Because It Needs to Be Said, After All These Years

Was going to post this on it's own, but will say "sorry for my absence." Good Lord, this guy longs for the day when life is not pounding him flatter than hammered dog shit. It's been said by better monkeys than me, but pray for mojo.

Are we Hearing the Death Knell for Unions? « Wade Rathke: Chief Organizer Blog

Are we Hearing the Death Knell for Unions? « Wade Rathke, former ACORN dude

In the Wall Street Journal a couple of weeks ago a breathless story about a possible $100,000,000 organizing campaign being launched by SEIU in more than a dozen cities around the country was attributed to an anonymous SEIU board member and other sources. Whatever the merits and truth of those reports, SEIU and every other union need to pull all of their last dollars together and figure out how to survive and turn the tide and do it now, make it real, and make it very, very different, because the bell has rung on the old school and the old ideas, as Stern acknowledges, and we are running out of time and money with the tide coming in hard against us.

Wisconsin as a Good Thing | Democratic Strategist

Wisconsin as a Good Thing | Democratic Strategist

But the trade union movement's weak public relations outreach is puzzling. In this age of streaming video, where is Labor's television station, or even nation-wide radio programs? Where are the academy-award nominated documentaries about labor's pivotal contributions to American society? How about some public service ads educating people about union contributions to social and economic progress in America?

It's no longer enough have labor leaders do guest spots on news programs and talk shows. a much more aggressively pro-active p.r. and educational effort is needed. That commitment, coupled with an effort to modernize union recruitment and membership could help insure that sleazy politicians like Walker never get the chance to do their worst.

How Chris Christie Did His Homework - NYTimes.com

How Chris Christie Did His Homework - NYTimes.com

What makes Christie compelling to so many people isn’t simply plain talk or swagger, but also the fact that he has found the ideal adversary for this moment of economic vertigo. Ronald Reagan had his “welfare queens,” Rudy Giuliani had his criminals and “squeegee men,” and now Chris Christie has his sprawling and powerful public-sector unions — teachers, cops and firefighters who Christie says are driving up local taxes beyond what the citizenry can afford, while also demanding the kind of lifetime security that most private-sector workers have already lost. It may just be that Christie has stumbled onto the public-policy issue of our time,which is how to bring the exploding costs of the public workforce in line with reality.

Get hyperbolic much, NYT?

Labor Secretary Solis: "Elections do matter" – The 1600 Report - CNN.com Blogs

Labor Secretary Solis: "Elections do matter" – The 1600 Report - CNN.com Blogs

The political rallying cry came as some liberals and labor activists had questioned why President Obama hadn't visited protesters in Wisconsin, especially in light of a 2007 campaign line. Then-candidate Obama told a crowd in South Carolina "understand this, if American workers are being denied their right to organize and collectively bargain, when I'm in the White House, I'll put on a comfortable pair of shoes myself, I'll walk on that picket line with you as president of the United States of America."

On Thursday White House spokesman Jay Carney, asked about why he wasn't making such a trip, said, the President has "an ability to be heard when he speaks, and he spoke to the situation in Wisconsin and his views on it last week. And I'll leave it at that."

Because Bad Ideas Never Die: Gangster Polticians Edition

Oh, hey! TABOR is back!

The Dems at the statehouse want to do something about this budget crisis we're having in Oregon. Well, not so much the current crisis, but future ones. To do this, they want to end the "kicker" and direct those dollars to a Rainy Day Fund, which is eminently sensible. There's a certain logic to saying "Maybe when we have billions in deficits, we shouldn't be sending tax rebates to people because three guys missed their guess on how much revenue we'd have."

This being Oregon, nothing sensible is allowed to happen. Not only do we have plenty of Republicans who still can't give up the "it's the people's money!They know best what to do with it" bullshit that drives so much of the debate, but we've also managed to pass a law that requires 2/3 of the Legislature to change tax law.

So, in order to enact sensible tax reform, the Dems have to give the Republicans something. What could that something be? Oh, how 'bout that little Measure that we all worked our asses off to kill a few years back?

But in an attempt to build political consensus, the proposed constitutional revision, which would have to go before voters, would offer more.

GOP lawmakers and business interests showed a liking for [the idea] because it proposes to place a threshold on government spending by tying spending increases to population growth and inflation, thereby seeking to prevent state government spending from mushrooming in times of economic boom.

Steve Buckstein of the libertarian Cascade Policy Institute said the spending cap intrigued him because “taxpayers have very few ways of regulating the growth of government.”

Now, I seem to recall being assured that if Measure 48 passed, that would be the end of Oregon as we know it. I guess not. Or maybe so.

Labor makeover?

Labor faces a moment of truth - Ben Smith and Maggie Haberman - POLITICO.com

Many strategists and even some labor officials argue that the genuine passion and emotion being felt and displayed on the ground in Wisconsin is obscuring a central problem: Unions still haven’t figured out even a semblance of an effective PR strategy.

True enuff, as far as it goes -- but how far does it go? To what extent is the problem just the frame, unionistas? There's also the structural problem of state fiscal crises, and the political-cultural problem of ubiquitous deficit hawkery, right?

“Whatever happened to the vague sense 10 years ago of the need to develop a community unionism?” asked another official, who suggested labor leaders on the ground in Wisconsin shouldn’t have been surprised by the Walker attack, yet were clearly caught off guard. “They’ve been talking only to themselves for too long.”

'Cause, Why Not?

What, Was I Born Yesterday?

For some reason that the reaction among right-wingers to the sexual assault of Lara Logan is "what did she expect?/serves her right" surprises me. You'd think I'd have learned by now, but no, I sit here genuinely appalled at the behavior of my fellow human beings.

As long as my cred as a cynic is being thrown out the window, I might as well say, "Fucking really? Do you fucking people wake up in the morning and ask yourselves 'What would be the worst thing I could say or do today?' and go from fucking there? Fuck me you're pieces of shit."

Revolutionary Red

A NW red ale...

6# Light LME
.5# Organic Caramunich II
.5# Caramel Munich
.25# Organic Roasted Barley
.25# Cara Red
.25# Flaked Red Wheat
1 oz Amarillo (60 min)
.5 oz Willamette (15 min)
.5 oz Cascade (5 min)
1 oz Cascade (dry hop in secondary)
Wyeast Irish Ale

OG - 1.61

After NJEA, Christie's next fight is with state workers as contracts come up for renewal | NJ.com

After NJEA, Christie's next fight is with state workers as contracts come up for renewal | NJ.com

"This whole idea that I don’t care about the collective bargaining process is absolutely false," Christie said. "I think they’re going to enjoy working with me."

A Message for My Union Brothers and Sisters

An Econ prof begs me, literally begs me, to get this word out to my union contacts:

You are killing yourselves and this country by protecting weak employees who have no business being in their jobs. You bankrupted the auto industry (just look at it! look at it! do you need further proof?) and you are harming our children. Please, please, just think about what you are doing.

Consider yourselves pled with.

Of Course, the Dean!

RPT Timetable for Tenure-Track and Tenured Faculty. The Provost has the authority to set the specific schedule for RPT decisions for each academic year, except for decisions pertaining to tenure-track Assistant Professors in the second year of their first (three-year) appointment, in which case the authority to set the schedule rests with the dean.

Prisonship-ish, imp-ish inventory.

1. SodaStream fizzy water maker.
2. Crime novels by Jonathan Valin, Stephen Greenleaf, John D. Macdonald.
   
3. Tyvek, Nothing Fits.
   
4. Nobuhiko Obayashi’s House

Many viewers here—even cinephiles—will not have heard of director Nobuhiko Obayashi. Is he well-known in Japan?

Obayashi was already famous in Japan as a director of commercials before House, and its trailer even uses this as a selling point. And check out this Mandom ad—one of his nuttiest. He’s since directed almost forty films in many different genres, and is also a well-known television personality.

House is basically indescribable. But if you had to, how would you describe it?

An exhilarating grab bag of visual tricks, a disturbing satire that turns the giddy sheen of pop culture against itself, and an oddly moving coming-of-age allegory. I think it’s easy to praise the film as surreal, weird, etc., and leave it at that, but it’s a very carefully crafted work, and reveals a new layer with each viewing.

YouTube - Trailer for House aka Hausu (1977)

YouTube - Trailer for House aka Hausu (1977)
Currently blowing my mind.

Why Am I on the Internet Right Now, It Can't End Well

Read the comments section at Town Hall about the Tracy Morgan thing. Conflicting thoughts. These people are in the political ascendancy in this country; their thoughts are more stream than ours. But they lash out because they are small and afraid all the time.

I'd rather be in the political minority, I think.

A Conservative's Guide to What's Happening Egypt

It's pretty simple, really:

1. The unrest in Egypt and Tunisia are the result of our invasion of Iraq, validating the Bush Doctrine and vindicating Cheney; unless

2. You'd like to point out that Iraq is now peaceful because of the war and installation of democracy, thereby validating the invasion of Iraq and disproving the liberal thesis that you can't create a democratic society through invasion; unless

3. You'd like to worry that the uprising in Egypt is being led by the Muslim Brotherhood and radical Islam may take control, something Iraq avoided, thereby validating the invasion of Iraq; unless

4. You'd like to argue that the uprising is a genuine democratic revolt that could be co-opted by the Muslim Brotherhood unless Obama sends messages of support to the democratic resistance as he failed to do with the Green Revolution in Iran.

Any way, you win and the liberal islamofascists lose!

Don't Text the Subtext

So, Tracy Morgan is asked by Kenny Smith and Charles Barkley "Tina Fey or Sarah Palin?" This is to help settle an ongoing argument. Everyone acknowledges that they are fine looking dames, the both. Morgan tells them that he thinks Sarah Palin makes fine masturbation material. Everyone gets uncomfortable and TNT apologizes for Morgan's behavior.



Dear TNT:

Mayhaps you might consider apologizing for having your co-hosts ask a guest which of two national prominent women he'd most like to fuck. That is what they asked him, even if they didn't use any naughty words. You see, I know you're concerned that some thirteen-year old boy was just robbed of his innocence by hearing the word "masturbation," but the real damage was done before that when he realized that the only place for women in this conversation was as a sex object. Even if he couldn't figure out what the initial question meant (unlikely) he would be hard pressed to miss the follow-up conversation about how fine looking they are.

So your apology only reinforces that at TNT sexism is perfectly acceptable, as long as no one uses any naughty words. So, fuck you and your apology.

Oh, and Kobe Bryant is a rapist.

Spot On, I Guess

For your reading enjoyment.

LOOMING DEFICIT FOR LCC

LCC’s Strategic Plan (2010-14) in part promises to “Promote responsible stewardship of resources and public trust [and] ... apply principles of sustainable economics, resource use, and social institutions to Lane’s learning and working environments.” Lastly, the 2010—11 budget commits to “focus on our mission of teaching and learning.”

Reports on the best current available estimate for LCC’s combined downtown projects of $52 million pencil out to approximately $294 per sq. ft. Problematically, remaining downtown projects’ construction costs unfunded liability attach to the 90,000 sq. ft. learning facility planned at the former Sears site. Depending on the accuracy of various available yet sketchy estimates, the budget deficit approximately oscillates between $650,000 and a whopping $8 million.

Although according to The Register-Guard 85 percent of the funding is virtually guaranteed through the issuance of bonds and state and city of Eugene funding, moving forward in spite of as much as an $8 million funding hole during this extraordinary economic time, may expose the Board of Education to an even more on-point charge of governance entropy than recently leveled against the college’s administration. Lest LCC’s board panic, reasonable taxpayers may consider embracing a PAYGO or similar funding methodology.

Jose Ortal, Blue River

Listen, Spock

Been reading and participating is some hot abortion debate over the last few days. The consensus on the left is that people who shout "abortion is murder" can't possibly actually mean this, because then they would also be calling for life sentences for women who abort their babies, which is something that almost no one does. Having refuted the basic claim - that honest people really do believe that life begins at conception and abortion is killing a person - the conversation then moves to the "real" motives of these people. (Oh, it is also often noted that many anti-abortion screamers have no problem obtaining abortions for themselves or others). The most popular theories being that rich white folk want to control women, poor minority women, and/or poor people in general.

I'm not sure I disagree, necessarily, but it occurred to me this morning that for the most part, the thinking of people who scream "abortion is murder" goes something like this:

Jesus said abortion is murder and nothing you say is going to change that. He's God, you're not.

Logic is not going to win the day here.