"There's no magical difference between the banks and the auto industry; they're both indispensable" (Premier McGuinty, in Banks get help, but will GM? 13 Nov 2008).
What an odd comment! Let GM concentrate on the maintenance of older cars during these harsh economic times. Maybe they could try and ensure that parts are available, and consumer advice on DIY vehicle improvement. That would be far more valuable a contribution, in my view, than the endless production of new vehicles for consumers who cannot, at this time, afford them, at least some of whom probably feel the necessity of keepng up with the Joneses.
Let's stop this kind of one upmanship, and give GM workers the space to find other ways of contributing to society from their wealth of knowledge, not the least of which will be the probably new discovery to many of them that such loss of identity, income, and security can happen to anyone.
Read the comments following the Toronto Star article if you want to see just how many ordinary citizens oppose the bailing out of GM. And feel free to read my essay, Beyond Workaday Worlds.
Banks get help, but will GM?
By Richard Brennan in Ottawa, Ann Perry in Toronto
Toronto Star
Nov 13, 2008
http://www.thestar.com/article/536036
Beyond Workaday Worlds: Aging, Identity, and the Life Cycle
By Sue McPherson
S A McPherson website
2005
http://samcpherson.homestead.com/files/EssaysandWriting/BeyondWorkadayWorldsSMcPherson.doc
Links updated Apr 24, 2012
13 November 2008
12 November 2008
Women's rights: breastfeeding on demand?
If this mother is allowing her almost-2-yr-old daughter to be fed on demand, apparently for no other reason than she was "cranky", what kind of message does this give to the toddler, and what will this do to her future development as a human being living in a social world with others, as she grows older.
The article doesn't say whether the two-year-old had inadvertently gone too long without sustenance of any kind, and whether the realization that she had had led the mother to taking such immediate action, or whether the offering of the breast was her usual method of calming a cranky child, as she indicated in this article. When people/children demand their rights, it is often at the risk of the rights of others being taken away from them. Thinking in the short term and the longterm, I question the value to society of this kind of on-demand practice.
Mother fights for right to nurse in pool
By Susan Pigg
Toronto Star online
Nov 12, 2008
http://www.thestar.com/article/535310
Link updated Apr 24, 2012
The article doesn't say whether the two-year-old had inadvertently gone too long without sustenance of any kind, and whether the realization that she had had led the mother to taking such immediate action, or whether the offering of the breast was her usual method of calming a cranky child, as she indicated in this article. When people/children demand their rights, it is often at the risk of the rights of others being taken away from them. Thinking in the short term and the longterm, I question the value to society of this kind of on-demand practice.
Mother fights for right to nurse in pool
By Susan Pigg
Toronto Star online
Nov 12, 2008
http://www.thestar.com/article/535310
Link updated Apr 24, 2012
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