Job posting of the year, this one.
I have a friend. My friend is smart. My friend is funny. My friend is possessed of a wide and varied range of interests and a keen appreciation for what people call “having a life” that precludes her putting mundane concepts like Calvinism, Liberal Guilt, or Suburbianism ahead of that whole life-having thing. And one day we were in conversation; well, if truth be known we were in IM or rather, I believe, GChat: one of those things for sure. And the recurring theme of prosperity and my own lack thereof arose, as it is wont to do whenever it wonts to, and she said, Come over here (meaning England
And I liked the sound of that, I did. But I doubted. Yes, I doubted my good friend’s word, despite the fact that all my English friends who do have work ethics are never short of work for long and always get paid well when they’re working. I read everywhere in the English press about the terrible plague of unemployment in the country, the near-impossibility of obtaining anything approaching a living wage, and the terrible, grinding burden of the Sisyphean workload forced upon a helpless workforce by faceless corporate overlords in Monte Carlo.
But eventually I read different. I stopped reading the news and started reading the facts.
I read a starting wage of over $40,000 per year offered to someone who hadn’t yet passed final exams (capable and worthy though we know StevenL to be) and then I read something even more interesting, although not useful to those of my rarefied gender.
I read this want ad:
Teenage Pregnancy Implementation Manager
Grade 8 £29,728 to £33,291 (bar at £32,436)
Location: Joint Health Unit, Town Hall Extension, Manchester, M60 2LA
Hours: 35 per week
We are now looking for an experienced and enthusiastic individual to support the management of the local teenage pregnancy programme. The successful candidate will be a strategic thinker with strong project management skills and a proven track record of partnership working. Reporting to the Teenage Pregnancy Coordinator, the postholder will contribute to the development, implementation and monitoring … Excellent communication and negotiation skills are required…
Or at least the ability to say, “Buy you a drink?” in a Lancashire accent.
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Pivot Report Finds Kids Lost in Child Protection System
Vancouver, February 20–The plight of British Columbia’s poorest children is the focus of Pivot Legal Society’s new report, Broken Promises: Parents Speak about B.C.’s Child Welfare System. Based on interviews and affidavits from service providers, social workers, lawyers and, in particular, parents whose children are or have been involved with the child protection system, the report depicts a short-sighted, crisis driven child protection system.
The report finds that children are all too often apprehended as the first form of intervention—even where there are less disruptive alternatives that could keep them safe. And many children are left lingering in care, cut off from family, community and cultural roots.
These current child protection practices violate the guiding and service delivery principles that are set out in the Ministry of Children and Family Development’s own Child Family and Community Services Act (CFCSA), the foundation of the child protection system. The CFCSA mandates: using the least disruptive intervention, apprehending children only as a last resort, and reunifying families as quickly as possible.
“We cannot continue to think that putting kids in care is the solution for families who need help and support,” says report author and Pivot lawyer Lobat Sadrehashemi. “Taking children into government care in order to ensure their safety and well-being is not working. The state is a poor parent and outcomes for children coming out of the foster care system are devastating.”
Aboriginal children and families are particularly devastated. “The child protection system continues to fail Aboriginal families,” says the executive director of the Aboriginal Mother Centre Society Penny Irons. “The current child welfare system is just another version of the residential school system.” Aboriginal children are nearly ten times more likely to be in care than non-Aboriginal children. Less than 16 percent of these children are placed with an Aboriginal caregiver.
Samantha, a 34-year-old aboriginal mother of two, feels that her aboriginal roots and her own history of growing up in foster care was the basis for her children being apprehended. She explains,
“I feel like the Ministry is using my history against me. I have been working consistently. I do not have a drinking or drug problem. I have worked so hard to ensure that my children grow up in a healthy and loving home. Yet my children were still taken from me by the Ministry.”
“Perhaps the most disturbing finding,” says Darcie Bennett, co-author of the report and sociology PHD candidate, “is that 65 percent of the parents that took part in this study spent time in the foster care system themselves as children. If we don’t invest in providing families with the support they need to care for their kids in the home and break this cycle we can only expect to see more and more children lost in the system.”
About Pivot Legal Society
Pivot’s mandate is to take a strategic approach to social change, using the law to address the root causes that undermine the quality of life of those most on the margins. We believe that everyone, regardless of income, benefits from a healthy and inclusive community where values such as opportunity, respect and equality are strongly rooted in the law.
To subscribe or unsubscribe to the Pivot Newswire, just send a note with that subject line to newswire at pivotlegal dot org.
Fidel Castro, by Yousef Karsh
For Realz! Fidel Castro has resigned.
In related news, Hell has dropped to 0 degrees Kelvin.
And no, I didn’t get this off Perez(he’s dead, he’s dead, Castro is dead!)Hilton either. I got it from The Guardian:
Fidel Castro today announced his retirement as head of state of Cuba, 49 years after he seized power in an armed revolution.
With the exception of monarchs, his resignation will bring to an end the world’s longest reign in power.
The 81-year-old, who handed over power to his brother, Raúl, in July 2006 after surgery, said in a letter published on the site of the official state newspaper, Granma: “I communicate to you that I will not aspire to or accept … the position of president of council of state and commander in chief.”
Full text of the resignation over the jump.
Looks like someone needs to tell the CIA. As of 3:26am (is it really? I should be in bed) Tuesday, February 19th, the CIA World Book still doesn’t know he’s resigned.
chief of state: President of the Council of State and President of the Council of Ministers Fidel CASTRO Ruz (prime minister from February 1959 until 24 February 1976 when office was abolished; president since 2 December 1976); First Vice President of the Council of State and First Vice President of the Council of Ministers Gen. Raul CASTRO Ruz (since 2 December 1976); note – the president is both the chief of state and head of government
head of government: President of the Council of State and President of the Council of Ministers Fidel CASTRO Ruz (prime minister from February 1959 until 24 February 1976 when office was abolished; president since 2 December 1976); First Vice President of the Council of State and First Vice President of the Council of Ministers Gen. Raul CASTRO Ruz (since 2 December 1976)
cabinet: Council of Ministers proposed by the president of the Council of State and appointed by the National Assembly or the 31-member Council of State, elected by the Assembly to act on its behalf when it is not in session
elections: president and vice presidents elected by the National Assembly for a term of five years; election last held 6 March 2003 (next to be held in March 2008)
election results: Fidel CASTRO Ruz reelected president; percent of legislative vote – 100%; Raul CASTRO Ruz elected vice president; percent of legislative vote – 100%
note: due to an ongoing health problem, Fidel CASTRO Ruz provisionally transferred power to his brother Gen. Raul CASTRO Ruz on 31 July 2006 in accordance with the Cuban Constitution; Fidel CASTRO has not yet reclaimed control of the government
His health has been uncertain for more than a year, although the specific challenges he was facing have never been officially revealed, and for almost two years his brother Raúl has been effectively in charge of the country. Raúl, while no genius or revolutionary firebrand, is said to be a competent, dutiful official who is relies heavily on his brother’s vision.
Since his time in power, Castro has been praised by some for improving education and health care for the Cuban population. But critics have condemned him as a totalitarian dictator, who ran a repressive regime that quashed individual rights and carried out political executions.
Two months ago, Fidel Castro made the following public statement:
He appeared on national television saying: “My essential duty is not to cling to office nor to obstruct the rise of people much younger, but to pass on experience and ideas whose modest value arises from the exceptional times in which I lived.”
Raúl Castro is 77.
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Click on to read the full resignation announcement Continue reading
raincoaster 