Soon enough, I expect to see lots more of this same kind of appeal – the people my age, who have been waiting our entire working lives for some of the Boomers to move out of the way (so that we can enjoy some of the same kind of benefit they’ve enjoyed their entire lives and build a life of our own) are now faced with the fact that this is never going to happen.

Who is going to pay for our country’s social security and healthcare structures, when the Boomers have taken all they can for as long as they can? Everyone who has come after the Boomers has been living on scraps and leftovers and didn’t-want-that-anyways, waiting for the time when the dream of a secure full-time job could be realized. Having been made to wait this long, most people of Gen X and Later have not been able to build the kind of financial establishment that previous generations have done, and now will be expected to support the social framework with our taxes? At a time when there will be more older (65+) people than young?

Sounds like being asked to make bricks without straw to me. Foolishness – and everyone talks about the entitlement mentality of the young!

Shawn piles in - so Human Rights Commission - what is your answer? What are his rights?

As many as five Eastern School District bus drivers have filed complaints with the PEI Human Rights Commission alleging age discrimination due to the school district’s mandatory retirement policy at the age of 65.

The School District has yet to respond to the complaints.
Carol White of Murray Harbour plans to appeal the policy. She will be 65 in August.

“The board shouldn’t sit in Charlottetown and say a bus driver is too old to drive,” Ms White said. “If a doctor says someone can’t drive after they’re 65 that’s one thing, but the system isn’t fair. If a driver is fit it should be their choice."

PEI Human Rights Commission executive director Greg Howard said five complaints have been made so far since February, with the most recent one filed on May 27.

Mr Howard said his role would first be to attempt to effect a settlement between the two parties. If a settlement can’t be reached and if an investigation shows the complaints have merit, then Mr Howard would forward the complaints to a panel. 

When you say yes to some you say yes to all. So on PEI there is no retirement age any more.

So what does that mean? One of the things it means is that the prior generation is still locked out by the Boomers. I see this as an ethical issue. What about the rights of the next generation?

What too about the practical issues of aging. The bus that killed some Canadians in Switzerland the other day was driven by a 73 year old. I would not want to be driven by a 73 year old bus driver. Aged 60 myself soon, I would not want to be driven by anyone over 70. Their reactions are just not up to it.

"The cause of the crash — going uphill on a dry, straight road in good conditions — has not been determined.

Rieder suggested the driver was distracted by a motorcyclist, "but that hasn't been confirmed yet." The driver, a 73-year-old German, tested negative for alcohol and was reported to be unhurt."(CBC - Link)

Do you want your kids to be driven by people who are not up to it or to be taught by people who are not at their best?

Whose "Rights" are we talking about?

It's all so pathetic.
HT Shawn Bowman for the lead

Most people probably wouldn’t think of dog treats as preventative medicine, but according to one Charlottetown woman upset over a recent policy change by Canada Post, that’s exactly what they are.>

Joanne Lord MacLeod said her pup Jock waits for the mail carrier every day to bring him his inevitable treat.

However, according to a Canada Post policy change initiated in 2008, mail carriers throughout Canada are now prohibited from keeping dog treats on them while working.

The policy change was put into action to keep carriers from getting bitten, something MacLeod thinks is counter-productive.
“I, for one, think it’s favourable for the postal carriers to carry treats,” said MacLeod.

“The animals then like to see them coming, so it is for their own protection as well as keeping the dogs from hating them because they encroach on their property.”

MacLeod added as far as she sees it, the dog treats will keep dogs from biting the carriers. “I think it’s a ridiculous issue for management to dream up,” she said.

But, a spokesperson at Canada Post said the company feels otherwise. “Dogs are creatures of habit,” wrote Denise Corra, communications manager with Canada Post in an email to The Guardian. “If they are regularly given treats, they come to expect them. If the regular letter carrier or a relief letter carrier arrives at the point of call without a treat, the dog could react badly.”

Millions of homes have dogs. Dogs are territorial and people whose living depends on them visiting your home have to have a good strategy. Dogs are their reality. I find amazing that many who come to homes as the central aspect of their work do not accept that they will meet dogs. I often think that they just hope that one day all the dogs will go away.

This no treat idea is simply foolish.

Dogs are highly motivated by food. Our dogs adore our letter carrier and Jack who delivers our oil. The meter reader hides in the car.

The best strategy is to avoid hiring people who fear dogs. Their fear alone guarantees risk. I suspect that this new rule is a sop to carriers who fear dogs. Should they be delivering letters to our homes anyway?

The second best is to allow treats. It's not just the food itself - it is the giving that creates a bond. Dogs don't need to get a treat every time. "Intermittent positive reinforcement" is the most powerful reinforcement as any parent knows. The food sets up the message to the dog that this person is OK.

So what is the plan now? How will this make dogs more accepting?

Mandatory retirement by age 65 has been an integral part of the University of Prince Edward Island’s terms of employment since 1995. Since that time, mandatory retirement has benefitted the overall University community by facilitating workforce renewal, and providing an effective tool for human resources and financial planning.

Following official complaints by three UPEI employees, the PEI Human Rights Commission conducted seven days of hearings in October 2009. The Commission released a ruling in February 2010 that our mandatory retirement policy is discriminatory. As anticipated, the Commission has now issued an Order to the University on the issues of remedies, damages, and costs. This Order was received by UPEI on June 4, 2010. See details on the Order here.

UPEI intends to fully comply with the Order. The three employees will be reinstated immediately and will be compensated for lost income, as outlined in the Order.

The total cost to the University to implement the Order will be in excess of
$1 million. For comparison purposes, this is double the increase to our government operating grant for Main Campus in 2010-11. In addition, the University will incur an estimated $325,000 a year in ongoing salary and benefit costs associated with reinstatement. These costs are substantial, and will need to be accommodated in this year’s budget.

The UPEI Senior Management Group will be meeting early this week to consider the measures that will be necessary to address this financial challenge. Restrictions on hiring and on discretionary expenditures are anticipated.

An ongoing issue raised by the University throughout the mandatory retirement debate has been the need for a more robust system of performance review for all faculty and staff. In light of the Order, it is imperative that this issue be addressed.

As the full implications of this new reality become clearer, we will keep the campus community informed through this website. This will include periodic updates on the judicial review that was requested by the University following the PEI Human Rights Commission’s February ruling.

As I read this, I can see the subtext too - can't you? The natural flow of employment has been dammed. There is a now a logjam at the top.

Who gains and who loses? What does this mean?

A few professors will gain.

But what about the students? There are some older people, like the great late Peter Drucker, who spent their entire and long lives at the cutting edge. Are any of these profs the leaders in their field? Are the students breaking down the doors to be in their class? Are the profs over 65 at UPEI exceptional? What will it be like for the students to have these profs taking up the limited teaching space at UPEI?

What does this mean for the teaching staff at UPEI? It means that UPEI cannot bring in much new blood. At a time when all is up in the air, it means that UPEU's faculty will get fossilized. It was fossilized until the late 1990's when UPEI had a mass buyout of older profs. UPEI's rise took place since that moment. So this means that just as we need to rethink our world, there will be no room for UPEI to bring in new thinking.

What about the regular staff of UPEI? With no exit at 65, what happens to staffing and hiring? It means that all full time staff at UPEI have an unlimited job subject only to a performance review. So if you are the admin at UPEI what does this mean? It means that you fill as few permanent positions as possible.

That means that the generation who has eaten the dregs of the boomers their whole lives continue in limbo. It means that the boomers have shut them off.

So, on balance most lose. Not a bit but a lot. And for what?

I think that there is a moral issue here.

There has been a contract both legal and moral for a long time. No one could say that they woke up one morning and were surprised by having to retire at 65. All could have arranged their lives with years to prepare. Some have said that they wished to continue their research. What has UPEI got to do with that? My own research has never depended on a university. It's not as if anyone of them was using the accelerator at Cern!

These people have used the system.

I say "use" because it is the moral issue that concerns me the most. When they took action, they knew what this would mean to the life of the university. To the future of the students - to the future of the next generation of staff. But they chose their own personal interests over all these others.

Finally "The Commission" Why this narrow range of thinking? We have age limits on countless things. Driving, voting, sex and drinking. Each age limit may be contentious - should it be one year or the other - but the principle behind them is socially sound. At what age are we competent?

How can a body like this overlook the broader interests and the impact of what they decide?

I am 60 in a few weeks. I am not the same person I was when I was 50. Nor should I be. People my age and older have a lot to offer younger people. But not in a transactional and busy way. It's the difference between parenting and being a grand father.

What can we best offer at over 60? Is it not our role and duty as oldies to influence our little world to be a better place for our kids? Is it not our role to be generative? To work to ensure that those younger than us can have a better or a good life?

Ageism! Get a life. When you are old you are different. Time to invent your self as an elder. Time to grow up and see the consequences of your actions.

Here in the U.S. we have a never-ending competition among the states to see which one can enact the dumbest laws. This past week, the South Dakota House of Representatives passed a law that tells schoolteachers how to present the evidence for global warming. The lawmakers who wrote the bill clearly don’t believe that global warming is a reality, so they simply created a law to promote their version of reality. Interestingly, they used the same strategy used by creationists in their efforts to ban the teaching of evolution: the “teach the controversy” approach, where you claim you simply want children to hear both sides of the issue. But the part that really got my attention was the law’s claim that “astrological dynamics” are one of the driving forces behind global climate change.

The South Dakota bill, which was passed 36-30 (not all the legislators are idiots; here’s the roll call vote), includes a number of delightful errors, which are worth examining one by one. Let’s start with the most entertaining claim:

That there are a variety of climatological, meteorological, astrological, thermological, cosmological, and ecological dynamics that can effect (sic) world weather phenomena and that the significance and interrelativity of these factors is largely speculative.

Wow! The South Dakota legislature has declared, by majority vote, that the ancient pseudoscience of astrology “can effect world weather”! Astrology, of course, is a superstitious belief that the movements of stars and planets can affect our daily lives here on Earth, a belief that has no basis in science. Some people – including, apparently, the South Dakota legislature – still take it seriously, although most view astrological forecasts as light entertainment.

(Perhaps South Dakota was jealous of all the attention that creationists are getting by attempting to legislate the teaching of creationism in other states. Bradford Plumer over at The New Republic thinks this is their attempt to win the “dumbest state in the nation” prize.)

God help us

Pets travelling by air belong in the cargo hold, not the cabin, where their dander could irritate passengers' allergies, states an editorial in the Canadian Medical Association Journal released Tuesday.

Three top doctors — deputy editor Matthew B. Stanbrook, editor-in-chief Paul C. Hébert, and Thomas Kovesi, a pediatrician at the University of Ottawa — put their names to the editorial that chastised airlines for putting the preferences of pet owners above the well-being of passengers.

The editorial makes the point that allergic reactions are an avoidable health risk, and that in rare situations, some reactions can be anaphylactic, a serious matter when the passenger is isolated from access to emergency medical care.

"People with allergies should be able to fly without placing their health at risk and must not be prevented from travelling for fear of being confined close to a pet."

The editorial's authors pointed to a recent decision by the Canadian Transportation Agency, which ruled that people with allergies to nuts should be considered to have a disability under the Canada Transportation Act and must therefore be accommodated.

They noted the CTA is now reviewing passenger complaints about pets on airplanes and determining whether those with allergies to pets should also be considered as having a disability.

I am a frequent flyer - the number of times that I have been on a plane with a dog or cat in the cabin is rare. Only the tiniest of dogs or Service Dogs get into the cabin anyway.

So the chances of you being irritated by dander is slight anyway. If you could die of cat dander, then all contact with all cat owners is a risk and you should never use public transport. No one has ever died of dog hair.

Who are these "experts" who claim that there are real risks of severe reaction and even death from having a Yorkie or a cat in a plane cabin?

I live in very close quarters with a cat and 2 dogs. I am sure that my clothing is covered in dander. Will I be banned next?

Time to give all this hysteria a rest.