Yesterday, Friday the 29th, was my first outing to the Rochester Big City Summer Fest. The wife and I arrived there entirely too early, thinking we’d get food while we were there. Well, when I get to criticisms later in the post, I’ll get to that.
But since the Big City Summer Fest is in it’s first year, the crowd was predictably small most of the time we were there. We also didn’t stay for the later shows, and bailed to find dinner around 8:30 or so, so I can’t speak to what things looked like later in the evening.
I’ll get into discussing more of the goings on after the flip. » Continue Reading…
The excitement is palatable, and the gear is already starting to move into High Falls, ready for the big shows coming up in the next three weeks!
This week’s theme is American music, generally. There’s a bunch of great acts I’m looking forward to seeing, though I will end up missing tonight’s festivities due to some unexpected (and highly-cool!) personal news which I will be all too happy to share with the blogging community once the time is right.
Tonight’s bill features seven bands, none of which are local. Michelle Shocked, Swati, Eilen Jewell, Elana James, Leah Randazzo and Small Stars. I will particularly miss Leah Randazzo, whose music samples I listened to in the BigCitySummerFest.com’s lineup section and with which I was mightily impressed.
Good god, you could stick a pig with ten needles and get less screeching, oinking and carrying on than you do the minute you put a Republican up against a wall. Oh, they talk tough. Oh, they’re all ready, willing and able to put someone else’s kids into battle half a world away from their comfortable little lives to prove that they have bigger dicks than anyone else.
But oh, if you subpoena them, and cover your ears, quick! You might want to wear your spare glasses, because the shrieking, pissing and moaning will doubtless crack the glass:
Panel demands White House eavesdropping documents – CNN.com
“We’re aware of the committee’s action and will respond appropriately,” White House spokesman Tony Fratto said.
“It’s unfortunate that congressional Democrats continue to choose the route of confrontation.”
Oh! “Unfortunate,” is it? “Confrontation,” too much for you? Pussy.
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UPDATE: I’ve included some bottom-line information at the bottom of this article for you, along with the relevant contact information to find out more information if you need it.
I’ve spoken with a number of sources on the issue of Sutherland’s latest legal troubles, and there are quite a few moving parts to it. This blog has been looking into the issues for a little less than a week, but now for both the interests of informing the general public and more importantly, to inform other employees, current and former, of the state of affairs let me lay this out as simply as possible.
Many Sutherland employees will be familiar with the practice of logging onto phones and working sales assets before logging on to their time keeping system. Others will be familiar with working through lunches or other practices encouraged by Sutherland, especially on the sales team. Those of you who worked tech support positions probably spent a fair amount of time working after the ends of your shift to complete calls. In all of these cases, where Sutherland failed to make sure the employee was properly compensated, they violated the law. » Continue Reading…
I’m getting very, very stoked for this latest in Rochester festivals, because this is shaping up quite nicely, indeed. There are a tonne of great bands lined up for club shows, free outdoor shows and big name concerts at the Highland Bowl. I’m not sure about seeing Susan Tedeschi, much though I would like to, because it’s not really in the budget to see both big shows and I’d rather go see the Doobie Brothers.
The Atomic Swindlers, The BuddhaHood, One World Tribe and loads of other bands will be performing over the course of two weekends. At High Falls, they’ll be jammed together closely enough that the entire Mill St., Browns Race cobblestone section should be filled with music for four to six hours a weekend night (starting, as weekends always should, on Thursday nights!).
Check out my Upcoming.org events calendar at the top of this blog for more information about the lineup. I’ve been lazy and haven’t put the full schedule up yet, but it will be. The SummerFest website has all this information, of course, but the layout’s a bit wonky and the linear schedule here may be a bit easier to read.
I guess one of the best parts about this festival is, for me, the fact that I know so few of the bands. That means these are small, niche player bands for niches that I know very little about, and that excites me in terms of what new I and the rest of the attendees can learn about music.
I’m waiting to hear back from a few of the performers, so expect updates right up into the festival itself!
Cool, everybody!
Thank you to everyone who has responded, however you’ve chosen to respond. I’ve talked to a number of people about this both off line and on, and I’m still looking into the situation. Probably not a lot will happen on a Sunday, so if you read this and haven’t responded yet, please do.
A few have chimed in to say that the Sutherland abuses are nothing new. That’s certainly true, even the original organization attempt was a while ago, but the letters are only coming out now, right before the deadline.
What’s fishie is that the letter states that the Department of Labor has done and audit and determined that some of us are owed back pay, but that the corrective transaction will happen between the employee and Sutherland’s own H.R. department. That, and the fact that it says I’ve got X dollars of money coming back to me, “less applicable withholdings and liquidated damages” of . . . . X dollars exactly.
So maybe the first seeming discrepancy is normal and the second is a product of my own non-lawyer-ish interpretation of legalese. Maybe, but it strikes me as odd that the DOL performs an audit and the corrections should happen directly through the employer. It seems like the kind of thing that the DOL would handle directly, but who knows in Bush’s White House. . .
Besides which, I’ve not previously been informed of any lawsuit that I’m aware of. This letter seems to spend two paragraphs telling you “you may already have won x dollars!” and then the last para is spent saying in as few words as possible that you waive any right to sue Sutherland by taking this money.
So, if you know anything, hip me to it, please! Throw a comment in the comments section or use the “Contact Me” link in the masthead.
I don’t have much I can reveal at the moment, but letters have gone out to all Sutherland Global Services employees working for the company between July 16, 2001 and July 17, 2004. The information contained in these letters does not seem to square with reason, nor to the facts in the cases pending against them. At issue in the cases is the shoddy, often intentionally abusive wage practices at Sutherland.
Union watchers and UNITEHERE employees will no doubt be familiar with the attempts by said Union to organize the workers at the Henrietta office. This case (or really, series of cases) stems from both the fall out after and the mitigating factors that prompted that organization push. I was there for that whole thing, and it was ugly.
Well, without going into too much detail before I’ve had a chance to check in on a few sources, it looks as though things stand to get uglier.
Did anyone else out there work for Sutherland during those years? Have you gotten a letter? Do you know someone who has? I would be very interested in hearing from you, if so. Drop a comment or contact me directly though the “Contact Me” link in the masthead.
I like most of what I’ve seen about Barack Obama. I really do, and I’m hoping he does well in the primaries, though to be honest, I’ve not made up my mind on any one contender.
But the wife and I were surprised and impressed at first with the latest fund raising gimmick from the Obama camp: Dinner with Barack. Donate in any amount you can afford and be entered into a contest to win a dinner with Barack Obama to talk about the issues. Seems everyone in the Democratic camps is coming up with some gimmick another to glean the netroots, and Barack had come up with one that played to his charm. After all, who the hell wants to sit in stiffled silence across from the She Dem, Hillary Clinton? She’s better sticking to the Sopranos references, as befitting her.
But then I got the list in an email, and oh boy. A MyDD’er got the list and published it. I can’t say anything for sure, but I mean really. Just look at who got picked: » Continue Reading…
Yeah, I know you’ve heard enough about her. Tough shit, I’m going to gush for myself!
Amy Winehouse has been an artist on my radar since a few years back when I heard her for the first time on Launch. I’ve always just loved her voice, but now the new album positively blows my mind. Just the most sincere rendition of the MoTown sound I’ve heard since MoTown was MoTown.
In fact, one track in particular sounds like it might be a sampling and transposition of “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.” I don’t know the track because I don’t have the album in front of me, but there is zero ambiguity and I’ve been astonished that no one has commented on this fact that I’ve read. That’s including having just read the Rolling Stone interview with her online.
But seriously, if you like music, you need this album. She’s not coming anywhere near here for a while, but she’s playing Toronto on July 5th, the day after the Rush show I’m going to, so I’m afraid I’ll be missing that gig, unfortunately.
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Well, Eric Massa’s really laying down the smack on Randy Kuhl these days and pulling no punches doing it. In a press release sent out today, Massa excoriates Kuhl for caving in to President Bush’s threat of veto after having sung the praises of the Homeland Security Appropriations Bill on his website. Well, that’s certainly a big “oopsie-daisy” for the Kuhl campaign, but man, Massa’s opted to really lay into him on this one:
“I completely agree with what Randy Kuhl said on Friday morning, but I ouldn’t disagree more with how he voted on Friday afternoon,” said andidate Eric Massa. “This is the ultimate flip flop, Mr. Kuhl’s Press ecretary didn’t accidentally mistype a yes for a no, this was a researched, thought out position, and as soon as George Bush threatened Veto, Randy Kuhl abandoned his responsibility to his constituents and flip flopped to support the President. This is just one more example of how whipped Deputy Minority Whip Kuhl actually is.”
Of course, Randy probably deserves some heat for this one. If in particular for simply following the president’s anemic leadership in base politics on this issue, then equally for being so much part of the Do Nothing, Spend Everything Congress that ushered in this era of spending.
The Dems deserve a spanking, too, for not having gotten their shit together enough to stop the earmarks . Whether thats because of the ubiquity or the utility of those earmarks remains an open point for debate. There seems to be no word whatsoever from The Gavel.
