world19News #159 |
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world19News This e-mail is going to people on the mailing list for world19. If you don't want to receive further notices, please reply to this e-mail with "remove" in the subject. Let us know if you prefer to receive this in "plain text" format. Please forward this to anyone you think may be interested. In this issue: 4. Ukrainian elections: 1. "WELCOME" TO WAL-MART Those who attended the November Bloor West Village Residents Association meeting will recall a number of speakers expressing concerns: not only fear of its impact on neighbouring retailers, but also over the fact that the store could be approved with virtually no public knowledge. (Originally the site was to be a branch of the now-defunct Building Box chain). We've posted a Wal-Mart page on our website (www.world19.com) with a few interesting items. A few excerpts: Last week, Wal-Mart launched a "fight-back" campaign against its many detractors. See the Globe & Mail Report on Business story: http://makeashorterlink.com/?A16A22E3A. The story began by succinctly describing how Wal-Mart can prosper despite the fears and distrust it creates. It quotes a woman in Washington DC saying "I hate Wal-Mart more than anything in the world... They're just too big". At the time she was leaving a Wal-Mart store, and admitted she is a regular customer -- and a shareholder. "I come because the prices are so good". Some other items discuss the alleged cost of those low prices: some of the accusations against Wal-Mart focus on its damage to American manufacturing and other suppliers, its labour practices, and overall cost to society. Among the news items and links: PBS's Frontline documentary: "Is Wal-Mart good for America?" http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/walmart/. "US manufacturers ... better move their American plants to China and Asian if they want to survive". Fast Company: "The Wal-Mart You Don't Know". www.fastcompany.com/magazine/77/walmart.html. "Are we shopping our way straight to the unemployment line?" New York Review of Books (Dec. 12, 2004). A review of 6 books and papers documenting in great detail many of the accusations that Wal-Mart is trying to counter. The article suggests that working conditions are so harsh that "Some 50 percent of Wal-Mart workers employed at the beginning of 2003 had left the company by the end of the year. At the retailer Costco, where employees are better treated, turnover in 2003 was just 24 percent" It cites a Congressional report claiming that Wal-Mart's wages and benefits are so low that nationwide, American taxpayers foot a $2.5 billion welfare bill to help support the company's 1.2 million US employees". http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17647. We also have a note on "Wal-Mart Sovereignty" (as the New York Times Magazine dubbed the corporation's attempt to ask the citizens of Inglewood, California "to hand it the reins of government". http://makeashorterlink.com/?G4E71224A Welcome to the world of Wal-Mart! It becomes understandable that members of the Walton family who own the company occupy 5 of the positions in Forbes magazine's list of the 10 richest people in the world.
2. "Have you been shopping in the neighbourhood
lately?" The Dundas West Residents Association (http://www.dwra.ca) is sponsoring this meeting, and provided the following announcment. "Main street businesses are the heartbeat of Toronto's
neighbourhoods. Come and hear your local businesses talk about the challenges they face
and the strategies they use to succeed."
3. BRING BACK THE KOLBASSA Dear Mr. Saundercook, I realize that, in the big scheme of things, this particular issue is perhaps a small one, but I feel the fact that the delis along BWV can no longer hang kolbassa from their windows is representative of a much larger and disturbing trend in Toronto- one of obsessive political correctness and zealotry. Who makes these inane decisions? I’ve been eating smoked kolbassa from proper delis since The Beatles were together, with nary a problem. Who are these zealots? Must everything come from a giant food conglomerate, pumped full of chemicals and be stored in a fridge? It’s not at all clear to me that the good folks at the Toronto Board of Health have the full set of batteries installed. Somebody over there needs to get out a bit, loosen up and get a life. Speaking of getting out, I wanted to thank the city for it’s absolutely no-holds-barred, we-know-what’s-right-for-everybody, “smokers are non-entities” stance on smoking in bars. As someone who does a 5K in just under 30 minutes, plays squash, practices karate and walks just about everywhere, I nonetheless enjoy having the option of having a cigarette with my libation at my favourite pub. But thanks to the city, I’m now saving $150+ a weekend because my wife (a non-smoker) and I very rarely go out in Toronto any longer. Who wants to spend money on dinner and drinks when you have to stand outside to smoke like some errant schoolboy? Instead, we’ve organized our networks of friends (the majority of them non-smokers) and have great dinner parties where we get to act like adults and do what we want to, something the City of Toronto obviously does not feel we’re capable of doing without their enlightened perspectives on what should and shouldn’t be. If these guiding lights really want to go after smokers and the tobacco companies, outlaw cigarettes- simple as that, stop messing about. Finally, with the rise in obesity within our society (and the attendant burden on the health care system from that particular issue), perhaps we should also be boycotting Miller Beer, Kraft Foods, Post Cereals, Maxwell House, Oreo Cookies, Altoids and Toblerone- just a few of the very unhealthy products produced by one of the largest tobacco companies in the world- Phillip Morris. <signed>
4. UKRAINE ELECTIONS : We have two follow-up items to that issue: a) Welcome back! b) US and Ukrainian election It didn't deny the legitimacy of the determined protestors and activists in Ukraine, but claimed that "the campaign is an American creation... that in four countries [Ukraine, Georgia, Yugoslavia and Belarus] in four years, has been used to try to salvage rigged elections and topple unsavoury regimes". "The operation -- engineering democracy through the ballot box and civil disobedience -- is now so slick that the methods have matured into a template for winning other people's elections." ... The article describe these campaigns as uniting "behind a single candidate if there is to be any chance of unseating the regime... even if he or she is anti-American." http://www.guardian.co.uk/ukraine/story/0,15569,1360236,00.html The Nation on Dec. 12 discussed the same issue: http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20041220&s=steele "Ironically, while there has been much made of Russia's interference in the Ukrainian campaign and elections, the Nation claims "the degree of American involvement appears to be more comprehensive than anything emanating from Moscow".
5. BWV VISIONING
6. MAILBAG a) Door-to-door soliciting: A teenaged male came to our door last night at about 10:00 pm and said that he was selling chocolates. He did not have any chocolates visible. He asked whether I would make a donation. I asked to see some ID and he said it would be ready in a few days. I refused to give him anything and he left. I am concerned that this is a tactic to scam money from people in the neighbourhood, or perhaps even mug them when they reach for their wallets. I spoke to someone else on the street and he said that the guy came by his house as well. If you can alert people to the danger, that would be great b) Runnymede South (Swansea) bus In addition, the empty buses tend to rush quickly (yes, above the speed limit when I watched the driver's speedometer). There are also few statutory holidays in the year when the busses ride from 6am for some reason. Everyone is asleep and so should the busses, cutting undue expenses and street noise.
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