PLEASE NOTE DEAR READERS: As of this morning, Dec. 1st (9 days to my birthday) my blog is stuck in a timewarp, while some technical behind the scenes maintenance is done somewhere in California where my site’s brains are kept. Pardon the crap.. should be fixed today I hope.
Many of the bloggers who I helped get started in the last 6 months have become quite delinquent with posting. Maybe it’s a stage that my blog generation is going through, where being too busy or uninspired, keeps them from writing. I wish that weren’t so, blogging should be a bit like the mail, nor rain, sleet or rabid dogs should keep you away. Still, it’s exciting when the prodigal bloggers do return.
Yesterday I finally caught up with Blonde but Bright, back from her Baltic holidays. Our catch-up session went on for hours probably, as we caused a bike accident or two when we decided to pull off the bike highway and continue our discussion. Later she would throw up a nice post reminding the masses that much of these American elections are an illusion. Se?or Sneer does similar, in his post reminding you about the other candidates who aren’t allowed in the debates or in the spotlight.
Being as there is a general strike in the Netherlands tomorrow, and the good people of Atlantic City are out on the picket line, I felt this was a good time to go over the labor scene in several hot spots around the globe.
– First lets start with Holland, I guess its a transport/general strike tomorrow, in protest of the governments massive cuts. Yet taking a walk around Uni you wouldn’t know it. No one here strikes, they don’t have unions, and they barely hang on to their jobs. I guess this is what they call the “flexible labor market.”
– Nigeria, where much of your beloved oil comes from. Petrol workers strike. They say its about price control, or something. But if you think about it these employees make companies rich while they live in poverty, go figure.
– Atlantic City, New Jersey Hotel and Restaurant Employees are in their second week of striking. They want real contracts, but the casinos aren’t interested. If you must feed your gambling problem don’t cross the picket line, wave and honk, bring some coffee, and then you can head over to Trump and gamble because he negotiated to avoid the strike. Plus he’s almost bankrupt.
– Canada, civil servants are out on strike.
Now that I look at it, the list is far too long. But it still makes me think what strange times we live in. Strikes happen yet they don’t matter. Lives are at stake, yet it’s completely normal and probably appears at the bottom of page 10. And for those of us without unions, we just fend for ourselves and hope during the next restructuring we might still keep our tiny jobs in exchange for our another pint of blood and an applepie. Obviously I romanticize the days of big unions and direct action, say the 1930’s. I’m sure it wasn’t paradise by any means, I just wish I could have hung out with Joe Hill, ridin’ the rails*, hittin’ the skids*.
Let me once again take the time to condemn the upcoming US elections. I will continue to do so with every bit of evidence that comes forward that the process is dangerously flawed and has not been fixed since the last fiasco. It seems the system and its voters just continue to operate like its business-as-usual, excited to vote in a few weeks, nevermind the fact that states like Florida are corrupt and unfit to hold free & fair elections.
Today’s Sounds: Lost in Translation Soundtrack – Bill Murray singing More than Words