0 comments on "Prisoners on Strike: Stop Modern Day Slavery!"

I read this article =>http://qz.com/777415/an-unprecedented-prison-strike-hopes-to-change-the-fate-of-the-900000-americans-trapped-in-an-exploitative-labor-system<= “US Prisoners are going on strike to protest a massive forced labor system”, and while the title could use a little work, I felt it needed to be shared.

I wouldn’t complain about the idea of prisoners giving something back, if I was sure that they were in prison for the crimes they committed or that they were serving fair sentences.

But with the recent upheavals in the prison system and the decades of corrupt officials taking advantage of those too poor to put up a decent legal defense, I’m not as skeptical about prisoners being kept as slaves as I might have been a few years ago. You know, back when I was young and naive and wanted to believe that human decency might actually be a real thing.

For years I’ve been of the belief that politicians were purposely writing laws to ensure the less-advantaged were branded as criminals as an easy means of subjugating citizens’ rights. You know, “You have a prison record, so now you can’t vote me out of office as I rape your community and lock your children up alongside you.”

But keeping prisoners behind bars as a means of cheap labor toiling for soulless corporations that line officials’ pockets? Yeah. I can see it.

Violent offenders need to be kept behind bars, especially those for which counseling and one-on-one therapies and medication do not work to curb their darker impulses. No one wants a child murdering rapist on the loose, and most people wouldn’t welcome a child murdering rapist to sit at their table and share a meal. That’s a common sense safety concern.

But if someone was arrested with an ounce of weed that they bought for personal use or to sell to support their poor family, does it really make sense to lock them in prison where it costs the community money to house them? Or would counseling and community service give more back? At the very least, their family doesn’t lose a valuable resource and their children aren’t left wondering why Mommy or Daddy went away.

Yet if the community is paying money to house “criminals”, and the prison is selling their labor for a profit… isn’t that just slavery with extra steps?

Because it’s easy to bitch about the forced labor camps of North Korea and China and all those OTHER not-as-good-as-our countries, but it might be worth it to give our own labor camps another look. Especially when it’s so easy for someone to have their rights taken away and no one is giving the paperwork a second glance.

Slavery is wrong.

Slavery is evil.

Slavery needs to be abolished.

And if that means paying someone more than $0.14 – 0.20 an hour and ensuring that they’re treated like human beings and not animals… That’s something we all need to be concerned about.

Because to happily buy food or wear clothes that proudly bear a “Made in the USA” tag, I need to know that I’m not profiting off the misery of other people. And to say that prisoners don’t deserve rights, that their sometimes minor or stupid crimes means that they deserve to be treated as less than human, that’s wrong.

It’s disgusting that companies are profiting off the misery of human beings. And whether the sweatshops or the fields are located in other countries or our own, it doesn’t matter.

Slavery is wrong.

Allies & Enemies at Amazon

I can feel that need growing in me again. That climbing, culminating need for change.

Usually I lop off 12-14 inches of hair and pretend that it’s enough. That I’m not practically crawling out of my skin.

I bought a new backpack. It’s coming on Tuesday.

I’m tempted to throw some clothes in the bag and go. To just start walking and see where the world takes me.

It’s not like anyone needs me.

And maybe it’s what I need. To live my life for once and actually experience something real instead of always doing what I’m told.

I’ve been taking care of other people’s kids since I was 15 years old.

I’ve never done anything that I wanted to do. Always just what was needed for someone else’s happiness.

Sometimes I think I’m dying. Folding sheets of paper with the edges torn away a bit at a time, creasing and crumbling with age.

I wonder if they will miss me when I’m gone. Or if they’ll cry for not receiving the dinners I make them.

Prairie Fires at Amazon
0 comments on "Thank you for another crappy update @Microsoft #knthx"

Last night, I was trying to go to bed and clicked for my computer to shut down. Instead, it popped up saying there were updates ready to be installed. Being me, I said okay to the updates, figuring it was going to take a few minutes and I could crawl into the warm comfort of my bed.

TWO HOURS LATER I was finally able to find my bed and I was glad.

Only this morning, when I turned on my computer, there was something new on the Lock Screen. A little pink circle with “Tap the circle and say ‘Microsoft stock quotes'” or something like that.

Turns out, the newest update has added Cortana to my lock screen. Which enables anyone with my computer to tap the circle and access things from the Internet, call up my calendar, and VIEW ALL MY PICTURES.

So yeah, go into Cortana and shut off some or even all of the privacy-killing settings if you have any plans to use your laptop/computer/device outside of your home.

Otherwise anyone can access your stuff, and they won’t even need to steal your passwords to do it.

Oh, and did you know that Cortana keeps a record of your browsing history? That it keeps a stealth copy of your stuff for ease of access? I shut that down too.

* * *

Seriously, what’s the deal with everyday programs beginning to act like freemium apps? If I wanted assholes to have access to all my stuff, I’d post everything on the Internet.

So Microsoft, if you’re out there, if you’re listening, please, please, PLEASE stop trying to invade my privacy in the most underhanded ways possible. If you’re going to be evil, just be evil. Stop trying to make it my fault that you’re stealing my stuff.

It’s getting to the point that I’m considering jumping operating systems. The only thing stopping me is that I want my programs to work on my laptop and I’m lazy. But if things continue on as they are…

I’ll have to break up with you Microsoft. Not because I really want to. But because you’re abusing the fuck out of my trust.

A City On Mars at Amazon
0 comments on "Walmart: Pick it up Today program is garbage"

I thought I would get over my anger, but you know what, days later, I’m still angry. Why? Because the Kid had to go to school with handfuls of nothing because Walmart’s Pick it up Today program is garbage.

School started Aug 31. Knowing that I didn’t want to have to push and shove my way through crowds of people all trying to get supplies for their kids, I had the bright idea of using money from Paypal and buying things online. Which led me to Walmart.com.

I’ve attempted to shop at Walmart.com before and it didn’t go well. (I had a cartful of stuff carefully curated over an hour of browsing, but when I clicked to checkout, everything in my cart disappeared.) I should have taken it as a sign that I wasn’t meant to shop at Walmart.com, especially considering how jank their site is. Seriously, their listings are nonsense, their pages take a ridiculous amount of time to load, and the UI is infuriating, like a step back in time to when the Internet sucked.

Anyways, I thought I’d give them another chance. More fool me.

I picked out a bunch of stuff with the expectation that I could get things delivered to my door. Instead, I was notified that only part of my order could be delivered, everything else would be gathered up waiting for me at Customer Service as part of the Pick it up Today program.

Considering I didn’t want to have to go to Walmart to pick up anything, I still put in the order and was told my Pick it up Today stuff would be ready by 10 am Aug 26. Plenty of time before school.

And I waited.

And I waited.

And I waited.

Meanwhile, packages are coming in the mail and we’re getting stuff, just not an email saying to come pick up the rest of the school supplies. Finally on the 30th I see on the website that my Pick it up Today stuff was still processing. So I called Walmart.

The local Walmart told me that there was nothing on their computer saying to put my order together. And without an order, they couldn’t do anything for me. Here’s the number to the guys running Walmart.com.

So I call Walmart.com, where I’m transferred to a supervisor and expect that my difficulties will be handled. Instead, I’m told that Walmart.com has nothing to do with my order once it’s placed, all Pick it up Today things are handled by the store. Oh, and by the way, “I can cancel the order for you and put in for a refund. That’s all I can do. It will take 5-10 days before processing.”

At that point, I was really angry. And even though I wanted to yell at the woman on the other end of the phone, I didn’t. Though I did say, “I feel so angry and disappointed right now. I feel like I might want to Tweet about your company’s horrible customer service, and post things on Tumblr” and whatever. I was mad.

But here I am. Days later, and I’m still angry and frustrated.

Why?

Because instead of soothing an angry customer and helping them get the things THEY PAID FOR, I was told by the Walmart.com rep that the only things I could do was cancel the order and request a refund, or call the local Walmart and talk to a manager.

And when I called the local Walmart and asked to speak to a manager? I was left on hold for 15 minutes with no hold music, after being on the phone for OVER AN HOUR begging someone to give me my stuff.

So I canceled the rest of the order myself and drove to Walmart to scavenge through the wreckage in search of school supplies. On the night before school starts.

And what do I find? They were out of graph paper, which was part of my order.

And I can’t help thinking that rather than tell me they couldn’t fulfill my entire order and giving me a partial refund, Walmart instead went “Pft, she won’t want the rest of this stuff without that graph paper. We won’t bother to tell her we’re screwing her over.”

But whatever excuse they have, they boned me.

Because of Walmart.com’s terrible customer service and lack of ability to do ANYTHING to fix the problem, the Kid had to go to school without some supplies. And once again, I’m the one that didn’t come through for him. Once again, I’m the disappointment that couldn’t get him the things he needed to have a good first day of school.

And that’s on me. Because I ignored my instincts and ordered from Walmart.com. Something I will never do again.