able to use it every day, but it would reduce pressure on the biosphere as fewer trees and shrubs got ripped down for fuel, and less animal dung would get burned. It’s also portable so you can take it with you if you have to skip town in a hurry.  It also would add about three or four hours to the day of every woman who had access to one which is time she could be studying, caring for the sick or performing more high value chores or work for pay.

5.  Access to communications (cell phone).  The net worth of a third world family can jump by a factor of ten when they have access to a phone; it makes getting and keeping employment, and setting up medical care or monitoring the health of loved ones instantly easier.

6.  Micro credit, especially for businesses which trade in staples, telecommunication and small scale farming.

In the first world, anti poverty is little more complicated.  That’s because most poor people in the first world aren’t poor compared to people in the third world.  However, I would say that education, good pre-natal care and amelioration of what keeps people trapped in poverty (addictions, mental health problems, unreadiness for the work force and social isolation among others) would be starting points.  I’d say getting rid of the television is a good start, too; TV has a really important role to play in poverty. Even really poor people have TV, and TV brings two pernicious ideas into the homes of poor people; one is that everyone deserves a break without working, and the other is that you can numb yourself to the daily nastiness of poverty by watching television when you could be improving yourself.

I don’t think poverty is something you can cure by throwing money at it.  I think that poverty reduction by judicious application of education, infrastructure and health inputs is possible in any society, but it requires two major shifts in perception.  One is that poor people deserve to be poor; the other is that rich people can deliver poverty reduction strategies to poor people without really consulting them and having it work.

I note with interest that the concept of the Grameen bank has come to North America.  I find it no co-incidence at all that it arrived just before the collapse of the banking system (which is still happening, by the way – the ripples are far from played out).

Anyway, that’s my two cents on poverty.  I will say that I find poverty to be a feminist issue, and rather than get into lecture mode, I’ll leave it at that.

Another Conservative government

and really low voter turnout.  Canadians are sheep, you know that?

Oh well.  Here’s some Nathan Fillion porn to make it better.  No, it’s not really porn.  But it’s funny (fwd by Robof9).

Apparently Katie has never memorized my phone number (%$#^%!) so… she called her dad to tell him she’s okay, and she’s all broken up with Daxus because he prevented her from going to school.  Or something.  She can only miss ten days of school or she can’t graduate.  And she’s going to go get her phone back.  That should work out well.

This next paragraph was written in rage and backspaced over with coffee.

Isn’t it funny how we dignify worry with a word like prayer….?

Dang

Trust my dad to say something offhand, thus getting me worried.  He says he’s got my birthday present already (a month early) and hopes “I won’t be too offended.”  Now I am scratching my head and thinking…. uh, sheep dip maybe? A month’s supply? 5 autographed copies of “Grandma was a Nudist”?  An etching entitled “My pet elephant cotched leprosy”? MP3s of the family favourite Cthulhu carols? The permanent roving family fruitcake, which is so old that lawyers are prepared to argue it has become a commensal, sentient organism able to communicate and abide by the law?  Mind you that would be cool, all my friends would want to get a good look at a sentient fruitcake, especially one that did sound painting by knocking pieces of desiccated fruit together.  And you do have to get very close and hold your breath, because it tops out around 20 dB and it claims you lose the point of the performance if it’s amplified.  Ah, artistes.

Pointed at without comment

What is an eccentric?

Buffy season three continueth, semper ardua ad nauseum, and now I feel like the scales have fallen off my eyes. Now all I want to do is watch my favourite episodes in no order and then maybe make popcorn.  By the way I just made up the latin tag because they constantly shoot Latin in the groin and leave it to die in that show, by damn.  So I run my tag through an on line translator and it’s “Always Lofty to the Point of Nausea” which strikes me as a motto which would not be amiss on an escutcheon, were I to want to design my own.  And I think the translator screwed up, which makes it even funnier.  I thought ardua was work or labour?

Stillllll raaaaaiiiining.

what’s with the continuing Moosiness of political culture across the line, there?

New Youtube video

I’ve posted the video I took of the Burnaby Central train ride I took yesterday.  It’s 10 minutes long and you really need to be a bigass fan of trains to watch it, but it is a real steam train going through tunnels and across bridges, and it was a glorious day.  Here’s a pic….

Now, I have some more chores. I’m really glad I got out yesterday, because it’s DISGUSTING today, pouring rain and gray and miserable.

 

LATER – I’ve posted the link above.