“A writer’s notebook is not a diary. Writers react. Writers need a place to record these reactions. That’s what a writer’s notebook is for. It gives you a place to write down what makes you angry or sad or amazed, to write down what you noticed and don’t want to forget. A writer’s notebook gives you a place to live like a writer.” - Ralph Fletcher
Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor
The striking Chicago Teachers Union helped thrust teachers unions into the national spotlight, with union-buster Democrat Mayor Rahm Emanuel reminding us that, these days, Republicans and Democrats frequently converge on both education policy and labor-unfriendliness.
Kristin Rawls
(Source: truth-out.org)
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and other league officials have put themselves in a terrible negotiating position with the National Football League Referees Association, who are currently locked out while negotiations on their basic agreement continue. The fix they’ve put themselves is this: They’ve pretended that the men they put in officials’ uniforms are competent while we can clearly see they are not.
The NFL likes to call these men “replacement officials,” just as during the 1987 players strike they called the phonies they stuffed into team uniforms “replacement players.” These men “replaced” no one; the players and the officials are still NFL employees as they negotiate a new contract, even while the work stoppage goes on, and when they return, the so-called “replacements” will be gone. Their only purpose, both in 1987 and now, is to undermine a union’s bargaining position. So let’s call them not by the soft, vague euphemism which the NFL chooses but for what they are: scabs. If this lockout serves no other purpose, it at least educates fans on some basic tenets of collective bargaining.
Allen Barra
(Source: The Atlantic)
If we truly want improved work-family balance for American families—mothers and fathers alike—then we have to address the fact that Americans are overworked. We have to work less. Period.
Bryce Covert
(Source: thenation.com)
We need a radical movement around labor and wages. #OWS
(Source: occupywallst.org)
