Dark Days Ahead

It is election season... still. Things aren't looking good for the energetic, progressive sweep of two years ago. We are a people easily disillusioned, easily swayed. The opinions of the great masses can't stand up to the realization that recovery of such magnitude takes decades, not moments- regardless of who is in charge. There are no magic bullet, just hard work in our future. It just promises to take longer and be more unpleasant when the ones that have taken no responsibility for the mess (for which every one is responsible) have shluffed it off on someone else, wiped their hands on expensive sets of slack and gone about the business of distracting this country into a tizzy. Depressing, but a good reason to read.

Both my mom and I, who share more personality traits than either of us likes to admit, love falling into a good book. Good is a relative term of course. Momma wouldn't know a great novel if it hit her on the head and I try to avoid them unless I want people to see me reading them. We like a book that gets you invested, messes with your sleep, sucks you in and takes over your life. We like those books that gain control over good sense... the ones that make you pick the longest line in the grocery store, so you can steal a few pages while waiting. Sometimes (not often), we agree on these books and talk about the characters as if they are real people at the dinner table, while my sister rolls her eyes and my niece asks questions about fictitious apparitions of the mind like they are cousins she might one day meet.

Fall is already promising a long, dark winter. We have both been relatively unsuccessful in finding "good" books as of late and are depressed by it, constantly asking the other what they have dug up. I want to get lost, stumble around in somebody else's mind for a while. It really is the ultimate form of voyeurism... to plop down in the middle of someone's life, learn their secrets and their fears without having to reveal your own. And then somehow, inexplicably, you tie your worries to them, wonder where they are now, what has happened to them. It is a wonderful trick these writers have. I'm not talking about the F. Scotts and Faulkners of the world, the proud historians of American life, but the trashrag authors in the trenches filling pages with... well, trash, commonness... but have this ability to create worlds that transcend that line between real and make believe. It is a rare gift to create something from nothing.

I look forward to finding it again. I know I will soon. I'll let you know when I do.

Not a book review...

If you are going to criticize me for my job, all I ask is that you have an original thought about organized labor.

I’m not going to even to mention the fact that when you barely know a person, it is considered rude to begin by criticizing an issue to which they have obviously dedicated their life. I don’t mention the inhuman and un-American labor practices of Wal-Mart on our first meeting when you tell me you work as the manager of my least favorite big box retail store. I don’t say that I believe the Catholic Church is misguided in its dogma and has caused more suffering in the name of Jesus Christ that any other institution when you tell me you lead the women’s group at the local Parish on Tuesday nights until we have at least shared a drink together.

But please… have just one original idea about why labor unions should be banished from the Earth and do not regurgitate the same old, lifeless, illiterate arguments that I have heard nearly every day of my life since I was old enough to get tossed in the back of a cruiser for throwing rocks at trucks that crossed the picket line.

For ease of operations, I have broken these “arguments” into three categories:

Labor unions were probably necessary at one time, but we don’t need them today.

This is probably my favorite, simply because the person is attempting to placate me. Hey, if you were doing this work seventy years ago I would have totally supported it… now, you are just irrelevant. Thanks, I appreciate the ‘Atta Boy.

To begin with, here are some things labor unions have done since 1959:

Helped pass the Equal Pay Act of 1963, Civil Rights Act of 1964, Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) of 1967, Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1974, Americans with Disability Act (ADA) of 1990

Help pass, spent union dollars advocating for and in some cases helped draft the 1966, 1974, 1977,1985, 1989, 1996 and 2007 amendments (we don’t take any credit for 2004) to the Fair Labor Standards Act (think minimum wage and overtime)

Instrumental to the passage of the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) in 1993 and have advocated in several states, cities and other municipalities for the passage of sick leave coverage for workers

Creation of OSHA in 1974

Took large strains off Medicaid, Medicare, the Social Security Administration, Veteran’s Affairs, local food pantries and charitable organizations from the 1960s to present (though decreasing in recent years with the reduction of union density) due to use of short and long term disability plans, defined benefit plans (both in the private and public sectors), and health insurance coverage for retirees created, enforced and guaranteed in collective bargaining agreements

All prevailing wage laws, unemployment compensation and workers’ compensation laws

Increased the standard of living for all workers, union and non-union alike, creation of the 40 hour work week, the weekend, overtime, break time, lunch breaks, environmental and safety standards, oh.. and a little thing we like to call employer paid health care

Union membership in the U.S. declined by 21.1% during the last decade, giving the US one of the lowest levels of unionization among industrialized countries. You think it is coincidence that employer paid health care and retirement plans are under attack? Wait another decade sitting on your hands and see if you can afford to go to the doctor or stop working before you die.

Labor unions kill the free market.

I love me some capitalism. I am an American after all. But the free market is amoral. It cares for neither good nor bad- it is merely a tool. And news flash- people can manipulate the free market and there are some bad, greedy people out there… making the free market a bad, greedy tool to serve their bad, greedy needs.

Capitalism without a counterbalance, whether that be regulation or united labor, is like a ship without a rudder- sure it will move, but you can’t guarantee a direction or that you won’t run into an iceberg.

Much of the world hasn't yet learned the lesson that labor unions already know- by increasing the wages of employees it not only increases corporate productivity but boost employee purchasing power. Workers spend their pay checks, demand goes up and profit increase and you can pay your workers more… sound somewhat familiar from economics class?

Plus as you anyone who has bought a pair of shoes at Payless can tell you, cheaper isn’t always better- and there is more to the cost of doing business than this race-to-the-bottom, globalism goodness. This is America- the land of the free and the home of the brave- and it should be a place that does not accept the mistreatment of women and children and workers simply so if can save a buck. Nothing is free and that Made in China label on your back probably broke somebody’s back. But if you are fine with that, it probably says more about your morals than mine.

And we have all now know what the deregulated free market tastes like…

I know a union carpenter that makes $450.00 per hour.

Well, I know a union nursing home worker that can barely afford to feed her family and a lot of non-union ones that have to go to the food pantry. I know union janitors that can’t pay for prescription drugs and workers that have been denied a union that haven’t had a raise in fifteen years (except when the minimum wage increases, see above), have no access to health insurance and are fired when they call in sick for the first time in a decade. I also know workers that have been spit on, shot at, run over and/or have been sprayed in the face with bleach for trying to unionize a facility (which, incidentally, they have the legal right to do in this place we call the land of the free).

By the way, I don’t know any union carpenters that make $450.00 per hour or $150.00 per hour, but I know plenty that work hard, make a good living at what they do, own their homes, have health insurance, and can afford to send their kids to college. And I am pretty damn happy about that. I am of the opinion that all people, union and non-union alike, that work hard should be paid a fair wage and support themselves. Go us.

First Fall Post

Elections season is always so crazy... August and September fly by in even numbered years and often times, I miss the fact that fall has even arrived before it is gone. My favorite season rarely spreads itself more than a handful of weeks and I have missed a good portion of them already. On Saturday, I was lucky enough to turn my phone and breathe it in.

I went to Mt. Gilead State Park- a relatively small piece of land that boasts very little besides sadly kept trails. Roots stuck precariously in my path and I managed my way across bridges that either groaned under my weight (which is not that usual) or dipped, unsupported, toward the water. Some leaves were colored around the edges, promising amazing things in the next few weeks. Other trees had already shed their reds or yellows leaving the curled, crunchy mess at my feet. The air smelled liked honeycrisps and rain and the shifting wind that will eventually bring the snow. This time of year always makes me miss home.

I've only read two books worth note in the last few weeks, both of which I had been waiting for most of the summer.

Just minutes ago, I finished Carolyn Crane's sequel Double Cross. As is typical with series, it was not nearly as good as the original book. It took its good time starting up and I found the heroine, Justine, a bit too much to bare this time around. Her neurosis grew on me again, toward the end. The series is about a group of individuals with genetic mutations, known as highcaps- that have powers that range from telekinsis to telepathy to the ability to manipulate earth or memories or understand the physiological mapping of an individual. In the charge of one such highcap, Packard, is a group of minions known as disillusionists that have an overabundance of a particular emotion or neurosis. These disillusionist are able to zap certain individuals in order to disillusion (or emotionally reboot them) so they can be reformed. After the last book, Packard's minions are tasked with rebooting bad highcaps, Mayor Otto (a highcap that manipulates earth) has kept imprisoned. Then you got your Justine, Packard, Otto love triangle, a whole bunch of dirty secrets from the past, a highcap that can wipe your memory, and a conspiracy theorist capable of producing anti-highcap glasses and there you go. I'll give Crane another whirl after this, but I'm not hoping for much.

Also a slight disappointment was the third installment of the Parasol Protectorate series- Blameless by Gail Carriger. After her witty and exceedingly entertaining Changeless with one of the best up-in-the-air-endings I had read in ages, I was a bit underwhelmed. Though this won't be the last novel in the series, it had all of the markings that it perhaps should be. The major tension in the story was released with little less than a sigh and a shrug, which was an unbelievable as it was anticlimactic. The ruckus Lady Maccon pulls her increasing weight to be sure, but the cast of characters pulling her down have turned into a hodgepodge of half-formed cliches and self righteous sense of comedy that never fully forms. I generally don't wander in the Steampunk genre often, but it is a favorite as of late. Hey, I can suspend all sorts of realities in favor of an entertaining romp... but the ludicrous nature this installment has settled for makes me wish I had stopped at two.