Reader's Digest Canada rant chapter three - Our Canada · Monday December 14, 2009 by colin newell
On the phone to Reader’s Digest today – and this time they were under the questionable cape of Our Canada magazine.
Let’s look at the Bill shall we? Dated within days of my mom-in-laws passing.
“Dear Mrs. Mother-in-law,
A few months ago, you requested a subscription for Our Canada.
We sent you your first issue in good faith with the understanding that you would honor the invoice and pay it promptly.
We’ve kept our part of the bargain, but so far we have not received your payment.”
Jumping in now…
My Mother-in-law was in the hospital without a phone, radio or television for 4 months prior to her passing and she, in no way, requested a subscription to this shady Readers Digest front.
So. According to the above passage, Readers Digest lies.
Of course during the conversation the very friendly lady said that someone signed my mother-in-law up for the copy of Our Canada.
Let’s keep reading.
“I must ask that you pay the enclosed invoice immediately. If we do not receive payment within 15 days, we will turn your account over to our credit and collection department.”
Can you imagine a little old lady sitting in her apartment. Perhaps she is a tad forgetful. Perhaps she is on a fixed income. These letters and invoices can be scary for our old folks!
The RD invoice I hold in my hand is dripping with intimidation and disrespect for our beloved elderly folks.
Readers Digest. It’s senior-abuse, plain and simple. And it should stop!
My opinion: I feel that RD are weasels that need to be exposed for the abusers of our dear Canadian seniors.
Go on RD. Take me to the carpet on this. I dare you.
Shame on Reader’s Digest Canada – Shame, shame, triple shame.
And to my departed and beloved Mom-in-law, god bless her… At least she doesn’t have to deal with RD ever again.
Read this CBC Marketplace expose of Readers Digest’s questionable nonsense. Watch the video. It is shocking. Activities that are banned in the U.S. appear to be commonplace in Canada.
Shocker: The Canadian government subsidizes Readers Digest Canada to the tune of $2,000,000 a year in postal tariff reductions – reduced postage… so they can scam and harass your parents and grand-parents.
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Baby bottom bugaboos and other bewildering blather · Tuesday December 8, 2009 by colin newell
While waiting in line for my favorite serving of breakfast (a weekend or so ago…) I noticed a young parent plunk down their diapered bambino on the cafe counter adjacent to the POS terminal. You know, where staff put food and beverages…
The young couple had just pushed their way into the cafe with a HUMVEE sized stroller that essentially trapped us mortal folk inside the cafe. In the event of fire or pestilence we would have died happy while grabbing for our favorite baked goodies while fire and smoke overtook our sorry souls.
But this does not bother me half as much as Tim Horton’s HQ who are desperately trying to hang on to their profit share by using some kind of Faith based science in defending their unbridled expansion of drive through extensions in the Province of Ontario.
I use the term Faith in that they must really take themselves seriously if they expect us to believe in the nonsense that they are pitching.
Facing a rising brew ha ha of municipal anti-drive-thru ordinances, Horton’s parent company TDL commissioned a study last year from RWDI consultants, based in Guelph, Ont… comparing total emissions given off by customers’ cars that use drive-thrus and those that use parking lots.
The stunning result: — that cars using drive-thrus produce lower emissions than those using parking lots.
The suggestion is… parked cars generate more pollution than the idling cars in the drive-through. Right.
Fact is, it is a high stakes game because Timmies makes almost 50% of its revenue from un-conscientious smoggers. Yes lots of folks simply cannot get out of their cars because of squalling babies and implacable pets – and there are other reasons.
Timmies supposition that Drive-Throughs work towards a general social good is cynical and deceptive. And we are not buying it.
And neither should you.
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Tropical Colors Warm Winds Tour Chapter 3 · Monday November 23, 2009 by colin newell
Sunset. It is a day. A week. A month. It’s your life.
And birth. A death.
Joy. Elation. Celebration. Renewal.
We hang our souls to dry like tropical themed towels at the pool-side.
And while staring into the sun gives clarity and honesty, home is
where the heart is.
Yes. It is here. Some of the time. And it’s back home with friends and loved ones.
After we hung out with a seasoned coffee farmer at Lehuulu Farms we sat in an old theater cafe up-country where they grow coffee.
The Aloha cafe is at 79-7384 Mamalahoa Hwy in Kealakekua, Hawaii – a mere 15 minutes from Kona, Hawaii.
We start to take root. We realize that we now have friends for life here.
And there. Back home.
I guess. Even though our family shrunk by one recently (and we were broken…)
Our World grew a bit bigger today.
Such is life.
Fall Fun Food Drink and Words with Rex Murphy · Monday September 21, 2009 by colin newell
One of the great pleasures of the spoken (and written) word (particularly in a country as free as Canada) is the ability to wax philosophic on every subject that irritates the psyche. It is, as if, in Canada, a country that prides itself on free expression, labels the very exercise of soliloquy as a national obligation – the failure to do so, within itself, could well be rewarded with a social punishment, or banishment worthy of a much harsher crime.
Which leads me to the hour of validation provided by none other than Rex Murphy – orator, intellect, maven of all things Canadian Culture – host of Canada’s beloved “Cross Country Check-up”, writer for the Globe and Mail… and on… and on… and on…
We have seen Rex on several occasions, each successive venture in listening more profound than the one before it. Mister Murphy has an uncommon connection to the most intimate fabric of the Canadian experience and a word skill sufficiently advanced to weave an otherwise cryptic and esoteric sweater of ideas into a warm and gentle blanket of thought wearable by even the most jaded and maple leaf detached person.
His message tonight was quite simple: We live in a country with a whole lot of great stuff around us and like the “forest for the trees” adage, we don’t know what we have even when we are surrounded by it – and it is not so much about the learning of this concept, because we know it by rote – but that we often need to be reminded of the little things that coalesce into the big things… that make Canada the most desirable place on the Planet – and the people resting on its familiar soil some of the most giving and empathic.
In a short story about 9/11 and how average Canadians (Newfoundland in his example) come to the aid of stranded Americans and Internationals, forced out of the air in a day of infamy, senseless aggression and rage. – Rex illustrates the factor of molecular memory in Human behavior and how good things can come from all Canadians – of all stripes, because we know what the right thing to do is when we are in dire straits – or when our neighbors are in difficult times.
And not only that, the very manifestation of the Canadian zeitgeist guarantees the feels good reward by doing the right thing – without expectation of recognition – but just the simple satisfaction of lending a hand when it’s needed.
And it is intrinsically Canadian to do so.
It was a great time. We bought his new book (photo upper right) and lined up with other Canadians to have a private moment with the wordsmith – and to have the book custom signed.
A moment with a great Canadian, teacher, speaker and a reminder what it is to be Canadian…
Utterly priceless.
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