Saint Fitzmas, you really exist! You really do!

To my conservative friends:

I'm sorry. I really am. It must be so upsetting to see that the titular heads of your party are absolutely consumed with plotting revenge against dissidents, greed, avarice, scheming, sleaze, vice, and corruption. And incompetence. Don't forget incompetence.

But hey, at least your President has a reputation for taking stock of the situation, adjusting his policies where they don't seem to be working, replacing people who have a demonstrated history of incompetence, and keeping focused on results not ideology.

Or not.

I tell you what: during the next election cycle, I'll do everything I can (and I'll encourage my friends to do likewise) to return the country to more responsible hands. You clearly aren't very good at governing.

No Fitzmas?

Say it ain't so.

Fitzmas is here!

Ahh, it's time for Fitzmas. Fitzmas is named for Peter Fitzgerald, an Independent Special Counsel looking into the small matter of White House involvement in leaking of a CIA operative's name for political payback.

Fitzmas is the holiday where right-thinking individuals rejoice in the existence of a just God.

Fitzmas is the holiday where folks who have been ruining our country get some small measure of justice for their wicked ways.

Fitzmas has its own songs.

Fitzmas is around the corner. I know what I'm asking Santa for, how about you?

Innovative Union Tactics

As a social institution unions face immediate obstacles in reaching out to the unorganized. For one, they are by nature tied to your workplace, and since 90% of the private sector is unorganized, 90% of all American workers don't have any contact with unions. Which isn't to say they don't want or respect the idea of union representation. Indeed polls typically show that half of all workers would want a union in their workplace. Why half of all workers don't have a union is a longer post. A much longer post.

What I wanted to draw attention today are new ways for unions to reach out to their members and the public at large. Much attention and ink was spilled over the recent split in the national federation of unions, with some of the biggest players leaving to form their own organization. The key union in that struggle is the Service Employees International Union. Now, I have some issues with their service model (how workers actually receive assistance from their union) but I must give credit where its due.

Case in point, in San Francisco, workers who perform some of the most important (and basic) work in a hospital have been on strike. It has been brutal.

There has been picket line violence by hired management goons.

The workers have started picketing the homes of the hospital's board members (the folks who give management their marching orders.

The hospital has been reprimanded by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, including management walking out of an open hearing while workers testified to city leaders about their crappy working conditions.

And the workers have set up their own blog. No kidding. These are some of the poorest workers in the health care industry who are fighting for their own survival and who are turning to modern technology to rally their own forces and get the word out about their fight. You can adopt a striking family. You can get the word on the scab recruiter the hospital has hired (who it turns out is a convicted felon--nice). Picketers are apparently text-messaging each other on the line, and posting online messages of hope and solidarity. I am cheered.

Example #2 from the SEIU is this contest.

It's an open entry forum for people to submit their ideas of how to build a better ecconomy. Some ideas are good, some are not so good. This one is mine. Enter! It's fun.

The SEIU is on to an important notion here. There are lots of folks sympathetic to the work of unions but who don't necessarily need or want union representation. By reaching out to them and building a relationship with them, the labor movement can strengthen its power and message in non-union and traditionally union-free demographics.

Vatta Veek.

Yikes. I've been meaning to return to the keyboard, to pen a note about contemporary topics designed to illuminate, titillate, and agitate. This week has not been kind enough to permit me such a guilty pleasure.

Things at work have been fairly out of hand. I had to go to a wake this week for one of my local Presidents who has passed on. She was a great advocate for her union members and was very nice to me as her union rep. It was a great shock to hear of her passing.

In other news:

Fuck Tom Delay! That piece of shit! His karma rubber-band finally snapped, which permits me to post the following:












Yep. That would Old Tom's mugshot. And for my local readers, I'd just like to point out AGAIN that Republican front-runner for the Congressional 6th had this to say about Monsieur Money Launderer:

"I think everybody agrees that he's one of the most effective legislators in Washington, D.C.," Roskam said. "Knowing what I know now about what Tom DeLay's been accused of, my attitude would be to support him."

That's Christine Cegelis for Congress, folks.

In other news, do you like your Britney Spears wannabes spewing quotes from Mein Kampf? Me neither, but this story must be seen to be believed.
Choicest quote:

"We're proud of being white, we want to keep being white," said Lynx. "We want our people to stay white … we don't want to just be, you know, a big muddle. We just want to preserve our race."
...
April home-schools the girls, teaching them her own unique perspective on everything from current to historical events. In addition, April's father surrounds the family with symbols of his beliefs — specifically the Nazi swastika. It appears on his belt buckle, on the side of his pick-up truck and he's even registered it as his cattle brand with the Bureau of Livestock Identification."

Yep.

Where has the time gone?

Whew. I had to take a little break there. Last weekend was the occasion of my dear friend's marraige, and it was a very nice wedding. They're crazy kids, but I think they just might make it. Kudos to him and his beloved.

Last night I went to go see Wallace and Grommit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. It was a date with Mrs. Dr. Inallmyyears and it was fantastic. We went to the Cascade Drive-In and watched the movie out under the stars on the hood of her Truck. We were all wrapped up and warm, the air was cool, the movie was good. I fell asleep under the stars on the hood of the truck, and it was great. Just for five minutes or so, and I woke up to watch the rest of the movie, which was great fun.

That's it for now, I'll get back to my loyal readers soon.

Ta-ta.

File under 'Well-heeled Atrocity Show'

Hat tip to the Bard, (not Shakespeare) Blake Shwarzenbach.

This week, no scratch that, this past year, have not been good to Republicans. For those of you keeping score at home, there's the Tom Delay indictment. Justice never felt so good. There's the Rove investigation into whether he leaked a covert CIA agent's name to the press for payback. There's the investigation into Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's sale of his stock--mysteriously--right before the price went swirling down the crapper. There's Iraq. Katrina. Mike Brown. Halliburton. The deficit.

And if we dial up the Wayback Machine, there's the whole propaganda scandal that broke last year. Briefly, it went a little something like this (hit it):

• President Bush-Cheney wants his policies praised in the media.
• President Bush-Cheneyy hires certain columnists and news types to praise his policies.
• Said columnists never tell anyone they're on the President's dime.
  
• This qualifies as 'covert propaganda' under federal law.

And now a judge agrees.

In other words, the most paranoiac of left-wing conspiracies, (that media figures colluded with administration officials to alter public perception on any number of issues) is true.

So let's recap, shall we? The Prez pays people to give him glowing reviews, the 2nd most powerful man in Washington gets indicted on corruption and money laundering charges, the 3rd most powerful man in Washington is being investigated for stock fraud, and everyone's under scrutiny for the outing of Valerie Plame.

This must be what George meant in 2000 when he wanted to bring 'honor' back to the White House.

Time to toss the bums out.

Along those lines, Mrs. Dr. Inallymyyears and I are going door-to-door today collecting signatures to get Christine Cegelis on the ballot here in Illinois. So far, over a dozen, and I'm meeting with my neighbors, which is nice.