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Green Job Spotlight: Store Manager Provides Like-New Computers at Likable Prices

by OlgaB16zbzsey Posted on March 31, 2014

ComputerWorks store manager John Kwalick helps turn old computers into something new.

When customers walk into the ComputerWorks store inside Goodwill of Southwestern Pennsylvania’s Lawrenceville location, they often ask for Johnny.

“The people just love him,” says Dennis Abbott, computer and electronics recycling manager. “He’s able to communicate with customers, no matter what age or ethnic group.”

Fan-favorite Johnny is John Kwalick, the ComputerWorks manager. In that role, he’s responsible for all the activities in the store, including pricing, customer complaints, refurbishing computers, and programming better systems for tracking work orders and handling other operational efficiencies.

Since coming to the store in 2009, he’s been popular with almost everyone who walks through the door. “He’s just so knowledgeable and has such great communication skills,” says Abbott, who manages Kwalick.

As it turns out, the feeling is mutual. “I love dealing with the customers’ issues and computer problems,” he says. “It’s something new every day; it’s never the same. I like the changing factor of it.”

Recycling = Job Training

Unlike other computer stores, which often have the goal to push out as many new units as possible, ComputerWorks focuses on refurbishing older computers whenever practical. “Other places just want to sell you a new computer,” Abbott says. “We’ll take the time to explain whether it’s viable to upgrade or not.”

Adds Kwalick: “Most of these older computers are still good and can do the same thing as a newer computer can for basic work.”

When upgrading isn’t possible, they recycle the parts through a partnership with Dell Reconnect, a computer-recycling program that’s kept more than 324 million pounds of e-waste out of landfills since 2004.

As a result, green jobs are created for people, with Kwalick’s position being just one example. “We think about recycling every day here,” he says. “It’s just part of the way we operate.”

The program also creates jobs for people with disabilities, who take apart the machines and categorize what’s inside so that recyclers don’t have to do disassembly down the line. In fact, donating one working computer to Dell Reconnect equates to 6.8 hours of job training for a Goodwill employee.

Next page: A Win-Win

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Green Job Spotlight: Store Manager Provides Like-New Computers at Likable Prices

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Obama Trade Deals Are in Trouble, and They Deserve to Be

by AbbieUsusd Posted on February 17, 2014

Mother Jones

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Dean Baker is no fan of the trade deals currently being negotiated by the Obama administration. They aren’t being negotiated for the benefit of consumers, he says. “In reality these deals were being negotiated by corporate interests from day one”:

Of course it is possible to craft a trade deal that would promote real economic gains. Doctors in the United States earn salaries that are hugely out of line with those in other wealthy countries. The same is true for other highly paid professions. If a trade deal focused on reducing the barriers that prevent these professionals from providing their services in the United States the gains would be substantial. The savings on doctors alone could be close to $100 billion a year (0.6 percent of GDP).

The agreements could also focus on reducing the value of the dollar, which would make our goods and services more competitive internationally. This would lower our trade deficit and potentially create millions of jobs. And, we could reduce patent and copyright barriers, lowering prices and making markets more competitive.

But these items don’t come up at trade negotiations because the folks at the table would lose from these growth enhancing measures. Instead we get silly stories about trade pacts being negotiated by disinterested parties who are only looking out for the good of the country. Come on folks, you’ve got to do better than this.

It’s pretty hard to get excited about either the TPP (Pacific partners) or the TTIP (Atlantic partners). And it looks like it’s pretty hard for Congress to get excited too. Ironically, the reason for this is largely due to provisions in these deals that the United States itself has been responsible for foisting on everyone else. If we had stuck to a deal that our trade partners liked better, we’d also have a deal that Congress liked better.

For once, it looks like corporate interests in the United States have outsmarted themselves. Instead of settling for a merely lucrative deal, they demanded outrageously favorable treatment. By doing so, they’ve pissed off everyone: our trade partners and Congress and large swatches of even the neoliberal community that would normally be sympathetic to treaties like these.

Who knows. Maybe they’ll learn a lesson from this.1

1Just kidding.

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Obama Trade Deals Are in Trouble, and They Deserve to Be

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Hooked on Speed: How Jazmine Fenlator Feeds Her "Bobsled Habit"

by EdwardJ21zffz Posted on December 26, 2013

Mother Jones

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A “controlled car crash.” That’s how US bobsled pilot Jazmine Fenlator, 29, remembers her first run. “I was sliding down a mile of ice with my head buried in the bottom of the bobsled,” she says. “I’m getting jostled around and I’m not understanding why I’m moving so much.” She ended the run drooling and shaking, but she was hooked.

Bobsledders, many of whom, like Fenlator, hail from track-and-field sports, have to be some level of crazy to send their bodies careening down steep ice passages at speeds up to 100 miles per hour. But it’s not just the risk of bodily harm that makes the experience intense. “It’s a grueling blue-collar sport,” Fenlator says. “We carry our sleds. There’s no caddy, there’s no pit crew.” And, like many Olympians in less-prominent sports, the athletes often have to dip into their own coffers to pay for their training. At one point, Fenlator and her teammate had to scrounge up $20,000 for a new sled—which meant a slew of side jobs.

Their dedication paid off in early December, when Fenlator joined five teammates on the podium for a World Cup sweep—the first ever for US women’s bobsledding, and a hopeful indicator of what may lie ahead for Team USA in Sochi.

Mother Jones: What kind of reactions do you get when you tell people what you do?

Jazmine Fenlator: A lot of people think I’m on the Jamaican bobsled team. It’s a question every black bobsledder gets, even if you’re wearing a USA shirt. Or a lot of times people don’t know what bobsled is, so they’ll reference luge or skeleton. It’s a hard sport because not many people can relate to it, and it’s a hard sport to spectate. You only see it every four years on TV, and it doesn’t have a lot of popularity, which we’re trying to change. So, you get a lot of naïve questions. But I welcome those. The more people I can teach and tell about bobsled, the more cheers we’ll have in Sochi.

MJ: How does one become a bobsledder?

JF: I was a senior in college in 2006-2007 at Roger University as a track and field athlete. I started to realize that I was a little bit behind the pace I needed to qualify for Beijing. I was really going to focus on revamping my training when my coach mentioned bobsled. I didn’t really take him too seriously, but he submitted my athletic resume and the team invited me to a tryout camp. I jumped on the opportunity. It’s not everyday a national team invites you, especially if you’ve never done the sport before.

MJ: Had you ever even imagined bobsledding?

JF: No. I’d seen Cool Runnings and watching the 2002 and 2006 winter games, but I did not actually know much about it.

MJ: What do you remember from the 2002 games, the inaugural year for women’s bobsled?

JF: For Team USA to bring home gold, as well as Vonetta Flowers winning the first medal in winter sports for an African-American, was huge. I remember watching her and Jill Bakken push that sled down the start ramp on the final run and the announcer saying, “This is where Olympians are made, this is where medalists can break or make it.” They kept their composure and they did just what they needed to do and came across the line screaming.

MJ: What was bobsledding like the first time you did it?

JF: I had no idea what is happening. I was a brakeman, so you don’t get to see where you are going. My helmet doesn’t even fit properly, I am getting jostled around in this sled. A lot can happen in your brain in a minute, I’ve learned.

One of the coaches stood at the bottom to make sure that the newbies weren’t getting motion sickness or about to run and call a taxi and head to the airport. I’m breathing heavy and have drool and snot probably everywhere. I can’t unbuckle my helmet. I’m shaking, and I feel like “Aaah, I don’t really know. How many times do we do this today?” He’s like, “Great, ’cause we have a couple more training trips to go! Head right on the truck and go back up.” It was a pretty incredible experience. Extremely humbling.

MJ: How do you shave seconds off your time?

JF: You’re searching for thousands of seconds that add up to equal hundredths. I’ve gotten third in a race by six-hundredths. You can’t even blink that fast. And you can be like, where did I lose that time? Was it a piece of tape flapping on the side that I forgot to take off when cleaning my sled? Was it this little mistake here or there? You can’t just be a great athlete. You can’t just be a great pilot. You can’t just have great equipment. You’re looking for a combination, because it’s not just one thing. That’s why you’re in the weight room, and sprinting every day—to shave off hundredths in your 30-meter time, and lift 5 or 10 more pounds in the squat. Because all of that adds up.

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Hooked on Speed: How Jazmine Fenlator Feeds Her "Bobsled Habit"

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Oil barge crashes into gas pipeline in Louisiana, triggers big fire

by Michalak876 Posted on March 13, 2013

Oil barge crashes into gas pipeline in Louisiana, triggers big fire

By John Upton

Lafourche Parish Sheriff’s Office

An oil-laden barge crashed into a natural-gas pipeline off the Louisiana coast.

A grotesque collision of fossil-fuel-laden vessels happened in a bayou south of New Orleans on Tuesday evening, where tug-boat operators crashed a barge carrying crude oil into a submerged natural-gas pipeline.

The result was predictable: A spectacular conflagration erupted that injured two of the four members of the tug-boat crew, including the captain, who reportedly suffered burns covering more than three quarters of his body. Emergency crews on Wednesday were scrambling to contain spilled oil spreading south of the accident.

The crash occurred at about 6 p.m. local time 30 miles south of New Orleans on Bayou Perot, according to the Coast Guard.

Pipeline owner Chevron isolated the severed section of line by shutting off some of its valves, and emergency crews allowed the gas left inside it to burn off, The Washington Post reports. Various outlets reported that the barge was carrying more than 2,000 barrels of oil and that the tug boat was fueled with diesel.

The fire burned through the night and past dawn.

The oil spill may be substantial. In a telephone interview on WGNO this morning, while the tug and pipeline still burned, a Coast Guard spokesman said a 30-foot-wide ribbon of “what looks like combusted oil” was heading south from the accident site.

The fishing area and oil and gas field is no stranger to fossil-fuel accidents. Shorelines in the area were heavily polluted following BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the spring and summer of 2010. And in late 2010, three welders were injured when the rig they had been working aboard in the shallow waterway exploded.

John Upton is a science aficionado and green news junkie who

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Oil barge crashes into gas pipeline in Louisiana, triggers big fire

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