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Monthly Archives: June 2011

Fake England

Yesterday, while in a group dinner situation, we were passing around a bottle of Yogo Vera, a Korean peach-flavored? (the question mark is there because it tasted nothing like peach, but I clearly remember a picture of a peach on the bottle) yogurt drink, inexplicably labelled in Spanish on one side and fake English on the other.  Yes,  Spanish and fake English.  Languages that are not fashionable in the Koreas at this time.  We were rather confused as to why the company would choose to label their product in Spanish and fake English, but they had.

Now this got me thinking, maybe the bottle wasn’t labelled in fake English but Fake English.  They are easy to confuse as they are quite similar in some respects.  Maybe it’s labelled in Fake English because really the product was supposed to be shipped to Fake England but somehow made it to us instead (we do not live in Fake England, in case you are wondering).   I am able to deduce that products labelled in Fake English are meant for Fake England because Fake England is the only country which has Fake English as its national language.  The citizens of Fake England speak numerous other languages, as they are all quite talented, but their native tongue is Fake English.

Perhaps you have never heard of Fake England before, but you have more than likely sampled products Fake England exports and just didn’t know it.  They have a lot of cover companies.  But where do you think fake sugar comes from?  Or fake designer bags?  If you thought fake designer bags come from Hong Kong, you’re only partially correct.  Hong Kong has a trade agreement with Fake England to import their fake designer bags, which are really Fake designer bags.  You know the “knock-off bags” that sometimes look so good it’s hard to tell whether or not they’re fake?  It’s because they aren’t mere fake designer bags but Fake designer bags, ones made in Fake England.  They have high manufacturing standards.  The cheapo ones that you find are ones that are made in one of the countries on Earth.  I guess our manufacturing standards for fake goods are not as stringent as Fake England’s standards for their Fake goods.  I guess that makes sense.  They’re making real Fake goods after all and we’re just making knock-offs.

The same thing goes for fake sugar and Fake sugar.  When you consume a pastry, or something, and don’t realize that it was actually a diet pastry and contained no real sugar, that’s because it was made with Fake sugar and not that gross fake sugar stuff.  This…probably hasn’t happened to you.  That’s because Fake sugar is really hard to come by.  It’s very rare and you will cry tears of disbelief when you finally eat a pastry made with Fake sugar.  Then you will weep with sorrow because you will realize that you may never again taste the wonderment that is a pastry made with Fake sugar and you are forever doomed to eat pastries made with fake sugar.  Or you could just eat the non-diet kind.  You know.

Anyway, it’s not just Hong Kong that has a trade agreement (and portal) to Fake England.  A lot of the Asian countries do.  Some of the European countries also have trade agreements with Fake England.  I think sometimes Fake England will make trade agreements with individuals as well.  You rarely see a country selling off really wonderful Fake paintings after all.  It’s always a wealthy patron of the arts that somehow, mysteriously, with great aplomb unearths a wonderful masterpiece heretofore undiscovered by one of the great artists of yore and all the experts are taken in, and then several years later, after the wealthy patron of the arts has disappeared or died or something, alas the painting is discovered to be a fake!  How were so many experts deceived by such a ruse?  Obviously because it was a Fake.

Now, I’m not saying that Fake England exports all these things here to try and ruin us or something.  But they’re capitalists and we’re capitalists and we are definitely supplying them with a demand for Fake goods.  Think about it.

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The plight of postal service everywhere

Yes, it’s another entry on the postal system.  I like the postal system, okay?

I read this article.  It makes me really sad.  And I’m afraid the article may describe the sentiment of a lot of people in the US and so I’m afraid of what it might mean for the future of the USPS.

Canada Post employees recently went on strike to protest a dramatic wage cut.  In response, management locked them out and so Canada hasn’t had a functional mail system for about three weeks.  And now people are saying that maybe they don’t need the postal system anyway because there’s email.  Well, I don’t know the ins and outs of Canada Post.  I don’t know the details of the strike or the subsequent lockout.  I do know that a lot of my Canadian friends frequently complain about its reliability and delivery times.  Even in the midst of complaining though, they don’t want to do away with the postal system.  They just want the USPS to take over.  Apparently the USPS is the envy of the postal world?  I probably could believe that.

Anyway, according to the article, the sentiment among the vast majority of Canadians is that they no longer need a postal system and by going on strike, the postal workers have sealed their fate and showed everyone that they can live without the postal system.  People the reporter interviewed all seemed to believe that if they really needed to get something done, they could just go online to do it.

“I do all my communication through the Internet so I don’t miss the mail,” says Eddy Banakar, a manager of a high-tech company. “But the postal job is an uncomplicated job, and at the same time they get good salaries. So I don’t think people have much sympathy for them.”

So this is a quote that really irks me.  I agree that the postal job is “uncomplicated” in that you probably don’t need a Ph.D. to fulfill the job requirements, but that sounds really dismissive to me.  Just because the job is uncomplicated doesn’t mean that it isn’t important or that it’s easy.  Working as a “sanitation engineer” probably isn’t a very complicated job either, but it’s a really important job to society (thank you, employees of Waste Management) and it’s hard work.  The quote makes the guy sound like you have to be a manager of a high-tech company to be paid a good salary.  He probably doesn’t have to do a lot of manual labor.  So people with white collar jobs are the only ones who are allowed to have good salaries?  Hard, physical labor doesn’t count for anything, even when it’s vital to a functional society?  (Maybe the guy didn’t mean that.  Maybe the reporter took the quote out of context or spun it.  But still, it irks me.)

Also, postal workers have high stress jobs.  Can you do what they do?  I’ve mentioned before that the USPS does some pretty amazing stuff and so has my friend.  I assume that Canada Post has to do some similarly amazing stuff.  Maybe not as well, judging by the complaints, but Canada has a LOT of rural areas.  And how about the Yukon or Northwest Territories?  That’s like delivering things in Alaska.  That doesn’t sound easy to me.  And people in the rural areas of Canada deserve to get their mail too.  The postal workers are important and they deserved to be paid accordingly.

Important or not, maybe they are being overpaid.  I don’t know.  Corporations everywhere are strapped for cash right now and it’s true that people are utilizing their postal system in different ways now so that first class mail can no longer be counted to bring in the bulk of revenue.  Changes are probably necessary and the changes will probably hurt, but it doesn’t mean a whole postal service should be scrapped.

So…I’m campaigning again to save the postal system.  The USPS in particular, and other postal services will be a bonus.  Might I recommend swap-bot to you again?  Or if crafting is not your thing or is too stressful, how about postcrossing?  All you have to do is write a postcard, not even a full letter.  I think letters are ok though.  I’ve only sent one postcard thus far so I’m by no means an expert.  Or maybe you like to read and are out of interesting books to read?  Maybe you have too many books and would like to share them with people who would like to read them?  How about bookcrossing?  See?  Lots of excuses to go support your postal system right now.  You should definitely go do it.