A concerned citizen writes,
Little know fact: sometimes dogs float to the ceiling and get stuck there. Itâs a serious problem and we should really start to talk about it more to find a solution.
I urge you to look at the pictures the blogger provides of dogs in this position. Few will remain unmoved. Except the dogs, they do remain unmoved, because they are stuck.
Although the writer did not try to make any political capital from this issue, it did lead me to wonder what other problems in modern society are conceptually similar to the plight of these dogs. I did think of one: as you no doubt recall from your perusal of page 61 of the 2019 Labour manifesto, the Labour Party pledged to tackle the insecurity of casual work by:
Ending bogus self-employment and creating a single status of âworkerâ for everyone apart from those genuinely self-employed in business on their own account, so that employers can not evade workersâ rights; and banning overseas-only recruitment practices.
âą Introducing a legal right to collective consultation on the implementation of new technology in workplaces.
âą Banning zero-hour contracts and strengthening the law so that those who work regular hours for more than 12 weeks will have a right to a regular contract, reflecting those hours.
I think the gig economy might be a dogs-stuck-to-the-ceiling type of problem. Can you think of any others?
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That this post is classified as “Hippos” is not an error. It was done firstly because that was the category that most closely matched the content, and secondly because we all need to be alert for hippos stuck to the ceiling.
The Labour plan looks less like a plan to deal with dogs that have floated up and have become stuck to the ceiling, than a plan to go round seizing dogs that are going about their lawful occasions, and to affix them to ceilings, so as to make it more difficult for their owners to beat them.
Financial transactions tax. Oldie, but goldie: “Some 70 percent of the revenue would come from London.” London?
…but why the dog?
Bear in mind that the best way to affix “labor” political scientists to the ceiling is by a rope.
OT, I think, but looking at these pictures, I’m struck by how much more noble and attractive dogs were back when I was young. Some of these things that now pass for dogs are just . . . mutants. Hideous mutants.
My theory: human self-confidence has diminished so greatly that we now do not expect anything but the most ungainly and repulsive creatures to be able to love us, and so we breed our pets accordingly.
And then we stick them on the ceiling.
“Introducing a legal right to collective consultation on the implementation of new technology in workplaces.”
I think that it was here that I read about a document produced by the TUC about opposing automation. I can remember years ago reading in the daily mirror that it was a “paradox” that UK firms that had resisted the moves towards automation were laying off workers whereas their foreign competitors, despite the introduction of robots, were expanding and taking more staff on. I remember wondering if the writer really was so stupid as to not understand the reasons for this or was being deliberately obtuse.
Stonyground, the post you are referring to was this: “The lost chord, correction, TUC booklet”. A commenter called Hugh suggested that the thing I was searching for might be one of two publications from 1979 available in the Abebooks catalogue. I did take enough of a look to come to the opinion that the two were probably one and the same report to the Trades Union Congress, but I had the feeling that the book I remembered was the TUC talking to the public rather than the authors of the report talking to the TUC. And I wasn’t willing to spend over a tenner to find out.
And Perry, it’s very kind of you to affix a carpet to your ceiling, so your poor helium-filled dog does not have to lie against a cold, hard ceiling. The Labour Party need have no fears of you beating your dog – you obviously care for it far too much to ever do that.
However I hasten to add, do not inadvertently turn-on your ceiling fan; the result could be lamentable, not to mention quite messy.
Introducing a legal right to collective consultation on the implementation of new technology in workplaces.
Company: We are going to give you a new Macbook Pro, that old Windows laptop is knackered, out of date and a security risk.
Corbynite: No you don’t, sunshine! I’ll get the union on you! Rule 76(b) says we get full collective consultation company-wide on this!
Not to start an OS war, but I’d object if they tried to give me a Mac. And my cat agrees. Besides, dogs stuck to the ceiling can’t get at my cat food. What’s the problem here?
Speaking as a California expatriate, who would now be legally forbidden to work if still in California (copy editing in the US is virtually all freelance, which AB 5 disallows), I think the problem with dogs being stuck to the ceiling is that it makes it hard for dog vampires to drain their blood. Lorena Gonzalez, who authored AB 5, was a union organizer before she ran for the Assembly, and it seems clear that she doesn’t think a job is “real” unless its workers can be made to pay union dues.
Ellen, you write, “my cat food”? Wow, the lockdown where you are must be tough đ
William H.Stoddard, you write, “…she doesnât think a job is ârealâ unless its workers can be made to pay union dues.” I’ve noticed that a lot of people over here who were very angry over their belief that “Tory Austerity” had allegedly killed some vast number of people by making them poorer don’t seem to give a monkey’s about a much greater number of people being made poorer by not being able to work during the lockdown. They think only state benefits can “really” alleviate poverty.
You seem to be suggesting that the Labour Party think that we are still living in the 1970s. That can’t possibly be true can it?
Natalie: It’s my cat food — I bought and paid for it. I then give it, in rationed doses, to my cat. We both enjoy watching the dog on the ceiling. She does, however, give me odd looks when I start buttering toast.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XpQ6MehInc
@ Ellen on May 25, 2020 at 1:21 pm
Well, unless you take Rover out a minimum of three times a day to cock his leg, you’ll soon find out what the problem is … Just saying, is all … >};o)
I refuse to live with an animal that requires my active help in voiding his bowels and bladder.
@Ellen It’s not the
they would need your help with; it’s the insanely unwise, but understandable, urge to [attempt to] eviscerate your cat, sniff your neighbour’s crotch and then trot down the road that require assistance.
As for other dogs-stuck-to-the-ceiling problem, how about whatever it is that net neutrality is supposed to solve?
What the British Labour Party talked about doing the American Democrats have done – in such States as California. Their policy has done great harm – and, I now believe, was INTENDED to do great harm.
As for the United Kingdom – what the extreme left of the socialist Labour party proposes, tends to eventually be the policy of the Conservative Party.
Too cynical? Not at all.
When I joined the Conservative Party (some 40 years ago) the terms “Social Justice” the idea that justice was some sort of “fair distribution” of income and wealth – via a “Living Wage” and so on) and the “Diversity Agenda” (what the late “Peter Simple”, Michael Wharton, called the “Race Relations Industry”) summed up what the Conservative Party was AGAINST – try opposing those things and staying a member of that party now.
If the Labour Party started to say that dogs-stuck-on-ceilings was a major problem and needed government departments to deal with this (mythical) problem, withing 20 years Conservative Central Office would be expelling people from the party for mocking this (mythical) crises of dogs getting stuck on ceilings.
In the United States this problem is called the problem of “Me To” ism – later “Rockefeller Republicans” (i.e. Republicans pushing the agenda of the left), now just “RINOs” (“Republicans in name only”).
By the time REPUBLICAN Governor Nelson Rockefeller was finished the State of New York was the most Big Government State in the United States.
Both economically and CULTURALLY New York under this “Republican”, Governor Nelson Rockefeller, had become everything I hate.
In Britain this sort of fake “Conservatism” (the opposite of real Conservatism) was represented by Prime Minister Edward Heath.
Has it returned?
In case anyone does not know – the “Gig Economy” (self employed contractors) has been de fato banned in California.
And that was BEFORE the virus gave the forces of evil the excuse to impose, in many places in the world, the tyranny they have long dreamed of.
People are moving out of over-taxed states into states like Florida, so someone will try to stop taxpayer-escapers from getting away. Perhaps a capital-gains emigration tax?