My E-Portfolio

About two weeks ago I put together an electronic portfolio for a job I was applying for. I never did get a call-back, but it's still up there. So take a look at if you want, and then let me know (back here at the Disclaimer) if there is something I should do to make it a lot better. Also, if you know someone who's looking for a guy, send 'em to my page. You know I would do the same for you.

http://rkinrade-eportfolio.blogspot.com/

Semantic Assult

Recently I had a war of words with my good friend Sky over the difference between a company and an association. This was fueled by a post on the ALFA blog Sky added which referenced a vote for America's most hated company. The winner of this informal poll was the Recording Industry Association of America. I argued that the RIAA could not be seen as a company whereas Sky posited that there is little difference between what I define as a company, and the work of the RIAA. Read the entire post here, and let me know what you think.

The Spam Heard Around the World

A while back I posted a bit of junk email regarding the UK Lotteries International Prize, an obvious scam which I thought was at least novel and a bit amusing. Turns out this has become the most popular search leading into my blog since I posted it.

As my long-time readers know I tend to keep tabs on who's visiting by regularly checking on my site-meter (or spy-meter as I like to call it). Well turns out a whole lot of other curious souls out there got this email and were interested on finding out more. I've gotten hits from 4 separate Nordic nations (Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland) several of the United States, France and "Serbia and Montenegro" (sic). Most of the searches involved the phone number, some of them the name of the contest. I too Googled a bunch of the information from this particular e-mail, not because I thought it was legit (okay, maybe I hoped it was just for a few seconds) but mostly to see if anyone had reported it as a scam. What a bizarre world we live in where someone can send you a piece of junk mail and you can post it, only to have people from all over the world visit you to see what you've written about it.

Also from the spy-meter files, another topic of interest lately has been a picture of a donkey that I used as an illustration for a piece I wrote in January of 2006. For some reason this picture came up in four separate searches from Spain, South Africa and the U.K. within a couple of days of each other—having never been, as far as I know, queried before. How weird is that?

Finally someone from Toronto today searched "Steve Demmings Idiot" and came across a letter I wrote condemning Mr. Demmings editorial in the Free Press last year that bemoaned Manitoba's missing the boat with respect to becoming a world-class call-shop haven. He or she wrote a lengthy comment on Mr. Demmings who has since become a consultant for the city of Thunder Bay. Since I doubt anyone will ever happen across that letter by accident I will publish the comment below. (Here's the link if you want to refresh your memory about what I wrote.)

After 'poisoning the well' in Manitoba in his Winnipeg Free Press puff-piece entitled: Manitoba's lack of motion Province missing boat attracting high-tech jobs, in which he was highly critical of the Manitoba government, Steve Demmings has been hired as Founding CEO by the Thunder Bay Community Economic Development Commission (CEDC). His solution to the ailing Thunder Bay Economy: Low-Paying Call Centre Jobs.

In a recent edition of ExportWise published by Export Development Canada, Steve Demmings was quoted as advocating low-paying call centre jobs in replacement of high-paying resource-based jobs such as those until recently plentifully available in Thunder Bay’s forestry and pulp and paper sectors.

The article entitled ‘Call Centres: Ringing in Profits’ reads as follows:

According to Site Selection Canada [Demmings’ personal consulting firm], in the last three years 166 call centres were established in Canada, creating about 50,000 jobs. Of these, 60 per cent were smaller call centres located in tier two and tier three cities, with up to 300 employees. This would indicate an emerging opportunity in the smaller centres such as Thunder Bay, Sault Saint Marie, Bathurst and Sydney.

"We have a strong infrastructure and a growing reputation for delivering quality service at an affordable price. The next step is to focus on education and training, especially in those resource-based communities where industries are dying. This is a great opportunity to build our skill level and give people meaningful jobs at decent salaries of $40,000 to $60,000 a year," says Demmings.

I don’t know what I find more reprehensible, the fact that Mr. Demmings clearly doesn’t understand the fact that call centres only pay their employee operators between $8.00/hr and $11.00/hr (i.e. $16,640 and $22,880 per year respectively based on a 40-hour work week), or the fact that notwithstanding Mr. Demmings’ palpable lack of understanding of the economic development needs of the City of Thunder Bay, that the CEDC has nonetheless hired Mr. Demmings to lead Thunder Bay out of economic decline. From 'Call Centre Salesman' to 'Chief Economic Development Officer', this bubble-blower's product is still the same old snake oil.

SOURCE: http://www.edc.ca/english/publications_10819.htm

Seems that someone out there has a bit of a bone to pick with Mr. Demmings. All I can say is that I'm glad he's someone else's problem now. Good riddance!

Stolen Cars

Here's another article I wrote for submission to the Free Press. I don't know if they will publish it, there were already two good opinions on this topic in Sunday's paper, so maybe it will just be for the exclusive pleasure of the readers of The Disclaimer.

Two separate and spectacular incidents of “joyriding” last week have me thinking a lot about the nature of these crimes and wondering what it all means.

In the first incident, involving two Cadillac Escalades, I was tempted to see a twisted form of divine justice—poor kids getting even by smashing up two luxury vehicles. I hate big ostentatious automobiles with a passion, the motivation to own such wasteful spectacles, to me, is a clear indication of a society whose values are seriously wrong-headed, The very idea of celebrating and displaying one’s status by owning an SUV worth in excess of $75,000 is utterly abhorrent to me.

So though this spree caused a host of incidental damage I was captured by the idea that these were the actions of some hopeless bunch of kids who had no access to a strong role model at home, who didn’t see the point in playing by the rules of a society that seemed dead set against them, and who ended up taking their frustrations out on a pair of well-to-do Winnipegers with repulsive taste in transportation.

Of course I had no way of knowing who these kids were, or what their circumstances might be. My reflections on the injustice of life in a city where chronic poverty is routinely ignored by latte slurping, SUV driving yuppies are not based on hard facts, they are merely unfiltered judgments I am guilty of indulging in. For all I know these could have been bored sub-urban kids encouraged by too many violent video games.

Yet I clung to the idea, in spite of the nearly universal cry for stronger youth laws and harsher punishments, that somehow we were reaping what we had sown. As if fêting one’s wealth and advantage in the form of a modern day gilded chariot was a form of hubris the gods had finally decided to punish.

Then I read about an incident involving a stolen Sunbird trying to run down a group of early morning joggers. The perpetrators of this incident were not merely reckless, they were downright pathological. Again the facts in this case are few, but one must imagine these guys were high on something, how else to explain such irrational and inhuman actions?

I was forced to reconsider my natural “soft-on-crime” instincts. This act had finally angered me and let me see the red that most of Winnipeg was already seeing. What on earth would cause someone to steal a vehicle and attempt to play chicken with a group of innocent strangers? How could the moral fibre of any human person be so thinly weaved?

The compassionate instincts of the current justice system are well and good, but because they are not re-enforced by a caring and nurturing society they end up being completely misplaced and useless. Those who cry for vengeance in the face of crimes like these—and I admit that in the second case vengeance starts to seem like an appropriate response—are often unwilling or unable to recognize their own culpability; but it is equally true that those who commit these offences do so seemingly without fear of consequence, and must be held in check somehow, lest we all learn to live in fear.

Our laws seem to view our society as being more mature than it is, which is noble, but unfortunately not a remedy for the realities we live with. We are a highly individualistic and often indifferent people who quite naturally breed defiance among the mostly forgotten multitude of dispossessed youth who have no appropriate role models, and no way of understanding or expressing their circumstances.

The lawlessness that results from our ailing social order is not a product of soft sentences, but it is clearly not helped by them. So reluctantly, I am starting to realize that punishment and long term incarceration are the only possible options. After all, rehabilitation and redemption can only be accomplished in societies that believe that humanism and social justice are more worthwhile goals than glorifying the right to drive golden carriages.

Another Internet Scam

Okay, this isn't a very original post, but I find these scam e'mails really amusing, and I'm kind of glad to finally be getting some. They are far more clever than your basic Viagra spam, and yet fake in such an obvious way so as to be funny. I don't remember entering a lottery for an international prize in the UK, so unless some kind citizen bought a ticket for me and knew my e'mail well then... it can only be bullshit. Having said all that, anyone who reads the e'mail and wants to collect my prize is more than welcome. I might reply just for fun again.

FROM: THE DESK OF THE PROMOTIONS MANAGER,
INTERNATIONAL PROMOTION/PRIZE AWARD DEPARTMENT,

REF: UKNL/26510460037/07.
BATCH: 24/00319/IPD.

ATTENTION: Sir/Madam
RE/AWARD NOTIFICATION: FINAL NOTICE
We are pleased to inform you of the announcement
Today, 7th March 2007, of winners of the UK NATIONAL
LOTTERY, THE UNITED KINGDOM INTERNATIONAL PROGRAMS
held on 1st March 2007 in Croydon,London.
You email address was attached to ticket number
023-0148-790-459, with serial number 5063-11 drew
The lucky numbers 43-11-44-37-10-43, and consequently
Won you the lottery in the 2nd category.
You have therefore been approved for a lump sum pay
Of 500,000.00 British Pounds(GBP) in cash credited to file REF
NO. UKNL/26510460037/07. This is from total prize money
Of 2,000,000.00 British Pounds(GBP) shared among the four
International winners in this category.
To file for your claim, please contact our fiduciary
Agent;

NAME: DAVID WOOD.
#247 Edgware Road,
London W2 1EY
United Kingdom.
TELEPHONE: +447031923807
+447031972486
FAX: 0044 871 715 1331
Email: davidwood79@yahoo.com.hk

Congratulations again from all our staff and thank
You for being part of our promotional lottery program.
Sincerely,
Dr Leon Ethan
Zonal Co-ordinator