stressed depressed lemon zest

Dear Prime Minister Trudeau,

Earlier this week, Jason Kenney tweeted out an article with the caption, “A must-read open letter for Canadians from oil and gas workers.” As an oil and gas worker myself, I opened it to find that it was actually a letter signed by 14 CEOs and Presidents demanding a multibillion dollar bailout from the federal government. It came just days after Kenney laid off 26,000 education workers in the province only to announce a $7.5 billion dollar handout to the Keystone XL pipeline.

While working families are being asked to sacrifice their public services and dig into their savings to make ends meet, some of the oil and gas industry’s wealthiest CEOs — many of whom make more money in one year than any worker can make in a lifetime — are demanding that the federal government give them a multibillion dollar bailout by purchasing their accounts receivable. As an actual oil and gas worker, I can think of no worse investment than to hand over billions of dollars to an industry with a very bleak future.

For the past 11 years, I’ve been a machinist in Edmonton, working in the oil and gas sector. I began my apprenticeship immediately after high school graduation in 2008, during the thick of the global financial crisis. There was a lot of uncertainty then about what kind of future my classmates and I were entering into. As bailout packages began to roll out across the country and around the world, I remember feeling no sense of relief as I watched governments hand billions to the banks responsible for the crash, while leaving hard working families to clean up their mess. From Bay Street to the Canadian auto industry, the 2008 bailouts left Canadians footing the bill for CEO bonuses and stock buybacks, while working people struggled to rebuild their retirement funds and recover from a gutted job market. And despite the billions doled out, manufacturing plants across Ontario are still shutting down ten years later.

And now Prime Minister, as open letters and phone calls stream in from oil and gas CEOs and their political allies begging for a bailout, I can’t help but be afraid that you’re gearing up to repeat this same mistake. Right now, at a time when the world needs to move away from fossil fuels, you have the opportunity to invest in the clean energy future that workers and communities need most.

Continue Reading.

Some cultures lack names For a color, you see. Hence good old Homer And his “wine-dark sea.”

A usage so quaint, A phrasing so old, For verses of romance Is sheer fucking gold.

Words are in flux And meanings they drift But the word purple You’ve given short shrift.

The concept of purple, My friends, is old And refers to a pigment once precious as gold.

By crushing up molluscs From the wine-dark sea You make a dye: Imperial decree

Meant that in Rome, to wear purpura was a privilege reserved

For only the emperor!

The word ‘purple’, for clothes so fancy, Entered English By the ninth century

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Why then are voilets Not purple in song? The dye from this mollusc, known for so long

Is almost magenta; More red than blue. The concept of purple is old, and yet new.

The dye is red, So this might be true: Roses are purple And violets are blue

My boner for you has caused me to hirple.”

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