Sylvester Stallone's union troubles.

Just another anecdote from "The Andy Warhol Diaries." This is from the entry for February 22, 1980:

Stallone is so cute, so adorable. I guess he’s lost sixty pounds. He’s sexy. All the stars usually think they should have their portraits done free, though. He’s intelligent, he’s taken over directorship of the movie and now he’s in trouble because the union has a film of him saying, “Lights, action!” It’s going before a board. Stallone was telling stories about how much trouble he’s had with the union, how there’s this little Irish guy that he just wants to beat up so badly. He said he had this one shot all set up, everybody was in costume and makeup with blood and everything for a fight scene and it was snowing, just perfectly and they said, “Okay, stop, everybody break for dinner,” and he said he practically got down on his knees pleading, “Please, just let’s get this one shot, please, I’m a fellow worker, please, I’m Rocky!” and they wouldn’t let him. They broke for dinner and then he had to start all over again.

Please, I’m Rocky! I love that. The workers should view the director as a proletarian because he played one in a movie. And meanwhile, he imagines he's so elite that the artist should provide him with portraiture gratis. But what kind of elite is that? Royalty patronizes the arts.

It wasn't a Rocky movie they were filming. Don't be confused. It was "Nighthawks."

"The notion that your manhood depends on The Man giving you a job with a paycheck is some weird modern-day delusion."

"Those of you inside that delusion seem uncreative and impractical and, frankly, afraid of strong women."

Part of a comment of mine in the thread from yesterday about the NYT article "Wall Street Mothers, Stay-Home Fathers/As Husbands Do Domestic Duty, These Women Are Free to Achieve."

Graphing the real value of the minimum wage.

The President and the media are trying to get us to talk about income equality. I know, it's an effort to distract us from the obvious problem of the Obamacare debacle (which itself is probably a distraction from other things we shouldn't/should be looking at). But I was motivated to Google "minimum wage over the years adjusted for inflation."

The first hit went to a site called Raise the Minimum Wage which gave me the kind of graph I wanted to see:



How dumb do you need to be not to look at this graph and suspect that 1968 was chosen as the starting point because it was an upward spike? Here's another graph:



As you go upon your way this morning, watch out for propaganda.

Imagine consistent outrage over the use of slavery as a metaphor (disaggregating it from any lust to get Sarah Palin).

"It’s deplorable for people to work wages, slave wages, in the 21st century evolutionary country." That's a quote highlighted in this local CBS report, which is currently highlighted at the top of Drudge with the simple teaser "Slave wages."

Now, we were just talking about all the trouble Martin Bashir encountered after he went super-dramatic about how despicable it was for Sarah Palin to have used slavery as a metaphor, and I said:

Bashir — if he was ever worth having his own show — should be able to say very clearly that he intended to express the depth of the horror of slavery and therefore why it should never be used as a metaphor. Now, of course, he'd be open to the criticism that he only chose to go where he did because his target was Sarah Palin, but he could confess to that, say that was wrong, and dedicate himself to permanent across-the-board opposition to slavery as a metaphor.

So... imagine going Bashir over the use of the term "slave wages." Remember, all Sarah Palin did was use slavery as a metaphor, and she was grilled by Jake Tapper on CNN — here's the transcript — in what to me looks like an effort to make her say something off (as if Tapper wanted to be the new Katie Couric, ruining Sarah Palin all over again).

TAPPER: So, you obviously feel very passionate about the national debt. The other day, you gave a speech in which you compared it to slavery.

PALIN: To slavery. Yes. And that's not a racist thing to do, by the way, which I know somebody is going to claim it is.

TAPPER: Don't you ever fear that by using hyperbole like that -- obviously, you don't literally mean it's like slavery, which cost millions of people their lives and there was rape and torture. You're using it as a metaphor. But don't you ever worry that by using that kind of language, you -- you risk obscuring the point you're trying to make?

PALIN: There is another definition of slavery and that is being beholden to some kind of master that is not of your choosing. And, yes, the national debt will be like slavery when the note comes due.

More at the link. You see what Tapper is doing, playing the old game of Screwing with Sarah. And Bashir just came tripping after Tapper. He can get in there too. They want to tap her and bash her. Rape metaphor intended, because I'm trying to highlight the political use of metaphor and responsive arguments that this metaphor is not allowed. Bashir said:

Given her well-established reputation as a world class idiot, it’s hardly surprising that [Palin] should choose to mention slavery in a way that is abominable to anyone who knows anything about its barbaric history. So here’s an example. One of the most comprehensive first-person accounts of slavery comes from the personal diary of a man called Thomas Thistlewood, who kept copious notes for 39 years. Thistlewood was the son of a tenant farmer, who arrived on the island of Jamaica in April 1750, and assumed the position of overseer at a major plantation.

What is most shocking about Thistlewood’s diary is not simply the fact that he assumes the right to own and possess other human beings, but is the sheer cruelty and brutality of his regime. In 1756, he records that a slave named Darby ‘catched eating kanes; had him well flogged and pickled, then made Hector, another slave, s-h-i-t in his mouth.’ This became known as ‘Darby’s Dose,’ a punishment invented by Thistlewood that spoke only of inhumanity.

And he mentions a similar incident in 1756, his time in relation to a man he refers to as Punch. ‘Flogged Punch well, and then washed and rubbed salt pickle, lime juice and bird pepper. Made Negro Joe piss in his eyes and mouth.' I could go on, but you get the point....

When Mrs. Palin invokes slavery, she doesn’t just prove her rank ignorance. She confirms if anyone truly qualified for a dose of discipline from Thomas Thistlewood, she would be the outstanding candidate.

I'm asking you to imagine consistency about the use of metaphor, disaggregating it from the lust to get Sarah Palin or somebody else you think is asking for it. Imagine doing the Bashir routine when anyone talks about "slave wages" or being a "wage slave." That's what Bashir would have needed to do to prove his good faith in his outrage over the cheap deployment of the idea of slavery. It's not something you can realistically imagine, and that's why we know it was Bashir, even more than Sarah Palin, who carelessly appropriated the suffering of others to make a political point.

Bonus: Imagine what Bashir — in a quest for consistency — would have to say to Bryan Ferry:



By the way, Bashir's Thistlewood story was about torture, and torture can occur in many contexts other than slavery. True consistency would require him to rage against the use of torture as a metaphor. He ought to lose his cool whenever he sees, say, a headline like "Homework torture for some gifted students."

Be consistent and principled about metaphor or eat shit and die.

A rash of 1-star reviews for Scott Walker's book "Unintimidated."

At Amazon. Samples:

1. "Wow, this is not a book. it is a 'selfie' by Scott Walker. He has tanked Wisconsin with his corrupt leadership and this book is so poorly written, I'd give it a zero if I could. Don't waist [sic] your money on this advertisement."

2. "This book is a piece of crap written by the most self-serving narcissist to ever come down the pike. This book should be filed under fiction on the shelves....."

3. "Gah. What a terrible person. There should be a zero stars option. Good god. The man is a narcissist....."

4. "Dear dear Scooter's sad attempt to make himself feel important. Scott walkers lies and unabashed disrespect for the state of Wisconsin and the union workers is a waste of your time and money. Shouldn't he be writing a book on 'How to snake your way into Politics'?"

5. "Written by a 10th grader doing their first 'paper.' that sums up the writing style and lack of references. The introduction should have had at least 50-60 references. Non-fiction requires extensive referencing for credibility. Therefore, this book lacks credibility because it is not properly referenced. As I was reading it, I kept waiting for the hallelujah choruses to break out through my Kindle. via the writing it is abundantly clear that the author hates blue collar workers and would like to open sweat shops."

6. "Governor Walker is completely off the deep end! He wrote: 'In other words, if you're a teacher, police officer, fire fighter, snow plow driver or any other kind public servant, you're not only lazy, overpaid and corrupt, but you're also not a church goer... in fact, you're probably a damn Muslim!'--There is so much wrong with this statement I don't even know where to begin...."

Well, you might begin by Googling that quote to find out if Governor Walker really did write that. I found that quote at Uppity Wisconsin/Progressive News from the Cheddarsphere, which was humorously paraphrasing a list of "Top Ten Ways to tell if you Might be a Member of a public sector union." The list of "Top Ten Ways" really does appear in the book. It was a David-Letterman-style comic list that had appeared in The Daily Caller, and Walker tells of reading it to his "nervous" staff to "lighten the mood" during the 2011 protests.  He doesn't restate the list with a punchline — that's Uppity Wisconsin's doing. He just says: "It did the trick, putting them at ease again."

The list does include the item "4. You know by having a copy of the Holy Koran on your desk your job is 100% safe." Why is that supposed to be funny? Why does it belong with things like "2. You have a Democratic congressman’s lips permanently attached to your butt"? I mean, I see how it would belong on a list with the title "Top Ten 'Jokes' that Prove The Daily Caller Should Not Attempt Humor." But other than that.... We can see that Walker thought it was funny enough to use to cheer up the staff and to tell us about in the book, but let's not substitute the Walker-hater's paraphrase!

ADDED: There are 5-star reviews too, but more than twice as many 1-star reviews. Guess how many 4-, 3-, and 2-star reviews? Right: almost none. The current tally:

5 star: 48
4 star: 3
3 star: 1
2 star: 2
1 star: 133

I'd like to see the numbers on how many of these people actually read the book, but then, in some ways a book like this isn't designed to be read. It's designed to be an occasion for interviews about the book and articles that cherry pick excerpts from the book. I'm actually reading the book myself... in large part because I'm a writer who is looking for things to pick and excerpt.

AND: By the way, Uppity Wisconsin's post title — "Walker 'Joke': Teachers, Public Servants are Lazy, Overpaid Heathens" — inadvertently insults Muslims. Neither The Daily Caller nor Scott Walker referred to Muslims as "Heathens." That's Uppity Wisconsin's term, and it is an insult.

ALSO: The (unlinkable) OED gives as the first definition of the noun "heathen": "One who holds a religious belief which is neither Christian, Jewish, nor Muslim; a pagan." And for the adjective: "Of an individual or people: holding religious beliefs of a sort that are considered unenlightened, now esp. ones of a primitive or polytheistic nature; spec. not of the Christian, Jewish, or Muslim faiths."

From the historical quotes, my favorites:

1726 Swift Gulliver II. iii. i. 6, I was sorry to find more Mercy in a Heathen, than in a Brother Christian.
1852 H. B. Stowe Uncle Tom's Cabin II. xxviii. 139 It would certainly be a greater self-denial to receive heathen among us, than to send missionaries to them.

Pre-election jobs numbers fabricated.

The NY Post reports.

"I don't believe the two ships pass in the night. I believe they collide. And the state has a bigger ship, so we will win."

Said Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen to Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Ann Walsh Bradley who used the cliché "two ships passing in the night" to refer to the opponents' arguments about the constitutionality of the collective bargaining reforms made back in 2010 and previously considered by the court in 2011. The lawyer on the other side came up with:

"With all due respect to the attorney general, the Titanic was a big ship, too.... What Act 10 has run into is the Wisconsin Constitution, and it has violated the Wisconsin Constitution."

"Is Your Washroom Breeding Bolsheviks?"

From a great collection of anti-Communist posters and ads, some of which are far better graphically. I picked this one out to display here because it's an interesting mix of rational argument and emotional appeal... by a commercial advertiser.

"Cleveland State Law Profs File Unfair Labor Practice Charge Alleging That 'Satanic' $666 Merit Pay Raise Was Retaliation for Union Activities."

"Faculty were placed in four merit raise bands — $5,000, $3,000, $666, and $0 — based on scholarship and scholarly influence (40%), teaching as measured by student evaluations (40%), and service (20%).... In a memo distributed to the central administration and copied to the entire faculty, one of the eight AAUP organizers alleges that:"

[The $666 figure] is a universally understood symbol of the Antichrist or Devil — one of our culture's most violent religious images. Implicitly, but unmistakably and obviously intentionally, [the Dean] used his powers to set faculty salaries as an occasion to brand his perceived opponents as the Antichrist.

What do you think of the $666 raise?
	If you got a raise, you should be thankful and keep quiet.
	It's obviously retaliation for union activities and there should be a legal remedy.
	This idiotic over-expression by the dean will be justly punished by expressions like my vote here.
	Lawyers and law professors are all satanic and deserve whatever evils they inflict on each other.
pollcode.com free polls

Fending off the genderistic nonsense about Janet Yellen.

"For years, the Federal Reserve has been led by men who had a scientistic view of monetary policy. These men – including Paul Volcker, Alan Greenspan, and Ben Bernanke... – viewed the job of running the country's economy as if they were dealing with chemical reactions or physics experiments," writes Kevin Roose, in a New York Magazine piece titled "Welcome to the Humanist Federal Reserve, Led By Janet Yellen."

[Janet Yellen] looks at the economy not just as a series of charts and figures, but as a moving, breathing organism, a collection of millions of people who are struggling to make their lives better today than they were yesterday.

Roose — who refrains from saying he attributes Yellen's difference to her gender difference — cites a Yellen speech at an AFL-CIO-sponsored conference that he says is "a remarkable look at the empathy she brings to policy-making." Empathy... visualizing the economy as a moving, breathing organism....

She... speaks about unemployment not just as an economic problem, but as a humanitarian crisis....

No matter what else it does, we know a Yellen-led Fed would use the tools of monetary policy to help millions of struggling Americans get back on their feet. And it's just one of the reasons I'm thrilled with the Yellen nomination.

This feels like gender-based claptrap to me, and I'm reeling in feelings from the furthest reaches of my female nervous system. Why wouldn't any bank official speaking at an AFL-CIO-sponsored conference include verbiage about the struggles of ordinary workers?

By the way, what is a "scientistic view"? Is it that way that men perceive? Wikipedia defines "scientism" as "a term used, often pejoratively, to refer to belief in the universal applicability of the scientific method and approach, and the view that empirical science constitutes the most authoritative worldview or most valuable part of human learning to the exclusion of other viewpoints."

Roose slathers Yellen in praise, but he's rolling out the usual stereotypes. Ironically, he's not female, and yet he's displaying some "woman's way of knowing" to arrive at a belief that Yellen will help people because she feels and cares. This reminds me of the murmurings about "empathy" and "heart" that burbled from Obama when he nominated Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court. She resisted the concept:

I can only explain what I think judges should do, which is judges can't rely on what's in their heart.... The job of a judge is to apply the law. And so it's not the heart that compels conclusions in cases. It's the law. The judge applies the law to the facts before that judge.

I'll bet Yellen fends off the genderistic nonsense in just about exactly the same way.

It's not just Kenosha: "It seems like the majority of our affiliates in the state aren't seeking re-certification."

Everyone's talking about the Kenosha teacher's union getting decertified, that's a quote from a WEAC official, so "Kenosha is a trend setter, not an outlier."

Kenosha Unified is the third largest school district in the state. It has a well-earned reputation as a district dominated by it's [sic] unionized teachers. Pro-union school board members helped extend the previously-existing contract to delay the implementation of the Act 10 reforms there.

"Federal judge backs Scott Walker in Act 10 ruling, dismisses lawsuit."

Act 10 was the law the big 2011 protests were about.

"Under Act 10, general employees remain free to associate and represented employees and their unions remain free to speak; municipal employers are simply not allowed to listen."

The "quasi-Christian" sect — the Twelve Tribes — that proselytizes at Dylan concerts.

Are Dylan disciples ripe picking for a group that "requires forsaking all material goods, living communally, and working without pay in one of the group’s cafés, stores, farms, or construction companies scattered across the United States"?

They travel around in a cute "two-tone, double-decker bus called the Peacemaker" and hand out a brochure titled "Dylan: What Are You Thinking?" which leverages lyrics from old Dylan songs to make a pitch that I would think close attention to Dylan lyrics would inoculate you against.

You’re gonna have to serve somebody... so why not serve lattes at our café?

"Barely a third of U.S. senators pay their interns — and embarrassingly for Democrats, a party focused on workplace welfare, most of them are Republicans."

Under the heading "EXPLOITATION," Instapundit links to this piece in The Atlantic.

No pay is the ultimate defense against the accusation of low pay.

It's the difference between a girlfriend and a cheap prostitute.

If you don't have the money to buy something at a price that won't offend the seller, you should try to get it for free. Then the seller is flattered.

This is the way the world works. Not everything is commerce, or — I should say — not everything is always usefully portrayed as commerce. The only hypocrisy I see in Congress here is that whenever they want to use their Commerce Power, they'll argue that their regulatory target is commerce.

"Mayor Rahmbo had already come under suspicion as being an advocate of privatization but his current move left little doubt."

"Emanuel’s demonstration demolition is meant to endear him to the elite privatization movement. The destruction of public education will make way for more neoliberal policies, and of course, some nice business opportunities for friends and contributors. The only force strong enough to oppose the corporate ‘reformers’ is the teachers unions, which has made them enemy no. 1. If the unions fail to stop the looters it will be open season on universal education throughout America."

Alarm is raised at FireDogLake.

Rewarding "hard-working, high-achieving, and outstanding employees"...

... in the post-union era.

"Since Wisconsin stopped forcing public employees to pay union dues against their will..."

"... union membership in that state has plummeted," writes John Hinderaker.

[N]ot only did Scott Walker’s reforms strike an important blow for employee freedom, they also had the happy side-effect of depriving the unions of a large chunk of their funding, and therefore their ability to sway elections. So it is a win-win for everyone, except union bosses and the politicians they support. 

"Illinois Tollway underlings took photos of their boss sleeping on the job because they were upset he was finally making them put in 'a day’s work for a day’s pay'..."

"... an attorney for the fired Tollway boss said Friday."

"New mutualism" at the Freelancers Union.

"[N]ew mutualism is based on a simple premise: freelancers should band together to set up social-purpose institutions to serve their mutual needs."

The Freelancers Union, with its oxymoronic name, is a motley collection of workers in the fast-evolving freelance economy — whether lawyers, software developers, graphic artists, accountants, consultants, nannies, writers, editors, Web site designers or sellers on Etsy....

The Freelancers Union... doesn’t bargain with employers, but it does address what is by far these workers’ No. 1 concern, by providing them with affordable health insurance.

"To understand why female lawyers, doctors, bankers, academics, high-tech executives and other, often expensively pedigreed, professionals quit work to stay home..."

"... you need not search their souls for ambivalence or nostalgia," asserts Judith Shulevitz in The New Republic.

To reject a high-flying career, as... so many women have done, is not to reject aspiration; it is to refuse to succumb to a kind of madness. Professional accomplishment shouldn’t and doesn’t have to look like this. The main reason white-collar workers can be driven to work 80-hour-or-so weeks is that very few of them have government protections. Most of them are exempt from the Fair Labor Standards Act, which mandates the 40-hour-week and overtime pay. American managers aren’t allowed to join unions. Other countries have laws that protect against overwork even for professionals, such as standard or maximum number of hours anyone can work in a week....