My First Prime Minister Died


Technically speaking that’s not true since there were Joe Clark, Pierre Trudeau and John turner before him, but Brian Mulroney is my first Prime Minister in the sense that he’s the first one I remember actually being in the job. When I started getting old enough to notice the news and when we began learning about politics in school, he was the guy. I think that’s why I was so unexpectedly shocked when I heard that he had gone. We don’t write so long posts here as often as we used to, but this one has stuck with me since it happened, so I feel like I ought to at least note it.

My strongest memory of Mulroney was him being so deeply unpopular that he resigned before the end of his second term and set the stage for his majority government to be reduced to two people, but he was certainly much more than that, for better or worse. He was, as I would discover as the years went by, not a typical conservative or even your typical politician. He had big ideas and wasn’t afraid to take a risk. And some of his policies (acid rain treaty, working to end apartheid) were actually good. He also took big swings with the GST, national unity and North American free trade, enormously complex issues that cost him politically and absolutely changed the country forever.

“Whether one agrees with our solutions or not, none will accuse us of having chosen to evade our responsibilities by side-stepping the most controversial issues of our time,” he said when he stepped down in 1993, in a way summing himself up better than anyone else could, minus the bribery scandals and whatnot.

I have no idea how the world is going to remember Brian Mulroney. Probably somewhere between skilled politician and asshole who taxed us all to death and sent our jobs to Mexico, if I had to guess. But if there’s only one thing that I’ll take away from him, it won’t be something he said, but rather something I’ve heard said about him many times by people across the political spectrum. During this process, I called Brian Mulroney for advice, or while all of this was going on, Brian Mulroney called me to offer his help and encouragement. That’s pretty cool, and it’s how I’ve always tried my best to see the world. People who don’t see things your way often suck and are wrong, but not always. Sometimes it’s worth the effort it takes to listen to them, to try to help them, to find some common ground and to use that to make things better for everyone. We’re all in this life together, whether we want to be or not. Brian Mulroney certainly didn’t teach me that, but he’s at times been a nice reminder that it’s possible.

We’re From The Government And We’re Here To Help

Five people have been killed and 10 wounded in Gaza when a parachute on a humanitarian airdrop package failed to deploy properly and the parcel fell on them, a witness has said.
The casualties were taken to Gaza City’s Al-Shifa hospital, the emergency room’s head nurse, Mohammed al-Sheikh, said. The airdrop took place north of the coastal Al-Shati refugee camp, he added.
A witness from the camp said he and his brother had followed the parachuted aid in the hope of getting “a bag of flour”. “Then, all of a sudden, the parachute didn’t open and fell down like a rocket on the roof of one of the houses,” said Mohammed al-Ghoul.
“Ten minutes later I saw people transferring three martyrs and others injured, who were staying on the roof of the house where the aid packages fell,” he said.

Honest question to which I sadly think I know the answer: Israel is, eventually, going to be charged with war crimes, right? That’s not me endorsing Hamas or being antisemitic, it’s just a weird moral thing I have where it bothers me very much when someone responds to an awful thing by being even more awful. It shouldn’t be this hard to tell which side of a conflict is the terrorist group, and it shouldn’t be controversial to say that.

As for this specific story, I’m surprised it isn’t one we hear more. Is that because it doesn’t happen, because it isn’t usually covered when it does or because I just don’t see it?

Also, when I shared the article from my phone to my computer, the first option I saw was “AirDrop”, but I went with mail just to be safe.

Best News Bloopers Of February, 2023


I’m bringing some erotic reptiles to your surprise party! See you th…uh-oh.

And today must be starting off ok. I wrote the word February without mistyping or having to think about how to spell it. Well, at least I did the first time. The second one almost ended up being Febuarary when I lost control of my fingers for a second. I’m so glad it’s March now.

Learning The Word No and Using It Liberally Might Be A Good Place To Start


As satisfying as it is to watch the Prime Minister of Canada absolutely torch Bell and others for the way they do business at all of our expense, I have to say that it would be much more satisfying if someone…anyone in government with any sort of real power had said some version of it decades ago instead of quietly allowing the sort of market conditions that create this very thing to do what they were designed to do while pretending they were doing the opposite. Both sides of the aisle have been so afraid to tell corporations “no, you can’t buy that” or “no, you’re not the ones setting policy” in any meaningful way that now we’re dealing with this in broadcasting, telecom, groceries, banking, you name it. And it’s only going to get worse if we don’t go beyond some tough words that feel good in the moment. These industries have gotten so big that they’re governing us instead of it being the other way round, and they don’t have to care what we think about it.

A fired-up Prime Minister Justin Trudeau unleashed on Bell on Friday, calling its move to layoff thousands of employees — including hundreds of journalists — a “garbage decision.”
“I’m pretty pissed off about what’s just happened,” Trudeau said during a press conference in Toronto.
“This is the erosion not just of journalism, of quality local journalism at a time where people need it more than ever, given misinformation and disinformation…. It’s eroding our very democracy, our abilities to tell stories to each other.”

“I’m furious. This was a garbage decision by a corporation that should know better,” said Trudeau.
“We need those local voices and over the past years, corporate Canada — and there are many culprits on this — have abdicated their responsibility toward the communities that they have always made very good profits off of in various ways.”

“We have been stepping up over the past years, fighting for local journalism, fighting for investments that we can have, while all the while fending off attacks from Conservatives and others who say, ‘No, no, no, you’re trying to buy off journalists,'” he said.
Trudeau suggested his government will be “demanding” better from corporations like Bell, but it’s not yet clear what that would look like.

“What Is The Nature Of Your Emergency?” “I Appear To Be Lost In An Administrative Loop”

This is hardly the dumbest 911 story we’ve ever seen, but something about it keeps saying “Steve, post me,” so who am I to argue?

Police say that on Feb. 2, the man attended the Superior Court of Justice to obtain help completing family court documents. After staff advised they are not permitted to provide legal assistance or help completing the documents, he called 911. A special constable working at the courthouse spoke to the man and cautioned him about misuse of 911.
On Wednesday, the man attended the same office and was again told staff could not assist. He told another special constable he was going to call 911 for help with the paperwork and was told if he did so he would be charged with mischief.
Immediately after receiving this warning, the man called 911.

And yes, he was charged with mischief.

I don’t know how complicated that paperwork is, but somebody probably ought to be expecting a call any time now.

You’ve Used Moderate In A Sentence. Now Try Using It Appropriately


I like this Daily Show segment because it gets at a media tendency that’s really been getting on my nerves. This thing where anyone on the Republican side who isn’t completely out of his fucking mind is a moderate. No. Stop. Being less insane than the most insane option does not make you not insane. Packaging doesn’t determine your moderateness. Your policies and positions do. Quit trying to make people like Nikki Haley into something they aren’t and in her case, something she says herself that she doesn’t even want to be. It’s extremely dangerous. You should all know this by now.

Rest Easy, Buzzer

When we stopped overpaying Bell for a landline in favour of only overpaying Rogers for cell service (what a country we live in), by far our biggest logistical hurdle was making sure that Carin and I both had access to our building’s buzzer so that either one of us could open the door if the other wasn’t around. In that post, I explained how I had stumbled onto a service called Easy Buzzer, and did a bit of excited raving about how promising it was and how nice the people were. Years later, all of that is still true…but not for much longer. Well, I’m sure the people will still be lovely, but they’re going to have to be lovely somewhere else, unfortunately.

A few nights ago, because she is a human calendar, it crossed Carin’s mind that it would soon be time for me to pay Easy Buzzer again. So when I got an email from them last night, I thought it was just going to be a renewal reminder. But since in my experience renewal reminders don’t tend to carry subject lines like “Easy Buzzer is Shutting Down”, that thought was quickly put aside and replaced with oh no, that sucks, what are we going to do now?

I suppose the first thing we’ll do is take a look at Ringo as suggested in the goodbye email and hope that we can talk about it without breaking into song every time.

Early returns suggest that we cannot.

And if anyone else has any alternatives or experiences with Ringo, we’d love to hear them, of course.

But for now, a big thanks to Daniel Fraser and everyone else who had a hand in Easy Buzzer over the years. Thank you for being so open to feedback and responsive when we needed you. We didn’t need you much, which is a testament to how well your system worked. It was truly the definition of set it and forget it. When there were problems, we could always count on them being our building not having its shit together. Whatever may have gone wrong with you folks was always cleared up before we even noticed it. I’m sorry to see it end, but congratulations on a nice run for a service that’s going to be hard to replace.

Hello,

Unfortunately due to changing personal circumstances, I will no longer be able to support the Easy Buzzer and EveryDoor projects. Easy Buzzer and EveryDoor will be shut down permanently on April 1 2024. Please prepare as soon as you can to change your buzzer phone number at your building away from your Easy Buzzer phone number. The number will be deactivated and your buzzer system will no longer function. Billing will stop on March 1. In April, any yearly payments will be refunded for the remaining months. I suggest Ringo (useringo.com) as an alternative which has similar capability as Easy Buzzer, but there are many alternatives that are easy to find with Google.

If you would like to shut down your Easy Buzzer account now, prior to the end-of-service, you can do so here: https://www.easybuzzer.com/account/deactivate

I started Easy Buzzer in 2012 as a simple way to share the ability to answer and use my buzzer with my roommate living in Vancouver. Since then, Easy Buzzer has been used to buzz-in many thousands of food orders, party guests, students, short-term-rental guests, cleaners, dog walkers, and more. Years ago, we raised a small angel round of funding and launched a business product called EveryDoor, which helped companies manage AirBNB rentals and small hotels around North America.

Ultimately, I will be unable to continue to meet the obligations of running a reliable, secure, and useful service without investing a significant effort for which I don’t have the resources anymore. So, the best path will unfortunately be to shutter the service with enough time for everyone to change out their phone numbers before the call systems stop functioning. 

Thank you to everyone who encouraged, guided, and invested money or effort into the company. But most of all thank you to the customers, some of whom have used Easy Buzzer over 10 years, for entrusting us with the security and capability of part of your home. We had some highly supportive customers over the years who helped with testing and accessibility that helped make the experience better for everyone.

Please direct any questions to help@easybuzzer.com which will be monitored until shutdown and refund activities have completed. 

Sincerely,

Daniel Fraser

Firings

A few moves I feel the need to comment on.

  1. Bell Canada slashing 4,800 jobs, selling 45 radio stations
    I didn’t realize there were that many people still working there.

    I kid, but only a little. In the last few years that company has been gutted until there’s nothing left to gut, and then somehow gutted some more. But in fairness, they only brought in $382 million in earnings this quarter, so what’s a struggling enterprise to do?

    At what point do we stop taking Bell seriously as a media organization? Its radio stations are mostly nationalized, automated husks of what they used to be, what’s left of the local news is getting more and more unwatchable all the time as people who work cheap assume positions on air that they clearly aren’t ready for not to mention that like half the stories on our Kitchener newscast come straight out of Toronto and are of little interest to anyone around here, the specialty channels are mostly slapdash garbage (The Comedy Network is nothing but reruns you can find on 100 other stations, Investigation Discovery spends several hours each day running the same three shows on a loop and what in the hell is the original Discovery Channel even supposed to be now? It’s a total mess.), and I’m sure I could go on. the product we’re getting screams “WE GIVE UP!” Why not just make it official, guys?

  2. Firing a president with a solid mind for and track record in his business, one who has the respect of many of those working under him and who brought the company to levels of creativity and respectability that it hasn’t had since maybe ever is certainly a choice. Replacing that guy with a fella who talks a lot about revenue streams and operational efficiencies? Also a choice. Wouldn’t be my choices, but I’m not in charge of TNA.

    Yes, anthem terminated Scott D’Amore, and it sounds like they did it for all of the reasons you would imagine a company doing something like that.

    “So you’re saying that the company is gaining momentum and that you believe the best way to keep things on the upswing is for us to invest in the product? Sir, I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave. You clearly have no grasp of modern business.”

    We have to give the new guy a chance, of course. Maybe everything will turn out great. Anthem does deserve credit for keeping the company afloat when it damn near died a few years back, so I’ll wait and see. But anyone who pays attention to these sorts of things in basically any industry knows how it generally goes.

    Good luck to Scott D’Amore, and to TNA. I know which one I think needs it more.

  3. Vince McMahon. What the hell do you even say about something like this? I’ve wanted him gone for years because he sucked at many parts of his job, but having him go down in history as a horrific sexual predator wasn’t at all how I drew up the exit strategy.

    For me, Vince McMahon is the ultimate example of having to separate the artist from the art. Wrestling is, no joke, one of my favourite things in life, and Vince McMahon is a huge part of that. You can’t just ignore him and hope he goes away, but you also can’t let him define everything about the thing that you love or see yourself as endorsing him because you happen to love a thing that he spent decades making himself the face of.

    I don’t know if every single allegation made against him over the years is true. Chances are none of us ever will. But lord knows that there’s more than enough out there to make you think that yes, most of them probably are. And it’s nice that after all this time, it’s finally caught up to him. My only hope now is that he faces some real accountability before it’s too late. Shame isn’t enough, because he’s shown himself many times to be shameless. Banishment from his life’s work isn’t enough, because he’s still rich beyond belief thanks to that work. Making all of the people whole that he’s hurt in one way or another is impossible, but not being able to buy his way out of actual consequences for once would go a long way.