Hand Holding Visits

If you’d like a warning, this is a highly unimportant post about family and personal stuff. If that’s not your thing, go and read the science category or something.

My parents came to visit over the weekend. Arriving after my early morning Friday class I was late meeting them on their drop off point from the airport. They had so many bags for such a short time. Luckily half of them were for me: extra clothes and bits and pieces.
As one should do when discovering a city, we did a lot of walking. On the Friday when we went to visit a friend at the BBC, when we met up with an old friend of my parents now working for part of the European Commission, when we were wandering the city to see interesting things and amazing buildings. We stopped off for various drinks of beer, good and bad coffee, organic food, a Turkish restaurant and more. It was great to see them but as I should have expected, it brings back all the ideas of missing family. I’ve seen them recently perhaps just as much as I would have done if I’d been in the UK but being in another country does make the distance feel a bit more substantive. When they left it was odd. Empty, like I’d convinced myself forget it could be. But it was great to have them visit.

Daddy

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This article has annoyed me.

Andy Stern on the WSJ: The Wal-Mart Posse

He makes a huge fuss over how many anti-Wal-Mart groups are funded by ‘organized labor’. As though that’s a bad thing? Who else keeps tabs on these people? Nobody! They don’t hide their funding. It’s obvious that these ‘anti’ groups are going to be funded by somebody. And it’s not going to be Chinese factory owners. Who does care: the people who get paid dirt cheap nothingness wages. The unions are tryign to change wal-mart even when they’re not largely paid by wal-mart workers because of anti-union policies throughout Wal-Mart’s history. I think that’s pretty impressive that the Unions still try. And he claims that Wal-Mart is good for poor people. Only if you’re rich enough to drive there and shop and have other options too. it’s not great if it’s the only store in town, if it’s built a mega-store on your backyard. It’s not great if it’s made you redundant by putting your former employer out of business. And he claims that 7-12 dollars an hour is not a poverty wage. Not poverty?! Good lord. I assume he’s not paid 7 dollars an hour. I’m always amazed by American opposition to ‘organized labor’. It always shows a really rather mean capitalist streak. Don’t let those poor people get themselves together. Their leaders MUST be into something else. They MUST have an alterior motive.

“Today the company employs 1.3 million American workers, and its recent push into groceries has made life miserable for Safeway and other grocery chains organized by the service workers or the UFCW.” – Are the unions really that scared of Wal-Mart doing groceries? Who cares as long as they do it right! But this isn’t Costco with an average wage of 16 dollars an hour. Wal-Mart workers are lucky to be able to shop in their own store. And the reason there are always thousands of applicants for Wal-Mart jobs isn’t because they’re good jobs. It’s because Wal-Mart drops their stores on the poorest, cheapest areas in the region. There are lots of people out of work! That doesn’t make the jobs good ones, it just shows how desperate the people are. The WSJ disgusts me sometimes.

Andy Stern on the WSJ: The Wal-Mart Posse

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Cards [Updated]

I ordered some Moo Flickr MiniCards yesterday. I can’t wait to get them. (in other news – I’d never really thought about how strange the name really is until I had to type it. Really, very strange! Moo?! Why not just MooCards or something? Are they planning on doing some ‘Moo Flickr MaxiCards’ or something?)

Below, see a selection of my cards, spread out and messy on my desk. I shared them with my friends during our lectures today and they all, unanimously, adored them. They’re small and cute and would make a perfect gift at the end of the year. I can’t wait. So many events and only 100 mini cards!

flickr mini cards

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