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For once, I agree with Bob Crow, General Secretary of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT).
Crow is one of these elitist, thuggish union types who believes in a privileged class of public-sector employee who should be free of the pains that the private sector is experiencing. The already lavishly paid Tube—that is, London subway system—employees he represents are forever calling strikes at inconvenient times of the year to demand the sort of pay raises that much-harder working bus drivers are lucky to receive. The RMT did not organize the recent "March for the Alternative"—that was the Trades Union Congress. But, along with Unison and Unite, they marched in tandem with the "gimme gimme" crowd to let the Con-Dems in Parliament know of the pain and sacrifice they'd suffer if a few arts grants met the cost-cutting knife.
But Mr. Crow, to his credit, nailed down the issue of public relations-sponsored national days and weeks. You know, the never-ending litany of days and weeks that we never knew existed: World Pinhole Camera Day, National Coffee Week, National Karaoke Week, British Pie Week, etc.
Prince William and Kate Middleton even have to share their wedding ceremony with—get this—World Dance Day.
Crow slammed these special events for the public relations stunts that they are, calling them "a sick joke," and alleging that they steal attention away from worthy causes such as World Malaria Day.
"Maybe we should have a special Ignore PR Puff Day to remind journalists to swerve the kind of garbage that the PR and ad agencies make a fortune out of inflicting on the rest of us," Crow opined.
I couldn't agree more.
I have nothing against capitalism, but these "special" days and weeks are ridiculous.
I wonder, when is the National Institute of Proctology day? The thing is, I'll bet it's a much more worthy cause than "Shake Your Ass" day.
Maybe they should team up with National Coffee Week and we can all receive caffeine-rich enemas at discounted prices. w00t!
A friend and fellow reader here on Blogger recently wrote about her total disdain for the saying "that's what she said."
I used to overhear that a lot at a sports bar I would frequent at the old Boston Garden during the early '90s (a place that became rather Cheers-like to me). But I was also reminded of the job I had while attending college.
For five years, I worked night-shift at a large supermarket in Cambridge. One guy who worked there, Ernie, said that all the time. It's as if he was finely attuned to picking up on any instance in which he could utter it; he never missed the opportunity. For instance, if Ernie was present when the grocery manager approached and asked you what time you could report to work, and you replied "I'll come early," Ernie would quip, "That's what she said."
We did some crazy shit. We'd holler "whooo-hooo!" like cowboys. Another guy started a tradition where if you had to pick up a heavy box—a box containing supersize jugs of bleach or large cans of tomato puree, for example—you'd scream "urrrrgh!" in a manly way, like a weightlifter trying to lift 400 pounds.
One time, I saw Neil walking by with a large wooden spatula that he'd obviously borrowed from the homewares aisle. I instinctively knew what he was up to. My suspicions were confirmed just seconds later when I heard, from two aisles away, Billy's playfully outraged holler.
Salvage time was always fun. "Salvage" referred to all the cardboard waste—boxes and box-lids—that we'd load our dollies with and transport out back to an empty delivery truck. We'd throw all this cardboard trash in there for recycling. If you were in the cargo bay of the truck, off-loading your boxes full of box-lids, and someone else came up behind you with his own dolly full of cardboard, he would chuck and shove all the boxes at you at breakneck speed, sending you flying into the big pile of cardboard with box-lids raining down on you, and you'd spend the next fifteen or so minutes carefully planning your revenge.
I've saved the best for last. There was also a penchant for us to sneak up behind a co-worker, as he was bending over to pick up a box or block the lower shelves ("blocking" is supermarket-worker parlance for making the shelves look good by bringing all products forward if the spaces allocated to the products aren't full). You would dry-hump him and the guy getting humped would have to squeal like a pig: "Weeeeeeek!" We all engaged in this endearing activity at some point, perpretrating it against our fellow workers and having it perpetrated against us.
That gives you a pretty good idea of what an all-male crew doing blue-collar labor get up to. Against all that, muttering "that's what she said" seems rather tame.
Well, as predicted here, there was mayhem on the streets of central London yesterday. The usual suspects sprayed anarchist graffiti on nearly every available surface, smashed up the fronts of stores and banks, lit fires and threw ammonia-filled lightbulbs at cops. A fun-filled family event, to be sure.
Apparently, the marchers turned on the troublemakers, resorting to that great British tactic of showing indignity, which is to shout "shame on you!" What the hell kind of confrontation is that? C'mon, let's have some real in-fighting here! Where were the scuffles? How about letting some fists fly, breaking protest signs over some greasy-haired vacant heads and throwing some of that human flotsam underneath police vans, if you're that upset about being so ill-represented? I'd have given up a month's salary to see that.
"Shame on you," indeed. Trouble is, these vagrants, vandals and vigilantes know no shame.
Even at 10:30 p.m., things hadn't returned to normal. The bus terminated its route at Parliament Square, because Whitehall was blocked off to all traffic and there was obviously no pre-planned detour to Regent Street. So I had to walk the two miles into work—Trafalgar Square, I noticed, was still heaving with outraged mindlessness—my feet crunching litter almost the whole way. Thank you, Trades Union Congress. You're not just a public-sector union, you're a "keep fit" motivation club as well.
I will add one positive note here. At 7:30 a.m., the sidewalks and streets were clean. Bus routes were fully operational again. Trafalgar Square had been hosed down, a quiet expanse of wet concrete. It's public-sector employees of the city and Westminster Council who were picking up the mess from a public-sector mass protest. How ironic is that? I was so tempted to ask, "So, enjoying the extra work this morning, fellas?" But, honestly, massive props go out to every employee who helped return the city to normal by daybreak.
Don't get me wrong, either: I'm not defending the banks. These whack-headed protestors say it's the banks' fault we're in this financial crisis, and I agree. But, as most of them were bailed out courtesy of the taxpayers, the public has part ownership of them. These people need to realize that they're to blame too, because we will end up like Greece if we don't clamp down.
The fact of the matter is, you have absolutely no right to bash the banks if you're demanding lavish salaries, pensions and services that are simply not affordable. If it's your belief that we're "all in this together," then prove it by being willing to share the burden and the pain. If not, then shut up about the banks and the financial crisis.
Honestly, it's a case of one group of spoiled-rotten, clueless fat-cats criticizing another.
They're going to turn Trafalgar Square into Tahrir Square today. The Trades Union Congress has organized a mass rally protesting the Government's cost-cutting. It's entitled The March for the Alternative.
They haven't explained what "the alternative" is. But then, you can't expect a rag-tag motley collection of layabouts, anarchists, and public union thugs to explain much. You'll get plenty of platitudes, but no real in-depth explanation of why we should continue to allow the unwashed, "gimme gimme" crowd the sort of raises and pensions that private-sector workers can only dream about.
I love how this crowd has embraced the word "alternative." That's not something they ordinarily promote. They're all about diversity, except when it comes to opinions or politicians that dare not be left-of-center.
Two Labour MPs, John McDonnell and Jeremy Corbyn, have helped to organize the demonstration that will "turn London into Cairo". Do they know that ordinary Egyptians were trying to overthrow a man who'd been in power for 30 years and was completely out-of-touch with the hoi-polloi, a man they considered a cruel dictator? No, not Ted Kennedy, though Hosni Mubarak, so far as I know, was never responsible for the drowning of a young woman.
McDonnell and Corbyn wrote, in their joint statement, "On March 26 we are inviting everyone to join us to stay in Trafalgar square [sic] for 24 hours to discuss how we can beat this government and to send a message across the globe that we stand with the people of Egypt, Libya, Wisconsin and with all those fighting for equality, freedom and justice."
Fight the power! This is the ultimate test of our democracy! We're talking about the "haves" and the "have-nots" here, and we're the "haves." We're gonna scream and holler and smash up storefronts to ensure it stays that way! But, please remember, we Lefties are never violent. We're the agents of peace—which is why we so valiantly stand in defence of terrorists, domestic or foreign.
Question: Are McDonnell and Corbyn aware that Wisconsin is an American state? They probably think Wisconsin is a Canadian province, because Canada is a righteous, peaceful regime (just ignore the seal blood stains). Someone needs to drop the 4-1-1 to them that Wisconsin is part of the U.S. I'll bet the sudden downplay in sympathy will be like water down the drain.
They do not realize that the whole point of our new government was to tackle the severe financial crisis facing us, that cuts are necessary because the money is running out. But somehow, the results of our general election in May, and the results in Wisconsin in November that put cost-cutting Republicans in office, don't count as part of the democratic process. Obama himself said that elections have consequences, but if the Left witnesses an election they don't like, it amounts to "shock doctrines and neo-liberal attacks (that) threaten to devastate the lives of ordinary people the world over," in McDonnell's and Corbyn's opinion.
Honestly, it would make for great satire if it wasn't so sadly true.
Philip Collins, a columnist for The Times, summed it up succinctly when he referred to the mindset of the alternative-embracers:
"Conjugate with me the verb 'to be on the Left':
I care.
You don't.
He / she is oppressing me ideologically."
I just hope London is London once more by the time I have to head in there tonight, because I have a real job to do where I earn my own money, what little of it there is in my paycheck. It's the price I pay for being an honest, tax-paying member of the proletariat.
No blood for oil! Not in my name!
You know, part of me wants to shout that from the rooftops with regard to American military involvement in Libya. President Obama did not gain Congressional approval for launching strikes against the North African country. So, it's an illegal act of war, is it not?
Say what you will about Dennis Kucinich, the far-Left whackjob Representative from Ohio, but he was the very definition of consistency in denouncing the air strikes and calling Obama's action a potentially impeachable offense.
From a recent interview with MSNBC:
Interviewer: "Alright, so, Congressman—impeachment? Really?"
Kucinich: "I raised the question ... because the President is acting outside of the authority of the Constitution. There is no question about that whatsoever ... And then you think about, there's no imminent threat, there's no end-game. They're still after regime change. We could be strengthening Islamic extremists who could be setting up camp in eastern Libya. There are people who want to divide that nation. This is a nightmare."
Regarding the United Nations approval for these actions, Kucinich said during an interview with the RT America network, "It's good that the U.N. is involved in security matters, except for one thing: When it comes to the United States, we have a prior process that trumps the U.N., and that's called our Constitution, which requires that Presidents have to get Congressional approval to take our country into war. If the President feels there's an imminent or actual threat to the United States, he can move forward. This threat is to citizens in Libya. That's regrettable. But last I checked, Libya isn't one of our states."
I could never have imagined a scenario in which I would like to give Kucinich a slap on the back, but give him credit. He is absolutely correct. I, of course, disagreed mightily with Kucinich's objections to action in Iraq, but as I say, at least he's being consistent.
(I dearly wish these men of the Left, such as Kucinich, would realize that the Constitution also doesn't authorize the mass invasion of American soil by foreign nationals viz-a-viz illegal immigration. But, alas, that's a different topic ...)
Consider this: While campaigning for the Presidency in December 2007, Obama said, clearly referring to the War in Iraq, "The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation."
So, Mr. President, how on earth, given your own apparent convinction in that very process, could you authorize attacks, from outside the nation no less, while on your "working vacation"?
Furthermore, where are the massive protests? Who's out there shouting "not in my name"? Libya has oil, so why no large-scale denouncements from anti-war liberals about this being another war for oil? Why no demonstrations against the French, who kicked-started this attack on Libya? (Looks like they're not "cheese-eating surrender monkeys" anymore!) I don't care what the anti-war crowd says, Bush did not act illegally with regard to Iraq. The resolution for the action against Iraq granted the authorization by the Constitution and Congress, so where's the uproar over the complete absence of a similar resolution in this case?
I direct you, dear reader, to this extremely well-written column by John Hawkins. Hawkins writes:
"Can't you just see it? The Communist Party, Code Pink, the black bloc, and the free Mumia wackjobs all joining together with the Tea Party to protest Obama. Wouldn't that be fun? I mean personally, I've been waiting for years to wear a "No Blood For Oil" sign while I carry around a giant puppet head. Someone call the commies and union members who organize all these hippie shindigs for the Left and let's do this thing!"
I concur that this was unconstitutional, that we can ill afford it, and that the U.S. does not need this diversion from Afghanistan. NATO isn't sure what the end-game, as Kucinich calls it, is either, and France and Turkey are bickering over what route to take in these proceedings in Libya.
Moammar Gaddafi is a horrible little man, no doubt about it, and he had this coming. It's the perfect opportunity for us to work with NATO and with U.N. approval to exact our revenge on him for all the American deaths he's been responsible for in the past. But isn't it also true that Gaddafi kept a low profile with regard to terrorism after Saddam Hussein's fall? We can, and should, ensure that Gaddafi goes six feet under, but who will replace him? Does anyone know the motives behind the rebels' insurrection and what they hope to achieve? Who will take over Libya in Gaddafi's absence?
Let's get to the nuts and bolts: Should American troops be put in harm's way in a conflict whose objectives are unclear if not totally missing? Absolutely not!
This story in Libya is completely missing a plot. Dennis Kucinich and I are in total agreement on this one.
Peter King, a Representative from New York, has led the House homeland security committee's hearings on the homegrown Islamist terror threat. The investigation cannot go down the road of McCarthyism: on that, I'm sure we agree. But it is a necessary procedure to collect information on whatever radicalization we face on our own soil and what steps are necessary to defuse it.
I believe the Ford Hood disaster merits these hearings, as well as the opportunity to repair the consequences of Homeland Security incompetence under Janet Napolitano and the Obama administration who would rather see the bogeymen in straw dogs, i.e. Americans who are unapologetic in their patriotism.
Mike Ghouse, the Muslim president of the America Together Foundation, has said of the investigative hearings: "We thank God for this opportunity to put the doubts and nagging behind for good so we can continue to participate in and contribute towards the well-being of America, our homeland."
Meanwhile, the Minnesota Democrat Keith Ellison, a Muslim convert, wept during the opening moments of the hearings, relating the tale of a Muslim paramedic who perished in the 9/11 attacks, reminding us that the man was "an American who gave everything for his fellow citizens." Fine, but that's not the sort of member of the Muslim community the hearings are targeting. Maybe the paramedic in question didn't even consider himself part of a "community," and thought of himself solely as American—something that should be lauded.
King and the investigative committee would like to know about those Muslim Americans who White House spokesman Jay Carney said "are part of the solution." Isn't that what this is all about? Finding solutions to radicalization and presenting the chance to the American Muslim community to participate? Doesn't sound like a "witch hunt" to me.
The one problem with Peter King acting as chair of the hearings is that he was an ardent supporter of the IRA. King had his head in the sand regarding the suffering the IRA has meted out, so is he really the man to condemn terror? What isn't often mentioned, however—certainly not by the New York Times readership—is that King participated in and helped to mediate the Good Friday agreement. So I think we can give props to him for that.
We need someone to expose Al Qaeda-style homegrown terrorist activities. If King can deliver, if he's got the determination and the tools to carry out full disclosure on the subject, then let nothing stand in his way.
My wife took a poke at me regarding the issue of human breast milk ice cream. Just click these purple words to read her counterpoint.
To be fair, she has a point. It's a free society in which unique business ideas should be given a chance for success, as long as they are legal. Westminster Council, the authorities who removed the "Baby Gaga" ice cream, had it tested, found it to be safe, and returned it to the ice cream parlour in question.
Nevertheless, my personal antipathy toward this product remains unchanged. I still think the inventor of this unorthodox dessert is a nutjob, and that it appeals mostly to guys who use only two words throughout their workday—"jackhammer" and "oogah!"—as well as the "crunchy granola" crowd that Squirrel mentioned. Interesting bedfellows. I'll leave them to it.
