Workin' fer The Man every night an' day

Whooee! Well friends an' foes, ol' Balbulican over to StageLeft got a little bloggin' tag game goin' on. Here's how it goes:

It’s simple. Just list all the jobs you’ve had in your life, in order. Don’t bust your brain: no durations or details are necessary, and feel free to omit anything that you feel might tend to incriminate you. I’m just curious. And when you’re done, tag another five bloggers you’re curious about.

I posted up my list over to StageLeft but here goes again:

Odd jobs - painting, yard work, snow shovellin’ (startin’ at age 13)
Refundable pop bottle sorter (corner store)
Flier delivery kid
Stockboy
Shipping clerk
Furniture, flowers and corpse pickup/delivery helper (combined furniture store/funeral parlour)
Steel mill labourer
Good Humor man
Machine shop labourer
Flooring installer’s helper
Temp worker - day labourer
Janitor (I got fired the 1st day - only time I was ever canned.)
Carpenter/remodeller/jack-of-all-trades - fixin’ up slummy apartments
Pie factory worker
Carpet and flooring installer
Photographer
Contractor
Web developer/host
Volunteer
Bigtime blogger
Shit disturber (age 59)

I fergot a couple when I made that list. I also worked helpin' out on deliveries of stuff like washin' machines an' big screen TV's and upholstered furniture.

Balbu asked me how I coulda got my dumbass fired from a janitor job. Here's how it happened.

The year was 1970. I was a hippie university student. I got hired and started the next day. I showed up at the offices we were contracted to clean. The other guy had been there a week. His partner got fired and I was the replacement. He wasn’t exactly sure what the partner was supposed to do but he told me what he thought were to be my duties. Next day, the boss called me and said I hadn’t emptied the wastebaskets in a coupla offices and they were bitchin’ and I was fired.

The worst part was he made it seem like he figgered I wasn’t smart enough to do the job. He knew I was a 3rd year uni student and I reckon he didn’t have high school. Punk hippie students weren’t prime employment material back then. But… maybe I was jes’ plain stoopid.

Funny how you remember shit like that, ain’t it? One day, 38 years ago.

I learned a valuable life lesson from that situation: Blame someone else. If I ever run fer office, that'll be a dang useful skill.

Anyways, ol' Balbu's little game brought back some good memories. I'm taggin' Steve V., Red Tory, Bene Diction, JJ and Chrystal.

JimBobby

I'm Humbled and Confused

Whooee! Well friends an' foes, I was over to Stageleft last night an' I seen that I been honoured as one of the top ten lefty blogs as per Michael Taube. Thankee kindly, Michael.

I ain't been boogin' so much lately. I sometimes blush but I never turn down a compliment an' I'm humbled to be named among the leading lights of the Canajun boogeysphere.

I'm also confused. I could name lotsa boogers who ain't on that list but who're way better at boogin' than ol' JB. Right off, there's Stageleft and POGGE and Impolitical and Mentarch and Red Tory and Saskboy and Buckdog and Steve V.

Anyways, to all my new readers droppin' in from the National Post, welcome to my little boog. I got some audio sing-songy stuff posted up an' there's links up yonder in the upper right. If yer lookin' fer what Mikey Taube figgers is so dang funny, that's probbly yer best bet.

In case I don't get around to any more boogin' on accounta gettin' goin' on the Christmas shoppin' or shovellin' the dang mountains of snow out there,

Merry Christmas to all!

JimBobby

It's Still Canada... or maybe North Zimbabwestan

Whooee! Well friends an' foes, I'm addin' my voice to the other Canajun boogers who are outraged an' disgusted at what happened up in Ottawa. I ain't talkin' coalition or perogies. I'm talkin' about police misconduct. I'm talkin' about an Ottawa police officer who says you need to be either a lawyer or a property owner to voice an opinion in public.

Knitnut got the photos.

POGGE's on it.
Stageleft chimed in.
Bene Diction, too.
And Dawg.
Miss Vicky
and Excited Delerium, as well.

The more this gets out into the boogeysphere, the more pressure gets put on the Ottawa Police to do the right thing. If they can figger out what that is.

JimBobby

Food Crisis Continues Killing Millions While Economic Crisis Takes Centre Stage

Whooee! Well friends an' foes, I ain't wrote much lately about the global food crisis that's killin' millions of human beings. Every 5 seconds, or so, some poor bastard starves to death here on good ol' Planet Earth. $700 billion would feed the hungry and put in place sustainable programs that would reduce suffering for generations to come.

When Wall Street is down on its luck and its own mismangement and greed has forced it to beg from the public purse, the powers that hold the pursestrings are ready with a bailout.

When Detroit automakers make dumbass decision after dumbass decision and drive their dumbass businesses into bankruptcy, the public purse is there to make sure they don't hafta give up their corporate jets or bigass wage and benefits packages.

But when a heartless global banking system, natural disasters exacerbated by climate change, stoopidass ethanol policy and greedy fuel and commodities brokers gang up to force nearly a billion people into malnourishment and starvartion, the cupboard's bare. Well, there ain't any $700 billion bailouts available to alleviate the massive real life'n'death suffering that goes beyond job losses and bath-taking on the stockmarket.

Here's a little bit of a good article on the food crisis:

Commentary: FedEx to the bottom billion
By ARNAUD DE BORCHGRAVE (UPI Editor at Large)

(UPI) -- Almost 1 billion people have been hit by this year's global food shortages, says the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. The number of undernourished, the FAO said, rose by 40 million, following a 75 million jump the previous year.

Before the global food crisis there were 850 million chronically hungry people in 2003-05. A decade ago, the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals called for halving world hunger between 1995 and 2015. Soaring food prices and the global financial crisis have pushed that goal off the charts as no longer achievable. This would have required investing $30 billion a year to boost agricultural output.

But it isn't happening. In sub-Saharan Africa one in three is suffering from malnutrition.

There's some interesting stuff in there about the UN's World Food Program. I didn't know that UN operatives are dying and MIA in the struggle to feed the hungry in places like Darfur.

The woman in charge of feeding the world's hungry calls the World Food Program a "FedEx to the 'bottom billion.'" Josette Sheeran's WFP can reach any point of the globe within 24 hours with lifesaving food. Its 10,000 employees are known as "the humanitarian Green Berets." The WFP has been feeding 3 million people a day in Darfur, where 41 of its drivers are missing in action. Twelve of its "Green Berets" were killed in action so far this year. And volunteers for hazardous duty keep stepping forward from all over the world. The WFP's global network moves food by plane, helicopter, train, boat, barge, donkey, camel, mule, airdrops -- whatever it takes.

With everybody shriekin' an' moanin' over the bad economy and how much the TSE is down and how their house ain't worth what it was last year, I reckon a little perspective might help.

JimBobby