Friday miscellany…

…Holy crap edition!

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Holy crap! What a great cause!

Bullying hurts. Bullying wrecks lives and families. Stand up to it!

There are many anti-bullying groups out there. Ottawa’s own Stuntman Stu from Magic 100 has been the impetus behind the very visible No More Bullies campaign.  But I was looking for something that a) was geared more toward younger kids, and b) had merchandise.

Pink Shirt Day is the one that caught my eye – and the eyes of those of us at the Canterbury Community Association.

“David Shepherd, Travis Price and their teenage friends organized a high-school protest to wear pink in sympathy with a Grade 9 boy who was being bullied…[They] took a stand against bullying when they protested against the harassment of a new Grade 9 student by distributing pink T-shirts to all the boys in their school.

‘I learned that two people can come up with an idea, run with it, and it can do wonders,’ says Mr. Price, 17, who organized the pink protest. ‘Finally, someone stood up for a weaker kid.’

So Mr. Shepherd and some other headed off to a discount store and bought 50 pink tank tops. They sent out message to schoolmates that night, and the next morning they hauled the shirts to school in a plastic bag.

As they stood in the foyer handing out the shirts, the bullied boy walked in. His face spoke volumes. ‘It looked like a huge weight was lifted off his shoulders,’ Mr. Price recalled.

The bullies were never heard from again.”

Get involved. Don’t stay silent. Wear PINK on February 29th!

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Holy crap! The more I get involved in the Ottawa volunteer community, the more I am amazed by the level of dedication in this City.

Hug a volunteer today!

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Hey Greece! Holy crap! The land of Socrates, Plato and Telly Savalas (OK, he was born in New York) is in for a long and rough ride, I’m afraid.

Austerity package = social uprising

Labour reform

• The minimum wage will be cut by 22pc. However, this will not drag down the entire wage scale, applying only to new hires. New entrants into the labour market, i.e. those getting their first job, will receive a sub-minimum wage 30pc below the current minimum wage, which now stands at about €750. Those under 25 will be affected the most.

• About 15,000 state workers will be placed in a “labour reserve”, meaning they will be placed on partial pay and dismissed after a year.

• The government aims to cut the state sector workforce by about 150,000 people by 2015.

Wow. And it ain’t over in Europe by a long shot…

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Holy crap! Bye bye, Kodak. You didn’t move quickly enough to adapt to the 21st century reality.

(Reuters) – Eastman Kodak Co (EKDKQ.PK), the inventor of the digital camera, plans to get out of that business in the first half of the year as the bankrupt company looks to cut costs.

The decision to stop selling digital cameras along with pocket video cameras and digital picture frames marks the end of an era for Kodak, which also invented the handheld camera.

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Holy crap! What great weather for Ottawa’s Winterlude. I’m not at all a fan of the winter months, but the annual winter festival makes for a good distraction.

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Holy crap, KLM Air! What an “interesting” concept.

Mile-high matchmaking: KLM to let passengers choose their seat-mates through Facebook

It may sound like a recipe for disaster, or at least an open invitation for passengers to join the mile-high club.

But Dutch airline KLM is developing a tool which will allow passengers to choose who they sit next to on flights, by accessing each other’s Facebook and LinkedIn profiles.

The service, called ‘meet and seat’, will enable travellers checking in online to access the social networking sites and pick their ideal neighbour.

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Holy crap, OC Transpo! Why is it that every single Friday morning there is only a fraction of the number of buses arriving at Hurdman compared to any other weekday? Why?

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Finally, in the same transit vein…

Holy crap! This is so true!

Thanks to Torii for that one…

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