White Collar Labor Organizing

I've been working as a volunteer on a union organizing drive for programmers, financial analysts, accountants, student affairs officers and other "Professionals" for about two years now. Just last week, we reached our goal in a major milestone toward winning a union election. We'll be celebrating Thursday night at the Poet and Patriot, the Irish bar that just happens to be across the street from the union office.

Most of the people we talk to about forming a bargaining unit within the union are supportive. Almost half of the eligibles at UCSC have signed petitions calling for an election. This is going to be great.

Workers' Memorial Day Today

From the mail bag:

From: Eric Lee
Date: Mon Apr 28, 2003 12:40:23 AM US/Pacific
To: "labourstart@unionlists.org.uk"
Subject: The modern workplace is a weapon of mass destruction

Here's a statistic to make you stop and think:

According to the International Labour Organization, every year around
two million workers die because of their jobs.

Every single day of the year, more people die at work than died in the
terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001.

Feminist Faggot

A very interesting interview with John Stoltenberg, author of Refusing to Be a Man and End of Manhood. "Consolidated" is a band, apparently. At the Womens Ensemble Theatre performance last night, one dance act used Consolidated's remix of Yeastie Girls "You Suck." I got curious.

Therein I found this great article that about three different approaches to prostitution.

Long Awaited Roadtrip

We took the day off from work yesterday to drive a road I've long heard about, but never visited. Nacimiento-Ferguson Road isn't long, but it runs through some of the most beautiful Californian landscapes I've ever seen. More...

Needs Repair

One of my favorite commercial buildings in Santa Cruz was damaged last week by a car. When I first came to Santa Cruz, this was still a radiator repair shop. I wish I had more time to research the history of this place. It appears to be one of the many blacksmith-livery businesses that converted to automobile service in the 1920s. More...

Stamp Erases Labor History

The source of the image on the new Cesar Chavez is a photograph taken by my neighbor, Bob Fitch. Featured on the cover of the Sentinel today, Bob points out that while his photo included the name, logo, and slogan of the United Farm Workers behind Cesar's portrait, the stamp's background is a pastoral green vineyard. More...

Movies and Civics Lessons

Great interview with Roger Ebert.

Another Passing: "Z's Liquors"

Today in the mail I received a postcard from Z's Liquors (Corner of Mission and Laurent) announcing a retirement sale: 50% off everything in the store. On August 30, 1982, I bought my first legal liquor there. I think it was a six pack of Guinness and a bottle of brandy. I'll try to go back and buy the same before they close.

What Does the Tooth Fairy Do with the Teeth?

She sells them to science so that aborted fetuses and unwanted zygotes don't have to become martyrs for fundamentalist christians, apparently. SciAm reports today that deciduous teeth contain stem cells. This could be huge.

Privacy: Not a Right but a Privilege

via Jill Matrix, here's the interview between one of her senators and an AP reporter, on homosexuality, Pederasy in the Catholic Church, and the "privacy lifestyle." Apparently the Honorable Senator doesn't find the right to privacy in the Constitution. But I bet he's been reading his porn spam again. In private.

Putting Place into Cyberspace

This month's Scientific American is very good, with a wonderful article on scale-free networks, and a beautiful map of the internet. I had a color copy made because I want to frame it. You can see the map, and others, at Internet Mapping Project.

Another internet cartography site is Cybergeography . The link is their collection of "Map of the Month."

" pinhole camera is not just kids stuff"

Pinhole Camera day is coming, April 27, 2003.

I remember a little bit about how this works, but I had no idea the photographs could be so beautiful. Now that we have digital photography, and its instant gratification, I'm not surprised that people are finding new ways to make art from film photography. More...

Harry Potter in the Original

I discussed Harry Potter with another enthusiast last night, and she didn't know what I'm about the translation scandal so I might as well tell it to everyone. There is another scandal I learned about too, which appears at the end. More...

Not At All Like a Bus

Finally, maybe Santa Cruz County's rails will again carry passengers. The first good news came in early April and then another today. More...

Legalize It

The first birth in the country where both parents names are on the birth certificate. That is, both lesbian parents names are on the birth certificate. This story was carried by several gay news services, but this story is the most complete.

I can't even think anymore how twisted birth-politics is. Men still haven't gotten over the discovery that they have something to do with procreation. Even though some men have more emotional caring about a stranger they sneeze on than a woman they copulate with. Anyway, these women will be on the birth certificate because one carries the others fertilized egg. I guess that's the way to do it from now on. Until we get the right to resort to the family court system.

Nature by Ear

Via not you, the other one listen to hundreds of frog and bird calls, all gathered in the website for a zoology course at a community college in Pennsylvania. The web is a wonderful thing.

Return of an Ideal

For many months, "The Wave" sculpture that is the emblem of College Five has been gone from its hilltop, being refurbished. It's back. More...

Hidden Court to be Sold?

A neighbor told me that The Hidden Court and the Sleep Tight "Motels" will be sold by their long-time owner, Gerry Eidam. Like the Chinese Proverb, this change in ownership could cause a crisis in our neighborhood that brings both danger and opportunity.

This is the Hidden Court as seen from the bridge at the end of Barson St: More...

Home Sick Today

I decided to stay home today and try to beat back an incipient cold with garlic and tea. Sometimes that works.

Our littlest daushund has been curled up in my sweatshirt all day. She insists on sleeping in there. I can't walk to the kitchen to boil more water without her scratching at my shins. So in she goes, I tuck my shirt in, and waddle around carrying a full-term fetus. She hasn't been out for hours, but just now had to jump out through the neckline to bark at the mailman. Dogs teach how to make priorities.

Spit on a Vet and Support Our Troups

I came across this article today which researches the story about peace activists spitting on returning Vietnam Vets. The author finds that it DID happen--but only in the movies. The Nixon Whitehouse needed a way to discredit all the returning Vets who became peace activists. Suddenly, we weren't at war to prevent the spread of communism, we were in the war to support the soldiers. If you were against the war, then you were against the veterns of the war.

Not an Esteem-Building Exercise

We went shopping for clothes last weekend and it was even worse than shopping for clothes when I was fourteen. More...

A Treasure

I went to Waddell Creek finally, after years of wanting to but never getting around of it. I wonder if the San Lorenzo once looked like Waddell? We should be thankful that the Hoover-McClain family gave this land to us to enjoy. It could have been hidden from us forever. More...

Old Favorites

We went to see the Flying Karmotzov Brothers last night. I saw them years ago. They were the best of a whole series of vaudeville revival chautauqua-type acts that Tom Noddy the Bubble Magician and other folks had organized. The FKM were the greatest.

Last night they were almost exactly the same, except older, and with new acts that I didn't understand but loved anyway.

A Prime Minister's Legacy

Tony Blair and H.K. Rowling will be appearing in the episode when the Simpsons go to England. According to the BBC story linked above, "a newspaper columnist" wrote that people will remember his appearance on the show long after the Iraq war. (The source is not googled. Pity.)

At Last

My laptop is finally back after three weeks. My little pismo is a G4 now. All I need is more RAM and a bigger hard drive.

Two Great Parodies

Enlarging Your Coalition! Guaranteed! & Confidential Help Needed [The Nigerian Letter] More...

How the Saturn feels about War

This entry has photos. More...

Foolishness

We thought about a prank around the photograph we have of the big hole that is in the bottom of the Comm Building, but nothing seemed appropriate or funny enough. So I will leave you with this list of hoaxes, via
idletype.

Still Waiting

I'm still awaiting my laptop and its G4 upgrade....