A campin'-I-will-go!

So, it's on like Donkey Kong (tm).

I'm going camping to celebrate the impending matrimony about to befall my dearest friend, whom we'll call Marblehead. Marblehead is one of the best people I have had the priviliege of getting to know. I cannot wait to head to the mountains to celebrate our good times and get down to serious business. Like hanging out and having fun.

I'm so stoked. These days, it doesn't take much. But even given that, this would be stupendous. If I had high thresholds of fun, and it took lots to get me excited, this would still be exciting. Marblehead is one of the dearest people, and I'm pretty stoked to be part of his wedding festivities.

The joys of iTunes

I realize I could have downloaded iTunes earlier, but I doubt it would have been this cool. On the iMac, things seem to be flawless. It really is a superior machine.

I'm copying into the hard drive as many of my CD's as I possibly can. It's impossibly fast, and reorganizing these things brings out my inner (or not so inner) music geek.

Playlists, organized by genre, album, time period, feeling, mood, the possibilities are endless!

On another note, we did a wine tasting with cheese tonight with our friends, and I think things went pretty well. That bleu cheese was pretty funky, but the goat cheese (chevre to the unitiated) was tasty. Lots of good wine. I'm full now.

Work today was good.

Damn you people!

I was with a group of friends and we went to this place to go see Red Eye. I didn't think this movie was going to be anything special, but it was a pretty competent thriller. Wes Craven really pulled off a good story. There were parts that devolved into stupid, pointless jokes and silly story lines, but overall the flick was good. It had Cillian Murphy, who is pretty quickly becoming one of my new favorite actors. I thought he was great in 28 Days Later, Batman, and The Girl with the Pearl Earring, and he didn't disappoint in this movie, either. He was effectively sociopathic, but not over-the-top or anything. It was a good role for him.

One problem. The audience was driving me nuts. Toward the end, where most of the suspense has built up and the action finally starts coming into play. There were more hoots and hollers than at a cattle calling contest. For each taut scene there was a guffaw. For each nailbiter there was a "Don't do that!" It ruined the last portion of the movie.

So people, don't do that. Please don't talk in the movie. I know this is a lesson you should have learned in the 3rd grade, but a lid on your pie-hole.

Ahh, there we go!

I may get the hang of this yet. So the iMac is up and running, and blogger was giving me some trouble on Safari, so I downloaded Firefox, and all is well. This is the kind of post I used to read, and would very frequently just scratch my head like an orangutan about.

Well, I'm no longer a primate, baby! I'm on the loose.

In other news, I was sick today from something or other and so I didn't walk in the Cegelis contingent of the Winfield parade. Wanker I am, no doubt.

In other news, armed mercenaries are roaming the streets of New Orleans, so that's pretty cool.

Gub'mint Shrub'mint

Shorter David Brooks:

George Bush isn't at fault here! Government just really sucks! You can't seriously expect government to work in a catastrophe! Feel the oncoming Libertarian backlash! It really is about ideology, not competence in elected officials!

The Exec. Dir. of In All My Years has a special message

The blog may go quiet for a few days, as I'm purchasing one of these:

I'm not sure about re-hooking my broadband back up, or what's going to be required with that, so this may take a couple of days to resolve. I'm making the switch kids! Mac ahoy! All those rantings and ravings I had to endure as an undergrad at a computer engineering land-grant college will finally pay off. I too, will sing the praises of Apple like I do my Prius.

I can't wait!

Straight from the department of completely freaking shocking

Recovery contracts are apparently going, get this, to the President's friends and cronies.

I know. That does come as a shock. I mean, you'd have to be some kind of reprehensible individual to try and capitalize on your political connections at a time like this, right?

Fortunately, there's no shortage of folks in this world.

And did I mention that the workers who will actually do the, what's that word, work--will now be making less than the prevailing wage. That's around $9 an hour in them thar parts of the woods.

All because President Bold and Decisive Leader (TM) suspended the Davis-Bacon Act which states that workers on federal contracts must make a decent wage. And his suspension even applies to states not affected by Hurricane Katrina--namely Alabama and Florida.

Ka-Ching! Dick Cheney can almost feel his dead heart beating again at the prospect of those kinds of profit margins.

A neat way to contribute to hurricane relief

Because everyone needs shoes, and lots of folks who did get out of New Orleans and Mississippi probably lost most of their clothes and shoes, No Sweat Apparel is donating their Chuck Taylor lookalikes for $15.

I bought a pair, you should too! Contribute to folks in need and support folks who make a decent wage. Sounds like a good idea to me.

Bloomingdale represent!

As promised, here are some pics of the Bloomingdale Cegelis Contingent.































It was a great walk, and a good time seeing the Cegelis folks. Things are going very well indeed these days, and I'll have more pics up tomorrow.

Devil Dog indeed

You're kidding me. In the annals of bad american policy, this has got to rank pretty high. As someone who not long ago had to fend off the agressive recruiters, I can see how this sales pitch goes:

Recruiter: "I see you've lost everything. Have you ever given the Army a thought?"
Evacuee: "Get out of my sight."
Recruiter: "Let's talk about options. You don't have any."
Evacuee: "Go away."
Recruiter: "We can get you hooked up with a guaranteed state-side gig, no way you'll have to go overseas, and did we talk about the money for college?"
Evacuee: "..."
Recruiter: "Right now, your country needs you."
Evacuee: "I'm going to be very upset in a minute."

A walkin'-I-will go, a walkin'-I-will go...

Heigh ho, the merry-o, a walkin I-will-go.

Today and tomorrow, I'm in Cegelis parades in Bloomingdale and in Winfield. Pictures to follow.

What an exhausting week. Everything only goes to hell all at once. It's good to be back, I suppose, but my caffeine quotient is forced is to skyrocket at times like these.

Oh well, I shouldn't complain. Some people get 'disappeared' for doing what I'm doing. I suppose a hectic schedule is nothing to gripe about.

Not that I'm anyone's idea of a 'labor leader', but you get the point.

But you used to laugh at danger, and break all the rules. What happened?

What happened?

I'm talking about this:














Against me! are a band that I like (mild understatement). Their first full-length was titled "Reinventing Axl Rose". It was good. In fact, it was one of the best albums I ever paid money for. Real American dollars, mind you. There was something about it that gave me hope, that continues to give hope. The album recognized that hope is often against what I like to term 'real odds', but there was hope in that album. The next album was also good. Also one of the best albums I've ever paid money for. It was called "As the eternal cowboy".

This is to say nothing for their live shows, which are worthy of their own posts. I'm grateful for them.

This album makes me feel funny. It's very honest. It's probably their best album. There is little hope inside it. I like hope. I find enough reasons not to be hopeful on a daily basis. I don't need my music to further depress me. "Reinventing Axl Rose" made me want to struggle, to continue the good fight.

There was a line on that first album from "I still love you Julie" where Tom (the singer type) screamed that he prayed 'this scam could still save us all'. I believe he was referring to the process of writing, recording, and playing music in front of a live audience. At some point, I guess the band decided the scam really couldn't save us all. On the title track, they pined for a band who would 'play loud and hard every night, that doesn't care how many people are counted at the door, that would travel one million miles and ask for nothing for a plate of food a place to rest." I pined for that band too, and I found them in Against me!

On the current album, several songs discuss their disgust with the music industry, drug and alcohol problems well out of control, venereal disease (what, like it doesn't exist?), and self-loathing. And compared with the title track from the first album, today's Against me! are filled with disgust at the prospect of assigning percentages to all the hands that push their music out in the world, and sound ashamed at the bastardized product their hope became. Where their had been solidarity with the audience, now they're not sure if punks don't take music and the music scene a little too seriously.

In other words, a real upbeat number!

The music is solid. It's slow, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. I just got the same feeling listening to this album that I did after I saw Requiem for a Dream--it was disturbing. Well made, a good cast, etc. but disturbing. I didn't want to watch it again. I don't know how much I'm going to want to keep listening to "Searching for a former clarity", but that's different from it being a good album.


wait. Did the New York Times, really review Against me!?

Petunia ahoy!

It really is her world, and I am merely permitted to share it. I never saw a dog have such a good time as Petunia did that day, but she paid for it the next day with what's termed 'limp tail'.

Yep, her little wagger went straight out to the back, then a 45 degree angle down. For two days. It's a real medical condition. It's back to its usual waggy perfection now.




Other bonus pictures:





Wild horses. Couldn't drag me away.










Cape Lookout, NC where I dined on delicious sandwiches
and sunbathed. On the other side of that island---the Atlantic Ocean!

Cegelis updates, of sorts

Ohhkay.

As I get nestled back into the confines of the Starship In All My Years, I have a secret to tell.

George Bush did not handle the hurricane relief effort very well. I think it all will turn out OK for the survivors, whom Barbara Bush rightly points out were mostly poor anyway. The Superdome is a step up for those folks, so quit yer whinin'!

Enough of that (for the time being).

A few weeks ago, I participated in a canvassing effort on behalf of Democracy for Illinois, where we basically did some door to door canvassing. It was a great time, and a blast working with such professional folks. Lots of enthusiastic volunteers were trying to talk to voters about what their top issues are, as well as building a database of block-by-block info of potential voters.

You, know just duplicating the information that the Republicans have since God almighty apparently gave it to them. They are the party of the Christ child, doncha know.

My favorite discussion was with gentleman who couldn't be forced to say anything bad about Rod Blagojevich because they were 'countrymen', but was concerned that we didn't just nuke all of Iraq. Yes, erm. Ahem.

Anywho, below are some pictures from the picnic that followed. We had a pretty big turnout (I couldn't stick around for all of it) and it was a grand affair.

Also, Christine won the endorsement from Carpenters local 588--kudos!

Just like the President, I took the last month off

Unlike the President, it has yet to blow up in my face.

Ahh, the sound of my toes, dipping into the pool of blogdom. Splishy splash.

That's a nice feeling, not too hot, not too cold.

What did I do for that whole time? I worked, I worked some more, and I worked.

And I went on vacation, and it was good. The Lord made Asheville NC, I visited it, and it was good. The Lord made my hometown, I visited it (and my mother) and it was good. The Lord made my wife (for which I am ever grateful), her hometown, her parents, and I visited them. They too, were good. The Lord said, let there be rest, and I said, "Make mine a double!".

The Lord made my job, and it, is, um, err, good. I am back at it, regardless if its inherent goodness. I have several posts in the hopper, including new Cegelis news, hurricane commentary, and lots of other stuff, no one in their right minds would a tenth of mouse fart about.

The joys of the blogosphere! I have a soapbox!

Quite Possibly the Most Important Book Ever (Except for you, Bible! Geez!)

I bring you (via a blog ad on Tom Tomorrow's blog):

Your Call Is Important to US: The Truth About Bullshit, by Laura Penny.

You must visit the website and observe the following pearls of wisdom. I command it.

the Lady Hal: the recorded female voice that says things like "Your call is important to us"

marketeer: one who firmly believes that capitalism will solve
everything, and that the public sector sucks

astroturfing: the fabrication of phony grassroots concern by PR firms

virtuecrat: a politician who invokes moral values in the pursuit of power, whether or not he or she embodies those values; see Newt Gingrich, John Ashcroft, Lynne Cheney

Again, whose side are you on?

Jo Ann Mort, over at TPMcafe's house of labor, has a good call-out on progressives who don't support labor.

This is has stuck in my craw for a long time.

I quote Ms. Mort in small part:

"...The fact is that in progressive circles, where it's considered unacceptable to be racist, homophobic, anti-environment or anti-feminist, it's been okay to cross picket lines, look down on service and blue collar workers, and frequent anti-union businesses and purchase anti-union goods. It's been okay to embrace anti-union employers who appear hip through their own marketing maneuvers."

It's true, I've noticed a tendency on the part of certain liberal bloggers (though not all) to treat labor's interests as though working folks were just some other interest group, which too often we democrats pander to. As if the lives of America's working class and working poor were on the same moral level as say, the Chamber of Commerce's legislative wish list.

Sweet merciful Christ. As I write this, Oliver Willis has a link to a goddamn union-busting law firm, on his website. I have no idea if he chooses his ads or not, but fucking really. If it were an ad for Operation Rescue, there'd be a shitstorm.

Which proves my point really. Chris Bowers over at MYdd wrote about this last January, and it caught my eye at the time, so sayeth the Bowers:

"The fact of the matter is this: one of the main reasons Democrats are losing elections is because it is okay to be pro-environment and anti-labor, it is okay to be pro-Roe and anti-labor, it is okay to be anti-war and anti-labor, it is okay to be anti-patriot act and anti-labor, but it is never okay to be pro-labor and anti-any of these other things. It has literally come to the point where you can be pro-liberal, but anti-labor, and no one seems to care."

It's this destruction of any kind of notion of solidarity that frightens me the most. Even liberals have no clue about sticking together because it's your ass that's on the line. Not because it's chic, or because George Bush is against it, but because if you don't your family will not have enough bread, your health care will go down the crapper and because you have no other choice.

Sad really.

It's Friday night, and I ain't got nobody...

I'm flying solo at casa de los whiskey this weekend, as Mrs. Inallmyyears is out of town. So.

Down to some sweet bloggy action.

The Washington Post had a, whaddya callit, um, ARTICLE! That's it. Actual journalism or something. Anywho. It's on one of my favorite subjects, working conditions for meatpackers in the modern slaughter industry.

That subject collides two of my main interests nicely. The first is working folks' issues and the state of the unions, and the second is animal rights issues. I first took notice of worker's issues when I read Slaughterhouse by Gail Eisnitz. I read it with the intent of learning the modern meat industry's impact on the animals that it, well, 'processes' would be a nice clinical term, but I'll just say kill instead.

What I learned was even worse. And it shouldn't have been surprising. I learned that since the unions that represent packinghouse workers have largely been busted through outsourcing threats, mass importation of illegal immigrants who are not likely to complain much (and will usually work for lots less) and the typical corporate 'race to the bottom' that we're accustomed to. God Bless NAFTA-CAFTA-SHAFTA!

The result of all of this is that Eisnitz' book details the way the humans who do the brutal work of slaughter are treated like cattle themselves by employers that long ago quit paying attention to its workers and its final products.

Weakened unions allowed horrible working conditions to flourish in the packinghouses, which resulted in horrible treatment of the animals.

But the nexus of all of it is that for the meat companies, the impulse to exploit their workers for each penny they can get out of them, is exactly the same impulse that leads them to exploit the animals, all to the nth degree.

In fact, one of the ways that cruelty to the animals manifests itself in the book is when workers, who are fed up with their working conditions, take it out on the animals they come into contact with. Simply because they've reached their breaking point. They also tend to take it out on their wives and children, which makes the circle kinda complete, doesn't it? Because now it's a feminist issue as well.

And so for me, my vegetarianism led me directly to care about the state of working folks' lives (and eventually to feminism). If I'm likely to treat my cattle like shit, I'm quite likely to do that to my workforce, and neither is acceptable, if you're trying to make moral decisions in this insane world.

Or to put it another way, animal liberation is really, human liberation.

They're the same.

The Washington Post article concludes by saying that until folks demand humanely produced meat, the industry is likely to keep doing what they've been doing. The rub is that when you say 'humanely produced meat', one immediately thinks of the conditions of the animals, not the workers. The workers themselves are almost secondary.

But I bet if they're being honest, most of those folks would acknowledge they're in the same boat as their hogs, chickens and cows. They're at the bottom of the hill. And guess which direction shit rolls in that situation.

The CAFTA post

Last week, by a squeaker of a vote, the House passed legislation expanding NAFTA to some lucky ducky countries in the carribean basin. This piece of (dung) legislation was called, originally enough, CAFTA.

There was arm-twisting, sweet-talking and outright threatening in efforts to pass the thing, and they all worked. All the emails, letters, calls, and missives that were sent to the House of Reprehensibles failed.

And my record for picking losing issues remains untouched!

I'm like, 0-12. At least I'm right.

This thing stank. To high heaven. And the fact that Melissa Bean voted for it (on top of her inexplicable vote to gut bankruptcy protections for working Americans) makes her untouchably bad. Bad on you, Melissa. You're no Democrat. You clearly don't stand with working folks. You had two chances to show where you stood, and you did. Unfortunately, it's not with us.

Jonathan Tasini has more on what Labor's respone to the CAFTA 15 should be. And it's important to keep in mind that when NAFTA passed, it passed the house with around 100 democratic votes. Permanent Normal Trade Relations with China passed with around 70, fast track authority for free trade agreements (which mean the President can negotiate trade treaties and Congress has no input other than an up-or-down vote) passed with 23, and CAFTA with 15.

So Democrats are apparently learning. Slowly. Either that, or the dwindling votes mirror their dwindling numbers in congress. At this rate, there won't be a working class by the time they have it figured out. It'll be the out-of-working class. Until then, the spigot should absolutely be shut off from these turncoats.

Also. Passed along without comment.

Reason 4,657 not to shop at Wal-Mart

And the beat goes on and on. The Arizona Daily Sun has a report out today that one out of every ten Wal-Mart employees is on public assistance for health care. And that's not bad compared to some states.

This dovetails nicely with other reports from other parts of the country saying essentially the same thing. And (brace yourself for a surprise!) many of the states where this is most common are also actively hostile labor environments!

No!

Yes! (it makes me puke to link to those people)

My favorite statistic: In Georgia, there are more than 10,000 children of Wal-Mart on public aid. The next largest company is Publix, a grocery store chain at 714 children. That means that there are 14 times more children of Wal-mart employees on public assistance than the next biggest company. It translates into one kid on welfare for every four employees.

It must be those 'competitive wages' the Waltons keep bragging about.

Wal-Mart. Always low standards of human freaking decency. Always.

PS: Archpundit had a post up yesterday about Dems who shop at Sam's Club (motto--just like wal-mart, but more sterile!).

I know this is a touchy issue for some, but that's tough shit. Wal-Mart is not a force for good in the modern economy. It's time we acted like adults and faced up to it.