{"id":30443,"date":"2022-02-11T10:31:06","date_gmt":"2022-02-11T17:31:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=30443"},"modified":"2022-02-12T06:30:37","modified_gmt":"2022-02-12T13:30:37","slug":"shoes-for-industry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=30443","title":{"rendered":"Shoes for Industry"},"content":{"rendered":"

Happy to report the pups are back to normal and up to their old tricks.<\/p>\n

\"AC994CBB-6600-4625-84A9-D1FEBC507FFC_1_201_a\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Mr. B’s on a new prescription diet, one that’ll help dissolve stones in his kidneys and bladder. That’s not why he was sick, but it’s a potential problem we want to avoid. Since his new food is safe for any dog, Lulu and Fritzi are on the new diet too. I keep a close eye on all three, and the only thing I’ve noticed so far are lighter colored poops. Listen, when you’ve been dealing with canine diarrhea, poops are good!<\/p>\n

\n

Some guy wrote an editorial for the Wall Street Journal titled “Here’s Why I’ll Be Keeping My Shoes on in Your Shoeless Home<\/a><\/strong>.” What an asshole! But I get it. It’s a pain, especially for old gits like me who have a hard time bending over and an even harder time reaching down to their feet, to have to remove shoes when visiting someone else’s home. It’s one of many reasons I now wear Crocs almost everywhere, shoes I can take off and put back on again without bending. I remember the humiliation of toes poking through my socks, but I’ve reached a station in life where I can afford to throw out old socks and buy new ones, so that’s not likely to be an issue if you invite me to your shoeless home. In our home, by the way, shoes are fine.<\/p>\n

Speaking of other people’s homes, former friends we haven’t spoken to since November 2016 invited us over to dinner. Before the 2016 election, they were what most people think of as “country club Republicans,” but they fell for Trump in a big way, embracing everything that short-fingered vulgarian stands for \u2014\u00a0racism, thievery, treason, corruption, pussy grabbing and all \u2014 and spent four years rationalizing their support on social media. As far as we know they’re still in the cult.<\/p>\n

We didn’t discuss politics, morality, or religion. That seemed the safest way to handle things. They probably thought so too.<\/p>\n

Donna’s looking over my shoulder as I write, saying “Jesus, tone it down!”<\/p>\n

\n

It’s one thing for Canadian truckers to protest Covid vaccination and masking mandates by blockading Ottawa streets, but the minute I saw they’d also blocked the Ambassador Bridge between Windsor and Detroit I knew there’d be an immediate impact on the auto industry in both Canada and the USA. And there has been, with shifts curtailed, workers temporarily laid off, and some factories actually shut down. What I didn’t realize is how much food Canada imports from the USA, and how much of it goes over that bridge. Life is being disrupted in both countries.<\/p>\n

Trucker strikes have been a thing in Europe for a while. Now they’ll be coming to the USA. I don’t know how many American truckers are owner\/operators, but I think you’d have to be your own boss in order to participate in a blockade. Company drivers don\u2019t get paid much and can\u2019t afford to lose their jobs. Come to it, not many owner\/operators can afford much time off either. Still, within the next few days I expect to see wildcat road, bridge, and tunnel blockades at strategic locations in the USA. The question here, as it is in Canada, is how long the protests will last before truckers run out of money, or consumer goods, food, and gas shortages turn people against them.<\/p>\n

A bigger question, I suppose, is whether the Canadian trucker protests, and the coming ones in the USA, will have any effect on Covid vaccination and masking mandates. Are the protests and blockades more about frustration and impatience with Covid itself? Governments might back down and ease mandates (they’re already doing it), but I doubt Covid will change its ways in response to right wing petulance.<\/p>\n

You know, Steve Bannon and friends, if you really really want to fuck things up, you might look at railroads and the power grid.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s one thing for Canadian truckers to protest Covid vaccination and masking mandates by blockading Ottawa streets, but the minute I saw they’d also blocked the Ambassador Bridge between Windsor and Detroit I knew there’d be an immediate impact on the auto industry in both Canada and the USA.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,40,250,10,2,8,29],"tags":[3809,3810,3672],"class_list":["post-30443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-consumerism","category-critters","category-culture-wars","category-current-events","category-personal","category-politics","category-the-economy","tag-canadiantruckers","tag-consortingwiththeenemy","tag-hottakes"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30443"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30443\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30452,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30443\/revisions\/30452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}