CBC union knows more about media than CBC management

My vote for the most dumbass management crew of the year goes to the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation). Their union clearly knows more about today's media than they do, as this illustrates:

- cbcunplugged.com

I'm not a supporter of unions or management. In some cases, I'm with management, in others with the unions. My opinion here has nothing to do with the rights or wrongs of the labour situation.

I'm simply struck by the fact the union is using blogs and podcasts while management is "staying on the air" with BBC rebroadcasts and a lameass Web site that is mostly CP (Canadian Press)or cribbed CP stories.

The frightening thing? At the risk of sounding like a certain type of person, my tax dollars are paying the salaries of the incompetent clowns running the CBC.

I'm all for the CBC as a public broadcaster. I'm also all for firing the idiots running it.

Update: My one objection to cbcunplugged.com? They require a username and password to enter a comment. That's a mistake. They would get a lot more involvement (albiet a certain amount of spam) if they didn't. Personally, I don't register with anything until I've used and gotten use to it over a long period of time. Say, maybe six months from now?

Anyway ... I would have left a comment but they wanted me to register first. Sorry guys. Nope.

Tag: Canada, CBC

A 'Duh' study - alcohol dependence

I don't mean to be trite, but I suppose that's what I being. Still, this item had me groaning and going, "Duh!" The item? Drinking and the black dog.

Was a study really necessary to discover that, "Even when other factors were taken into account, a depressive episode was an independent risk factor for alcohol dependence."

Alcohol and depression ... duh! It's sort of like saying erections and sex often coincide.

Tags: Depression, Alcohol

New governor general? Let the profiling begin!

Canada will have a new governor general as of Sept. 27, 2005. She'll be Michaëlle Jean, a Quebec journalist of whom I know nothing. There are several ways of demonstrating you know nothing, as this Quebec broadcaster demonstrates (in the manner of an anachronistic ass).

The appointment of a new GG has allowed Canadians to indulge in one of our favourite pastimes - profiling. Of course, being Canadians only some of us do it in a nasty way (like the broadcaster mentioned above). Usually we do it in a way we think is okay: "Isn't it wonderful she's a woman! A person of colour! From Quebec!"

Well, that's profiling too.

Now, if you're not a Canadian, or from one of the other Commonwealth countries, there is a good chance you've no idea what a governor general is or does. Don't worry. We don't either.

This causes some Canadians to get their shorts in knot. "Why are our hard-earned tax dollars going to support this freeloader?"

I'm not one of those. Especially in this case, with Michaëlle Jean. Given that most positions of this sort in Canada are peopled by persons with absolutely no personality, Ms. Jean strikes me as someone who may bring a certain amount of pep to Canadian public life. I think we could use some pep.

When was the last time you heard someone say, "You know what I like about Canadians? They're so damn peppy!"

You just don't hear that.

Of course, not knowing anything about Ms. Jean, I could be wrong. She may be as drab as our Prime Minister. Or, worse, Mr. Harper, leader of the opposition Tories.

I hope not. For the record, and with the caveat that I know very little about her, I'd like to say I think she is a good person for the position. I base that on the little I've been able to gather about the kind of personality she has and her background.

I really don't give a rat's behind about her gender, her race or what part of the country she is from. I know, I know ... very un-Canadian of me to actually think of a person in a non-hyphenated way. (What do I mean? Take a look at this rubbish, both positive and negative.)

Canadians are masters of profiling - racial, sexual and every other kind. It's our most annoying and disgraceful quality.

Tag: Governor General, Michaelle Jean, Canada

Sorry, there are no bottoms here

One of the interesting things about having a blog is that you can get some data about your traffic, especially if you use something like Site Meter. Not that you get a lot of information, but you get a sense for what parts of the world visitors are coming from, when they visit, what browsers they're using and so on.

Most interesting to me, though, is you sometimes get a sense for how people find your blog through searches. For example, when I named this blog it didn't occur to me (though it should have) that what I meant by Crazy Ass Planet wasn't necessarily what people would have in mind when they went searching on the Web.

As it turns out, there are a lot of people looking for ass out there.

So ... apologies to anyone who arrives here hoping to find pretty bums. This ain't the place. (Besides ... what would a 'crazy ass' look like and why would anyone want to see it?)

Crazy Ass Planet simply means the world's kind of a stupid place. Though it's also an amusing one.

But good luck in your quest for fine behinds.

Tag: Ass, Site Meter