Two stories in today’s Globe and Mail highlight two very different – but similar problems.
The first, on the front page, is titled, “Ottawa targets public service pension plan for cutback.” It says the federal government is examining ways to cut back on the generous pension and early pension plan offered federal civil servant. With 30 years of service, a civil servant can retire at 55 on full pension.
The other story, on the back page of the Life section, tells the horrible tale of a couple who are out of luck, out of work and facing the prospect of selling their house to make ends meet. Titles, “Unemployed, 59, and trying to stay afloat, the piece by Linda Gallant of Caledon tells how her husband lost his job in 2002 and since then he has been unable to find permanent employment.
Their problem? They are both in their late 50s. He’s 59, she’s a former teacher and 58. And no one wants to touch them. This is just the tip of the iceberg. There are hundreds of thousands of people out there just like them. You work in the private sector and you have no early retirement. You are lucky if you’ve managed to save some RRSPs. And you sure as hell can’t afford to retire at 55. For those of us in the private sector, losing your job at 55 means you’re unemployed. In the public sector, it’s the gateway to an early, cushy retirement.
It’s disgusting how people turn their backs on older people. These are the people with experience with people. They have seen it all, done it all. Sure, they may be making more money. So what’s wrong with making a decent buck. Older people are also the ones who are more likely to support charities. They are more likely to put their money back in the community.
Just remember. You’ll be 50 one day too.
Of all the restriction placed on travellers in the wake of the attempted bombing of a Delta plane in Detroit, the one that restricts carry-on bags has my vote.
It’s not a question of security. It’s a simple matter of good manners. Those people who insist on lugging massive, steamer trunk sized pieces of luggage on board are just plain selfish.
Sure, we all want to get off the plane and get our bags. But what makes them so special that they have to take up all the overhead bin space and most of their neighbour’s foot space just so they don’t get inconvenienced?
They remind me of the people who never bother to find a parking spot at the mall and instead park right outside the doors, so everyone else has to drive around them.
Yes, there are some things that have to be carried on board. But check the rest and join the human race.
Even after this terror scare is over, I hope the airlines cut down on the onboard luggage.
Just saw An Education.
Great movie. It was my grammar school to a tee. For anyone – especially any woman – who went to an all-girls British grammar school in the sixties, this movie will bring it back to you.
The acting is brilliant. There are some wonderful scenes that I seem to remember from my childhood. In one wonderful scne, a teenage girl wonders why she is boring herself learning Latin so that she can go to Oxford, learn Latin and then return to teach it and bore a whole new generation of girls.
I actually remember a friend of mine delivering the same speech about algebra.
A nice change from the Hollywood pap.
Go see State Of Play. It’s a good, edge-of-seat newspaper thriller. Go see it before the whole notion of investigative newspaper reporters becomes mere nostalgia.
They actually do make good points about the state of newspapers. If you think all those great newspaper reporters are going to be replaced by a bunch of bloggers working from their basement, well, you deserve a world without newspapers.
You won’t miss trained, informed, hard-working reporters until they’re gone. And what will be left with? Opinion by people who don’t do research. We have no clue to their accuracy.
It’s a good movie. Anyone in the news business will identify with and recognize the newsroom characters. Russell Crowe is a convincing rumpled, crumpled, hard-drinking news guy.
One mistake, though. The young reporter says readers should read the story with “newsprint” on their hands. I think she (or the scriptwriter) means printer’s ink. Newsprint is the paper.
Still worth the price of admission.
What can it be about the stunning performance of Scottish singer Susan Boyle at last week’s Britain’s Got Talent audition that has the whole world listening?
Is it just that she represents the classic underdog most of us privately identify with? Or did she just speak to everyone’s sense of lost dreams?
What a song for her to sing. I Dreamed a Dream from Les Mis. Youthful dreams that die too soon.
Susan’s naivete, her lack of social graces and her innocence appeal to all of us. She is not media savvy. She doesn’t really care what people think. She simply knows that she has an incredible voice. Did you notice how her face changed when she sings? And she lost the Scottish accent.
Why is it that 11 million – and counting – people around the world have watched that magnificent YouTube video?
You have to view it in context, I think. You have to see the crowd snickering at first. The cruel too cool to be true crew were clearly, expecting her to crash and burn. How could a voice of such beauty come from someone so plain?
Have we become a society that is so superficial, so judgmental that we view everything through the prism of one’s outward appearance? Apparently so.
Her stunning performance makes us all want to stand and cheer. Suddenly, we are all dreaming dreams. Here dream was to sing before a large audience. And she did. And she touched millions of hearts around the world. Because of that, suddenly all of us have dreams as well.
And isn’t that what music is all about?
Easter is promise. Whether it is a religious promise of life everlasting through the Risen Christ. Or whether it is the promise spring. Of new life.
At Easter, we cast off the cold restrictions of winter. We no longer struggle with heavy coats and boots. We look forward to warmer times. Soft green shoots are starting to come up in the garden – and we can all hope for bright blooms come summer.
Everyone, it seems, is on a sugar high. I made hot cross buns on Friday. That warm yeasty smell of cinnamon and cloves reminded me of how we used to buy hot cross buns when I was growing up in England.
The bakers would open on Good Friday – and sell only hot cross buns. They’d be so warm, you could cut them in half and spread butter on them. It would melt into the bun. You don’t to that any more. You can buy those pretend buns any day of the year, it seems.
Ah, yes. But tradition is so tasty.
Can there be any more glorious day than the one on which you ditch your snow tires?
Here we are, gloriously warm and finally you can tell the mechanic to take ’em off. The tires, that is. What do you think I am?
Finally, after all those cold months of noisy, choppy driving you can feel the road under your wheels again. Suddenly your gas consumption drops. And your heart soars, because if the snow tires are gone, can summer be far behind?
What is it with Scarborough Town Centre that it is such a bad corporate citizen?
The appear to be deliberately cutting off YMCA members from parking. They fill up the adjacent lot with construction workers’ cars during the day. When there is no construction, they fill the lot with snow in the winter. Then they chain off the vast, empty parking lot so you can’t park there either.
Do they think people who use the Y don’t also shop at the Town Centre? Oh, sure, they’re within their rights. But what mean, nasty people they seem. The Y is full of happy families playing games, having fun, getting exercise. It seems the big meanies from the management company that runs the town centre just don’t want us there.
I shall boycott the shops at the town centre until they become better corporate citizens.
Nothing like a crew party in February to get everyone thinking of summer.
I suspect cavemen partied around an open fire in mid-February. That’s why we crave it now. Light in a dark winter. Light at the end of the winter. Summer is coming. Please.
I must be a genius.
I have lived all my working life within my means. At the end of each week, each month, each year, I have balanced my books. Most years, I had enough left over to save for my pension.
I do so wish these smart-assed bankers and whiz kid CEOs who are all making mega millions could do the same. They must be either stupid or crooked not to be able to do so.
So tell me how it is that I, with my meagre savings – now much depleted because of the afore mentioned whiz kids’ stupidity – now have to bail out auto companies and banks.
Why am I doing so? I must be a must better money manager than they are, yet they were getting the executive bonuses. And if anyone dare suggest we shouldn’t bail these idiots out, we get sneered at.
We don’t understand economics, say the likes of Michael Ignatieff and Bob Rae. Oh, I understand them all right. And I understand that if the politicians and corporate leaders we have put so much faith and trust in for the past 20 years understood them the way I do, we wouldn’t be in this mess.
Christina Blizzard 