‘Right to work’ for less.

The HuffPo author states that this is unlikely to happen in other states, attributing this setback to political factors unique to Indiana; but I’m not nearly so optimistic.

Oklahoma was the most recent ‘right-to-work’ state, in 2001. More on that, from the Indianapolis Star.

While Morgan said Indiana should follow his state’s lead and adopt the law, saying it has spurred job creation, the union members told a different story.

“There is no doubt that the law has resulted in job loss and lower wages,” said Jesse Isbell, who worked for 36 years at the Bridgestone-Firestone tire plant in Oklahoma City.

That plant closed in 2006, and he and 1,400 others lost their jobs, he said, even though proponents had said the legislation was what was needed to keep jobs from leaving the state.

The Cult of ‘Persynality’

My present relationship with the feminist movement is akin to one’s begrudging love for their loud old aunt Mildred who has too many cats and a nasty habit of getting drunk and telling offensive jokes at family reunions – she’s often a pain in the ass; but she’s your dear old pain in the ass. So, I’m at once cognizant of the fact that most self-described feminists are middle-class white people with gross, reformist politics and that my own ideological roots are in the feminist community – this is why I’m still willing to defend feminism from attacks by whiny outsiders¹, in much the same way that you might feel OK mentioning the fact that Aunt Mildred kinda smells like mothballs & Dr. Scholl’s foot pads; but hearing random strangers who aren’t family members laugh about it sets your blood to boiling. Yes, she’s weird and rude and smells like the bottom of her bedroom closet; but she’s my weird, smelly aunt and I love her despite her flaws, so back off.

Upon meeting large numbers of feminists in meatspace during my mid to late teens and onward, I encountered a likable enough community. Yes, there was no shortage of smug, middle-class white liberals and infighting about irrelevant crap; but generally, even online discourse was what I’ll call ‘outwardly-focused’ – talking about and/or planning on-the-ground activism, heated debates on how certain business practices and government policies impact different women, anecdotes from our daily lives, and so on.

..and then, like a careless chef dropping a head of lettuce behind the fridge and promptly forgetting about it, I was completely uninvolved with the feminist community for a couple of years. Upon my return, I encountered a big old rotting mess.

Time for a ‘GayWalk’, perhaps?

From the London Evening Standard; emphases mine.:

Schoolchildren bullied over their sexuality are being advised by teachers to act “less gay,” it emerged today.

The shocking claim has been made by pupils in a report on bullying in schools in Essex.

Teenagers who are picked on for their appearance told how they were advised to wear their hair differently if they wanted to avoid being teased.

The document also reveals teachers are insensitive to the needs of bullied youngsters and claims some educators had received “very little” training in dealing with the challenges they face.

The “Anti-Bullying Work” report, based on evidence gathered from more than 250 teachers and pupils, has been compiled by Essex County Council.

The author of the report, Julie Keating, stated there was “anecdotal evidence of students being told to act less gay or to wear their hair differently as teachers felt they were making themselves a target for bullies“.

Way cooler than a ‘sexy Care Bear’ costume.

..or whatever else the corporate hacks are peddling to us these days. There’s a seemingly endless parade of ‘sexy’ Halloween costumes marketed to women – sexy fishmonger! sexy polar bear! sexy beekeeper! sexy sexbot!

Which isn’t to say that there’s anything wrong with sexy Halloween costumes. There isn’t; I’m just annoyed by the uninspired, gender-normative (i.e. you’ll probably never see any ads for a ‘sexy’ Charlie Chaplin costume) selections fobbed off on women around Halloween.

This is cooler!

Plenty of the costume ideas are also hotter than any of the interchangeable “Sexy ___” selections in stores.

Josephine Baker  (costume looks simple enough, though one might have trouble finding the leopard.):

 

Some of the costume ideas almost tempt me to dress up for Halloween this year, something I never really got to do as a child.

Red Triangle Technology Collective

“What is the Red Triangle Technology Collective? More than anything else, it’s a means by which we can become independent from corporate and state-controlled communications mediums. From Facebook to Google, Verisign to Yahoo, relying on entities which are sympathetic to the ruling class for our entire network is a strategy for fail.

We need our own solutions – by us, for us, with our needs and principles in heart and mind. That’s what RTTC is.”

– Matt D. Harris, founder

In a nutshell, the purpose of the Red Triangle Technology Collective is to provide a no-cost hosting solution for radical projects and websites. This way, people who can’t afford (or would like to avoid) a commercial provider can still start developing their ideas on the web! 

Our team is worker-managed – we democratically (via consensus when possible; via voting when not) make the majority of non-technical decisions regarding the management of the co-op. This includes things like projects to provide services for, criteria for services, memberships in the co-op, and potential future expansions into new areas. Technical decisions are made by the engineering team on a consensus basis.

Red Triangle Technology Collective

Via GonzoTimes; emphases mine:

The Red Triangle Technology Collective has officially begun operating today, moving towards implementing phase 1 of the plan!  We’re currently focusing on getting our websites designed and implemented, getting a logo, and fundraising to be able to implement phase 1. We announced several weeks ago our intent to launch right here at Gonzo Times, and outlined some core principles and goals.  With the formal plan, released yesterday, we’ve refined these ideas and made public our tentative budget for phases 1, 2, and 3.

..

All we ‘have to do is fuck’?

Gee, someone should’ve told me this back when I was jobless & hungry. According to this, if I’d only had a baby, it would’ve yielded benefits such as fast food meals, liquor binges, & manicures!

Nope, I wouldn’t have simply had the baby taken from me by CPS (which is what usually happens to homeless moms) at all.

Poverty’s always the most amusing to people who don’t have to experience it.

You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.

Remember when 'flash mobs' were primarily known for doing things like pillowfights that left enormous messes for janitors to clean up, except no one much cared because the pillow-fighters were mostly white kids & poor people cleaning shit up is the natural order of things? Boy, I sure do.

old crosspost: ‘Abortion is murder’

‘ABORTION IS MURDER!’ screams the ham-faced Christian lady outside the Planned Parenthood clinic, wielding a homemade protest sign covered with icky photos of late term abortions.

‘LIFE IS SACRED!’ whines some inconsistent so-and-so while munching on a chicken sandwich.

So for the next few moments, I’ll believe them. I’ll assume for a moment that abortion is murder and should be treated as such. A few wacky conclusions that logically follow from this position:

MILLIONS OF PEOPLE WILL DIE

An addendum, added several months after the fact – This is so..wow. Even though I still hate the same things you’d expect a green anarchist to hate, I no longer endorse many of the key ideas contained here & would actually argue against some of them. I really doubt (m)any people read this, but I felt like pointing this out. Ancaps still suck, though; that hasn’t changed.

Primitivists & anti-civ types are probably the most frequently strawmanned subgroup of anarchists; and as an anti-civver, I get rather sick of hearing the same arguments over and over again

.

I was recently sucked into a silly facebook quibble with an ancap who regurgitated the usual, anti-primitivist tosh: