I Suppose Ya Gotta Buy a Ticket to Win

RT and I get along remarkably well, especially when you consider that we are on opposite sides of the political spectrum, have different religions, entirely different backgrounds, and probably never should have met at all. That's not to say that we have a lock on wedded bliss, because we don't.

But like most couples our age, we have figured out each other's hot buttons, and, for the most part, we refrain from pressing them. That means, among other things, that RT never mentions my mother, and I never mention his ex-wife. His mother, and my ex-husband are safe topics, and if we are really bored, they occasionally get some play. RT doesn't complain about our phone bill, and I don't say anything about his monthly Jack Daniel's run.

It works for us.

One button I have occasionally pressed has to do with RT's penchant for buying lottery tickets. I try to ignore the stack of slips as he checks for a winner twice a week. I don't make comments about his "system", and how it doesn't ever seem to produce results. Mostly I succeed, but whenever I lust after something we can't afford I ask him exactly how much he has spent on lottery tickets. He's an accounting type guy, and keeps records of such things, but he never tells me, and I am never motivated enough to look at our household accounts to find out.

Again, it works for us.

Today was different. As he sat across from me going through his ticket pile, instead of it being a somewhat stealthy operation, one that I could easily ignore, I heard first a grunt, and then a "holy crap". RT's ship had come in—not the big ship, but more than a leaky rowboat. With six out of seven numbers, he won the equivalent of a very nice new couch for our den, which we very much need, or a very hot new computer for him, which we don't really need, but will end up getting anyway. There will be enough left over for a few little things as well.

As exciting as that is, I was secretly pleased that it wasn't his system that was responsible for the win. Nope, it was a computer generated number choice from the gas station. I can live with never buying tickets, or gas, anyplace else, but he would have been insufferable had his special number picking scheme actually paid off. I'm also not going to ask if the winnings from this ticket offset the losses this year.

Neither of us want to know the answer to that one.

de.lici.ous tags:blog, lottery, marriage, homelife

 

posted by taming at 06:05 | link | comments |
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Cornwall and the World

It's Friday morning, and I am sitting here drinking some mighty fine Yirgacheffe , and waiting for the Cornwall Seaway News to put a PDF version of this week's paper on-line. It's an eagerly awaited happening around here, with the big attraction being an entertaining, and often insightful, column by my friend Kathy's teenage son Scott.

Last week he wrote an article called Gandhi vs Stephen Harper, which didn't really posit that the prime minister of Canada was a proponent of violence, as one might expect, but did have that certain wry humour I've come to expect from Scott. The Seaway News, with a circulation of 36,000, isn't a major news outlet, even in the City of Cornwall, but as small as it is, it's part of the fabric of life here in democratic Canada.

If you clicked on the link, and read the story, you know that it is really about Scott's life in the classroom, and about his sister Jenny, who Scott credits with being smart and organized, but fails to mention is also a truly beautiful young woman. I guess that's not the kind of thing one's brother would talk about. He decided to put this piece under a fairly provocative headline, and the powers that be at the Seaway News apparently decided that a little bit of political commentary was A-OK with them.

It's so easy to just accept that sort of thing as a given, but it's not.

In China, bloggers are being actively persecuted, search engine results are censored, and the government is buying western technology that will be used to limit people's access to information and their freedom of speech. In China, Scott's piece would probably be called something like "Note Taking in my High School Class".

From Australian IT:

Forum calls for web freedom
Correspondents in Vouliagmeni

NOVEMBER 03, 2006 THE first UN forum on internet governance logged off after four days during which prominent Western corporations were accused of helping Chinese authorities to suppress dissidents.

"We have not heard a public commitment from companies on human right values," Erica Razook, a legal advisor to the rights group Amnesty International said.

"We're not telling them to get out of certain countries, but to take a stand on human rights in those countries," she said on the sidelines of the forum, which took place in the southern Athens suburb of Vouliagmeni.

Software and service providers Microsoft, Cisco, Google and Yahoo have been criticised by human rights groups for facilitating Chinese efforts to jail and monitor suspected political opponents.

This isn't a simple issue. In the offices of The Seaway News, an editor has to decide if Scott's article, and its headline, could alienate advertisers or the community before putting it in print. And whilst we don't expect that Mr. Harper or his conservative government would pay much attention to this particular piece, the political bias in our publications is fair game, and often discussed.

Whether the context is a small one, and the stakes are along the line of how many advertising inches a local car dealership will buy in the local rag, or a big one, like the market for western technology in China, the interplay between civil rights we tend to take for granted here and economics comes into play. More than that, we are moving into a world where the line between government and big business is increasingly blurred, both at home, and abroad.

Chances are, decisions made by Microsoft and Cisco will, at least in the short term, influence the state of human rights in China than anything Stephen Harper, or George Bush, or the UN might do. These big companies, like our big governments, have to make the hard choice between expanding markets, and promoting democratic ideals.

From BBC News:  

Microsoft considers China policy
By Darren Waters
Technology editor, BBC News website, Athens

A senior executive for Microsoft has said the firm could pull out of non-democratic countries such as China.

Fred Tipson, senior policy counsel for the computer giant, said concerns over the repressive regime might force it to reconsider its business in China.

"Things are getting bad... and perhaps we have to look again at our presence there," he told a conference in Athens.

"We have to decide if the persecuting of bloggers reaches a point that it's unacceptable to do business there."

"We try to define those levels and the trends are not good there at the moment. It's a moving target."

We need to be talking about this as we sit down at breakfast and read our local paper. And we need to write about it, too, in letters to the editor, notes to our elected officials, and in whatever way we can figure out to talk to representatives of big businesses like Microsoft.

After all, we still can.

de.lici.ous tags:blog, china, microsoft, cornwall, freedom, rights, business, u.n., free-speech

 

posted by taming at 07:37 | link | comments |
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Too Smart to Shop

Now that we have a TiVo, I don't see all that many TV commercials, and I don't pay much attention to those I do see. However, recently, I saw two that bothered me in a way that would make a terrific topic for a thoughtful weblog entry about gender and commercialism if I were so inclined.

I'm not.

It's not that I'm not capable of deep thought. I just can't be bothered these days to write anything designed to wow people with my wisdom and insight. At this point, my writing is not much more than finger talking to a group of mostly imaginary readers who, like me, spend more time looking for their car keys than they do pondering the meaning of life.

What that means is that when I see something like these commercials, I experience a moment of thoughtfulness, and then it is gone, and I am looking for my keys again.

The first commercial was for some sort of scented detergent. You see a youngish couple getting into bed, and from their expressions, it's pretty clear that they are not happy with one another. The woman, then the man, breathe deeply, faces turned away from each other, noses pressed up against the sheets. As they inhale, the mood changes, they turn and move close to each other, and the camera fades out. A voice over then tells us all about the "naturally inspired" scents that make this marriage healing moment possible.  

Has it really come down to this? Does anyone really think that smellified sheets can improve their lives? Will I buy this product anyway, even if I know that the last thing I  need is another daily dose of chemicals?

And when I get out of my sweaty sheets (well, if the stuff works as advertised, the sheets should be sweaty, right) will my day look brighter if the deodorant I use after my shower comes in a limited edition box? I guess there are just so many ways you can make buying deodorant into an adventure, and the new and improved part of this product is the box.

What would you do with it? Surely the collectible value of the product would be greatly diminished if you actually opened the box and used the deodorant. Are we supposed to buy the entire set of limited edition deodorant packages and display them next to our Precious Moments figurines? Is the hope that the same woman who has just loaded up her shopping cart with all three of the scented detergents will buy all five of the specially packaged deodorants?

Is it worth looking for my keys to go to the store and buy either of these products?

 

posted by taming at 16:33 | link | comments (2)|
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