The more things change.....

Same group of losers, different era.

Remembering Labour

The picture to the left is the Haymarket Affair monument, on May Day 1886, the workers at the McCormick Harvesting Machine Co. in Chicago began a strike in the hope of gaining a shorter work day. On May 3, police were used to protect strikebreakers and a scuffle broke out; one person was killed and several others injured.








I walk past that mural whenever I take the Metra to visit friends living in Chicago's Pullman district; it pays homage to the workers at the Pullman Palace Car Company, who on May 11th, 1894 staged a wildcat strike in response to having their wages cut because of the depression of 1893. At the time, Pullman was a company town, so not only did the company cut wages to maintain profitability, it continued to extract pre-recession rent from those workers who lived in company-owned housing, and were forced to shop at the company store, which may or may not accept the company-issued script in which they were paid in "lean" times.





A national boycott was launched on June 26, 1894, within four days, 125,000 workers on twenty-nine railroads had quit work rather than handle Pullman cars effectively bringing railroad traffic west of Chicago to a halt, prompting president Grover Cleveland to order federal troops and marshals into Chicago, resulting in 13 workers being killed, and another 57 wounded.

It is the struggles of these men, and they were all men at that point in history, and others like them we commemorate today, all those who fought for the dignity and fair treatment of all who labour, from the lowliest of dirt farmers to hot shot financial analysts.

This labour day I’m pondering what the hell happened? How did America go from a nation of brave men such as these, fighting for what was right, to a nation of teabaggers, rednecks (who were and still are “scab” labour) and religious fruitcakes who are fighting against what would benefit labour – the right to organize and fight for higher wages and better working conditions, healthcare, education, clean air and water.

Blame America.....and Jesus

Michael Wolf makes numerous valid points in his scathing commentary on Jaycee Dugard's kidnapping and subsequent 18 years of imprisonment...and how such things are an integral part of Christian conservative America's white trash culture.

Article here

Happy Women's Equality Day Mr. Kennedy, thank you and rest well.

On this day (August 26) in 1920, the 19th Amendment granting women the right to vote became law, Ted Kennedy had nothing to do with that, but he was instrumental in getting Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 passed.

Most people think of women's sports when Title IX is mentioned, and while high school and university athletics owe their existence to it, the law is much broader - covering everything from discrimination in fields such as science and medicine to other aspects of academic life such as access to health care and dormitory facilities.

My mother may have never become a doctor if it were not for Title IX, so she would of never met my father, and *poof* out of the realm of possibilities I go.

My interest in volleyball began when I was 11 years old during a family bike ride through North Avenue beach and came across a pro-volleyball tournament, dad asked if I wanted a better view and that's all she wrote. I probably would have never played high school volleyball if it were not for that random event, which would have never happened without title IX. So even if my parents did meet and have me, I would not be the same me.

Why does it matter? Obama plays basketball, never professionally or even as a college athlete, but its part of what makes him who he is. If he were a different person, would he still have become president?

And so ends one not-always-friendly neighbourhood catgirl's tribute to Edward Moore Kennedy, no sorrows as Hey We All Die Sometimes.

The old woman and the water bottle

I decided to run down to the coffee shop this morning and visit with Jen as I have been spending most of my summer on the north side with volleyball and nana visiting.

Business is brisk on weekend mornings, as we have a great gimmick - Lexi the communal baby! People hang out in the shop just to watch Lexi run around, squeal really really loud, and answer NO to everything they say. Babies are soooo cute when they are not yours, ya hang out with them until they wear you out, then you give them back to their parents, everybody wins!

Soo I am sitting with Lexi the communal baby, who insists on slobbering all over my water bottle even though the shop has a million cups, including at least 4 of her own, and this old lady (who looked remarkably like the one depicted in the cartoon) starts going off about how stupid people are for carrying bottles everywhere like babies, how we are not going to die of thirst, how she is 74 years old ,and how generations of people got along just fine without them.

She then proceeded to comment on my unkempt hair, running outfit, running in general, colleges(I had on a U of Chi hoodie), asks about what I’m studying, which I simplified down to medicine, prompting her to go on this long triad against doctors ,how stupid they are , and how her sister is languishing in Athens, Greece as all the doctors have left the city because of the heat(don’t know, don’t wanna know, it would probably cost me IQ points)

Now I am use to people, usually guys, striking up inane conversations with me, but old people are the worst, but it’s never about the water bottle, or the doctors, or whatever the inane bitch of the day is, anymore than The Old Man and The Sea is about the marlin.

For the record, I hate Hemmingway; to me he’s an idiot savant who articulated the essence of redneck existence that he exemplified and tried to make it sound noble. I’m pretty sure he figured out that mentality is a load of rubbish, which is why he chose to go out the way he did, BUT his writing does illustrate the thinking patterns of those who share those values.

According to them, life is suppose to be this long hard road you are to drag your rugged cross down, and gosh darn it not only are young people refusing to drag crosses like the generations that came before them, they are *running* down a paved road with water bottles that spare them from the thirst(trials and tribulations) they had to endure.

But it’s more than that, we are Santiago’s boy - the living, breathing personification of life in all her glory, only instead of being servants, we are the center of attention and admiration, instead of revering them for their exemplary adherence to traditional values and their perseverance, we do not comprehend the meaning of their sacrifices, and go on to ignore, ridicule and pity them.

I do not wish to imply that the above is applicable to all elderly people, it is not, but I believe that it does include a substantial percentage of them, and I have no idea how to fix it.

It must be horrible to be staring mortality in the face knowing that the things you thought were so important no longer matter and never really did, to admit to yourself that you may have been conned into carrying some cross for somebody else’s benefit, but that the one-true-path you have been dragging it on without question, never veering left or right, turns out to be a meandering trail though a brier patch that dead ends in oblivion.