BITCH OF THE MONTH: Marissa Mayer

This story has been festering with me for nearly a month now, but it warrants the villain(ess) hereunder being touted as the ultimate Bitch of the Month.

The mean-spirited harridan in question is the CEO of Yahoo!, a certain Marissa Meyer. She caused quite a sensation in the upper echelons of blue chip corporate America at the beginning of the month when she cancelled her company's generous flexitime and work from home working policies for its employees all over the world.

It made headline news - and no doubt gave many corporate honchos wet dreams the world over.

Nothing like slashing hard-earned and deserved rights to have a more pleasant, humane means of earning a living.

This from a cutting-edge IT company that has for some years now considered one of the most progressive workplaces and best companies to work for, not only in Silicon Valley, but anywhere in the world.

Not now, because along the biggest Scroogette of them all, a certain Ms. Meyer. What raised the ire of so many of her employees, and countless others around the world, myself included, is that not only has this corporate frau set back the clock in terms of corporate working hours and other cherished strides in making the workplace more humane, but that she's also a bloody hypocrite: because it was reported that whilst she insists that Yahoo! workers worldwide must give up working from home and being able to raise their children and having a semblance of a bloody life, she has her own little son in a private nursery right next to her no doubt very plush office at Yahoo! HQ.

Typical - nothing like double standards by the corporate high and mighty when they're at the top - it's the whole 'I'm-the-Boss-therefore-what-I-say-goes-and-so-what-if-the-rules-don't-apply-to-me that pervades most corporations and skins lesser employees of their own sense of dignity in the workplace.

I detest this woman because:

- She sets back the clock - and I do not like people who do any such thing in the already often soul-destroying place that is having to make a buck to earn a living

- Yahoo! set the benchmark for all the right reasons - now corporations will use it as their benchmark for all the wrong reasons

- She's just another woman in a position of power trying to be an even bigger bastard than most men, just to prove how 'touch' she really, really is

- You just know this will have the blessing of most shareholders and other 'investors' in Yahoo! who don't give a flying damn about how much better it is that employees get treated like adults with a life beyond being captive prisoners in a corporate hellhole

- What she proposes is anti-labour, anti-environment, anti-sustainability and, above all else, anti the future and where work should be heading

But taking a look at her picture says it all: severe blonde hair cut so straight it wouldn't budge in a hurricane, pursed, pinched Anglo Saxon lips and that smug Ivy League expression we all love to hate. It's a face dying to be slapped:


Photo courtesy of The Columbus Dispatch

Yes, I detest everything this woman stands for. Yes, I don't know her -  and I shouldn't give a damn as it hardly affects me. But I do, because in this ever-globalized, ever-homogenized world, decisions like this have ripple effects everywhere.

And that is why I have made Yahoo!'s corporate honchette my absolute Bitch of the Year.

You so thoroughly deserve it, Ms. Meyer.

RAVE: Latuff Salutes Chavez

I knew my favourite cartoonist, Carlos Latuff, would come up with something inspired to honour the untimely death last week of the great and inimitable Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez.

Latuff did not disappoint:


Courtesy of Latuff Cartoons


Hugo will indeed stride into the history books, his head held high.

Thank you, Carlos. And thank you, Hugo.

TRUTH: Bradley Manning - the Conscience of America

I came across an excellent article by Michael Ratner entitled, "Bradley Manning: The Conscience of America" via the ever-excellent Common Dreams. Please read the article here. It is important that you do so.

Michael Ratner is not only the president emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights, but, more impressively for those of us outside the United States, he is the lawyer for none other than Julian Assange and Wikileaks. This is a man no doubt himself of great conscience and intellectual sincerity. 

He has been attending the military court facility proceedings against Manning at Fort Meade, Maryland, and has clearly been quite overwhelmed by the Bradley Manning he has seen before him. In military legal terms, this is without a doubt 'the trial of the century,' if not all of US legal military history, given that Manning is accused of the biggest leak of classified military documents in US history. He could be sentenced to death for what he did.

Far from being a broken or emotionally fragmented young man, Manning has instead presented himself with tremendous poise and conviction of what he did. As quoted from Ratner's article, "Yet, facing life in prison, possibly execution (which the government says it will not request), and all but sealing his fate for at least a lengthy prison term by his guilty admission to 10 of 22 charges against him, Bradley Manning exhibited calm, collection, great intelligence and, yet again, incredible bravery. In fact, if there was any room for doubt about Manning acting from a powerful moral compass, and representing the best and bravest of our military, the plea into which Manning entered must remove it."

That in itself is remarkable, and as Ratner correctly observes, shows the character and moral rectitude of the man accused by many of some of the most 'heinous crimes' in recent United States history, and by possibly even more as surely being a 'traitor.'

Fundamentally, when all is said and done, Bradley Manning did what he did not for the glory, not for the infamy, not for anything but all the right reasons. As he himself stated in his plea statement before the court on February 28th: 

“I believed that if the general public, especially the American public, had access to the information… this could spark a domestic debate on the role of the military and our foreign policy in general…” 

The United States military and government have been unmasked for the hypocritical, lying bullies that they are, and they are assuredly hell-bent on making an example of Manning. They will almost certainly succeed. Bullies and hypocrites always succeed - in the short-term.

In the longer-term Bradley Manning will be vindicated and praised as the true American patriot for what he did.

For now, those of us with a conscience and with more open eyes and minds can only hope for the best outcome from this farcical trial that he must endure. And hope that his spirit and resolute sense of self will persevere. 

What has happened and continues to happen to Bradley Manning is a slap in the face of every truth-seeking person on this planet. His torture, lack of due process and now mockery of a trial are a slap in all our faces. 


Courtesy of OccupyLV

Ratner was wrong about one thing: Bradley Manning is not merely the conscience of America. He is the conscience of the world. 

Do you get my point?

IT SAYS IT ALL: Chavez Somos Todos

The fantastic poster below says it all about Hugo Chavez...


Image courtesy of Fundacite-Zulia, Venezuela


We are indeed all Chavez...

RAVE: A Salute to Hugo Chavez

I have become quite emotional as I search the Internet for pictures and images of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez. It has made me realize just how much I valued this man, and, unfortunately, took him for granted for 'just being around' and being a monumental headache to the United States. 


Photo courtesy of Annalisa Melandri, Italy

And now he is gone.

Below are some pictures and images of Hugo Chavez that are my own small, personal way of saluting this great man and great leader in this blog of mine:


Photo courtesy of World Bulletin


Courtesy of Voices from Russia


Courtesy of The Big Story


Photo courtesy of Blouin News


Photo courtesy of CBS News


Photo courtesy of CTV News, Canada


Courtesy of Keep Calm And Posters


RIP Hugo.

RIP: Hugo Chavez

I was shocked and saddened to hear about the death of Hugo Chavez yesterday. The highly charismatic Venezuelan president died of a heart attack in Cuba after nearly two years battle with cancer. He was just 58 years of age.

Photo courtesy of Greenreport, Italy

I don't profess to being an expert on either Chavez or Venezuelan politics, but there is no denying that he was a game-changer in Latin American politics and that he was an iconic figure in the world. Chavez did much to raise the living standards of the poorest of Venezuelans, even if it was to the detriment of the country's economic growth, as his vociferous detractors (and haters) would often accuse him. Or so they say.

He no doubt had his flaws as both leader and person, but there are many, many reasons to mourn the passing of Hugo Chavez:

Because his 'Bolivar revolution' was at least an attempt at a better, more equitable life for Latin Americans

Because he changed the lives for millions of his nation's poorest in a region where the gulf between the haves and the have nots is so immense

Because he was born poor, rose to the top and tried to make a difference as a leader

Because he made the rich and the plutocrats in his country genuinely scared and angry

Because he gave socialism a modern, Latin face

Because he was the catalyst for leftist governments to sweep into power in countries like Bolivia and Ecuador, and even the leftish turn of Argentina

Because he nationalized key state enterprises, at a time when neo-liberalism reigns supreme for the Naked Emperor that it is

Because he survived an outrageous rightwing coup in 2002 against him - and came back stronger than ever

Because he stuck it to American imperialismo whenever he could - and that's good enough for me

Because leaders like this are so very rare

Because he was Hugo

I feel for the millions of poor and socially sensible Venezuelans who are in deep shock and mourning over the death of their Comandante. He changed many of their lives forever, so I can only imagine their terrible sense of loss with his death. For all those of us who yearn for a more just and equitable world, a world devoid of the crass and neo-liberalist casino capitalism that crushes the planet, and who felt and knew Chavez was on our side, we too have a sense of loss.

He will be missed - very missed.

RIP Hugo.