test blog #10

On the 100th anniversary of the Easter Rising, these Revolutionary Thoughts of the Day are brought to you by the great Irish socialist, James Connolly. The day has passed for patching up the capitalist system; it must go. (1910) This speech, from 1897, is recreated in the excellent Ken Loach film "The Wind that Shakes the Barley": If you remove the English army tomorrow and hoist the green flag over Dublin Castle, unless you set about the organisation of the Socialist Republic your efforts would be in vain. England would still rule you. She would rule you through her capitalists, through her landlords, through her financiers, through the whole array of commercial and individualist institutions she has planted in this country and watered with the tears of our mothers and the blood of our martyrs. England would still rule you to your ruin, even while your lips offered hypocritical homage at the shrine of that freedom whose cause you had betrayed. Nationalism without Socialism –...

Still war resisters. Still in Canada. Still fighting to stay. So far, the change in government hasn't helped the Iraq War resisters who remain here, nor the ones who were forced out of Canada who would like to return. The Trudeau government could do this so easily. And yet. The CBC Radio show " DNTO " recently did an excellent segment about the US Iraq War resisters and the fight - still going on - to let them stay in Canada. When American soldier Joshua Key fled to Canada in 2005 , he never imagined that ten years later he would still be fighting a war — against the U.S. army, against post-traumatic stress disorder, and against the Canadian government. Key is one of an estimated 15 Iraq war veterans who are fighting to remain in Canada. The resisters left home to avoid being sent back to a war they didn't believe in. Today, they fear they'll be sent to prison if they're deported. On this week's DNTO, you'll meet modern war resisters. Each of their sto...

Across Canada, April 28 is the National Day of Mourning for workers killed or injured on their jobs. The image of the canary reminds us that, not so very long ago, a tiny yellow bird was the only safety device mine workers had against some of the terrible dangers of their workplace. Members of the Canadian Union of Public Employees are often the canaries in the coal mine for the public, putting themselves on the front line of public safety every day. Just yesterday, members of CUPE Local 1989 in the quiet Port Credit library faced a trauma and a public emergency . None of them was physically hurt, but the incident reminds us that public-service workers often stand between the public and danger. Each year, approximately 1,000 Canadian workers are killed on the job. One thousand! Hundreds of thousands are injured; untold numbers suffer from work-related illnesses, which may eventually claim their lives. We can do better. We must demand better. April 28 is a day to reflect on these numbe...

Will you sign a declaration to make Canada more democratic? Declaration of Voters' Rights And some myth-busting about proportional representation: A ranked ballot is not a voting system. How will anything get done? Is proportional representation constitutional? Read and share!

Today is Equal Pay Day in Ontario. Why? It's the day that, if you're a woman, your earnings have finally caught up with what men were paid the previous year . Women doing the same or equivalent work still earn, on average, 30% less than their male counterparts. The higher up the food chain a woman works, the greater the gap in pay. Ontario’s highest paid women earn an average of 37% less than the highest paid men , translating into a whopping $64,000 less in annual average earnings.  “Over the course of a working lifetime, these pay gaps can grow into a mountain of lost earnings,” says Cornish. “For instance, a middle-income woman could find herself earning, on average, $315,000 less than men over a 35-year period. The highest paid 10 per cent of women could earn an average of $2.24 million less than highest paid 10 per cent of men over a 35-year period. The Canadian Centre of Policy Alternatives has collected the data and done the rigorous study . No further study is needed. ...

Of all the outrageously unjust moments in United States history - and dog knows there are many to choose from - the execution of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg holds a special place in my political underpinnings. It was an event I learned about early on, one that came up in many different contexts throughout my childhood. That was partly because the Rosenbergs were Jewish, and their case was rife with anti-Semitism. It was partly because of my parents' thorough and utter disgust for McCarthyism. And it was partly because my parents had very clear, first-hand memories of the case, the execution occurring in the early years of their marriage. They remembered the media frenzy, the protests attempting to save their lives, and finally, the Rosenbergs' deaths. My mother always mentioned thousands of people packing into New York City's Union Square on the night of the execution, pleading with the government to commute or stay the sentence. My mother and I both read The Book of Daniel ...

Ah, the things we miss when we don't follow mainstream media. I didn't even know the sports world was celebrating a rapist. This week, drinking wine in a hotel room in New Jersey, Allan and I were pleased to discover that the Red Sox were on the ESPN Wednesday night game. A nice treat, or it would have been, if the announcing team (which included one of my most disliked announcers ever) had been able to stop talking about basketball long enough to call the game. The game was often broadcast in a little box, while we were treated to the important news that hundreds of fans had gathered outside the Staples Centre in Los Angeles. (So many things wrong with that sentence!) Gee, if only ESPN had some other stations so it could broadcast a baseball game in its entirety while still reporting on the earth-shattering news from L.A. The news that interrupted our baseball game? Kobe Bryant's final game. So I'm thinking, Kobe Bryant, Kobe Bryant, don't I know something else ab...

Today, April 15 - 4/15 in North America - the Fight for 15 and Fairness made another leap forward. All over the US and Canada , and in countries all over the world , workers marched, walked out, rallied, chanted, and demonstrated, for themselves, and for all of us. No matter what we earn, our communities will benefit when everyone is paid a living wage. Looking back on last year's 4/15 , the successes have been nothing short of amazing. Alberta, California, and New York State join the cities of Seattle and New York  in pledging a $15/hour minimum wage. The two US states are moving way too slowly , but the fact that $15 is on the agenda is very significant. To me, what is most exciting about this movement is that workers themselves  have made this a national and international issue. Low-wage earners have organized themselves, and worked both social and traditional media with great energy and skill. You'd be hard-pressed to find a media outlet, city blog, or talk show tha...

I'm a big fan of The Pretenders, but more than that, I'm a Chrissie Hynde fan. To me, she has always been the epitome of the female rock frontman. She's the whole package - guitar player, singer, songwriter, commanding stage presence, pure rock image, and smoldering, tough-girl beauty. I was naturally interested reading her memoirs, even more so when I learned she wrote the book herself, without a professional writer. Reckless: My Life as a Pretender  is aptly titled. Hynde's story is one of rash decisions, massive drinking and drug use, and a sizeable amount of danger. It's also a story of following your heart more than your head (often disregarding your head altogether), about loving music and the rock ethic so intensely, that only that life will do. Hynde was ready and willing to live a nomadic, stripped-down life, without regard to commercial success, and often without material comfort at all, because comfort and success and everything that goes with it didn...

Last week I attended the CUPE Ontario Library Workers Conference, my second year, and my first since being elected to the organizing committee. This year's theme was precarious work , and nothing could be more relevant to library work today. All three keynote speakers were excellent, with engaging, eye-opening presentations that brought our picture into sharp and disturbing focus. Count it and name it, so we can change it Wayne Lewchuk , professor of economics and labour relations at McMaster University, is the go-to guy for research into precarious work. Michelynn Lafleche is the Director of Research, Public Policy and Evaluation at United Way Toronto. (United Way is the primary social-service provider in this region.) They developed PEPSO: Poverty and Employment Precarity in Southern Ontario . Its purpose: quantify the anecdotes, demonstrate what precarious work is and the affects it has on individuals, families, and communities, and offer practical solutions to this crisis. PEP...

Local 4948, Toronto Public Library Workers Union, a/k/a the most kickass library workers' union in North America, produced two videos about the state of library work today. Here's the short, humourous version. And here's the longer documentary version; it's about 19 minutes long. If you care about libraries, about the lives of working people, and about our communities - or, like me, if you are passionate about all three - I hope you'll watch. More on this subject coming soon.