Poor Quality Ethnic Stereotyping

From CBC News a story about an Orthodox Jewish man who was thrown off an Air Canada flight for praying. It's a terrible story, but the worst part is here:

"The attendant actually recognized out loud that he wasn't a Muslim and that she was sorry for the situation but they had to ask him to leave," Faguy said.

Because obviously throwing a Muslim man off a plane for praying is perfectly alright.

Uuughh!

You know, usually I try not to be too judgmental, but this is just wrong.

In other news, on the iPod Shuffle this morning

• What Kind of Fool - All About Eve
• Another No-One - Suede
• Child Psychology - Black Box Recorder
• All Friends and Kingdom Come - Monster Magnet
• Pale Shelter - Tears for Fears
• Naked Eye - Simple Minds
• Polyethelene Pts. 1 & 2 - Radiohead
• Breaking Away - Chris Isaak

Second Day of School!

Tunes on the iPod Shuffle this morning:

• State Trooper - Bruce Springsteen
• Karmadrome - Pop Will Eat Itself
• Master and Servant - Depeche Mode
• Ordinary World - Duran Duran
• I've Been Losing You - A-ha
• Alice in Vain - Sleeper
• Dracula Moon - Joan Osborne
• Airbag - Radiohead

Second day. Third and fourth classes. Business Strategy looks interesting. It looks like it's primarily case based and I liked that about Marketing last year. Consumer Behavior is a lot of fun and is going to be extremely topical and applied. We don't have readings yet, we're going to be assigned them on a weekly basis as they appear in the news. Also, half our grade will be based on a project that involves doing consulting work for a local business. There are 8 groups and 4 companies, so 2 groups per company. If you're judged to have "beaten" your opposing group with your final presentation there is apparently a prize. Fun.

First Day of School!

Tunes on the iPod Shuffle this morning:

• Blue Eyes - Elton John
• Touch Me I’m Sick - Mudhoney
• Temple of Love (1992) - The Sisters of Mercy
• For Tomorrow - Blur
• Reverence - Jesus and Mary Chain
• Pale Movie - St. Etienne
• These Words are Haunting - My Life Story
• The Sound of Silence - Simon and Garfunkel
• The Electric Co. - U2

First actual day of the semester today so the first day of our new schedule. Lindsey gets up and makes tea and coffee, then she gets me up. I get the kids ready for the day, breakfast, etc., and give her a couple of hours to write, then I'm off to class at 10:30.

The first class at 11 is Experimental Design which takes place in a room slightly larger than a closet with 36 people in it. The course looks like it'll be like Finance where I was a little out of my depth and kept praying that the class would end while I still understood everything that is being talked about. Fortunately there is only two exams and no coursework so at least the workload doesn't look terrible.

Then at 2:25 we have Negotiations for three hours. It seems like a fun class, lots of games. I must remember not to talk about them in detail on here as there is another class on Thursdays and I can't give them away. Let's just say my key finding from today's game was not to trust the Entrepreneurship program students. It seemed like only groups with them in them cheated, and the more entrepreneurs in a group the more they cheated.

The class finished early and I went to a re-orientation for second year students. The best pieces of information we got there was that the proportion of students with internships over summer was the highest ever, and the Class of 2006 saw salaries increase 11% over the Class of 2005.

Nice.

The Final Countdown?

I have to say that an ASBO is not really enough here. We should be talking Euthanasia for her own good as well as that of society.

A COUNCIL that took a woman to court for belting out power ballads today said it had successfully applied for an anti-social behaviour order against her.

Janice Lee, from Cardiff, also had her four CD players and speakers confiscated to ensure her neighbours could get a good night’s sleep.

Cardiff Council resorted to court action after neighbours in the Gabalfa area continually complained about the 37-year-old mother-of-four blasting out 80s hits, such as Europe’s The Final Countdown, and singing along until the early hours.

The 18-month ASBO ordered Lee not to make any unreasonable noise or play loud music, or to allow others to do so.

It was imposed after she ignored two noise abatement notices issued by the council.

A spokeswoman from Cardiff Council said: “Noise affects the quality of life of everyone. It can make life miserable for all concerned.”