what i got out of today’s team meeting:

1) my manager is not liking his manager’s new manager that much

2) no one is smarter than my manager

3) google apps (read google docs) sucks

4) microsoft is better

5) as per my manager, his manager’s new manager hates microsoft

6) my manager is open minded and will use anything. technology is technology (see #4)

7) now that steve jobs is gone apple will start to tank and that microsoft is way more innovative than apple will ever be. (never mind that appl is trading at $425^ today and msft is $28?)

8 ) despite being older than all of us guys, my manager is way more open minded than we are. see #6.

9) no one brings a level logic to things like my manager and his manager do

10) not explicitly said, but implied numerous times, the whole world is against my manager and his manager

11) as per my manager, his manager doesn’t stick up for his own guys. (funny as i can related to this)

12) no one is better than my manager

13) ie is the best browser ever and why would anyone need anything else

14) if linux had 99% market share like m$ does, then my manager would be a linux admin because that’s how much he likes technology. see #6.

15) now that his manager’s new manager is the spreadsheet master for google docs, my manager doesn’t like being subjugated to someone else’s whims on a spreadsheet. a tad ironic, yes.

16) my manager has no problem be little-ing everyone and anyone. see #2

17) because it bears repeating, no one is smarter than my manager

18) i think “the outside world” has replaced “the real world” in my manager’s vernacular, although there is a pause before it like he has to think about it first

19) not explicitly said, but implied numerous times, the admins are stupid

20) rather than do their jobs, my manager and his manager are out to prove to his manager’s new manager that sharepoint is better than google docs, as if it’s apples to apples. or microsofts to microsofts, or well, whatever

i think those were the main points of the meeting today.

Thing is, to pay for the diapers – “Fitti” brand, I am not kidding – we needed to use a card, and to use a card there was a $2 surcharge. You’re stuck in West Oakland, don’t have any cash, you need a diaper so your baby’s mama doesn’t freak on you for not thinking to pick them up earlier in the day, you think you could also use a six-pack while you are at it, you have one of those credit cards that keep showing up in the mail. What would you do? You pay with the card. You need diapers now and that $2 is not real anyway is it? Not yet. Not til it fucks up your credit and you can never buy your own car or house or even think of paying off your credit card debt – which by now is chock full of surcharges, service fees, late payment charges, you name it.

Yet another way we have institutionalized keeping poor people poor.

“The task of children is differentiation, and that means difference — different values, different goals. The struggle of a child is partly the struggle to be seen as something other than a child, until it becomes true. The struggle of a parent is that we never stop feeling like a parent, and a little responsible for their behavior. These are complex and textured relationships; we want them to grow, we want them to stay, and they want the same impossible things.”

One factor that drove the central plateau farmers of Haiti into deeper poverty in the mid-50s was the construction of a huge hydro-electric dam which forced them from their land.

The farmers were driven off their lands with the promise of electricity for the greater good of the country. Today, down the road from the huge dam, those same people are dying for lack of electricity in health clinics whose power comes and goes without warning. The farmers have no electricity, no water and no money to show for what they have sacrificed.

Health NGO working in the area worth knowing about: Zanmi Lasante