Do You Remove Your Shoes and Jacket on a Cross-Town Bus?

I sympathize with those Air-Canada passengers left on the tarmac on a cold day in Halifax when their plane went down. But the fact that people were outside the plane in their socks makes me wonder just what people think of when they take off their clothes upon boarding public vehicles, of which a commercial passenger jet plane qualifies.

The television news shared the concern of passengers that they were left out on the tarmac for over 50 minutes in such cold conditions. The inference being they were cold and shouldn't someone be doing something about the situation? (It apparently took a while for all resources - not just the fire brigade - to arrive).

I sympathize with that too. But when you get on a plane that is routed through Canada, and you are expected to board or depart the plane at a destination that happens to be in Canada during the winter, shouldn't your shoes and jacket be on your person, as opposed to the over-head compartment behind someone else's carry-on luggage?

Doubtless finger-pointing will occur over many issues. But passengers must be responsible travellers, and be prepared for contingencies that can and do occur in flight, or as a flight begins/ends. They should be listening to the emergency procedures, and place themselves in a frame of mind where they contemplate themselves participating in them.

As someone who has flown in and out of Canada, it has been my experience that passengers quite often are oblivious and/or do not care to observe that being prepared is in their own best interests. That talking on your cell phone or blabbing to the person sitting beside you is the last thing you should be doing during the pre-flight demonstration given by the stewards and stewardesses on just what you should make yourself ready for. If you paid attention to them, they discuss precisely the event that transpired.

Planes do go down. People do need to de-board, sometimes in a hurry.

The demonstrations given in all commercial passenger flights refer to events that transpire on the ground. They aren't teaching you how to open the exit door during flight. There would actually be a parachute fitting demonstration were that the case. And since you may be de-boarding on the ground, it would behoove you to wear something appropriate.

An Hour, A Horse, An Hash of A Harry

It seems that many of us have word processors that correct our spelling. Even Blogger, the host of my various screeds, seems quite unwelcoming to my support of the letter U in the word honour or honourable (It underlines every one just as my primary school teachers did). Some of these programs correct words automatically the moment the space following the word is entered. But what is really important is that many of the word-processor-using public, it seems, are apparently unaware that word processors and their developers did not invent and are not familiar with the languages we speak.

It is how you and I and all those that preceded us speak that determines languages and their use - not the written word! Sometimes the written word is our only guide, such as in ancient texts. But language is a living thing that exists in our conversation and heads. It wasn't developed in source code.

The fact that some bit-napper with a penchant for creating rules such as "Nouns beginning with the letter H must be be preceded by An and not A" and simultaneously holds a job in the software industry does not make him or her right. Neither does that get anyone using the word processor off-the-hook for allowing themselves to write wrong in text editors.

It is altogether a different story when people purposely choose to use acronyms and dubious time-saving spelling devices such as "l33t", "LMAO", and the perfect target for derisive arrows, "<3". Whether or not you find these devices of typed text in our language a boon or a bane, there is actually a protocol followed. Even among those of us who avoid these acronyms like plague understand and follow the logic, or illogic, if that is your perception of them. We are aware that little Johnny and Janey L33t-Sp3kker (Yes, northern-European forms exist), are employing well understood forms of written language.

The rule "Any H-word preceded by 'A' should be changed to 'An'" is not a device that any person speaking agrees with "in all situations". There is one quite obvious reason that is observable in practically all speech wherein this rule has occasion to be followed and it is determined solely by how the word beginning with the letter H is spoken. It is so simply observed, or heard, that even a Hello_World programmer of any stripe can master it.

When the H is audible, as stressed and quite clearly distinguished when the H-word is spoken, it is preceded by 'A', such as a horse, a horticultural centre, and a horrible day at the keyboard. When the H is not audible, as in when the existence of the letter H, or it's removal from the spoken word does not alter how the word is spoken, then it is preceded by 'An', such as an hour, an honourable person. As spoken, our and on-or-able is identical, when spoken, to hour and honourable in most spoken English and English variants. If it is spoken in this manner, it should be preceded by 'An'. If the H is clearly stressed when spoken, it should not be.

Even when English speakers use H-words differently than others do, they still follow the rules I outline here. To people in United Kingdom that talk about their friend Harry, he is either an 'Arry or a Harry, depending solely on how they speak his name. Anyone giving Harry full value will say "Oh, he's a Harry of the first order" while others will suggest "'e's an 'Arry I'm proud to be acquainted with."

Why do word processors fail to account for this and saddle us with programs that incorrectly alter our written noun-ish H-words?

Convenience or an aversion to making their rule-ridden, correction-happy word processing sloth become even more glacial by adding a single rule that requires each instance it's used to reference a word list in memory as big as the document itself before it impliments the correction.

Little Stores and Markets Need Unions Too!

As someone who has been a member of a union, I can honestly state that, when the union works together - with it's members and vice versa - they all benefit.

Why doesn't the small businessman do likewise when big-box, corporate cows move in their large operations and decimate the little guy?

For specialty stores, it's much harder. But the mom and pop food and vegetables markets, or variety stores? As far as I can tell, every freaking street corner in a large city is chock full of these places. Why in hell do they whine when the corporate cows move in with their big store operations, and do nothing? I guess it is far easier to close your doors and say "Uncle!"

There are some that have learned.

Organizing and co-operating with your small store competitors to bring a better quality, and/or cheaper product. If you are resigned to losing - then ignore me and your like-small competitors. Otherwise use your head, work with your partners - they can be across town - and organize into a single "logical" business.

Cigarette monopolies dictating your profits on smokes and cigars? Easy. Work together, and CLOSE OFF YOUR POINT OF SALE TO THEM. In fact, when any monopoly moves in, an organized union of small stores can do much to beat the living shit out of the big, corporate cows, and the corporate wholesaling cows.

Denying points of sale - EN MASSE - to little Johnny wholesaler decimates HIS business!

I know from experience that the Canadian wholesalers of all those Pall Mall brands are actually DICTATING PRICE AND PROFITS to every single mom and pop store in town (I live in Toronto). Only every single mom and pop store is NOT so stupid as to allow them to do it! At some stores, if you try to tell the store operator where and how far to go to make a buck, they'll have no hostile feelings about telling them where to go and what they can do with their product.

Big stores and chains can buy in bulk and offer cheaper prices by acquiring product at reduced prices.

Apparently, running a warehouse where large volumes of stuff is housed is a concept small business types are unable to fathom, manage, or undertake on their own, OR TOGETHER. If you look around the web, that is the reaction to big box stores and chain stores and large retail. They act like the only people in the world allowed to operate a warehouse, or to receive large quantities of goods, are big businesses.

I say, that's bullshit.

If Pepsi Cola or Farmer's Wholesaler A-Z  can drive a truck, or a freaking train-load of product to "your warehouse", I am certain you and every small store that works with you operating that warehouse can buy the same damn stuff they do at the same price. Moreover, you can learn to do it better, stronger, and faster. And if you are really smart and get THOUSANDS of those small operators together and run a mega-warehouse, you can dictate prices to the wholesalers that will find themselves dreaming of the profits they lost.

Small stores can have "door crasher sales" too. They only need to learn how to do it as nimbly as their competitor.

PS: Nothing takes the wind out of a door crasher better than finding a better offer for identical or near-identical product at a lesser price. Walmart is supposedly the king of prices. Their ad campaigns hammer away on this theme - dropping prices. I hate to tell you this, but very often, even during the same week of a "price drop" on a product at Wallymart, you'll find the same price or better at practically any of the food retailers operating nearby, or even in the same mall/plaza location.

If they are killing business, there are some communities thriving on making Wallymart and any competitor look damned stupid.