Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

I had the distinct pleasure of getting to sing The Day that Paddy Murphy Died to my kids in the car this morning. They were baffled. It put me in the mind of this, from Season 1 and Season 5 of The Wire. (Profanity, so don't watch if that's not your bag).

Some Thoughts on Wisconsin and the Labor Movement

Those of you who know me well may wonder why I am not on the ramparts (at least rhetorically) about the Wisconsin labor war that has reminded people that collective bargaining is actually controversial and necessary. Don't get me wrong: I think that workers' rights to join unions, collectively bargain or otherwise join together for their mutual aid and benefit, is fundamental. Freedom of association, speech, to contract - it's there in the U.S. Constitution. I recommend you read Section 1 of the National Labor Relations Act. The United Nation's recognize these as inalienable human rights; this puts the Wisconsin legislature on par with Colombia and China, where workers are deprived of these rights, and activists are subject to aggression by the state.

And/so/but what? What do the unions have to do with all this? What do the unions, as the legal institutions charged with enforcing these rights (rather than the government), have to offer in furtherance of collective bargaining rights? Even if the right side ultimately prevails in this war- and even if Scott Walker was using the budget shortfall as a Trojan horse for the deprivation of these rights - many state and local governments are hamstrung financially by their collectively bargained pension and healthcare obligations.

I'll be blunt: unions have been part of the problem. And workers aren't really buying what unions are selling. Unions blame a range of factors for their organizing and public image problems: bad labor and immigration laws ("if we just pass EFCA!"), dirty employer tricks, the proliferation of individual rights, worker fear, weak Democrats, etc. etc. The fact is, unions had it much harder at the turn of the century. No laws or laws criminalizing unions, actual violence against workers, no political power. But people wanted collective bargaining power (not unions per se) and they were willing to stand up for it, the way folks in Wisconsin are today.

So what can unions do about it? I don't claim to know the answer. But I have some ideas. First of all, unions need to change the way they offer services to their members. Currently, unions assign staff based on their members' employer. These people are responsible for knowing all of the collective bargaining agreements with each employer, and enforcing the agreements with grievances. They might also collect dues or do political fundraising, and might know a little bit about their members' benefits. Some unions also have an external organizing staff that is trying to organize new members. Staff are chronically stretched, and are expected to have a super-human range of skills (legal advocacy, negotiations, employee benefits, counseling, organizing, political skills, communications skills) with hardly any staff development opportunities. In reality, 80-90% of their time is spent dealing with 2% of their members, "the squeaky wheels" who have grievances pending. Union staff take their frustrations out on the employers they interact with. The "Employer" becomes the cause of all their problems. They associate their work with the problems of their members vis a vis their employer, and never consider the underlying work, or industry itself. They also fail to advocate for their silent majority of members, who have a diminishing sense of the value their union brings to them.

Unions need to organize themselves differently. They should have advocates who litigate grievances, negotiators who bargain all contracts, employee benefit specialists, political departments who advocate for legislation and regulations that benefit both workers - in their work - and their industry, and external organizers. They should have extensive training and education departments committed to upgrading worker skills based on the latest technology (rather than fighting it). Each of these departments would offer services to union members without regard to their employer, and would regularly confer with one another about their industry norms, standards and future.

This wouldn't fix everything, but it isn't lipstick either. Until unions take responsibility for the things they can control, they aren't going to be perceived as relevant to most American workers. I wouldn't want to join an organization which claims to be (or seems to be) powerless about the very problems about which I seek its counsel and protection, either. (I say this as a member of the Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild, Communications Workers of America, Local 32035)

I've tried to focus these thoughts on areas where unions are solely responsible (internal bureaucracy/governance). But there are other areas where unions are, or could be, jointly responsible. Public pension investment, for example. A co-worker yesterday asked me, rhetorically, "Who thought it was a good idea to invest public pension dollars solely in the private sector, without government regulation? Why didn't the unions stand up and say, there needs to be a framework for how this is invested? It is the public's trust but it's governed by Wall Street." Failing to raise that question soon after the Taft-Hartley Act was passed (or any time before the Great Recession) is a factor in pensions becoming a huge liability for public employers. Wall Street treated pension funds like slush funds in ways that no state treasury could ever be abused.

In a similar vein, why are mandatory subjects of bargaining limited to wages, hours and working conditions? Why are unions NOT required to bargain about industrial and employer issues? If an employer has a problem, they currently solve it in a vaccuum without any input from the union other than (1) don't lay off our members or (2) don't cut our wages/benefits. What if an employer said, "Hey union, look at this pile-of-shit problem I have. It's yours, too. You must solve it with me." This actually happens on the boards of some Taft-Hartley benefit plans and in some labor management partnerships (and some other countries) but by and large, unions are like petulant teenagers, grieving everything and demanding bigger allowances. Outside of apprentice programs (operated separately from unions), very little thought is given to the state of the workers' crafts or the state of the industry in which they labor.

Scott Walker and the state of Ohio have actually played this wrong. By trying to eliminate collective bargainig, they've reminded workers of what they wanted all along. If Walker had demanded that the unions be jointly accountable for Wisconsin's budget problems and had them sit at the table, he either would have had a partner in solving his problems or he would have been able to demonstrate that the unions are incapable of true collective bargaining. The only party that loses that gamble is the unions themselves. . . .

Bummer

This from a local listserv: "Anyone know where to buy Bisquick-Gluten-Free (a relatively new product) around here?  Our baseball team is gluten-free, dairy free and chocolate-free, and I’m up first on snack!  (Stuck out at Whole Foods, Berkeley Bowl…)"

Mother-in-Law, forgive the profanity

'cause Honey Badget don't give a shit.

3 hours well-spent

I need someone to admit that my homemade reusable snack bags are adorable, so that I can admit that they are probably not functional

The Uber Taunt

On the day before the Super Bowl, my 4 year old says to his father: "Who's winning the Super Bowl?"

"Nobody. The game isn't until tomorrow," says Mr. Scobie.

"So you don't even know who's winning?!" says the kid in his most sarcastic voice.

This is on top of both kids being basically nonplussed that the Pats lost 3 weeks ago, and claiming that they will be rooting for the Steelers tomorrow.

Dream of the 90s

Best Euphemism of 2011

"finalize the expulsion"

Officials: Woman swallowed 91 heroin pellets
http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/01/06/michigan.drug.mule/index.html

Good Time for a Change

We watched The Town last night. Good movie. Highly recommended. Heist movie that transcends the conventional genre. Better than The Departed. Etc. Etc.

No, I mean it. It was this good. For 18 years, I've been in the Matt Damon camp. I've felt highly certain that if he'd met me before he met the Italian bartender, she'd still be tending bar. But Ben Affleck's performance + Affleck's excellent directing + Affleck's attractive similarity to my husband means: Ben > Matt. I know; I can't believe it either.

Here are the only two pieces of cognitive dissonance in the movie: (1) the car chase through the North End that appears not to result in fatalities (but is still awesome) and (2) the lack of Muffin Top on the townie girl played by Blake Lively. Where does an Oxy addict get abs like that?

My Friend "Glen"

After the Rapture exhibit at the Orlando World Center

Catching Up on Those New Year's Resolutions

A funny conversation that I had recently caused me to go check my 2010 New Year's resolutions, and with a month left in the year, I can tell you, there's no way I can get back on track. I'm not sure which one if most off-track, but the only one I am going to comment on is the book one. I committed to read one new book each month, and the only books I can be sure I've read are: Freedom, I'm Down, Squirrel Meets Chipmunk and The Angel's Game. I didn't finish the last two, but I only have one chapter left in Squirrel so there's a chance I will pull through. I've already reviewed Freedom.

I want to speak briefly about I'm Down. It's a memoir by Mishna Wolff, who was mainly raised by her father, a white man who believed, or at least acted as though he believed, that he was Black. To his core. Her evidence of that her father held this belief is entirely demonstrated in recounting how he *acted* Black, since his voice in the book is absent except for when he's yelling at her or being proud of her athletic prowess. I don't know if those are things that Black Men are "known" to do or not, and she doesn't claim that they are. But she also doesn't claim that they AREN'T. She mostly shows her dad out of work, playing dominoes, cadging beers and rooting for her at athletic events, until he is emasculated by his very sexy younger (employed) wife. And then Wolff claims that her dad thinks he's Black, and I was left with the feeling that she was just applying racial stereotypes to her dad, instead of pointing out that White Men can be irresponsible, poor, loving, cowardly, etc etc. just like everyone else. Or maybe she was pointing it out, very subtlely. Very very subtlely.

Now, I don't actually think Wolff is racist at all (or rather, I don't think she is any MORE affected by racial stereotypes than the rest of us). In fact, being racist is a charge leveled against her by her Black stepmother, and it is devastating to her. And she examines that charge, and decides that it is code for other things that aren't racism, like she's ambitious and opportunistic and resentful and disconnected from the family as her father imagines it should be. But it could also be a little bit of racism. Later, she does seem to acknowledge that a lot about her life was poverty, and not race. I wish that the story of her reconciliationas an adult - with her father, with her (racial or class) identity - was in the book, rather than ending in the voice of her young teen years.

I don't want to sound overly harsh. One reason is, this book was recommended by friends, who felt that it was written in a similar style to mine. And I agree with them. The fault with her writing, and mine, is that it often elides certain points which seem so obvious to make that we actually fail to do so. With a little bit of thought, I "get" Wolff. I just wonder what I'm missing.

This Helps

As you can probably tell from 2 posts ago, I've been feeling a little glum lately. This helps. I'm now trying to think of a mistake I can admit making so that I can post it on that site. It's a little embarassing how few of my mistakes can be shared without me feeling awful. I guess that is the point. At least it's not an embarassing awful foot-in-mouth disaster that is making me feel glum. So I've got that going for me.

Dick Van Dyke Called, He Wants The Conch Shell Back

Just when I had given up hope about ever blogging about anything wierd ever again, Joan Baez fell out of a tree. "I sleep in a tree all summer long." True? False? Don't know. Stupid? Yes.

This isn't even the wierdest celebrity news of the month, since Dick Van Dyke was rescued by porpoises when he passed out on his surf board and drifted out to sea. I'm not interested enough to speculate wildly beyond "alcohol vs. dementia" here, but I do wonder what else is out there, celebrity-wise.

I guess this is what we have to look forward to, with the descendence of the Baby Boomers. Van Dyke is older than that, but he's really just a harbinger. Or is it a bellweather? Anyway. Whereas he was once on the cutting edge of TV, I fear he is now on the cutting edge of elderly celebrity conduct. Betty White has lulled everyone, with her sharp comic timing, into thinking she's the norm. But really, Sean Young is the norm. Possibly even Margot Kidder is the norm.

Whoever the norm is (Shaq?), it is not going to be pretty. Or rather, it might be pretty, but it will certainly be crazy.

Should I Keep This Up?

National Blogging Month really makes a gal focus on the important things. Like, should I keep blogging? I haven't really felt inclined most days. Plus, I went back to the beginning of this blog, and it was way better then. It used to have silly themes and random stories, and attempted at originality. Barely any of that exists now. Most of my snarky one-off comments have moved over to Facebook and Twitter, or I just keep it to myself because I am too worried that someone I work with will find this blog and it will be a disaster for my career. As I "mature" (and I mean that in a bad way), I worry more and more that this blog might be a platform for some terrible self-destructive revelation that triggers my downfall. Not like I am a big celebrity or anything, but that happened to a guy I tangentially knew, so I am paranoid. Add in the fact that I barely ever read new books, watch new movies* or buy new music - much less stalk the Montgomery Advertiser or Nelson Marans - and there is practically nothing to say.

Here's what I thought I would do. I thought I would do a poll of my various options at this point and let you, the readers, be the judge of this blog's fate. But then I decided that I was too lazy to figure out how to add a poll, so instead, I will just list the options, and you can comment on them. Be aware, if I don't get comments from certain people, I will assume that this blog has lost its core readership, and I may not continue it.

1. Stop blogging; I follow you on Facebook.

2. Stop blogging; I follow you on Twitter.

3. Stop blogging at this website; I will follow you onto a software platform that is easier to post to.

4. Keep blogging here. **

5. If you get fired from this or any future job because of any content or revelations on this blog, I promise to employ you at your last rate of pay ad finitem to continue this blog.

6. Yo no leer en Engles.

* We watched Scott Pilgrim vs. the World last night, and I really liked it. Best line from a tertiary character, "Their first album is so much better than their first album."

** You will need to add some vaguely flattering remarks if you vote for this one, as I am feeling very down on the quality of the blog at this time.

Baffled By the Limits of Social Networking

Last night I blogged about how odd it is that my college development office hasn't discovered Google. This evening, I had a nice night catching up with my mom about her various lifelong friends and their adult children. This is the verbal equivalent of reading Christmas card letters; the whole time you are thinking, "Whu?" but your mouth is saying, "NO! And then what did you say?!" because you can't believe so-and-so works at ESPN, or got divorced, or is Christian, or missed a funeral of a family member. (It's best when it's all 4, but that literally never happens. It would be a Gossip Utopia).

Once my mom left, though, I had to check Facebook to see whether any of these folks are plugged into the matrix. The overall picture I get is that Facebook's 500 million members do not include the offspring of my mother's friends. Which would make them the perfect match for my college's development office's Lost List. They are truly lost, I think. Except that my mom probably has their address.

Anyway, I am not planning on going to my college reunion, but I wonder if I should host a reunion of my virtual memory, where I invite all the people I think I know, based solely on the fact that I've been kept apprised of their lives these past 35 years. It's a stretch to get them to travel out here, but I am sure we can find a central location in the Midwest that would suit us all just fine. God knows what we'd talk about. No, literally, God probably does know. Most of my mom's very long-time friends have some religious affiliation, so I am sure we are either a lopsidedly heathen crew or most of them are itinerant preachers. Either way, God is probably keeping tabs.

Development Office Fail

We got a letter today about our 15th reunion from college. On the back of the letter is a Lost List - people for whom the college cannot find any contact information. A number of the names are completely new to me, but two of them are good friends of mine. They are both on Facebook, and at least one of them is also friends with the Reunion Co-Chair. A Google search of one of them turns up almost 600 references to her specifically, as well as her company and her political contributions. Google searchs of other classmates result in LinkedIn profiles as the first result.

Does the Development Office not know this? Or is there some ethical issue with them doing any kind of research to find these individuals? There are only about 65 "missing" people; one of the reunion co-chairs could make short work of this in an evening, with an open bottle of wine beside their computer. I'm tempted to track them all down, except that I have no intention of going to a reunion or contributing even in-kind to my alma mater (except for glowing updates to the alumni magazine demonstrating the superiority of my friends). In other words, I want to find them all, but I don't want to help the college find them. But if I did the research for any purpose other than for the college, it would be insanely creepy and wierd.

And those of you who are wondering who is on the list, one is a female living in Britain who has a political resume, and the other is a male living in Chicago who is from western New York, and is probably reading this blog. And wanting to stay lost.

What's Up?

Hey homeys. Or is it homies? Whatever. I'm just over here revelling in my homemade bolognese sauce, which is fully awesome, and not worrying myself about blogging. Other things I am "worrying" about: Thanksgiving dinner.

Today's NYT Dining section threw me for a loop. Now I've gotta cut the whole bird up before I cook it? What do I look like, Sam the butcher bringing Alice the meat? Or else buy a digital thermometer? Where was Bobby Flay with this nonsense back in 2006 when the NYT did their last decent turkey recipe, and I only had to make little foil hats for the turkey's "breasts"?

I'm hosting T-giving this year for my sister and her in-laws, and possibly A Very Special Guest. My sister is extremely pregnant and I am hoping for some madcap shit whereby the brussel sprouts induce labor. Panic and hilarity WILL ensue. Our family actually has a lot of experience with Thanksgiving drama: my stepsister's daughter was born basically in the way that I've just described. And, before I was born, my great grandfather died on Thanksgiving morning and my gram and her mother made dinner regardless for the waiting hordes (6 kids, etc). In case you are wondering where I get my aggressive practicality, legend has it that my grandmother said to her mother, as the funeral director took her father's body out of her house, "what do we do now?" and my great grandmother said, "Well, make dinner. Everyone's got to be hungry."

And speaking of family, my cousin Kate has a new installation in LA that you should check out, if only by visiting this website.

The young activist

Our seven year old is presently engrossed by sharks. Engrossed doesn't cover it actually. Obsessed really. And all he wanted was a set of shark jaws. He didn't even want them as a gift; he decided he would buy them with his own money. For three days straight, he requested paying jobs to finance this purchase. He quickly went from $17 in savings to the needed $24 by sweeping the walk, emptying the trash and the dishwasher (separately), putting away his clothes, and other things that probably weren't worth the quarters I was doling out.

When I realized that this purchase was about to become a reality, I tried another tactic. How about adopting a shark instead? He liked this idea but offered two friendly amendments: 1) let's do both and 2) let's pay to tag a shark instead. That costs about $2000. The idea fizzled because he wasn't willing to wait to collect the adoption sum before buying the jaw.

(In case you think I am a wuss who can't stand up to a 7 year old, save it. I can't. This child is relentless.)

My next approach was to inform him that the jaws are only harvested as a byproduct of awful shark finning. I got a blase look that told me he was pleased that they were using more than one part of the shark before they threw it back.

We not only bought the jaw, but he got another for his birthday from certain loving family members. And then a co-worker found one in her attic and gave it to him. Now that we own 3 shark jaws, he has suddenly decided that finning is an evil which he will personally battle. After proposing a series of gruesome actions we could take against the Chinese and Thai governments (whom he believes are responsible for failing to outlaw finning), he decided that our country needs to take action. How, then, can a seven year old seek redress of his grievances? "Barack Obama needs to stop them!"

Let me translate: "Dear President Obama: Can you help us from from people stop finning Love Liam Dooley". I sent a helpful translation on a post-it note just in case someone is motivated to read this letter. I will let you know if we get a response. Good luck getting a shark jaw of your own after this!

Can't Pull It Off

I'm too rusty to post anything new tonight. It was a crappy day - jury duty, a flooded kitchen, a monumental temper tantrum (not gonna say who it was. . . ) (it was mine). It's Thursday night, which means there is television on. So I'm gonna pass on trying to be funny or smart today. Check the archives for something hilarious or insightful. KTHXBY.