1 BACK TO SCHOOL Newtown, Connecticut students headed back to the classroom today. It seems sort of ridiculous. I get the idea that the children and staff should be able to mourn together, but three days after the tragedy seems a little soon. At least the Sandy Hook students don’t have to go back to the building where it all went down.
2 ROUGE-Y ROUGE Air Canada announced today that its new low-budget airline, Rouge, would start flying in July. It means you can now fly to Edinburgh, Scotland and Venice, Italy (if it’s still worth flying there after all the flooding) for under $1,000 round trip for the first time with Air Canada. I am all for cheap flights; however, it means Rouge staff will receive lower wages and less benefits than Air Canada staff. An arbitration settlement back in July, which sent pilots back to work, is partly to blame for creating the wage divide.
3 INSTA-BOYCOTT!! Facebook, which recently bought photo-sharing site Instagram, is pissing a lot of users off. Instagram’s terms of service was updated yesterday and now demands users agree that their photos could be used “in connection with paid or sponsored content.” This means that even though the photographer “owns” the photo, Facebook can use your photos to market to your friends on its site. The changes go into effect on January 16, 2013. Many Instagram users have posted on Twitter that they will boycott the photo-sharing site and now “#Instagram” is trending on Twitter.
4 MERRY X-MAS Saskatoon Transit will continue to display a “Merry Christmas” message on busses. City councilors debated the issue yesterday, but ultimately settled on keeping the holiday greeting. They also decided to explore the possibility of adding greetings that reflect spiritual celebrations of other world religions. Yay for inclusivity!
BONUS: Last night, a group of Idle No More protestors rocked a flash mob Round Dance at the Cornwall Centre. Have a look-see.