i am disappointed in our culture. corporations are winning.

everything is commodified, even laughter—something you do to show you're having a better time than the person at the table next to you, who promptly orders champagne to prove that he's having a better time than you, so you promptly order cognac, and then you go home broke and alone and weep, and so does he, and the makers of cognac and sellers of hugo boss suits laugh all the way to the bank...

except when they get to the bank they stop laughing, because for the upper crust, laughter is a commodity that is lowly valued, control is desired. anything but is a sign of poor breeding. so everyone stands in line at the bank, and no one speaks, except the one black lady who may be a bit nuts, and she's talking away to anyone who will look her way, and you love her, not because of who she is, but because of what she isn't. she is defined by what she is not, and is more beautiful because she is not aware of the conventions, or does not care to know.

but then, you don't engage in any type of dialogue with her... you look away when she comes by, trying to avoid looking, hating yourself for not screaming out the words to your favorite song, or swearing at the top of your lungs.

this is how to drown yourself on land.

soon, you'll come to expect the maybe-crazy black lady in line at the bank.

shortly thereafter, you'll come to hate her.

day after day, taunting you with her freedoms. she mocks your inability to scream at the top of your lungs. she pops the bubble you wear around yourself.

so now you have two choices.

1. continue to stand in line at the bank for your money, or
2. find a new bank!


a bank is a metaphor
a line is a metaphor
a black woman is a metaphor
screaming is a metaphor
a suit is a metaphor
you are a metaphor


the "!" at the end of 'bank' was intended to be funny, a bail out from the doom and gloom scenario, as if to say "ha ha! wasn't this fun! phew! we made it out with a chuckle!". it may just work. think of how different the end would have been had i just written 'find a new bank'. fairly dreary.

perhaps the "!" denotes an insult, a scream at the reader. that works too. i had intended humour as the bail out, but a scream sends the note back in to itself, looking for irony.

that's all for today.

my only tidbit of news is about how i was reading about this big timber/wood company in quebec that supplies this type of prefab board for housing in the US, and how the company prospects are looking really good because this years hurricane season in the US is supposed to be even better/worse than last year! yippee! death and destruction = money.

this was similar to a report i edited about a cancer research company that was really excited about the increase in breast cancer patients, ie - the increase in its target market! yes!

a perfectly logical man builds a perfectly logical system. the problem is, logic isn't perfect, nor is being logical an ideal. logic is a tool by which person A can manipulate person B by using person B's own line of thinking. no coercion necessary. no violence, no aggression. you will eventually convince yourself! (this "!" is intended as a poor attempt at being facetious).

hit 'em hard

I have posted one of this guy's blogs before. he's pulling no punches. His legal disclaimer at the end is great, because he knows the big pharma lawyers are watching, waiting, and any defamation will quickly land him in court. this guy is asking for a revolution. remember, remember...

the link to the original is HERE.

The New Robber Barons

READ MORE: New York Times, George W. Bush

The U.S. Department of Labor claims we have an unemployment rate of 4.9% According to "the Economist," however, the true unemployment rate in the U.S. is over 8%, or 12.6 million Americans. The difference is due to the fact that the U.S. Government doesn't count people as unemployed after six months without a job
I recently joined the ranks of our many unemployed citizens. The termination of my employment as a Vice President at Pfizer was subject to intense media interest, partly due to the fact that Pfizer notified the press before they informed me.

Contrary to press reports, however, I have received no severance payments and for the first time in my life I am eligible for unemployment benefits; $13,078. At this annual income level my family of four would actually fall below the federal poverty level,quite a difference from a year ago when my salary was over half a million.

I'm also uninsured for the first time in my life and I have to pay the full price for drugs, just like 67 million other uninsured Americans. Contrary to many others, however, I do have a choice. In accordance with federal COBRA law, I was offered the opportunity to continue my health care coverage for 18 months. There was only one hitch; I had to pay $15,269 per year to receive this benefit. I decided that with an income of $13,078 that didn't make sense.

Clearly the system we have today isn't just broke. The system is utterly and completely sick and our weakest citizens are paying the price, every day. And while I have belatedly been forced to share some of the experiences of our poor, uninsured, and unemployed, my situation doesn't even start to compare with people with no resources, no voice, nowhere to go and no one who listens to them. For those citizens we have something that's called the Government; a government that is supposed to look out for the people who can't look out for themselves, but instead focuses on "pay to play money."

Today's system is built on greed. Greed is defined as an excessive desire to acquire or possess more than someone needs or deserves. Greed is not a corporate executive who builds an organization such as Microsoft, creates a lot of jobs, and happens to get rich. Greed is to become CEO for a drug company such as Pfizer, be responsible for a stock price drop of 40% over his five year tenure, twice as much as the AMEX Pharmaceutical Index, secure a $80 million retirement package while firing 16,385 Pharmacia and Pfizer employees, and get a 72% pay increase to $16.6 million as his reward.

According to the New York Times average worker pay has remained flat since 1990 at around $27,000, after adjusting for inflation, while CEO compensation has quadrupled, from $2.82 million to $11.8 million. Our CEO's are in a position in which they can basically use public companies as personal piggy banks. And this is perfectly legal as long as they get someone else to sign their check. Meanwhile, the federal minimum wage has remained at $5.15 an hour since September 1, 1997. In fact, after adjusting for inflation, the value of the minimum wage is at its second lowest level since 1955.

At the same time, the pharmaceutical industry spends over $100 million on lobbying activities to stop lower drug prices, according to the Center for Public Integrity. There are 1,274 registered pharmaceutical lobbyists in Washington, D.C. and during the 2004 election cycle, the drug industry contributed $1 million to President Bush. For an industry that makes $500 billion on a global basis, spending one million on a president or $100 million on lobbying is pocket change.

This money was well spent. It stopped legalized import of cheaper drugs and instead we got a new Medicare drug program. This $720 billion law includes $139 billion in profits to drug manufactures and $46 billion in subsidies to HMOs and private insurance plans. The program has been such a disaster for our poor that at least twenty-four states have enacted emergency measures to ensure access to medications in the last couple of weeks . That's what a million dollars buys in Washington.

So how could this happen? The answer is simple. The American democracy has been stolen by our new class of Robber Barons--the CEO's of our big corporations. A political system dependent on charity from rich men in hand-tailored suits with $100 million retirement packages is no democracy. It is a kleptocracy. It is not what our founding fathers envisioned.

But we have the power to change this; to free our corporations from sticky-fingered CEO's, to free our elected representatives from "pay to play money" and to free our people from all these tyrants. We have the power to be free, at last.

Can we change this? Can we build a new future? I believe that we can. I believe this because we live in a country that could rid itself of slavery, a country that finally allowed women to vote; a country that has come a long way in the short time since the civil rights movement began. But early on, each of those incredible changes was fiercely opposed by those in power, and none took place without great sacrifice. To free our corporations from sticky-fingered CEOs, to free our elected representatives from "pay to play money," and to free our people from these tyrants is going to take sacrifice and time. Perhaps a long, long time. In short, it will require a second American revolution. And I believe that one day it will happen.

IMPORTANT LEGAL DISCLAIMER HERE

genesis

http://www.flickr.com/photos/fergusdecker/

i have also set this up. not many pics yet. i have to digitize them first.
it looks like fergusdecker is sticking as an alias.

i should rename this site that too, but i'm too lazy, and have such a wonderful readership (170 last week, thanks people).

and of course, i have www.myspace.com/fergusdecker. my cousin recently set up shop and dropped in - shout out to josh.

so i'm reaching out. i have a need to communicate something, anything, to anyone. to prove that i exist? to feel like i exist? i'm not sure. i'll stop posting when i find out. promise.

work is still for suckers. but summer makes it so much easier. i can see the sun.

driving to work is stupid if you own a bike (if you work at the bottom of a hill, and live at the top of a hill, as i do). and if you don't own a bike, and live in toronto, you're also stupid. sorry, it's that simple.

loans tie you into the grid.

i want black and white answers to a world i know is shaded grey.

the more i learn, the less i know.

start small

imagine if our streets were covered in this (click it, it's a collection of various japanese manhole covers, of which the above picture is a part).

the world would, however incrementally, be a better place. because attention to detail shows care, and care is a form of love, and love is brilliant and inspiring and a fountain from which springs life itself.

perhaps i'm being simply an aesthete, but aesthetics has a place, a large place, in the world i want to see, shape, restore, and create (all in one day, yes, i'm a bit busy now, but i'll squeeze it in between basketball and potato chip eating)

eating... hmmm... that reminds me of my sunday afternoon: Doc, an older doctor that we play ball with, nudged me and said i was putting on a few 'ounces'... ever the gentleman. I told him i converted to metric ages ago, and preferred milligrams as a measurement of the progression of the 'more ferg' movement that is currently very big at companies such as Mars, and Lays.

testing this out

Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net

interesting. was just testing that. was hoping it would update automatically. perhaps not. it's html code, but it's the same poor comic as it was 20 minutes ago. will see if i can get the code to update.

i've got some funny comics from that site though. they have a funny ratio of about 1 for every 20. someone surfed their catalogue for me, so i'll post those culled below. click the image to make them bigger.

hey, a blog can't always be about me. sometimes you gotta share the love.

i will say this, and i've been saying it for years: buy a bike. instant happiness. on my way to work, at 6:50 am, i am happy, despite all indicators that would make me think i should be otherwise (chiefly, that's it's 6:50am, and i am not returning home from a momentous and glorious event, nor am i waking up early to get a jump on doing something incredible, nore am i flying away, flying home, flying into the sun, no... i am on my way to stare at a computer screen for 8 hours and make jokes with people that really mean "we're middle class! hahahahahah! and we do this stupid shit and get paid!! hahahahah!").

the sun rising over the city, the world waking up to dream again (or, in the case of my much-hated button-pushing post of not-long-ago, waking up to dream in grey).

and i wrote this to hinto and liked it, so i'll post it here:


> Biked through U of T campus today. The young are alive and happy and
> free!
> No wonder our culture caters to them! They're beautiful! And oh how
> we try
> to ruin them! Shameful! We're shameful, with our creams and our
> tonics and
> our mouthwashes!
>
>
> Beauty, happy, laugh, dream, hope, wish, see, learn, bum bum, giggle
> giggle,
> oh what fun, it is to ride!

well said, me, well said.

i like it here better, actually

this photo you see as metaphor for things falling apart, falling away, falling to pieces, drowning, death, destruction, deliverance... oh happy villain! i actually see it as righting the ship. the countdown to the end of baystreet has begun, ladies and gentlemen. the tunnel has sprung a light!

ALSO:
i'm going to keep blogging here. less advertisements. myspace is a bombardment, and i don't think my mom can download it quick enough.

some day i'll have something good to say, and the time to say it.

ALTHOUGH: i DID get in to teacher's college.

that's exciting. for me, anyway.

AND CHECK THIS. (You may want to click the link, as i'm not going to format this. but this is really interesting)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-peter-rost/is-the-drug-industry-evil_b_18827.html

I just watched the movie "The Constant Gardener," and I was disappointed. Don't get me wrong, the acting is great, the art direction marvelous and it is a movie filled with deep emotions. But the basic concept is that pharmaceutical companies would rather murder their patients than develop safe drugs, and to cover this up they will then happily hire crude killers who literally crucify and bludgeon the opposition to death with blunt weapons.
The premise is simply too unsophisticated and brutish to make the industry justice.
And to make matters worse, all this takes place in Africa; a region which no pharmaceutical company worries about, since it accounts for less than one percent of sales, which certainly doesn't make it worth risking murder of a diplomat's wife. I realize that John Le Carré is one of our finest authors, but there's no question that this kind of one-dimensional story line is pretty outdated.
The truth is that the pharmaceutical industry has saved millions of lives, yet it is also an industry which has caused a lot of grief and pain when it hasn't handled its new drugs appropriately or when it has covered up fatal side-effects. Merck is the latest villain, and David Graham from the FDA claims that Vioxx has killed about 60,000 patients, or as many people, as died in the Vietnam War. Among those who disagree with Dr. Graham are his bosses at the FDA, however, unfortunately for them, American jurors appear to agree with Dr. Graham and Merck is now getting killed in our courtrooms because of the company's alleged misdeeds.
A thriller needs killings but in real life the men who run the drug industry know that cutting off someone's genitalia and putting them into the victim's mouth while he's still alive (the way this is done in the movie), is counterproductive. After all, they might get caught. So they employ more sophisticated methods.
One of the most important methods the industry uses is to discredit anyone who doesn't agree with them. For instance, when Pfizer terminated my employment, they thought this was such big news that they called the New York Times and other major newspapers; they even left a message with "60 Minutes," about their strategic corporate decision to fire Peter Rost. I guess Pfizer really, really wanted to make sure that everyone knew that I was fired, just to assist me in my job search. (Disclosure for Pfizer lawyers; I'm using sarcasm.)
A few weeks later I found myself named "Whiny Whistleblower of the Year" by the American Council on Science and Health. In his nomination, Gilbert Ross, M.D., Executive and Medical Director of the ACSH stated that the biggest "Whiny Whistleblower" for 2005 was "the person who most outrageously defied his or her employer, regardless of loyalty, science, or even common sense." Dr. Ross concluded "I vote for ex-Pfizer V.P. Dr. Peter Rost, an inept exec but a pretty good whistleblower. He provoked a federal investigation of his own company in 2003, alleging that Pfizer was responsible for the improper marketing of the synthetic growth hormone Genotropin."
It didn't take long for me to find out that one of the donors to ACSH was the employer that had just fired me--Pfizer. But perhaps that was just a coincidence.
And it took even less time to learn that Dr. Ross "spent all of 1996 at a federal prison camp in Schuylkill, Pennsylvania, having being sentenced to 46 months in prison for his participation in a scheme that ultimately defrauded New York's Medicaid program of approximately $8 million." I guess that part reminds me of the brutes in the movie, so perhaps the film isn't entirely off base . . .
So am I nervous?
My wife tells me I should be. After I did my first press conference in U.S. Congress in support of lower drug prices and reimportation (you can view the press conference here with Realplayer), she told me to make sure no one had loosened the wheel nuts or done anything else to my car before I drove off.
But I just don't see something like that as realistic. Few planned murders are committed by really smart people because the risk/reward ratio simply isn't there. And if there's anything pharmaceutical executives are good at, it is to evaluate those ratios and come out ahead.
And because they are so good at this, when pharmaceutical companies break the law, they usually end up winning. Reality is that civil and criminal fines rarely make even a dent in the earnings a drug has brought in. Take Pfizer's Neurontin, for example. According to the New York Times, Neurontin had "become one of the biggest-selling drugs in the world, with sales last year of $2.7 billion. Nearly 90 percent of the drug's sales continue to be for ailments for which the drug is not an approved treatment, according to recent surveys." Pfizer ended up paying $430 million criminal and civil fine. That sounds like a lot of money until you realize this is how much money they made off this drug in just two months of sales.
With such profits, and such fines, of course the drug industry doesn't have much to worry about.
To show just how out of touch our legal system is when it comes to dealing with cheating corporations the Office of the Inspector General also forced Pfizer to sign a Corporate Integrity Agreement. Since the government can't put a corporation in jail, they make them sign an agreement in which the company promises to never again commit the same crime. Now here's the interesting part, guess how much Pfizer has to pay if they fail to comply with this agreement?
$1,000 per day.
If I was one of the Pfizer lawyers who signed that agreement I would have been laughing my head off as soon as the OIG lawyers left the room with that "agreement." (Please note Pfizer makes $50 billion per year). If you don't believe me, check out the agreement here.
So here's the situation. Imagine you could rob a bank and drive off with a million dollars a year, each year for ten years, then you have to pay a fine of $50,000 and you have to promise never to do it again, and if you don't comply, you'll pay another fine of $10 per day. Everybody would be robbing banks if those were the rules for ordinary citizens!
OK, before all the Pfizer lawyers read this and have heart attacks and blame me for their ailments; I'm being facetious.
So now I'll be fair and balanced. Of course I'm not implying that selling Neurontin for off-label use is the same as robbing a bank, nor that it is Pfizer's fault that most of the prescriptions for Neurontin were for off-label purposes. They obviously knew nothing; they had no idea what was going on and if they did it wasn't their fault anyway. And by the way, Pfizer already blamed the crooked executives at Warner-Lambert who put the honest Pfizer executives in a position in which they had to pay that fine; Warner-Lambert was the company from whom they got the drug. But Pfizer sure as heck made a lot of money off those unfortunate circumstances. I should probably also state that the evil Justice Department probably just blackmailed Pfizer to pay that big, big fine, anyway. That's the position Forbes took in a recent cover article.
In conclusion, there's far too much money to be made in the drug industry without killing a single critic.
But then again, I could be wrong. If so, feel free to make these lines part of my eulogy.
I'll end with a quote from one of my readers: Here is what Thomas Jefferson said about corporations. "I hope we shall . . . crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and to bid defiance to the laws of their country." - Thomas Jefferson, letter to George Logan. November 12, 1816.

i will eventually be moving

but i haven't yet.

as for now...

www.myspace.com/fergusdecker

just news updates, kids

hey! watch the dalai lama talk out of both sides of his mouth!

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/03/31/060401035006.59wi4hgk.html
Killing Bin Laden will inspire 10 more: Dalai Lama Mar 31 10:57 PM US/Eastern

The Dalai Lama says that were Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden killed that hatred would cause another 10 like him to spring up, in an interview with a British newspaper.
The exiled Tibetan spiritual leader told The Daily Telegraph that terrorists should be treated humanely.

He also revealed the workings of his relationship with US President George W. Bush, said Westerners had become too self-absorbed and repeated his opposition to homosexuality in a wide-ranging interview.

The Dalai Lama said modern terrorism was born out of jealousy of Western lifestyles.
"Fundamentalism is terrifying because it is based purely on emotion, rather than intelligence," the 70-year-old monk said at the seat of his government-in-exile in the northern Indian hilltop town of Dharamsala.

"It prevents followers from thinking as individuals and about the good of the world.
"This new terrorism has been brewing for many years. Much of it is caused by jealousy and frustration at the West because it looks so highly developed and successful on television. Leaders in the East use religion to counter that, to bind these countries together."

Terrorists, he warned, must be treated humanely.

"Otherwise, the problem will escalate. If there is one Bin Laden killed today, soon there will be 10 Bin Ladens. Awesome. Ten Bin Ladens killed, the hatred is spread; 100 bombed, and 1,000 lose members of their families."

Although he appeared not to approve of the war in Iraq, he was admiring of Bush.

"He is very straightforward," said the monk.

"On our first visit, I was faced with a large plate of biscuits. President Bush immediately offered me his favourites, and after that, we got on fine. On my next visit, he didn't mind when I was blunt about the war.

"By my third visit, I was ushering him into the Oval Office. I was astonished by his grasp of Buddhism."

The Dalai Lama fled Tibet in 1959 when Beijing crushed an anti-Chinese uprising there.
He is the first Dalai Lama to travel to the West and has been accused of being obsessed with the trappings of fame there.

"I never asked people like (US actor) Richard Gere to come, but it is foolish to stop them," he told the Telegraph.

"My attitude is to give everyone some of my time. If I can contribute in any way to their happiness, that makes me happy."

He told the broadsheet that Westerners had become self-absorbed, burdened with too much choice.

"It is fascinating. In the West, you have bigger homes, yet smaller families; you have endless conveniences -- yet you never seem to have any time. You can travel anywhere in the world, yet you don't bother to cross the road to meet your neighbours," he said.

"I don't think people have become more selfish, but their lives have become easier and that has spoilt them. They have less resilience, they expect more, they constantly compare themselves to others and they have too much choice -- which brings no real freedom."