Tuesday, December 16, 2008

What I Refuse to Learn

Discouragement is the death of most good ideas. And so it is with Idiosynchronic’s shoe plan. I refuse to allow discouragement and a bunch of cranky turn the page cynics to ruin a good idea. Spplttt! Phoeey! No way.

First of all, Id, what can we do to help? Seriously. What tasks do you need help with? The answer is always “no” until you ask.

I saw over on TLC that one of the commenters had already sent a pair of size 10 shoes. It is happening organically; we will just take the organic movement and add to it. The idea is to make certain that enough people send the shoes that the media picks it up. They are still reporting on the story – we have a short period of time.

This is what I see as the steps that need to occur.

1. Do not get discouraged by the dicks. There are always dicks...we shall overcome!

2. I do not have Adobe. Does anyone here have the ability to create a PDF?

3. Let's actually get the PDF created before we proceed. Let's keep it simple. What are the things that should be included in the PDF?

a. A statement. My vote is for something like "We stand with the citizens of Iraq. We are sorry for the invasion and the destruction of your country. This is for the women and the children" [or whatever it was that the journalist said...it will not take long to find the quote.]

b. Something to the effect of "Mr. Muntadar al-Zaidi should be released immediately and President Bush should apologize for not coming to his aid sooner. Although we do not advocate violence in any way, we understand the frustration of the Iraqi people and Mr. Muntadar al-Zaidi should be released and an envoy should be sent to hear him, to understand his concerns and to understand why he felt that he needed to take the actions that he did. The only way that healing can happen is for open dialogue to take place."

c. “These shoes are a statement of our frustration. The American people have been ignored for far too long in this process. You work for us. We do not want this occupation in Iraq to continue. Bring the troops home now."

d. “These shoes should be donated to x, y, z and a... [List the charities, contact info and the recycler.]"

e. What else should we include? Trying to keep it simple - but what else do you think that we should include?
4. Include also shipping options. SoS votes UPS [are they completely US and completely Union? Let's state that.] I like the USPS, because the post office has been suffering for so long and these are government jobs and government monies so it will help the National Debt. Government jobs are Union [at least they had that right up until last week when Dubya changed some BS rule.]

5. After the PDF is created then we all need to branch out and post where ever we can. I will post at TPM, someone post again at KOS (we can all go and recommend) someone can post again at TLC (maybe we can email Erin) and someone can post at HuffPo, SoS can post at Left is Right, I will post at PAS (not that anyone goes there...but the web crawlers will pick up the words) and we should make sure that we include a link to the stories at NYT and WaPo, etc because those links bring traffic.

Let's get busy. We can do this with very little effort. Especially if we act as a team.

(Note: previously posted in the comments.)

20 comments:

Seven of Six said...

SoS votes UPS [are they completely US and completely Union? Let's state that.]

Yes, UPS is a completely owned U.S. Company, (though they do ship worldwide). They are Teamster's. My wife is a Teamster. Works for YRCW, (customer service), for bigger shipments of shoes we could use them.

Teamster's are not a government Union. Government Union's will never face pay cuts, healthcare cuts, pension cuts, they are protected and don't face the same threats as outside the government Unions do. No politician is trying to bust the USPS Union but they sure as hell are trying to bust the Teamsters.

Seven of Six said...

And I would guess that management is not Union at UPS.
Still my family supports other brother and sisters the Teamster Union. These are blue collar jobs outside of government help! Jobs that are in danger!!

Anjha said...

Sorry, SoS, I guess that I was not clear. What I meant to say was that GWB has been putting in place last minute rule changes that are fucking government employees and their union rights.

They are suffering the same as other union members. And GWB has been trying to break the AFGE for a very long fucking time.

The unions - none of them - are safe from the GOP. These Right Wing fucks want to take away all bargaining rights.

Anjha said...

And I would guess that management is not Union at UPS.

I thought that it was against the law for any management, anywhere to be union. I believe that this protects the rank and file, because if management were also union, and had a voice in bargaining, it would hurt the workers; management has a conflict of interest.

I am not union, so I do not know, but I believe that this is the truth.

Seven of Six said...

Quite the conundrum... but I don't feel sorry for them... they are mostly republi-con tools. They voted for bu$h, support his policies. My wingnut sister was part of this Union. She doesn't even like Unions... says, "Too many people bad apples. Always, calling off and not doing their work." Yet, she's retired now, and her pension will never be touched.

I'll never understand Union members who are republi-con. Mostly they are easily mis-guided by propaganda. Guns, gays, or their religion... always something.

snark said...

If I send really really stinky shoes can they charge me with anything? Some of my old shoes could be used to strip paint. Might tread into DHS territory.

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
snark said...

Deleted some spam.

What's up with the spam all of a sudden?

Anjha said...

If I send really really stinky shoes can they charge me with anything?

You never know what they slipped into those laws in the middle of the night...not to mention the new "laws" that Bush just makes up himself, on a whim, with no congressional input.

Deleted some spam.

Thanks Snark.

I think that the only possible explanation is that "Jackpot" is an actual person who is spamming for some company who posts for real...how else would they get past our spam filter? I wonder what Jackpot gets paid per click through?

Maheanuu Tane said...

Anjha, If you download Open Office which is a free proggie, they have the ability to convert to PDF.

Open Office is (as far as I'm concerned), the best of the office suites out there and costs nothing.

Google it and try it, I think that you will love once you use it. I use it as my Office Suite, and use GIMP as my photo shop. I find that both suit me perfectly and for those of us who are stuck in the area of being one paycheck away from the sidewalk, they're a bargain.

Oh! you all will never know how happy I am to see Part Deux..... I really have missed this group of wonderful people.

Just this old chief's 2¢

Anjha said...

Chief!!!

So great to see you here!

What took you so long? Where have you been? How is your family?

I will check it out if I am able, I have some work to do first, today...I also have some connections. I can probably get someone to create the PDF, I just need Id to log on so we can hop to the wording.

I missed you!

Seven of Six said...

What's up with the spam all of a sudden?

I know people are back into eating it because of economic conditions...

Seven of Six said...

Oh! you all will never know how happy I am to see Part Deux..... I really have missed this group of wonderful people.

Take it you got my g-mail... right Chief?

Maheanuu Tane said...

I have been more than very busy, taking care of mom, and her best friend. Mom's friend was diagnosed with lung cancer, and I was the only person available to take her to all of her appointments, chemo, radiation and all along with getting mom squared away with her Dr's also. My free time dropped to a minus level for over a year, and finally mom's friend moved to Florida to live with her daughter and son in law who are both nurses and work on opposite shifts so that she will have someone home with her all the time. She is 86 and mom is 90 so I still have my work cut out for me and there still isn't enough time to accomplish much, but I surely wanted to drop back in here and see all of you.... I have you bookmarked and will visit daily and hope to post regularly.. Not that I have much to say... Busy here watchin out for bombers. The bomb that killed the 2police officers in Woodburn is the bank that my sister has her account in. Sure glad that she wasn't there at the time. I will never understand why anyone would want to bomb a little one horse bank in a shetland pony size town.... One thing that I am sure of, is he isn't a progressive or a liberal.. Most of these phreaques, are either Reich Wingers or Xtian Fundies... I am waiting to read about his views and am willing to bet, that he was on a revenge mission for some insane reasons...

It's a beautiful day here in Sunny Orygun... Sun is shining very brightly, but the temp is around 30 degrees... Sure isn't Tahiti weather.

Seven of Six said...

Thanks for the update Chief... and I can speak for everyone here, glad to have you on board!

Maheanuu Tane said...

Sure did Seven... And thank you very much.... Glad to be back with people whom I trust and also like.

Still trying to improve my Photographic abilities, but haven't had a lot of time to do any shooting. My wife was here for 3 months and she helped me more than I will ever be able to tell her or thank her for. I was on my last legs when she finally got here, I was sleeping about 4 hours a nite and driving all day and running errands in what little time I had.... She's back in Tahiti now, and the work load has decreased to the point that I do have spare time now... I hope to be getting up to the Seattle/Bellingham area in the near future... Hope to have a chance to visit with Anjha and the Coyote in the not to distant future.

iamcoyote said...

Yay, Chief! I was hoping you'd follow our links from the comments the other day. Wow, your sister's bank. What a crazy ass thing to do. They caught the guy, didn't they?

Maheanuu Tane said...

Yes, or at least they have someone in custody, it took them all weekend to police up the area, and now they have 2 suspects under arrest, a young man and his father, but so far there is no word on the why of the bombings.. I wonder why anyone would do something along those lines endangering many innocents and not only adults, but kids also. When I became angry at the government, I didn't look for a way to cause problems, I looked for a country that I could believe in to become a citizen of and France lived up to it's motto completely. I keep the number of the French Counsel in my wallet just in case I might need it. But then I am not planning any kind of strikes on the bunch of Fascists in power today.. I only hope that President Elect Obama can manage to put the wheels back on this machine and get it back on the tracks.. I know that is the hope of the rest of the world also.

Anjha said...

Welcome home, Chief.

Glad to hear that you are now finding some time to yourself. Sorry about the kind of year that you have had - it does sound exhausting.

When you come up this way send an email!

idiosynchronic said...

Awww . . shucks .. .

So I guess it's obvious the major source of my disappointment is not the lack of response, but rather my own ability to do thing for days at a time. I can't be the leader of this. I've been busy all day long at work until just now.

The PDF is easy. Message and goal is what matters. But what are they?

1) encourage donations of shoes.
1a) to where? A local charity makes the most sense in terms of carbon emissions.
2) Problem: how do you get the message across to at least the Bush library and media outlets?

Nice seein' ya, Chief.