- Living on in the Archives (3/26/2006) - History is awfully fragile. I spent yesterday at the Science, Industry and Business Library of the New York Public Library system (my new girlfriend, "Sybil," as I like to say, with whom I have been spending all my Saturdays) reading through the 70-year-old archives of the "Free Voice of the Amalgamated Food Workers." The Amalgamated Food Workers was an independent union, focused mainly in the hotels, restaurants and bakeries of New York City. They were… …
- WFP: Now Send a Message to the Senate (3/22/2006) - From the Working Families Party: No employee of a multi-billion dollar company like Wal-Mart should be forced to go without medical care or forced to resort to Medicaid. The Fair Share for Health Care Act will ensure that large employers provide decent health benefits and level the playing field for responsible local businesses. We've got over 50 Assembly cosponsors - now it's time for you to ask your Senator to cosponsor the bill. Ask your… …
- Bill O’Reilly’s Flying Circus (3/19/2006) - Four years ago, I was a guest on the "O'Reilly Factor," part of a panel discussion on the income gap. It was a wonderfully surreal moment that, alas, I have yet to repeat. I just stumbled upon a transcript of the show. Below is a pretty funny bit that I believe is short enough that I can legally quote it. Missing here is O'Reilly's assertion that Cornell University is a socialist plot, "Parade" editor and… …
- Newsflash (3/15/2006) - This just in. After analyzing subpoenaed Google search records, the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security announced that they foiled a new 9/11 Al Quaeda plot involving "blonde hair big tits." I hope that all you refuseniks and ACLU'ers out there stop and think about what kind of busty, peroxide doomsday your interference might have caused. Have more faith in your government. You're not even using those civil liberties, anyway. …
- “…But they don’t mind throwing a brick…” (3/15/2006) - It's touching that there are still people in this world who care enough to riot. I first heard about France's proposed "first job contract" law from some of the French scientists with whom I am working. They're absolutely pissed off. The law would allow employers to hire first-time workers under the age of 26, and, for the first two years of this job, have no obligation to provide benefits and can fire the employee at… …
- McLaughlin is Presumed Innocent (3/2/2006) - In a very troubling development, FBI agents raided the offices of the New York Central Labor Council and the district office of Assemblyman Brian McLaughlin, the President of the CLC. McLaughlin has been President of the CLC for two decades, the third of three representatives of IBEW Local 3 who have headed the Council for the entirety of its 51 year history. His files were seized in connection to an investigation of a contractor, Petrocelli… …
- “…the lines sag heavy and deep tonight…” (3/2/2006) - So, Friday, March 3 is my birthday. I'll be turning 27. If I were a rockstar, I'd be about to die, but I'm a union organizer so I'll merely get balder and fatter. I'd like to see my friends, particularly those of you that I have not seen much lately (those of you that I have seen, I'm frankly getting sick of you). Being an extensive party planner, I'm probably just going to go to… …
- More Cat Charity (2/22/2006) - The Stony Brook Cat Network is a group of students, faculty and staff at SUNY Stony Brook who humanely trap, neuter and vaccinate feral cats on the campus. They try to find homes for the tamer ones, and release the others back into colonies in the woods behind campus, where the cats are fed and live healthier lives than before. I'm awfully sympathetic to this project since my own duck was a rescue cat, herself… …
- “…and Sweet’s the Air with Curly Smoke…” (2/21/2006) - I called it a year (and four days) ago. The President of Harvard University, Lawrence Summers, has resigned. I'm reminded, at this time, of my friend and advisor Josh Freeman who was cool to the movement to oust our Queens College President, Allen Lee Sessoms, back in 1999. What comes next is not necessarily better, he reasoned. It's not hard to imagine this episode being used in the right-wing assault on the Ivory Tower. Those… …
- Paul Avrich, Anarchist and Historian 1931 – 2006 (2/21/2006) - Paul Avrich died last week, aged 74. He was a respected anarchist, and a historian of anarchism (particularly Haymarket and the Sacco and Vanzetti trial) and the Russian Revolution. He was a Professor Emeritus at Queens College. I was fortunate enough to have been a student in the last regular undergraduate course that Dr. Avrich taught at Queens College. It was an invaluable experience to learn about the Russian Revolution from a talented and diligent… …
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