When John Steinbeck wrote about migrant workers in Of Mice And Men and The Grapes Of Wrath he used fiction to graphically tell the tale of America’s dispossessed. If Steinbeck wrote today he might very well chose to write about the descendents of Lenny, George and the Joads: the employees of Amazon.

I’ve written about why we should not buy from Amazon before, but I cannot emphasize enough, the inherent evil of exploiting the least of us for the benefit of the rest of us.

Jana Kasperkevic writes:

When President Barack Obama visited an Amazon’s fulfillment center in Chattanooga, Tennessee last year, he compared it to Santa’s workshop. “This is kind of like the North Pole of the south right here,” he said. Then speaking of the workers, he added, “Got a bunch of good-looking elves here.”

What went unsaid and unnoticed was that the Amazon “elves” would not have jobs or prospects after the holidays. Many of the people in those Amazon warehouses were among the long-term unemployed – shuffling from one temporary job to another to another. Due to this unstable employment, number of them have found themselves living in shelters.

Working away in warehouses, beyond the pages of Amazon’s website, the seasonal workers and the effects that temporary contracts have on their lives are kept out of public’s eye and often avoid scrutiny.

Andrew Cummins, 43, was one of these elves last year, working north of Chattanooga at an Amazon warehouse in Jeffersonville, Indiana. For three months, he stowed away clothes, working 40 hours a week at $10 an hour. He enjoyed the job and saw it as his ticket out of the Haven House, a shelter where he lives with his wife, Kristen, and stepson.

“They had this big hype that they were going to hire on and stuff and that didn’t happen. They just worked you until the time was up and then they let everyone go,” he says. According to him, about 50 other seasonal workers like him who were hired through Integrity Staffing Solutions – a staffing agency working with Amazon in Jeffersonville – were let go at the same time. “They just said they would email everybody that they let go but we never heard anything back. And then you can’t apply for [another Amazon job] for another year after you worked for them.”

Amazon makes no secret of the fact that it relies on seasonal work force.

Why do we think exploiting humans like Andrew Cummins is acceptable as long as we get our cheap plastic crap from China?

What’s going on here…

Today’s headlines include:

Local News

Springfest fun
Merchants, artists teaming up Friday
Muskingum chamber banquet May 8
Festival features antique engines
Island ‘Rendezvous’

Top Headlines Poll: Which way do you think gas prices will go leading up to summer?

This morning’s What’s Hot, Most Commented Story–What’s your favorite thing to do at Ohio’s state parks?–has a single comment.

(For comparison’s sake, I’ve added a link to the The Anchor News to these posts.)

Previously…

If the above headline isn’t HuffPo-quality click-bait, I don’t know what is, but yet, I have not read, seen or heard a single comment on this story since I first learned of the girls’ plight through Mano Singham.

First Dog On The Moon illustrates the challenge.

This first image, while beautiful art, is almost expected, the kind of image a lay person, asked to suggest what art by a person on the Autism spectrum would produce, might describe. Mouse-over the picture however, for equally beautiful, but unexpected art.

Maria Popova writes:

Autism and its related conditions remain among the least understood mental health issues of our time. But one significant change that has taken place over the past few years has been a shift from perceiving the autistic mind not as disabled but as differently abled — and often impressive in its difference, as in extraordinary individuals like mathematical mastermind Daniel Tammet or architectural savant Gilles Trehin. And yet despite the stereotype of the autistic mind as a methodical computational machine, much of its magic — the kind most misunderstood — lies in its capacity for creative expression.

Three years after the original publication, New-York-based behavior analyst Jill Mullin returns with an expanded edition of Drawing Autism (public library) — a beautiful and thoughtful celebration of the vibrantly creative underbelly of autism, featuring contributions from more than 50 international graphic artists and children who fall somewhere on the autism spectrum, with a foreword by none other than Temple Grandin.

All the art is wonderful, but I admit to be particularly taken by Gregory Blackstock’s The Balls. The work speaks to the anal-retentive, obsessive-compulsive in me. Popova discussed Blackstock’s Collections back in 2011.

In reading Ray Bradbury’s interview in the Paris Review’s Art of Fiction series (No. 203) I was taken by Bradbury’s description of the pensée (pronounced pensée).

He described the concept this way:

I begin to write little pensées about the nouns. It’s prose poetry. It’s evocative. It tries to be metaphorical. Saint-John Perse published several huge volumes of this type of poetry on beautiful paper with lovely type. His books of poetry had titles like Rains, Snows, Winds, Seamarks. I could never afford to buy his books because they must have cost twenty or thirty dollars—and this was about fifty years ago. But he influenced me because I read him in the bookstore and I started to write short, descriptive paragraphs, two hundred words each, and in them I began to examine my nouns. Then I’d bring some characters on to talk about that noun and that place, and all of a sudden I had a story going. [Emphasis mine. JH] I used to do the same thing with photographs that I’d rip out of glossy magazines. I’d take the photographs and I’d write little prose poems about them.

Because of my 272 Project, I was intrigued by Bradbury’s demarcation of his own prose poems at 200 words. (Interestingly enough, I did a little experiment the other day and discovered that a standard 3×5-inch postcard has just enough space for about 200 words when typed using my IBM Selectric II). In English, the pensée, in the most briefest form, most closely resembles an aphorism or epigram.

All of this is my usual South-Eastern-Ohio, Hess-family way of getting to the point in a story and say that I’ve acquired from the library, two of the books by Saint-John Perse in translation: Chronicle and Winds, and since they so moved Bradbury, I’ve begun to read Perse’s work. Here then, is Pensée, the first:

Great age, behold us. Coolness of evening on the heights, breath of the open sea on every threshold, and our foreheads bared for wider spaces…

What, if any, thoughts does this pensée raise in your mind?

(I’ve also acquired a more contemporary work: Sound Of The Ax, Aphorisms and Poems by William Stafford, edited by Vincent Wixon and Paul Merchant.)

Found in my Electronic Chapbook…

What’s going on here…

Today’s headlines include:

Since the Marietta Times does not publish a Sunday edition, what was your favorite story this week? What story did the Marietta Times not report or under-report this week?

(For the sake of comparison, I’ve decided to add a link to the The Anchor to these posts.)

Previously…

[Update at 0320 on 5 May via reader Fred O’Neill:

The holiday was first observed in 1921, during the First Red Scare. It was originally called “Americanization Day,” and it was intended to replace the May 1 (“May Day”) celebration of the International Workers’ Day,[citation needed] which commemorates the 1886 Haymarket Massacre in Chicago.)

During the Second Red Scare, it was made an official holiday by the U.S. Congress on July 18, 1958 (Public Law 85-529). Following the passage of this law, President Dwight D. Eisenhower proclaimed May 1, 1959, the first official observance of Loyalty Day. With the exception of Eisenhower in 1959 and 1960, Loyalty Day has been recognized with an official proclamation every year by every president since its inception as a legal holiday in 1958.

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

A PROCLAMATION

Over 150 years ago, as a civil war threatened to dissolve our Union, President Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address. Defining the American experiment as “conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that ‘all men are created equal,'” he resolved that our Nation “shall not perish from the earth.” He understood that what makes America most worth preserving are our founding ideals. These ideals compelled colonists to rise up against an empire, and they have sustained generations of service members through the darkest days of war.

In the United States of America, we do not define loyalty as adherence to any single leader, party, or political platform. When we make big decisions as a country, we necessarily stir up passions and controversy. These debates are a hallmark of democracy; they allow us to trade ideas, question antiquated notions, and ensure our Nation’s course reflects the will of the American people. Yet even as we disagree, we remain true to our shared values and our common hopes for America’s future.

On Loyalty Day, we renew our conviction to the principles of liberty, equality, and justice under the law. We accept our responsibilities to one another. And we remember that our differences pale in comparison to the strength of the bonds that hold together the most diverse Nation on earth.

In order to recognize the American spirit of loyalty and the sacrifices that so many have made for our Nation, the Congress, by Public Law 85-529 as amended, has designated May 1 of each year as “Loyalty Day.” On this day, let us reaffirm our allegiance to the United States of America and pay tribute to the heritage of American freedom.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim May 1, 2014, as Loyalty Day. This Loyalty Day, I call upon all the people of the United States to join in support of this national observance, whether by displaying the flag of the United States or pledging allegiance to the Republic for which it stands.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this thirtieth day of April, in the year of our Lord two thousand fourteen, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-eighth.

BARACK OBAMA

I am just gobsmacked. This is more silly than a silly Python skit.

The actual debate, aired yesterday live, begins at the 29:00 minute mark.

Via Mano Singham…

What’s going on here…

Today’s headlines include:

Local News

State parks
Bank robbery suspect nabbed
Woman indicted on assault charge
Primary results will set Nov. races
Weekend of special events at MC

Top Headlines Poll: What’s your favorite thing to do at Ohio’s state parks?

…investment of $88.5 million to go toward capital improvements at Ohio State Parks over the next two years.

The unprecedented investment granted by Gov. John Kasich and the Ohio General Assembly…

Kasich granted? Did I miss a declaration of monarchy in Ohio? Has there been some change in our state constitution that I failed to notice?

The above front-page story “…stinks like a pre-primary election day lollipop dipped in industrial effluent runoff.”

This is precisely one reason why we need to get good people like Jill Miller Zimon and Anthony Fossaceca into the state house.

Previously…

Jennifer Brunner wrote:

Next Tuesday, May 6th, is Primary Election Day in Ohio. Every polling place in the state will be open for voting from 6:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m.

When you go to the polls, you will be asked, “What is your party affiliation?” That means, are you a Democrat, a Republican, Green Party member or a Libertarian. The vast majority of “affiliated” Ohio voters are Democrats or Republicans. Many are none of the above.

If you don’t belong to a political party, you may simply say, “I’m independent.” Your ballot will contain only issues.

But if you want to vote for a particular candidate, you’ll need to say you want the ballot for the party of your candidate. If this means that you must join or change parties, you’ll have to sign a statement to that effect.

Some states like California and Washington now let their voters vote on all the candidates at the primary election, regardless of party affiliation. The top two vote getters move on to the November election ballot.

Ohio retains its primaries, even for electing judges. We try not to think of judges as political, because we don’t want them to be, especially when they decide a case we are involved in.

Here’s an example of how primaries work in judicial races. I’m running for judge of the Tenth District Court of Appeals. It’s a nonpartisan race in the fall, but at the primary I’m on the Democratic ballot. My opponent is on the Republican party ballot. My name is “Brunner.” Hers is “O’Grady.” I’ve run for office four times before; she none, having been appointed by the Governor to replace a judge he appointed to the Ohio Supreme Court.

Some people say picking judges (whether by Governors or voters) is just a name game. Many political parties operate on that basis, because, “no one knows who the judges are.” We’re told, “it’s the name that matters in judges races.” But, is that what your brother would say when he’s tragically before a judge for sentencing for vehicular homicide, or your mother when your father’s estate is challenged by his stepson? Or what about your sister when her ex-husband challenges her for custody of your nephew? Do they really care about the judge’s last name? I’d bet not.

Political parties are the first filters before the voters in deciding who will do the important, nonpartisan, nonpolitical work of judges. So, the primary election is pretty important. Voters can vote and choose their party’s nominee in a contested primary. When a candidate is unopposed in the primary (like I am), primary election voters at least begin to become familiar with their party’s candidates for the fall.

That’s why you should vote on Tuesday. Political parties don’t always decide it like you would–so you can be heard. Vote on Tuesday. At least you will be counted–and you’ll be that much more ready for November.

Thanks as always,

Jennifer Brunner

P.S. If your candidate is independent, you’ll have to wait to vote for her or him until the fall ballot, since the primary election is only for party candidates.

What’s going on here…

Today’s headlines include:

Local News

Protect Our Past: Bell Bridge
Hospital officials deny sale rumors
Lowell Springfest back this weekend
National Day of Prayer
Day of Prayer: Williamstown

Top Headlines Poll: Do you think the Mid-Ohio Valley will see any out-of-the-ordinary weather this spring?

Previously…

How do you read this quote from George Carlin:

There’s a reason education sucks, it’s the same reason that it will never, ever, ever be fixed. It’s never going to get any better, don’t look for it, be happy with what you got. Because the owners of this country don’t want that. I’m talking about the real owners, now. The real owners, the big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions. Forget the politicians, they’re an irrelevancy. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don’t. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They’ve long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the statehouses, the city halls. They’ve got the judges in their back pockets. And they own all the big media companies, so that they control just about all of the news and information you hear. They’ve got you by the balls. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying,­ lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want; they want more for themselves and less for everybody else.

But I’ll tell you what they don’t want. They don’t want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don’t want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking. They’re not interested in that. That doesn’t help them. That’s against their interests. They don’t want people who are smart enough to sit around the kitchen table and figure out how badly they’re getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fucking years ago.

You know what they want? Obedient workers,­ people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork but just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, reduced benefits, the end of overtime and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it. And, now, they’re coming for your Social Security. They want your fucking retirement money. They want it back, so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street. And you know something? They’ll get it. They’ll get it all, sooner or later, because they own this fucking place. It’s a big club, and you ain’t in it. You and I are not in the big club.

And hear this:

Governments don’t want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking. That is against their interests.

They want obedient workers who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork. And just dumb enough to passively accept it.

The task is a simple one really, you just need to be one of those:

Obedient workers,­ people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork but just dumb enough to passively accept [what you’re told].

That is, you need to work for the Heartland Institute.

What’s going on here…

Today’s headlines include:

Local News

Libyan visitors
Marietta tenant, landlord dispute
Music in the Park summer lineup set
WASCO makes, markets tiles
Free Comic Book Day Saturday

Top Headlines Poll: Should states rethink the death penalty in light of this week’s Oklahoma incident?

Previously…

Roldo Bartimole writes:

Doesn’t it strike everyone as very strange that billionaire sports owners want to be treated as public charities by major cities all over the nation?

And they get away with it.

They hold the tin cup out and expect the government, via taxpayers, to fill it up whenever they please for whatever amount they please. Parasites.

They give contracts for hundreds of millions to some players. They buy and sell teams for billions of dollars. Yet they remain welfare clients.

They want to be free to take from the public as if they are needy.

We must get them off our backs.

Billionaires Jimmy “Gimmie” Haslam and Dan “The Dice Man” Gilbert and billionaire family member Larry “Inept” Dolan are Cleveland’s biggest moochers.

Their teams have been on the public dole for decades and they want more.

Shouldn’t the Internal Revenue Service at least tax them on the hundreds of millions of dollars the taxpayers are required to hand to them?

It’s a testimony to our bought and paid for politicians Continue Reading »

What’s going on here…

Today’s headlines include:

Local News

Really big sale
A revitalization district first coming
Boy, 14, accused of sexual abuse
Problem solvers to compete globally
City Hall project update

Top Headlines Poll: Should your cell phone information be private?

Previously…

The Paris Review: “The Art Of Fiction No. 5” with William Styron:

INTERVIEWER: Do you enjoy writing?

STYRON: I certainly don’t. I get a fine, warm feeling when I’m doing well, but that pleasure is pretty much negated by the pain of getting started each day. Let’s face it, writing is hell.

INTERVIEWER: How many pages do you turn out each day?

STYRON: When I’m writing steadily—that is, when I’m involved in a project that I’m really interested in, one of those rare pieces that has a foreseeable end—I average two-and-a-half or three pages a day, longhand on yellow sheets. I spend about five hours at it, of which very little is spent actually writing. I try to get a feeling of what’s going on in the story before I put it down on paper, but actually most of this breaking-in period is one long, fantastic daydream, in which I think about anything but the work at hand. I can’t turn out slews of stuff each day. I wish I could. I seem to have some neurotic need to perfect each paragraph—each sentence, even—as I go along.

Found in my electronic chapbook…

What’s going on here…

Today’s headlines include:

Local News

Off-road safety
WSCC staff cuts will save $400,000
Man steals checks; admits $34,000 theft
Belpre man pleads to trespassing, assault
City schools partners announced

Top Headlines Poll: How do you react when you hear racist comments?

Previously…

*Note: Newseum typically publishes today’s front page around 6:30 a.m.

This is the comment I left for PZ:

Good morning PZ,

Yes, our priorities are screwed up, but we need to keep our eye on the root cause for why our priorities are screwed up.

We are spending little more in Afghanistan than we spent in space/on the Moon prior to the conclusion of the Apollo program. What I mean by that is that all the billions we spent on NASA went to American companies, not the Moon. In the same way, the billions spend on defense are being paid to American defense contractors, not (for the most part) to Afghans.

Here is the nut: how much money do the presidents/boards of American universities invest (and I use that word advisedly) in political campaigns compared to how much owners/CEOs/boards of American defense contractors invest in political campaigns?

Until we figure out how to change that equation–dollars invested in political campaigns = government dollars invested in your company/organization–the screwed up priorities will stay screwed up.

Do all you can to make today a better day,

Jeff Hess
Have Coffee Will Write