Items
topic_interest is exactly
greed
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2021-09-08
HIST30060: GREED SUCKS
I found this chalk slogan on the road hilariously neo-liberal. Absolutely, greed sucks - the way COVID-19 exacerbated wealth inequalities and ravaged communities disproportionately (due to lack of resources/access and over-policing) sucks. Yet, this chalked slogan was a simplification (or even armchair activist representation) of that reality and this made me chuckle. -
2020-07-10
Queen Charlotte Lodge Endangering Indigenous Peoples of Haida Gwaii
The Haida are at risk for Covid-19 exposure by Queen Charlotte Lodge and West Coast Fishing Club, both of which reopened without Haida consent. -
2020-10-01
The COVID Pandemic and economic greed
I wanted to share a bit about my life during COVID. My brother is currently incarcerated, and I would travel at least once a month to visit him. Once COVID hit, visitations were canceled, and my family was forced to rely on phone calls or snail mail. My brother would call us about once a week for his own sanity and ours as well. Several things have happened these past few months, which made our situation as a family more complicated. A phone call to my brother used to cost him (or us) 40 cents a minute. When COVID hit the private company used by the prison to facilitate calls, decided to take advantage of our reliance on phone calls and upcharge their prices. Phone calls now cost over a dollar a minute. Thankfully my family does ok and phone calls are not something we are willing to let go of, but I feel for families who have to choose between food, bills or funding their calling account. I know it sounds like an extreme situation, but there are families that have lost all contact with their loved ones who are incarcerated because of COVID, and these companies are taking advantage of the pandemic. Were now paying almost twenty dollars for every ten minute conversation, trust me it adds up real quick. The worst part is that these companies have contracts with the prisons, and we (the families on the outside) have no choice or say as far as what company we are able to go through to talk to those incarcerated. As if COVID and social distancing weren't enough, I'm now missing and worrying about my brother more than usual. -
2020-04-20
The Big Boys
In the restaurant world, there are the big boys and the ma-and-pa restaurants. Shake Shack is one of the big boys, founded by Danny Meyer, so why did it receive 10 million dollars of the Small Business Relief Money? Glitches, confusion, and fine print. National Restaurant Association lobbyists fought for a provision that would allow funding to go to chain restaurants with fewer than 500 employees per location. The relief money now exhausted many independent and small restaurant owners were left out while chains got millions.