The Think Tank, a set on Flickr.
A group of like minded folks gathering often over food and drinks to get to know one another even deeper.
Saturday, September 29, 2012
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
14 El Monte Lifeguards Terminated for this video
*ALL OF THESE LIFEGUARDS WERE FIRED FOR BEING IN THIS VIDEO.*
Please read the description for the city's explanation for our terminations.
Our Facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/BringBackEMAC14
Reasons for Termination:
All footage was recorded off the clock during breaks and free time. The city manager OFFICIALLY fired us for using the facility for private use and wearing uniforms in public while off-duty. Afterwards we were UNOFFICIALLY told that our music video was both "disgusting" and an "embarrassment to the city of El Monte."
We 14 were terminated due to "at-will" employment. People who did not participate in our video but were merely caught in the background were fired. One manager who did not appear in the video at all was also fired.
Here is a petition to help support us:
http://www.change.org/petitions/help-the-14-el-monte-lifeguards-get-their-job...,
ABC News Video and Article:
http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news%2Flocal%2Flos_angeles&id=8...
CBS News Article and Video:
http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2012/09/06/el-monte-lifeguards-fired-over-gang...
CNN Video:
http://www.cnn.com/video/?/video/us/2012/09/07/lifeguards-fired-for-gangnam-s...
Huffington Post Article:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/07/lifeguard-style-gangnam-style-spoof-...
K-CAL 9 News Video:
http://news.yahoo.com/video/losangelescbs2-15750780/el-monte-lifeguards-fired...
KFI Article with Bill Handel:
http://www.kfiam640.com/pages/Handel2.html?article=10407878
KTLA Morning News Live Interview:
http://landing.newsinc.com/ktla/video.html?freewheel=91045&sitesection=KT...
Los Angeles Times Article:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-0912-lifeguard-video-20120912,0,45921...
NBC News Video And Article:
http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/El-Monte-Lifeguards-Fired-After-Makin...
Press Telegram Article:
http://www.presstelegram.com/opinions/ci_21493322/off-deep-end-el-monte
Ryan Seacrest's support:
http://ryanseacrest.com/2012/09/07/lifeguards-dive-into-gangnam-style-video/
San Gabriel Valley Tribune Article:
http://www.sgvtribune.com/news/ci_21519946/councilman-14-lifeguards-fired-gan...
Yahoo Article:
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/lifeguards-fired-over-gangnam-parody-vid...
*Copyrighted song belongs to YG Entertainment - "Gangnam Style" by Psy.*
National Voter Registration Day
In 2008, 6 million Americans didn't vote because they missed a registration deadline or didn’t know how to register. This year, we want to make sure that no one is left out. Register to vote by clicking this link: Click here to register to vote
Monday, September 24, 2012
Monday Night in the Blogosphere
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| Edward with Councilwoman Jan Perry, the next Mayor of Los Angeles
|
Hints of a West Coast expansion - Gannett Blog
Recession Still Very Real for Americans - Frying Pan News
New Owners — Kind Of — For LA Weekly - Pandora Young
Newspapers using Press+ offer fewer free articles - Romenesko
Robert Zimmerman: My family is not racist - Los Angeles Wave
It is very difficult to keep track of newspaper closures - Guardian
Covering the World of Business, Digital Only - New York Times
Why I Think The New York Times Is Going To Go Bust - Forbes
Tribune eyes former Discovery executive Liguori as CEO - Reuters
Deputies break up illegal street race, 27 arrested - Redlands Daily Facts
Today in Labor History
Today in labor history for the week of September 24, 2012
September 24
Canada declares the Wobblies illegal - 1918
September 24
Canada declares the Wobblies illegal - 1918
Saturday, September 22, 2012
Racism in America
In the last decades of the 19th century, the lynching of Black people in the South became an institutionalized method used by whites to terrorize Blacks and maintain white supremacy. From 1880 to 1940,there was deep-seated & all-pervading hatred & fear of the Negro which led white mobs to turn to “lynch law” as a means of social control. Lynchings—open public murders of individuals suspected of crime conceived & carried out spontaneously by a mob seem to have been an American invention.
h/t Wayne Hicks
Friday, September 21, 2012
Get Your 'Vote Hands' Ready: National Voter Registration Day
Sept. 25 is National Voter Registration Day. Not sure if you're registered to vote? Visit www.aflcio.org/register and tell your friends and family to get their "vote hands" ready. Find a voter registration event near you: http://events.nationalvoterregistrationday.org/events
Voter Registration Form
Voter Registration Form
Friday Morning in the Blogosphere
 |
| By Artist Melvin Wallace Clark |
They're still selling papers - Haaretz
Americans mistrust media more than ever - Poynter
Is the press manipulated by liberals? - Herald Online
Gannett soars to a post-recession high - Gannett Blog
Another day, another newspaper bankruptcy - The Awl
Are Newspapers Making a Comeback? - Daily Finance
How Prop. 32 Could Enrich Two Billionaires - Frying Pan News
News-Record parent says newspapers not on market - Triad Biz Blog
OC Register Publisher Thanks Troops for a Good Start - Fishbowl LA
CWA and Verizon Reach a Tentative Agreement - Broadcast Union News
Today in Labor History
September 21
Militia sent to Leadville, Colo., to break miners strike - 1896
Mother Jones leads a march of miners' children through the streets of Charleston, W. Va. - 1913
[The Worst Children’s Jobs in History: The next time your children complain about having to help with the dishes or mow the lawn, put this book in front of them. The Worst Children’s Jobs in History takes you back to the days when being a kid was no excuse for getting out of hard labor. From chimney sweep to cesspool cleaner, from tooth-donor(!) to turnip-picker, from manure-shoveler to matchbox maker -- and much more, this book will tell you things you probably didn’t want to know about the back-breaking realities of being a child in the past. In the UCS bookstore now.]
National Football League Players Assn. members begin what is to become a 57-day strike, their first regular-season walkout ever - 1982
Members of five unions at the Frontier Hotel-Casino in Las Vegas begin what was to become the longest successful hotel strike in U.S. history. All 550 workers honored the picket line for the entirety of the six year, four month, ten day fight against management’s insistence on cutting wages and eliminating pensions - 1991
September 20
Upton Sinclair, socialist and author of "The Jungle"—published on this day in 1906—born in Baltimore, MD - 1878
According to folklorist John Garst, steel-drivin’ man John Henry, born a slave, outperformed a steam
hammer on this date at the Coosa Mountain Tunnel or the Oak Mountain Tunnel of the Columbus and Western Railway (now part of the Norfolk Southern) near Leeds, Ala. Other researchers place the contest near Talcott, W. Va. - 1887
International Hod Carriers, Building & Common Laborers Union of America changes name to Laborers' International Union - 1965
September 19
Chinese coal miners forced out of Black Diamond,
Wash. - 1885
400,000 to 500,000 unionists converge on Washington D.C. for a Solidarity Day march and rally protesting Republican policies - 1981
September 18The Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU) is formally founded at an Ohio convention, during a period of serious corruption in the union. Two years earlier at an IBT convention in Las Vegas a union reform leader who (unsuccessfully) called for direct election of officers and a limit on officers’ salaries had been beaten by thugs - 1978
Nine strikebreakers are killed in an explosion at Giant (gold) Mine near Yellowknife, in Canada’s Northwest Territories. Miner Roger Warren confessed that he planted the explosives that caused the deaths. He recanted the confession but later confessed once again - 1992
A 20-month illegal lockout of 2,900 Steelworkers members at Kaiser Aluminum plants in three states
ends when an arbitrator orders a new contract. Kaiser was forced to fire scabs and fork over tens of millions of dollars in back pay to union members - 1999
One week after the September 11, 2001 attacks, anthrax spores are mailed by an unknown party to several news media offices and two U.S. Senators. Five people exposed to the spores died, including two workers at Washington, D.C.’s USPS Brentwood facility: Thomas Morris Jr. and Joseph Curseen - 2001
Militia sent to Leadville, Colo., to break miners strike - 1896
Mother Jones leads a march of miners' children through the streets of Charleston, W. Va. - 1913
[The Worst Children’s Jobs in History: The next time your children complain about having to help with the dishes or mow the lawn, put this book in front of them. The Worst Children’s Jobs in History takes you back to the days when being a kid was no excuse for getting out of hard labor. From chimney sweep to cesspool cleaner, from tooth-donor(!) to turnip-picker, from manure-shoveler to matchbox maker -- and much more, this book will tell you things you probably didn’t want to know about the back-breaking realities of being a child in the past. In the UCS bookstore now.]National Football League Players Assn. members begin what is to become a 57-day strike, their first regular-season walkout ever - 1982
Members of five unions at the Frontier Hotel-Casino in Las Vegas begin what was to become the longest successful hotel strike in U.S. history. All 550 workers honored the picket line for the entirety of the six year, four month, ten day fight against management’s insistence on cutting wages and eliminating pensions - 1991
September 20
Upton Sinclair, socialist and author of "The Jungle"—published on this day in 1906—born in Baltimore, MD - 1878
According to folklorist John Garst, steel-drivin’ man John Henry, born a slave, outperformed a steam
hammer on this date at the Coosa Mountain Tunnel or the Oak Mountain Tunnel of the Columbus and Western Railway (now part of the Norfolk Southern) near Leeds, Ala. Other researchers place the contest near Talcott, W. Va. - 1887International Hod Carriers, Building & Common Laborers Union of America changes name to Laborers' International Union - 1965
September 19
Chinese coal miners forced out of Black Diamond,
Wash. - 1885400,000 to 500,000 unionists converge on Washington D.C. for a Solidarity Day march and rally protesting Republican policies - 1981
September 18The Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU) is formally founded at an Ohio convention, during a period of serious corruption in the union. Two years earlier at an IBT convention in Las Vegas a union reform leader who (unsuccessfully) called for direct election of officers and a limit on officers’ salaries had been beaten by thugs - 1978
Nine strikebreakers are killed in an explosion at Giant (gold) Mine near Yellowknife, in Canada’s Northwest Territories. Miner Roger Warren confessed that he planted the explosives that caused the deaths. He recanted the confession but later confessed once again - 1992
A 20-month illegal lockout of 2,900 Steelworkers members at Kaiser Aluminum plants in three states
ends when an arbitrator orders a new contract. Kaiser was forced to fire scabs and fork over tens of millions of dollars in back pay to union members - 1999One week after the September 11, 2001 attacks, anthrax spores are mailed by an unknown party to several news media offices and two U.S. Senators. Five people exposed to the spores died, including two workers at Washington, D.C.’s USPS Brentwood facility: Thomas Morris Jr. and Joseph Curseen - 2001
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
Wednesday Morning in the Blogosphere
 |
| Kezi Christian at The Last Bookstore |
Boston Phoenix goes glossy - Romenesko
Village Voice Sheds Staff - Pandora Young
LA Times looking for deputy books editor - Kevin Roderick
Journalists arrested at Occupy anniversary protests - Poynter
USAT | How extensive was the print redesign? - Gannett Blog
If Proposition 32 Passes: A Not-So-Green Golden State - Frying Pan News
National Media Study Reveals Need to Optimize Online News - Beta News
NY Times Negotiators Refuse To Improve Their Contract Proposals - BUN
532 Taser-Related Deaths in the United States Since 2001 - Electronic Village
San Diego Facebook Page Begs the LA Times to Head South - Matthew Fleischer
Monday, September 17, 2012
Today in Labor History
September 17
SOURCE: Union Communications Services, Inc.
75 workers die in explosion at Allegheny Arsenal, Pittsburgh, Pa. - 1862
At a New York convention of the National Labor Congress, Susan B. Anthony calls for the formation of a Working Women's Association. As a delegate to the Congress, she persuaded the committee on female labor to call for votes for women and equal pay for equal work. But male delegates deleted the reference to the vote - 1868
[I Knew I Could Do This Work: Seven Strategies That Promote Women’s Activism and Leadership in Unions: Although nearly half of union members in the United States are female, little more than one leadership position in five is held by a woman. This report is designed to promote women’s activism and leadership within unions across the country at the local, state, regional, and national levels. The report outlines seven strategies that unions can use to encourage women’s increased participation in a workforce that is increasingly female. In the UCS bookstore now.]
One hundred thousand Pennsylvania anthracite coal miners go on strike. Their average annual wage is $250. They are paid by the ton, defined by Pennsylvania as 2,400 pounds but which mine operators have increased to as much as 4,000 pounds - 1900
National Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE) formed at a convention in Washington, D.C. In 1999 it became part of the Intl. Assoc. of Machinists (IAM) - 1917
Some Depression-era weekly paychecks around the New York area: physician, $55.32; engineer, $40.68; clerk, $22.15; salesman, $25.02; laborer, $20; typist, $15.09 - 1933
Southern employers meeting in Greenville, N.C. ready their big counter-offensive to break the textile labor strikes that have hit the Eastern seaboard. Ultimately they deploy 10,000 national guardsmen and 15,000 deputies, but fail to drive hundreds of thousands of strikers back to work - 1934
A Southern Pacific train loaded with sugar beets strikes a makeshift bus filled with 60 migrant workers near Salinas, Calif., killing 32. The driver said the bus was so crowded he couldn't see the train coming - 1963
Ninety-eight United Mine Workers of America members and a minister occupy the Pittston Coal Company's Moss 3 preparation plant in Carbon, Va., beginning a year-long strike. Among other issues: management demands for drastic limitations in health and pension benefits for retired and disabled miners and their dependents and beneficiaries - 1989
The Occupy Wall Street movement is launched with an anti-Wall Street march and demonstration that ended up as a two-month encampment in Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park. The even led to protests and movements around the world, with their focus on economic inequality, corruption, greed and the influence on government of monied interests. Their slogan: “We are the 99%.” - 2011
SOURCE: Union Communications Services, Inc.
75 workers die in explosion at Allegheny Arsenal, Pittsburgh, Pa. - 1862
At a New York convention of the National Labor Congress, Susan B. Anthony calls for the formation of a Working Women's Association. As a delegate to the Congress, she persuaded the committee on female labor to call for votes for women and equal pay for equal work. But male delegates deleted the reference to the vote - 1868
[I Knew I Could Do This Work: Seven Strategies That Promote Women’s Activism and Leadership in Unions: Although nearly half of union members in the United States are female, little more than one leadership position in five is held by a woman. This report is designed to promote women’s activism and leadership within unions across the country at the local, state, regional, and national levels. The report outlines seven strategies that unions can use to encourage women’s increased participation in a workforce that is increasingly female. In the UCS bookstore now.]One hundred thousand Pennsylvania anthracite coal miners go on strike. Their average annual wage is $250. They are paid by the ton, defined by Pennsylvania as 2,400 pounds but which mine operators have increased to as much as 4,000 pounds - 1900
National Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE) formed at a convention in Washington, D.C. In 1999 it became part of the Intl. Assoc. of Machinists (IAM) - 1917
Some Depression-era weekly paychecks around the New York area: physician, $55.32; engineer, $40.68; clerk, $22.15; salesman, $25.02; laborer, $20; typist, $15.09 - 1933
Southern employers meeting in Greenville, N.C. ready their big counter-offensive to break the textile labor strikes that have hit the Eastern seaboard. Ultimately they deploy 10,000 national guardsmen and 15,000 deputies, but fail to drive hundreds of thousands of strikers back to work - 1934
A Southern Pacific train loaded with sugar beets strikes a makeshift bus filled with 60 migrant workers near Salinas, Calif., killing 32. The driver said the bus was so crowded he couldn't see the train coming - 1963
Ninety-eight United Mine Workers of America members and a minister occupy the Pittston Coal Company's Moss 3 preparation plant in Carbon, Va., beginning a year-long strike. Among other issues: management demands for drastic limitations in health and pension benefits for retired and disabled miners and their dependents and beneficiaries - 1989
The Occupy Wall Street movement is launched with an anti-Wall Street march and demonstration that ended up as a two-month encampment in Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park. The even led to protests and movements around the world, with their focus on economic inequality, corruption, greed and the influence on government of monied interests. Their slogan: “We are the 99%.” - 2011
Friday, September 14, 2012
Comedy 4 Christ
I will be visiting this fine church tonight, if your in the area stop in for a few laughs.
Thursday, September 13, 2012
Today in Labor History
Septemeber 13
The Post Office Department orders 25,000 railway mail clerks to shoot to kill any bandits attempting to rob the mail - 1926
Eleven AFSCME-represented prison employees, 33 inmates die in four days of rioting at New York State’s Attica Prison and the retaking of the prison. The riot caused the nation to take a closer look at prison conditions, for inmates and their guards alike - 1971 ..
September 12
Eugene V. Debs, labor leader and socialist, sentenced to 10 years for opposing World War I. While in jail Debs received 1 million votes for president - 1918
Jobless workers march on grocery stores and seize food in Toledo, Ohio - 1932
United Rubber Workers formed in Akron, Ohio - 1935
Forty-nine people are killed, 200 injured in explosion at the Hercules Powder Company plant in Kenvil, New Jersey - 1940
New York City’s Union Square, the site of the first Labor Day in 1882, is officially named a national historic landmark. The square has long been a focal point for working class protest and political expression - 1998
[The Inventory of American Labor Landmarks offers a nice selection from the Labor Heritage Foundation’s comprehensive, ongoing inventory of labor landmarks across the country. Nearly 200 monuments, plaques and other markers are described here, from 33 states and the District of Columbia, accompanied by historical summaries and, often, by photographs. In the UCS bookstore now.]
SOURCE: Union Communications Services, Inc.
The Post Office Department orders 25,000 railway mail clerks to shoot to kill any bandits attempting to rob the mail - 1926
Eleven AFSCME-represented prison employees, 33 inmates die in four days of rioting at New York State’s Attica Prison and the retaking of the prison. The riot caused the nation to take a closer look at prison conditions, for inmates and their guards alike - 1971 ..
September 12
Eugene V. Debs, labor leader and socialist, sentenced to 10 years for opposing World War I. While in jail Debs received 1 million votes for president - 1918
Jobless workers march on grocery stores and seize food in Toledo, Ohio - 1932
United Rubber Workers formed in Akron, Ohio - 1935
Forty-nine people are killed, 200 injured in explosion at the Hercules Powder Company plant in Kenvil, New Jersey - 1940
New York City’s Union Square, the site of the first Labor Day in 1882, is officially named a national historic landmark. The square has long been a focal point for working class protest and political expression - 1998
[The Inventory of American Labor Landmarks offers a nice selection from the Labor Heritage Foundation’s comprehensive, ongoing inventory of labor landmarks across the country. Nearly 200 monuments, plaques and other markers are described here, from 33 states and the District of Columbia, accompanied by historical summaries and, often, by photographs. In the UCS bookstore now.]
SOURCE: Union Communications Services, Inc.
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Wednesday Night in the Blogosphere
 |
| Round Rock, Texas |
Lee-owned Wisconsin State Journal lays off staff - Romenesko
Three things you won't hear Marketing talk about - Gannett Blog
Fate of 230 Patriot-News employees still unknown - York Dispatch
Kobe Bryant continues working to eradicate homelessness - LA Times
U-T San Diego Parent Acquires North County Times - Richard Horgan
Offshore Reporting No Longer So Far-Fetched - Newspaper Death Watch
Walmart-Contracted Warehouse Workers Go on Strike - Frying Pan News
New York Times Union Reps Back in Talks With Management - Broadcast U.N.
Who Got an Actual Interview with Patrick Goldstein, Geoff Boucher? - Fishbowl LA
Philadelphia newspaper owners demand immediate concessions from union - Poynter
Sammy Maloof Changing Lives One Ride at a Time
The champion in the child is the same champion in the adult, they just have to recognize it. Watch what Hollywood stuntman, Sammy Maloof does when he's not on the big screen doing stunts in TV shows and movies like Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol & Fast and Furious. These champions from the Highway Church in Moreno Valley are making a difference in their community. Listen to them share from their heart about how they are using their gifts and talents to help others and join Sammy and his WINNING team on Facebook as they change lives one child, one community, one ride at a time: http://on.fb.me/bringingbackhope
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Today in Labor History
September 11
Some 75,000 coal miners in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia end a ten-week strike after winning an eight hour day, semi-monthly pay, and the abolition of overpriced company-owned stores, where they had been forced to shop. (Remember the song, "16 Tons," by coal miner’s son Merle Travis, in which there’s this line: "I owe my soul to the company store.") - 1897
More than 3,000 people died when suicide highjackers crashed planes into the World Trade Center towers, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field. Among the dead in New York were 634 union members, the majority of them New York City firefighters and police on the scene when the towers fell - 2001
Crystal Lee Sutton, the real-life Norma Rae of the movies, dies at age 68. She worked at a J.P. Stevens textile plant in Roanoke Rapids, N.C. when low pay and poor working conditions led her to become a union activist - 2009
Some 75,000 coal miners in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia end a ten-week strike after winning an eight hour day, semi-monthly pay, and the abolition of overpriced company-owned stores, where they had been forced to shop. (Remember the song, "16 Tons," by coal miner’s son Merle Travis, in which there’s this line: "I owe my soul to the company store.") - 1897
More than 3,000 people died when suicide highjackers crashed planes into the World Trade Center towers, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field. Among the dead in New York were 634 union members, the majority of them New York City firefighters and police on the scene when the towers fell - 2001
Crystal Lee Sutton, the real-life Norma Rae of the movies, dies at age 68. She worked at a J.P. Stevens textile plant in Roanoke Rapids, N.C. when low pay and poor working conditions led her to become a union activist - 2009