Unions have a place in protecting labor and there really is no institution that protects and advocates in behalf of labor than unions. Historically Democrats have been supported by unions because they tend to support pro-labor policies, but they aren’t dedicated solely to labor. Democrats pushed NAFTA, which wasn’t a good thing for labor in the U.S.
Unfortunately, like everything in life, unions can be abusive. Like the idea taking a look at the scope of work for police departments, and perhaps thinking of ways to handle them differently, the same should be done with unions. We have to keep the good things that unions do and not simply disband them, in fact, I think we need stronger advocacy for ALL labor that includes both traditional blue collar and white collar jobs.
On his blog today Dave asks for an app that generates an index of a blog (or really a web site). I would like something like that too, and I have something similar on my wiki but that is just an index of page titles not an index of phrases or words written in a site. Back when I wrote my books I had to pay someone to create the index for the book. I assume then that was a person who used a tool to automatically produce an index of the book’s content but then manually reviewed and edited the output to produce the final product. Not sure the production of a good index can be completely automated, but an automated one might be good enough.
The current state of the nation should be of no surprise as the agenda of the Trump administration is hidden in plain site. MAGA… Make America Great Again.
Do you notice what word is NOT in that compaign slogan that for some is akin Martin Luther’s 95 thesis?
Last I knew I lived in the UNITED STATES of America. The Trump administration has been many things but united or uniting is not one of them.
A thought exercise, if the current U.S. Constitution, which defines what is the U.S.A, were just written last year and was in the process of being ratified by the states, would it get ratified?
A first person story by a person in Minneapolis, worth the read. It made me think that one of many problems we have is that we want believe we live in a simple, dualistic world, but that is not reality. It takes awareness of oneself and the willingness to spend the time to grow to embrace the both/and-ness of reality.
Dave Winer makes a very good point about how Trump has handled COVID-19. A competent politician should easily gain re-election in a time of national crisis simply by being a unifying force. The fact that he hasn’t done so is a clear example of his incompetence that Republicans should really be concerned about. As much as we claim we don’t like politicians and think anybody can be President, the basic skills needed for the job in a Democracy is political. You wouldn’t hire a mechanic to fix your car who doesn’t have the experience nor the skills to actually repair the car. Trump is not competent for the position of President of the United States.
When Police View Citizens As Enemies:
The police and the U.S. military are separate institutions because policing a community and fighting a war are supposed to be separate jobs. In traditional “wars,” both sides are heavily armed. In Minnesota, only the agents of the state appear to be wearing body armor and carrying long guns. And yet: State officials are calling this “warfare” on official public channels.
I think it began with the “War On Drugs” in the 70s and 80s that turned the United States into an incarceration state.
Sadly, what I wrote two years ago is still relevant today. If you say a life only matters if that life is only lived a certain way then you don’t get it, and more importantly you don’t get grace.
“Deciding what is good and evil is the foolish pursuit of humankind. In this life, you will have trouble and some of the trouble will come because we can’t discern the source of our healing.”
— Joy Unspeakable: Contemplative Practices of the Black Church by Barbara A. Holmes
Is communication on a corporately owned platform communication on a public square? I don’t think so. The first amendment constrains governments from impeding free speech. In other words, it protects citizens from government, not the other way around. Citizens United endowed corporations with rights of citizenship, so then Isn’t Trumps executive order really an impediment on Twitter’s free speech rights?
Flipped on the air conditioning.
It is the first morning of the year on which it is warm enough to sit on he patio.
I can recommend all the books that I read recently, but two that I highly recommend is The Book of Joy and Falling Upward. Falling Upward was a life changer for me because it opened my eyes to what has been going on around me, particularly in the last five years.
Looks like the micro.blog community is posting book recommendations this month, you can find what I am currently reading on my now page.
I think the COVID-19 response exposes a problem with the current state of lack of trust created through an increase in extreme points of view, both left and right. Consequently, people now seem to only trust what they can see with their own eyes or what make sense to them. Therefore, people are less likely to take COVID-19 seriously until they are personally affected in some way.
For such people, a young person’s account of surviving COVID-19 published by the New York Times is not believed because they don’t trust the New York Times. Likewise anything published by the NewYorker. A blogger’s first hand account is meaningless because I don’t know the blogger.
In short, the problem cannot be placed on external entities that are not trusted. The problem isn’t with journalism not doing something so much as journalism having no credibility from an extremist point of view unless that journalist is identified as having the same extremist point of view.
“One day, the mainline Christian movement will itself recognize that Jesus was never into expelling or excluding—only transforming and integrating. In fact, you might say that, for Jesus, the very act of expulsion is the problem.”
— The Wisdom Pattern: Order, Chaos, Reorder by Richard Rohr OFM
Daring Fireball: Howard Stern on Trump
Howard Stern echos something I’ve said for a while, but I think what may be the case is that these people don’t necessarily love Trump himself so much as what he represents to them, which they personally identify with. They see themselves in Trump’s persona and thus any negative statement about him is translated as a personal attack in them. To these people we are deep within a class war between “elites” and what they believe are “normal people,” which they define as anyone who agrees with and acts like them, and which they call “common sense.” The war began when Newt Gingrich ascended to Speaker of the House.
I am one of many people who really like the note-taking app called Roam that is currently in beta. However, it seems some think that bidirectional note linking is the primary feature of Roam, and while I think bidirectional note linking is a differentiator it is not the only reason why I prefer Roam. For me the main reason why I like Roam is that it is an outliner for developing and maintaining a wiki that automatically supports bidirectional links.
I’ve tried amplenote.com that claims to be an alternate to Roam that supports bidirectional links, and I does in fact do a very good job of importing content from Roam. However, Amplenote is not an outliner and I quickly found that true outlining, not just bullet lists, is a must have requirement for me.
It should be obvious to people that an illness that spreads between humans and human density are bad combinations. The virus still exists and does not cause symptoms in all people, therefore putting yourself in any confined space like crowded restaurants and packed airplanes is putting your life at risk.
“The cross calls all of us to a mystery of transformation. On the cross, none of us is in charge, none of us is in control, and none of us can possibly understand, just like Jesus himself. On the cross, someone else is in control. Someone else is in charge. Someone else understands. Someone else is obviously a much more patient lover than we are.”
— The Wisdom Pattern: Order, Chaos, Reorder by Richard Rohr OFM