Disclaimer: Today's Cheers and Jeers is in no way affiliated with Bill in Portland Maine. Any resemblance to Bill in Portland Maine's Cheers and Jeers is entirely accidental. And I'm the Queen of Moldavia.
Good morning, kiddie-poolers. Today's Cheers and Jeers is brought to you by June 19th, which according to Wikipedia is the 94th anniversary of the establishment of the eight-hour workday in the United States. I'd been thinking about writing something snarky about uppity women, but I decided that I wanted to, in some way, pay my respects to the labor movement. So, I'm having my cake and eating it too -- and sacrificing (most of) the snark in favor of a more serious diary -- by dedicating today's Cheers and Jeers to just a few of the great women of the labor movement whose lives and work have made a difference in the lives of every American Kossack reading this diary today.
Off we go below the fold:
Cheers and Jeers for Monday, June 19, 2006
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Cheers to the "Grandmother of All Agitators", Mary Harris "Mother" Jones. She was born in Ireland in 1837, came to the US in the 1850s, lost her husband and four children to yellow fever in 1867, ran a sewing business in Chicago until she lost everything in the great fire of 1871, and then began to take an interest in the union movement. She began to organize on behalf of coal miners, who affectionately dubbed her "Mother". She is said to have spent more time in jail than any other union leader of her time. She participated in her last strike in 1924 at the age of 87, and died at the age of 94. She is buried in the Union Miners Cemetery in Mount Olive, IL. Pay your respects here. (Source: AFL/CIO)
Whatever your fight, don't be ladylike. -- Mother Jones
Cheers to Fannie Sellins. A contemporary of Mother Jones, Mrs. Sellins was an organizer for the United Mine Workers of America. She was deeply beloved by the mine workers she helped, and was called by them the Angel of Mercy. Mrs. Sellins was murdered in 1919, at the age of 47, during a violent confrontation between deputies and striking coal miners in Pennsylvania. Pay your respects here.
There once was a union maid, she never was afraid
Of goons and ginks and company finks and the deputy sheriffs who made the raid.
She went to the union hall when a meeting it was called,
And when the Legion boys come 'round
She always stood her ground.
-- from The Union Maid by Woodie Guthrie and Millard Lampell
Cheers to the Wobbly Women: Lucy Parsons and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, two leaders of the Industrial Workers of the World in the early part of the 20th century who brought a refreshing note of anarchy to the labor union movement.
The IWW has been accused of pushing women to the front. This is not true. Rather, the women have not been kept in back, and so they have naturally moved to the front. -- Elizabeth Gurley Flynn
A moment of silence for the 146 workers, mostly young women, who died in the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist fire in New York City in 1911. They died because blocked exits (blocked by the factory owners to prevent the workers from leaving the building during working hours) and faulty fire escapes prevented them from fleeing the burning building. Pay your respects here.
My friends, it is solidarity of labor we want. We do not want to find fault with each other, but to solidify our forces and say to each other: "We must be together; our masters are joined together and we must do the same thing. -- Mother Jones
I'm just barely skimming the surface, here. For every courageous woman mentioned above there are dozens, maybe hundreds more, some famous, many more not, who dedicated -- and sometimes sacrificed -- their lives to bettering the lives of workers. Let's not give away what they worked so hard to achieve, without a fight, 'kay?
Moving on.
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Ginormous razzberry jeers to the passage of House Resolution 861, aka the "What Lovely New Clothes the Emperor is Wearing" Resolution. Hey, Congresscritters, here's your next resolution:
Resolved, that the House of Representatives declares that Keith Olbermann will marry Mehitabel and support her in champagne-and-caviar style for the rest of her natural life.
You don't even need to debate it, just pass it, and make it quick. I'm not getting any younger, and neither is Keith.
Tears and prayers for the two missing soldiers in Iraq, and a may you rot in hell for those Americans whose pro-torture policies have made the possibility of these two soldiers being tortured in retaliation a very, very real possiblity.
JEERSJEERSJEERS to (not) saving the whales. From the Guardian UK: "Japan's campaign to restart commercial whale hunting received a major boost last night when the International Whaling Commission declared invalid a 20-year ban on the slaughter of the planet's largest creatures for anything other than scientific purposes." Go read the whole article, and then make a donation to Sea Shepherd. And then go hug your goldfish.
Jeers to... oh, hell, I dunno who or what to jeer on this one, there are so many choices and so little time. My mother, the dyed-in-the-wool Goldwater Republican, who lives in CA-50 and who nearly made me faint a couple of months ago when she finally admitted to me that Bush sucks, told me on the phone Saturday that she had "had no choice" but to vote for Bilbray in the special election, because Francine Busby had told "those illegals" that they didn't have to be citizens to vote. She thinks Congress is utterly corrupt, and she recognizes that Bilbray isn't going to help with the corruption problem, or much else for that matter, but she'd been "forced" to vote for him. Forced. So, jeers to her for wearing blinkers and being a single-issue voter, and jeers to Francine Busby for making a really stupid remark that, I'm quite sure, cost her that election. Jeebus. I just wanna slap somebody. Volunteers?
Cheers to Johnny Cash, whose posthumous CD, American V: A Hundred Highways, is being released in early July. I heard the new single from the CD, God's Gonna Cut You Down, on the radio today, and it kicks ass.
Jeers to my boss, who accused me last week, completely without foundation, of being a "saboteur". May the bloodsucking fleas of a thousand unblessed camels infest his armpits. (I mean that in the nicest possible way.) Cheers to me for taking the FHR (Effing High Road) and opting not to live down to my reputation.
Che-je-che-jeers to the weather in Seattle the past several days: if you don't like it, just wait ten minutes, and it'll get worse.
Cheers to pooties wot come strolling in as I write this, talking up a storm all the way down the hallway. "Where have you been? I've been looking and looking for you. Will you please scritch me now? Yes, right there, right under the chin. Mmmmmm." And who then proceed to jump up on the desk and take a walk all over the a0er9gbuw.
And, finally,
Paging Dr. Freud, Dr. Sigmund Freud to the dream I had a couple of nights ago, in which I went to Portland, ME to visit none other than our very own Bill and Michael. According to my dream:
- Bill is 26 years old, and Michael is 25 -- which means that they have been together since they were 13 and 12, respectively. How, um, precocious.
- Molly is not a chocolate lab, she's a chocolate English Springer Spaniel.
- Bill has faaaabulous bone structure, and he looks mighty fine in drag. His favorite, um, ensemble involves a tube of bronzer and a Carmen-Miranda-fruit-basket hat. And he lurrrrves having his picture taken in highly provocative poses (think Marilyn Monroe on the subway grate). No, I am not making this up.
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Reminder to the literary-minded amongst us, that I'll be posting my Read-Along diary on Nineteen Eighty-Four next Sunday.
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What are you cheering and jeering about today? Come on in, the water's fine. Note: Swim diapers required.