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As a teenager, I belonged to a retail union. This enabled me to work 20 hours a week at Master's, a regional department store. When business slowed, the store laid off workers, including me. The union rep said she could get my hours back -- or I could just accept the union's unemployment compensation, which amounted to the same check I'd get if I went back to work. Master's, if it existed today, would have been gutted by monolithic Wal-mart, whose "Save Money, Live Better" mantra masks a business strategy that demands lower costs for the goods it sells. This, in turn,  sends manufacturing jobs to countries that don't defend the safety of their employees. That's what unions did best: they led the push for safer working conditions and livable wages. By Walmart from Bentonville, USA  (Walmart’s Grease Fuel Truck)  [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)] via Wikimedia Commons You may have missed how Wal-mart attempted to trample a

Ticketmaster never cared about its image. Or its public relations. It charges usurious add-on fees for concert tickets, and people pay them. Sometimes, Ticketmaster gets hauled into court for its fees, and then vanishes from the news radar. OnCenter in Syracuse, NY, by Joegrimes at en.wikipedia  [Public domain], from Wikimedia Commons Still, you'd think they actually wanted to sell tickets. Yet, judging by Ticketmaster's weekly email blast, they have a grudge against Rochester. Their emails tout concerts in Albany, Syracuse, Buffalo, Niagara Falls, New York City, Verona, and Salamanca. All an hour or more away.  But, Rochester, where I live? Hardly any shows. Ticketmaster has my Zip code. They know from my purchase history that I'm more likely to buy tickets for Judy Collins than Usher. A 6th grader could look at these data points and assume: "Dave prefers attending concerts by soft-rock artists in Rochester."  Yet, they think I'm dying to

Last week, except for a few Fathers' Day photos, I didn't post on Facebook. You could say I went on a Facebook diet. Cut out the starchy, empty carbs (also known as "clickbait.") Got away from the screen, took longer walks. De-listed myself from pointless pages I'd once liked. I did share a few responses to others' posts on Facebook. But for seven days, I refrained from sharing links to other stories and videos, or leaving pseudo-pithy observations of my own. Mostly, I eavesdropped on the din of discourse on the world's largest gossip website. What happened when I stepped back from the "scream of consciousness" of Facebook? I spent less time fretting over what to post. No pontificating on the missteps of public figures. No hunting for decades-old snapshots for "Throwback Thursday." And, I got more stuff done. I thought friends would take note of my absence, message me, and ask if I were OK. I was mistaken. I blew past th

The dance about net neutrality has barely begun. And it's going to affect what crawls across your computer. Unless you start asking questions. By NASA [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons First, Common Cause says this about net neutrality: "network neutrality is the principle that Internet users should be able to access any web content they choose and use any applications they choose, without restrictions or limitations imposed by their internet service provider." You can learn more at http://www.commoncause.org/site/pp.asp?c=dkLNK1MQIwG&b=1234951 What this means: think of the internet as a collection of pipelines through which media content flows. Verizon, Comcast, or Time Warner are some major owners of those pipes. They can "throttle" downloads of content providers like Netflix if they don't pay for increased bandwidth. Or, you might see Walmart's online shopping pages load more quickly than Amazon's, if Walmart buys preferential pi

By Oregon Department of Transportation (Diversity Uploaded by AlbertHerring) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons Wow. Say what you will about Google's massive  Internet presence,  but when they mess up, they're not shy about it. A few days ago, Google admitted its workforce was overwhelmingly white. And male. They shared some metrics here . This is unusually forthright, because there's no major litigation facing Google regarding workforce inequities. Instead, they got out in front of their problem, defusing potential negative publicity before criticism or litigation arose. But dig deeper and you find their statistics are somewhat worse when it comes to the diversity of the company's leadership. Google's overall workforce is: 30 percent female, 70 percent male.  61 percent white,  30 percent Asian,  2 percent African American, and  3 percent Hispanic. Google's leadership demographics are less forgivi