What is up with the city newspaper distribution system?

Over the last two years, I have called our local paper’s circulation department probably a hundred times regarding our carrier’s inability to place my paper in the newspaper rack below my mailbox.

Yes, it sounds like small potatoes, but here’s the detail: at least three times a week, the carrier tosses the paper from the sidewalk towards the house, a distance of some 30 feet, hitting either the aluminium door or the railing, which wakes us up and causes our dog to bark at 3 a.m. I’m old, I work full time and I need my sleep! I am sure my neighbours don’t appreciate my dog barking at that time either (he’s inside).

The paper then rebounds down our front steps, where more times than not, it is soaked by rain or snow. Two weeks ago, I found it in my garden – again- wet, and covered with leaves and dirt.

Occasionally, the carrier experiences some weakness, only managing to toss the paper about half-way up the walkway, into the adjacent grass which thankfully, doesn’t wake me or the dog, but which causes the paper to be damp and often leaves sections unreadable.

At the very least, that my paper isn’t in the rack causes me to be down the stairs in my bathrobe, a sight my neighbours are now used to seeing but to which they should never have had to become accustomed. Following this, I make yet another call and a request for a second paper – which rarely arrives. I’m old and grumpy and I need my daily dose of the Middle East same-old-same-old to keep an even keel.

I have been promised at every call to circulation that I will hear from a supervisor and that the supervisor will warn the carrier – again – and that my paper will be placed in the rack “from now on.” Given my regular calls over the last two years, I’m not sure when “from now on” is supposed to start….

On one recent call, I was advised that the problems with the carriers were not related to the city paper nor were they something they can fix. I was also advised – by a circulation department manager (female) that I could change papers (To the competitor? Heaven forbid!), but that the carrier would be the same guy, so it wouldn’t change anything and that I should perhaps “Just deal with it.” Said ‘manager’ also noted that because I hadn’t called once in the preceding month, that it looked like mine was a new complaint so there wasn’t much priority for my issue.

In the last two years, I have only once heard from the supervisor. That supervisor chose to burden me with woes about his employees, none of which problems I could fix for him. He didn’t respond to my request that his carrier just put the paper in the rack. No solution was offered to me, nor was any compensation provided.

This morning, I placed what seems like the millionth call to the city paper’s circulation department, due to a paper that had been tossed on my stairs and then soaked-through by rain. I got the same platitudes and empty promises that the situation will be dealt with and a supervisor will call and bla de bla de bla. The promised replacement paper (“Yes, we can see that it is there within a half hour.”) has not arrived (I called today at 8:10 a.m. approximately and it is now 10:30 a.m.); no call from the supervisor has ensued and frankly, I’m doubtful it will.

The call centre indicated they were very busy today due to wet papers, most of which will have to be redelivered. I cannot imagine the cost of redelivering papers to a city of 1 million – according to the paper this week, that’s how many we are….

Well, here’s how you fix this problem:

• Insist that carriers place papers in the newspaper racks, or at least in a location that is sure to remain dry, at EACH home, no exceptions.
• Advise the carriers that their pay will be docked for each paper that must be redelivered on their route, and that they will pay the reprinting cost of each redelivered paper, the cost of having another driver deployed for the time it takes to redeliver papers on that carrier’s route, and a cost for gas.
  

I guarantee if these carriers start to see some tangible punishment for their carelessness and dishonourable job performance, it will end pretty quickly.

Delivering papers in the dark early morning is not a job many will take on and yes, I understand that the system has some staffing issues – just like everyone else in this city. However, I am positive that the costs of adequate compensation for carriers who will do a good, consistent job are far less than the costs of reprinting and redelivering papers every day. It cannot be good business to be backtracking every day in a city of one million.

On that note, is the cost of redelivery perhaps the reason that, with two notable exceptions, Val Fortney and Naomi Lacritz, the quality of reporting and the spelling and grammatical abilities of the staff writers are so poor? Can the city paper not afford to hire good, skilled, language-able writers to produce information?

Hmm... makes a person wonder.

Harper's BIZARRE!

Ok, so someone explain to me how it is that Israel isn't a terrorist state? And someone please explain to me why our white-bread, porridge face Prime Minister has nothing to say about Israel bombing the hell out of whomever they please, whenever they please.

And also, can someone please explain to me why people don't get it that they are visitors on this planet? Nobody owns any piece of land in any real way and if people who fight and kill each other still don't get it that fighting and killing each other for 1000s of years solves precisely ZERO things, there will never, ever be peace on this planet.

It makes me so completely sick to my stomach that our senior politician is so spineless that he will not condemn the actions of Israel or any other country that slaughters people for any reason. I would love to know who he and the US President are so afraid of that they have such oily mouths when they speak about these issues.

There will be no peace on this planet until people in power speak up and very publicly and loudly speak out against war, genocide, planned starvation, purposeful perpetuation of major health crises - AIDS for example - and any number of other politically motivated atrocities.

Disgusting.

Mr. Harper, you are a disgrace to your country and to the world.

What?

1100 +

This is just a simple thanks to the growing group of people who read my blog!

I am flattered that you're here - still here in many cases - and that you grace my blog with your eyes and intellegence.

Those of you who are new, I hope you'll go back into the archives and read the old stuff, a lot of which is on parenting - and no, I"m not done with that subject yet; how could I ever be?

I am always open to suggestions and ideas and I will consider publishing other people's writing, provided it meets my personal guidelines. Go to my profile for an e-mail address you can send to. I will contact you personally.

Here's to the next 1100.

WriterWriter

Now THAT's a Great Sales Technique!

Today about noon, as I was just racing back into my home office, the phone rang. Thinking it to be a client, I grab it off the hook and recite my welcome answer - into the electronic ear of some recorded message that is telling me I'm so lucky to have been randomly selected for an all-expenses paid trip to Florida and Bahamas.

Wow! I am lucky. Except for the part where I detest being bothered by these no-minds who can't find a decent job anywhere other than with companies that intrude on the unwilling.

It is almost certainly a scam. However, being the curious sort, I press 9 as directed, wait for a few seconds and am connected to a guy who is obviously from the southern US - another thing that annoys me to pieces. I'm biased, yes, but a guy who sounds like he's from the Ozarks AND works for a corporate slug... We'll just say it didn't inspire confidence.

His first question was about my name. I lied. I said Ann. With an E. With this tiny introduction, said hillbilly asked my phone number. I answered that I'd like to hear more about what he was offering before offering my phone number to a stranger. His reply?

"I'm not telling you anything because you're being a jerk."

Seriously.

So, they randomly pick my name, call me in the middle of a business day with an offer that is doubtless junk and probably not actually available in Canada (given the US population's propensity to belly-button gazing) and then they insult me because I won't give my phone number to a total stranger from a country that houses the largests number of on-line fraudsters in the world (according to this month's Wired)?

Yah. That should work. I'll run right out to buy stuff from that company!

Oh wait. They don't want us to know THEIR phone number, which is blocked.

Good job too because otherwise, I would have sent them an invoice for taking up my time with their inane offer. Yes, this has been done and very successfully. So successfully in fact that the US Do Not Call list was the result. If a person is on the DNC list and they receive solicitation of this sort, they do have legal recourse. If only in Canada.

If I could call that company and speak to the idiot's boss, guaranteed, I'd see him fired in less than one minute, partly for bothering me at all but mostly because nobody calls me a jerk without at least having known me for an appropriate 10 minutes.

In lieu of having access to a contact phone or real, educated human who speaks an intelligible language, here is a couple sites that have information on how to protect yourself from this kind of fraud. Sadly, there's no info on how to get rid of phone-billies.
National Consumer League
Travel Science

Trip Science

Quotes from the Truly Stupid

So, some months ago in my city, this wonderful human being was going about defrauding cancer victims. His ploy was to hang about the hospital ATM machines, pretent he was also sick (with cancer, not assholicness) and plead problems when he spotted a victim.

This wonder of honesty managed to scam several very ill people out of substantial money before he was caught. It came out later via his criminal record, which was long and full of fraud related everything, that he'd been up to this for ages. There were some 100 fraud charges on that record.

So last week he was quoted as saying that the media had ruined his life and that all the publicity had got him a bad name.

Now I ask you: how does a guy who as a 20 year career in screwing people over manage to rationalise his behaviour enough to blame the media that reports his activities?

Does it not occur to said genius that, had he not lived a life of manipulating innocent people, that he wouldn't have a record and the media wouldn't bother with him?

I dunno. Sometimes humans boggle my mind.

Here's the article from The Calgary Sun, written by Mike McIntyre. Check out Mike's blog at www.mikeoncrime.com

"CALGARY (CP) — A con man who targeted elderly or disabled victims told a Calgary court Wednesday that publicity his court case has ruined his life and the lives of his family.
Bryan Andrew Casavant said media reports following his guilty pleas in April have crushed his family, including his nine-year-old daughter.
“My little girl now knows what’s going on, it’s killing me, it’s literally killing me,” he told provincial court Judge Anne Brown.
“After the media did what they did to me, my wife had to basically quit at Husky — it’s killing her,” Casavant said. “My little girl is crying all the time.”
Defence lawyer Mitch Stephensen argued the adverse publicity should be a factor Brown takes into account when Brown sentences his client.
Stephensen said judges in other cases — including the Alberta Court of Appeal in the case of a former Lethbridge alderwoman — have considered public scrutiny to be a mitigating factor.
In reducing Dar Heatherington’s community term last November, the province’s top court said media scrutiny was something to consider.
“Mr. Casavant has been seriously vilified in the press,” said Stephensen, who is seeking a jail term of two to three years.
Casavant, 44, conned more than $20,000 out of 16 victims in Calgary, Edmonton, Wetaskiwin and Kelowna, B.C.
He targeted his victims during a three-month span between last September, and his arrest on Dec. 12.
Among those he swindled were hospital patients suffering a variety of ailments including terminal cancer, and several seniors, including two in their 70s and another two in their 80s.
In April, Stephensen said Casavant cheated his victims to get cash to support his family and pay for medical expenses, such as a hearing aid for his daughter.
Crown prosecutor Peter Barley is seeking a prison term of at least 10 years to send a message to others who might target the weak or sick.
Brown adjourned sentencing until Sept. 7, so both Barley and Stephensen can gather more information about Casavant and his criminal past, which includes over 100 convictions."

Mike also references another great case, that of Dar Heatherington, who claimed she was abducted and drugged while on policital Business in Montana two years ago. The funny part of her story - well all of it was funny - and false - was something I found out quite by accident. It seems said Miss had been planning or possibily already engaging in a little tryst with a member of the Lethbridge police force.

Apparently it was somewhat common knowledge that there was some intrigue in the Heatherington family, at least according to my source. She went to great lengths to disguise what I believe was planned infidelity, including placing lewd letters, which she herself wrote, on her own car windshield, and claiming many harassing phonecalls, none substantiated.

After this story broke, said member of the Lethbridge Police service was quietly moved to another location. The missing detail in every news story about this woman who claimed rape, was the lack of male suspect. She had zero description; she refused a rape kit and she wouldn't provide anything that would have allowed DNA evidence, because, I think, the meeting was consentual. Her plan seriously backfired because, although she also claimed she had been drugged, she would not allow any medical processing that would have determined if she had been and with what. The police in Vegas, where she finally turned up, and the Montana police, were skeptical from the get go and that resulted in Ms. H landing a charge of mischief, which she had to attend while under house arrest in her home town. Ironically, she was attended by several members of the LPS.

The sad side story is that Mr. Heatherington is a member of the Lethbridge Fire Department. Seems the boys in blue in Canada and the US are pretty good friends, because the real story has been supressed with great help from the guilty parties, the media, the Lethbridge Police Service and Fire Department and I believe the police south of the 49th. Go HERE for tons of news stories on this gal. Try and find any useful reference to the supposed rapist.

Get your $30Million Here, folks! Step right up!

A story from CrazyTown
(And a note about the photo below, which was found via google in images, using the search term "pedophile." I found it as it is here, with the caption at this address).

So I read in our local paper on Wednesday that a 14 year-old girl in the US is attempting to sue MySpace for not protecting her from a predator to whom she provided her name, actual address and real phone number and then went on a date with, which in every way implies full consent..

Now I ask you, how does MySpace protect a teenager who is obviously TOO STUPID to read the very large and prominent disclaimers on that site that expressly encourage users to NOT provide their personal information to strangers?

“Hemanshu Nigam, the chief security officer for MySpace.com, said in a written statement: "We take aggressive measures to protect our members. We encourage everyone on the Internet to engage in smart web practices and have open family dialogue about how to apply offline lessons in the online world."

The second question is where are this girl’s parents? Apparently they’re all shocked that something like this could happen. Like What? Like that their daughter’s an idiot who can’t read and shouldn’t be on MySpace unattended?

I hope that the judge who gets this silly case will first quit laughing and second, slap the parents with negligence for allowing their daughter to use MySpace without their due attention.

There is no way that MySpace is in any way liable for this girl's being pursued when she was in complete control of what information she gave out and that she was so stupid that she actually met this stranger knowing nothing of who he really was. Incidentally, although she’s alleging sexual assault, it doesn’t sound that that’s the case….

“Lauren Gelman, associate director of the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School, said she does not think MySpace is legally responsible for what happens away from its site.

"If you interact on MySpace, you are safe, but if a 13-year-old or 14-year-old goes out in person and meets someone she doesn't know, that is always an unsafe endeavour," Gelman said. "We need to teach our kids to be wary of strangers."

Ironically, the lawyer for the girl in this case says, “MySpace is more concerned about making money than protecting children online,” which is hilarious considering how much money said lawyer stands to make from this case. They’re suing for 1% of the MySpace’s revenues, about $30M.

Absent from anyone’s pitch is a question about why the parents were not paying attention to what their daughter was doing on line, let alone who she was going to movies with, where she was going and how long she was out. This is a case of colossal stupidity on the part of two parents, and a kid who thought she was getting away with something behind their backs – until it all blew up in her immature face.

What is immensely sad is that this girl has parents and a lawyer who are attempting to reward her for her conduct and there is a young man who is potentially innocent but whose life is about one newspaper article away from being ruined forever, regardless of guilt or innocence.

It is completely unlikely that the rest of the story will ever appear in the media - the part where the case is tossed out, the truth is told and a possibly innocent young man is exhonerated. It is probable, however, that this girl will grow up knowing that her parents are much more intersted in saving face and cashing in via happy suing than teaching their daughter any moral lessons.

They might become rich off this one but they're as morally bankrupt as they come.

Just 'cause I think this is hilarious:

Can the English language survive Bush?

"The vast majority of our imports come from outside the country."

"If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure."

"One word sums up probably the responsibility of any Governor, and that one word is ' to be prepared '."

"I have made good judgments in the past. I have made good judgments in the future. "

"The future will be better tomorrow."

" We're going to have the best educated American people in the world."

"I stand by all the misstatements that I've made."

"We have a firm commitment to NATO, we are a part of NATO. We have a firm commitment to Europe. We are a part of Europe."

"Public speaking is very easy."

"A low voter turnout is an indication of fewer people going to the polls."

"We are ready for any unforeseen event that may or may not occur. "

"For NASA, space is still a high priority."

"Quite frankly, teachers are the only profession that teaches our children. "

"It isn't pollution that's harming the environment. It's the impurities in
our air and water that are doing it."

"It's time for the human race to enter the solar system.
George W. Bush

Oh come ON!!!

I have nothing to say about this.

1000 words, all unsaid. I am speechless.



Are you Fxxking kidding me? Doesn't this woman have a mother - or anyone who cares about her - to tell her she looks like a complete, tacky idiot?

Arrggghghghgh. The US empire is crumbling. This is proof.

AntiAunti

It occured to me tonight, as I was watching inane TV shows that my life is a bit of an irony. Isn't everyone's?

I'm absolutely anti-marriage because I think marriage is social control/religious control/taxation base but it occured to me tonight that I feel a bit left out because I've never had a lovely, down-on-one-knee proposal and the two marriages I've ever been a bridesmaid at (both weddings of my sisters) ended quite badly. And I had to make my dresses - and theirs -for those weddings, so I never got to do the shopping for a wedding dress with the bride thing either.

hmmm. What a dilemma. If someone asked for my hand, so to speak, I'd probably rather give them the actual hand than the metaphorical article; and bridesmaid dresses are invariably ugly, unwearable and the subject of much ridicule, so really, who wants it - not to mention all the stress that goes into putting a wedding together.

I'll tell you a secret: nobody in my family knows whether my partner and I are married or not. We've been asked a hundred times and in all manner of ways but we've chosen to not reveal the true state of affairs. Why? Well, a bunch of reasons.

My mom is a Christian, which, in theory, isn't a bad thing but in practice? Let's just say the dogma gets in the way of real, deep relationships. When my partner and I first met, there was a lot of resistance to the relationship, most of which was due to our age difference. That was an issue, but not as much as the fact that we had the full-meal-deal relationship, without benefit of clergy, which, for her, was just so sinful (she doesn't seem to be bothered by the reams and reams of children being raped by family members every day or that a child somewhere in the world dies from starvation every two minutes. Pre-marital sex? Man, that's top of the heap!)

About four years into the relationship, my partner and I went to Vegas for four days. My youngest daughter made a big joke out of telling everyone my partner and I had been married by a fake Elvis (her presumption). Her joke ended up being our saving grace: see, after that, my family members weren't sure what had actually happened anymore. Oh, and we went back to Vegas the next year. And we made a lot of noise about the drive-through wedding chappel on Vegas Blvd. heading to old Vegas: The Michal Jordan, Joan Collins Drive-thru wedding chappel. How quaint. I bet all their marriages last!

We've never answered one way or the other whether we did or didn't, and we never will.

Now, for all you parents out there, here's how to get your children to never tell you anything: nag, bug, harrass and put down because your dogma is right and theirs is flawed. After a while, you'll be in a position of not knowing what's going on and having no way to find out. Yah. You win. My mother cannot say one word about my and my partner's relationship - any of it, including the physical part - because she doesn't know if we've married or not! Perfect. Works like a damn.

Our decision to remain mum on the question has also quite stopped the nasty age-related slagging, because you can't slag someone's spouse -if that person is indeed the spouse - which is also a benefit.

Here's the drill: a marriage is a commitment between two people and requires a total of two other people and an official to make it official. There is no rule that says you must spend a zillion dollars, stress yourself out and put a year's planning into a one day event to make it legit.

LOADS of people marry in order to have the dress, the cake, the ceremony, the adulation and the tiara, and then wake up the next day going "Holy crap, what did I do?"

Ten years on, we're every bit as commited to each other as the first night we met (that's a whole 'nother blog).

If I could can what we have and how we do it, I would. I could make a billion dollars selling it, but I wouldn't 'cause it's just too precious.