Heavy Hangs the Head that Wears the Dead Ferret

 

"From Clare to Here" - The Fureys

And the only time I feel alright is when I'm into drinking
It eases up the pain a bit and levels out my thinking

- At the gym today, I was treated to the closed caption tidbits of Donald Trump on Fox and Friends explaining what a difficult burden it had been to have to select from between John Rich and Marlee Matlin to be the Celebrity Apprentice.  One wonders at the man's fortitude, his grace under pressure, his manly bearing when others surely would have turned and run.  Jesus, if the four of these assholes ever played bridge it would be a monumental effort to determine who should be the dummy.  So much self-satisfied ignorance in one place.

- O'Bama - I enjoyed seeing the rapturous reception for Obama when he returned today to his ancestral home in Ireland.  Glad to see the President drinking a Guinness, like any good Irishmen.  (Although I confess, with temperatures getting into the eighties here today I am relaxing with a Campari and soda right now.)

- I really enjoyed this short piece by an employment lawyer entitled "10 Workplace Rights You Think You Have - But Don't."  She makes the point -- one that I have had to explain to prospective individual plaintiffs all too often -- that you have almost no rights in the American work place.  I highly recommend it to you.

- Fighting Back (Part One)- It appears that the Obama Administration is prepared to aggressively pursue litigation opposing the attempts by states like Indiana and Kansas to deny funding to Planned Parenthood under Medicaid and Title X.  This is a move that is both morally right and politically wise.  I hope they push as hard as they can on this.

- Fighting Back (Part Two)- President Obama went before AIPAC yesterday and rather than backing off the remarks about the 1967 borders that touched off a tiff with the eternally recalcitrant Benjamin Netanyahu, reiterated and amplified his remarks, something the Israeli newspaper Haaretz understands.  Sadly, TPM, a website I admire probably more than any other, published this piece of crap by Susan Crabtree, implying that Obama backed off his prior position before AIPAC, and claiming that he had touched off a "firestorm" and had "alienated the Jewish community" in his speech last Thursday.  I am astonished that Josh Marshall would allow this bit of hackery to be published at his site.  This had WaPo editorial page written all over it.

- Yes, please primary Scott Brown.  Nothing could make me happier.  

As always, share what's on your minds. 

Comments

[low-tech cyclist]

Looked at that piece about the 10 workplace rights, and maybe I'm more educated on such things than most, but I was wondering how stupid one has to be to believe most of these things are rights.

Hell, there were only a couple there that I'd want to be clearly defined rights. For instance, noncompete agreements should be banned except for employees near the top of the organization, like in the top 10% with respect to compensation and either report directly to the CEO or report directly to someone who reports to the CEO directly. Same applies to an employer taking out life insurance on employees. It should be illegal to pull such crap on coal miners and Wal-Mart clerks.

And emails and the like should be subject to at least some minimal privacy protections, just like phone calls. (E.g. the employer can know who you're emailing, and whether you're sending out any attachments, but can't see the actual text of personal emails without at least some impartial arbiter's ruling.) Of course, unless you've got no alternative, you should be using a Web-based email account for personal emails from work anyway, which would at least require a privacy-insensitive employer to log your keystrokes and sort through every last thing you do on the computer during the day to find your personal emails in the first place.

Those, and the right to a lunch break and a few bathroom breaks during the day, but that's about all I'd be willing to fight for. I'd rather get a legal guarantee of two weeks' paid vacation than all of these combined; ditto legally limiting being exempt from time and a half after 40 hours to people making over $75K or some such.

[Joe S]

For those who are interested, NPR Music is streaming a live tribute to iconic 80's and 90's bands by really great indie bands of today. Covers of Black Flag, Replacements, Minor Threat, Dinosaur Jr, Mudhoney, Mission of Burma, and more. It's free.

[Krubozumo Nyankoye]

SC - good post. I particularly liked the aside to the ten myths of employment, it mostly vindicated my long and jaded history of negotiating employment contracts as a consultant without the benefit of a good soliciter. I have taken a few lumps.

Most important of all though is that I have avoided blame. Typically the business boys are looking to take anything you say and hype it to the max and then blame you when their gross exagerations turn out to be false. It's a tough world.

LTC, they don't have to log your key strokes, they simply log all the packets transmitted from or recieved by a given workstation. It is trivial. There is also plenty of available software that is designed to filter packet traffic based on a keyword list or any other criteria you want to use. Conversely there are counter measures, such as IP spoofing that are very workable and if properly managed insulative.

I think that everyone who contributes to the economy should be compensated for doing so in thermodynamic terms since after all that is the ultimate determination made by nature. If you think about it in that sense isn't the whole system upside down?

[Sir Charles]

Joe,

Thanks for the tip -- I'll have to check that out.

l-t c,

The use of non-competes is totally out of control. It is one of the primary things that management lawyers now do with their time in a world in which they have helped kill unions. I had to fight like hell to provent a kid who was a car mechanic -- about 21 years old -- from having to move away from Baltimore due to the non-compete he had signed. I actually tried the case in bankruptcy court in order to prevail. (Sadly I didn't get paid for my rather splendid efforts.)

The other thing that is incredibly abusive is mandatory arbitration clauses, which unlike labor management arbitration in collective bargaining is a totally one-sided process.

KN,

Negotiating your own employment contract is tough. If I had one piece of advice generically it would be to negotiate severance pay.

[kathy a.]

that's really great news, the administration fighting to protect title X and medicaid funding for planned parenthood in rogue states. i have no idea how the jerks who seek to deny basic women's health care can look in the mirror without barfing.

[Paula B]

Oprah airs her last show, Bob Dylan celebrates his 70th birthday, Scott Brown opposes Ryan's Medicare plan, Camping switches the rapture date to October---there's only so much change I can handle in one day.

[nancy]

I think this is simply lovely .

[Sir Charles]

nancy,

That's a great picture. That little girl looks like she should be the official mascot of Ireland.

[kathy a.]

nancy, that's wonderful!

paula, maybe mr. camping simply misinterpreted the true signs of the end of the world as we know it?

[Paula B]

We all make mistakes, as you say, kathy, but then there's that thing about the $80 million.

[kathy a.]

a GOP congresscritter speaks out on medicare, and the message is: fend for yourselves.

[oddjob]

the message is: fend for yourselves.

Like Grayson said: "Don't get sick, but if you do get sick, die quickly."

[Sir Charles]

I hope that they will do more of this -- just lay it out there. "You're on your own."

I cannot imagine something that could be explotied more effectively in a political campaign.

God, what assholes. And stupid assholes at that.

[oddjob]

Schumer's been made aware of that exchange, too.

[kathy a.]

i just wonder what world these people live in? there are a whole lot of jobs that do not provide retirement health care benefits -- like every job i've ever had. who does have them? my guesses are military, some government employees, maybe some unions.

people who are otherwise employed, or self-employed, or whose work is unpaid -- like stay-at-home parents or family caretakers of elders, those notorious leeches on society -- guess they are just out of luck.

[nancy]

Looks like David Brooks is looking to expand his readership . Just as I'd hoped his stock was fading. Swell.

[nancy]

And in case Patio Man thought he'd go unscathed-- another is rather underwhelmed.

[kathy a.]

heh -- that second link is fabulous, nancy.

[oddjob]

This comment in the discussion thread of that link is especially delicious:

Man, this is fantastic.

As an American, I must ask, can we give Brooks to Britain. Sort of like a pretentious-douche Lend-Lease program?

[Joe S]

Oddjob, it would be a good trade since the limeys gave us Niall Ferguson

[Sir Charles]

oddjob,

"A pretentious douche lend=lease program" is just too good.

Joe,

Both the Brits and the Canadians seem to be wantonly saddling us with their excess douche baggery. It's not fair I tell you -- shouldn't we get our shot at this sort of thing - say send Brooks, Richard Cohen, and Fred Hiatt across the pond as payback for this.

kathy,

You're right -- Retiree health care is almost non-existent and where it exists is only sustainable because of Medicare. If employers or union medical plans of the kind I represent had to fully cover retirees over 65 that would be the end of retiree coverage -- it's just too expensvie for any private entity to take on.

[Paula B]

****Hochul won, per NYT.

[Sir Charles]

nancy,

That is a very precocious child that you cited.

[Sir Charles]

Seriously, look at his picture -- he makes Ezra Klein look grizzled.

Paula,

Execellent news -- must check out the vote.

[beckya57]

I think we should all express great concern about the prospect of Scott Brown being primaried, with furrowed brows as we consider the possibility of a more right-wing senator from Mass. That will guarantee that the wingnuts will do it.

[beckya57]

Loved the pretentious douchebag comment. Who else could we send far, far away? George Will comes to mind. Hell, most of the WaPo editorial page comes to mind.

[Sir Charles]

I would prefer to put the WaPo editorial staff on an ice floe.

[kathy a.]

i'm delighted that a democrat won the special election in NY state -- with the big issue in the race being the republican plan to dismantal medicare.

[kathy a.]

op-ed from the LATimes arguing that california locks too many people up for too long, and that policy changes are needed.

[kathy a.]

and an editorial, about the unconstitutionality [state constitution] of public schools charging fees for instructional materials and items needed for sports, art, music.

it is OK for parent groups to raise funds for specific programs, and no burden for parents in privileged school districts to pay the unconstitutional costs for textbooks, sports uniforms, etc. as always, the losers are kids in poorer districts, whose parents need the money for food and housing even if a kid loves a sport, or music, or is talented in a subject offering AP courses. those same kids get less in the way of counseling, personal academic attention, help addressing any special needs.

it once was that california's vision of free public education for all was a beacon of hope. i'm still incredibly angry about prop 13, and how any old budget crisis seems to require cutting the schools, and how clunkers like NCLB have turned the focus from helping each student succeed to "let's punish teachers of poor children."