On the DEWLine 2.0: Dwight Williams

Good day, and good luck.

May we end up with a kinder, better set of governments than the day started with.

"Never tell me the odds!"

And I found that out today on my way back from a trip to a long-term care facility.

How am I supposed to trust pharmacies of any affiliation during a Pandemic that's still in progress when they do stuff like this?

This is terrifying to my brain to read:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/lowest-voter-turnout-ontario-history-elections-1.6476344

Yes, there's still ballot-counting to be done as of today. Even so, the drop in turnout is a horrible development. I'd been hoping over this past decade that people were still heeding advice (*) from the likes of Rick Mercer to show up in greater numbers with each election held and completed.

And we've got municipal elections in October in Ontario, right?

(*) - Yes, the video is from 2011, and the Rant is focused on people aged between 18 and 25, and the advice still holds for the wider public.

I think we're about to be deprived of the company of our Russian and Belarusian friends and friendly acquaintances no matter what we decide about internet contact on our side of the Putinist War Against Ukraine.

https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1500553480548892679

So there's this lady in Cornwall, Ontario who's looking to find new homes for a whole lot of books...and I'm thinking that I have something in common with her. I'm operating on a much smaller scale - for now, at least - in terms of my virtual yard sale via Facebook Marketplace.

That may have to change. I may need to start officially operating a second-hand bookstore.

One trouble is that I'm dealing with what I suspect is ADHD in my own skull, with trying to work out my housing future, and trying to get and hold onto steadier work. Also a tonne of other crap to deal with on an ongoing basis.

Another is that there's already two such stores within walking distance of my current home. One's operating in connection with the Ottawa Public Library. The other is one of the remnants of the Book Market chain that used to dominate the city. Both are swamped with product of their own, as Myriam Gaudet's Red Cart Books is in Cornwall. Add in the Chapters/Indigo first-hand bookstores at Place d'Orléans and on Innes Road and the situation is more complicated.

Third: I don't think I've got enough product to really get going.

Fourth: financial paperwork that might ensue? I don't even want to think about it because panic attacks.

Fifth: Pandemic.

So I'm likely to just add a relative handful of titles to my Facebook yard sale for now, and put off that bigger question to April. At the earliest.

Covidvax is putting Canada's "fully vaccinated" percentage-of-population at 8.13 % as of this posting. The current pace is projected to have us reach 70 % fully vaccinated by 16 August. There are consequences to this.

I'm starting to feel like an opportunity for refitting Canada into a more humane, less cruel nation is closing off to us now. We haven't been moving fast enough in the correct directions, and now come the consequences. We're going to be pressured to abandon the things we've been doing correctly these past 15 months by the "Austeritarians". (Was that Paul Krugman's word for them?)

How do we forestall that? NDP, Canadian Labour Congress and its affiliates, Green Party, and other organizations have been pushing for more correct action in various ways.

Moving to turn off CBC Listen and switch to Ottawa City Council's YouTube channel while we mull this over...

Two words in particular:

"President Pence".

That's my fear.

Okay, job search question: what IS this "CBC Media Group" that claims to have gotten my resumé off of Indeed? (And why couldn't I find their company name or reference to any application for a "Customer Service Representative" in my job search diary? I try to be vigilant about this stuff.)

I did a web search. There's a *.com website with their name on it. When I click on a link, I get a browser warning about their website's security. I don't remember hearing about this company before, and today they e-mail me and phone me on my cellphone out of the blue.

Also noting: when I asked the guy on the phone when they'd gotten my resumé/application, he couldn't/wouldn't tell me. So I told them "no" then and there.

Apparently, this is a boiler room.

Also, check this out, thanks to a friend elsewhere:

https://opencorporates.com/companies/pr/434952-1511

These facts are not new:

We can't afford to not change. We can use this crisis to leverage positive changes. Some of us are in fact doing that work.

Listening to The Sunday Edition on the radio at the moment, hearing a discussion between Michael Enright and one of those people doing that work at a church-sermon level with the wider public, Charles Taylor.

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thesundayedition/after-covid-19-we-will-have-the-mother-of-all-battles-over-the-future-of-the-planet-says-charles-taylor-1.5402452

Seems to me as if we're now on a sort of wartime footing. No specific enemy nation-state or "non-state actor" that we're up against here. In this case, the "sharp end of the spear" is hospitals and virology and genetic research labs right now.

How about you? Are you getting the same feeling?

I'm hearing that CBC Ottawa is going to try to make sure that teleworking technology will allow Ed Lawrence to do his weekly gardening phone-in with Ontario Today after noon EST.

I still consider myself under financial and ethical obligation to keep looking for work. Pandemic rules will be an obstacle to this obligation. I don't know how to square that circle right now. My job alert e-mails from Workopolis, Indeed, Jobilico, the federal Job Bank, etc. are still coming in, so I'll keep looking at those.

Some of you have offered financial assistance (publicly or privately), and I thank you again for that. No sure how best to answer that, so I'm going to keep that up my sleeve for the moment.