I am being whisked away after work to a Gen X at 40 authorized event, the first game of the Watertown Wizards 2007 season. Should be fun as it is supposed to be stinking hot and, at a buck a ticket for kids, a great deal.

• The G8 summit is wrapping up and I am worried again about Russian totalitarianism and I have to say it feels great. Finally we are looking at a conflict that is deserving of the utter angst that being a teen under Ronnie and Leonyd fostered. First hint that something is whacked over there? Not Vlad's rantings over missile defense but the banning of a beer commercial:

  Many of the beer advertisements that flow freely on late-night television in Russia target men, promoting pursuits such as fishing, grilling or just hanging out with the guys. Now state regulators say one of them went too far. By seeming to celebrate male messiness and manners -- or the lack thereof -- an ad for a brand owned by Dutch giant Heineken broke the law and threatened family values, the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service said today.

  The ad for PIT aped an opinion poll, saying "89 per cent of men believe they are not guilty of anything", and showed images including dirty footprints on a carpet, a nearly empty refrigerator and a flower bed ruined by an errant soccer ball, the government agency said...The ad "promotes and strengthens a model of male behaviour that proposes open disdain for family responsibilities", the statement said. It "uses an image of conduct that is offensive to the family as a whole and also to the family values that are protected in society".

  Da! Pravda! Da-da-da, even.
• The Yankees seem to be on a roll and the Sox have sputtered yet instructively the lead over the pack in the AL East stands. I'm seeing the long June stretch of interleague play that starts today as being very important this year, even if the games that the Sox have been given against,say, Arizona and Colorado are bound to be too late and boring and against teams with funny colour schemes. Some team is going to have to make a run at Boston in June because the AL East's July is filled with games against familiar teams and chewing up each other by a load of .500 ball teams is not going to change much. Unless the Red Sox choke, of course.
• The choice of the logo for the London 2012 Olympics continues to astound me as the dumbest decision I have ever witnessed, certainly during my now going on five years of blogging. I suppose behind it all is someone with a vision who is just learning his vision is crap. Response? Lash out:

  "When something is so swingingly attacked as the 2012 logo has been, it tells you more about the people doing the attacking," said Michael Wolff, the co-founder of Wolff Olins, which designed the logo. "Prejudice is comfortable and lazy." Wolff, who has since formed a separate company, went on to say in The Evening Standard: "I think this petulant reaction will subside and pride will take its place."

  Mike might want to take up blogging where the theory "everyone else is wrong and I am right" works quite nicely.
This lawsuit about employers inducing or demanding non-paid overtime could be an interesting one to watch:

That dread of a pink slip is enough to convince many in the banking industry to appear busy well after closing time, said Joel Rochon, a lawyer who has been researching unpaid overtime infractions at two major Canadian financial institutions. During his research, Mr. Rochon has found that bank managers also regularly employed a few tricks, such as scheduling meetings for tellers after normal work hours and reprimanding workers who clock excessive overtime. "They have created an environment where it's unfashionable not to work overtime," he said. "It's become standard to understaff branches, provide huge workloads for those on the front lines and expect the work to be done."

It's these sort of cases that can alter society to reset the relationships which have slipped into inequality. In my past life, the gag reflex was tickled whenever I heard the management theory of the work team as "a family" which no doubt some dope foisted upon us all as one of these ways to guilt or induce staff to give up for no return for someone else's benefit. Not at all in line of Vlad's sense of family values noted a few bullets up. Or maybe exactly in line. He is a dictator after all.
• Finally but certainly not least, in the most recent issue of King's alumni magazine, Tidings (oddly pronounced not as in the changing levels of the oceans but like "hid") there is a note about another classmate who is serving in Afghanistan:

  Major Stephen Murray (BA '85, HC '87) has been the Deputy Commanding Officer of the Canadian Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) in Kandahar, Afghanistan since August 2006.

  Out thoughts are with Stephen and his family as they are with Trevor Greene and his. An amazing and self-reflection causing contribution for a school which in my time with 200 students total.