Many of us felt a Capra-esque glow the morning after Election Day, happy that the Little Guy had triumphed over Big, Dark Money. And, to be honest, there was also more than a little schadenfreude to go around – what, with the spectacle of so many right-wing billionaires wasting so much money on their Cro-Magnon candidates. There’s a danger, though, in assuming their losses had taken the fight out of these tycoons – or that their lost millions somehow weakened their future political clout.
The fact is that the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on 2012 elections by the Koch brothers, Jerry Perenchio and others were little more than paper cuts to these men. They could probably recoup all their losses in a day by raising the cost of the oil they refine, or the price of plywood they sell, by an eighth of a cent. Every time you or I fill up our gas tanks or otherwise patronize one of the thousands of enterprises owned by conservative billionaires,
» Read more about: Casino Mogul Doubles Down Against Unions »
Turning over the calendar makes me think about nature. Partly, because it marks the end of one cycle of our lives and the beginning of another. Partly because at our house we literally take one calendar off the wall, look through its photographs of beautiful places, and replace it with a new one with its own photos of the world’s natural beauty that we will uncover one month at a time. The ritual reminds me that the earth is filled with beauty which we humans must sustain because it sustains us.
The problem, of course, is that in our drive for “progress” and “economic growth” we are drawing down too many resources too fast and making messes despoiling not only the earth’s beauty but also her capacity to keep us alive. Every day the news carries stories of waste, trash, unhealthy water, shrinking arctic ice and aberrant weather patterns.
» Read more about: A Sustainable Planet: Roadmaps for Survival »
California’s second-largest city has a progressive mayor, former Democratic U.S. House member Bob Filner — who beat his Republican rival by three points in November.
The 70-year old Filner spent 20 years in Congress. A reliable and articulate liberal – with high marks on his AFL-CIO, Americans for Democratic Action and Sierra Club scorecards – he’s a founding member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and was a Freedom Rider during the early 1960s civil rights movement, spending two months in jail for “disturbing the peace and inciting a riot.”
Among his first actions as mayor, Filner took on the powerful San Diego Gas and Electric (SDG&E), accusing the investor-owned utility of failing in its commitment to alternative energy. He has also promised to pay more attention to the city’s neighborhoods, which many residents believe have been shortchanged by civic officials who are obsessed with developments downtown and in the Gaslamp Quarter.
» Read more about: San Diego: Republican City Gets Progressive Mayor »
New Year’s resolutions are a bitch. 
You know you should eat more veggies, exercise regularly and do your bit to reduce suffering in the world. You want to learn Spanish (finally), take that oft-postponed Alaskan cruise and work through your co-dependency issues with Facebook. You’re convinced that meditation will reduce your stress, but the mere thought of fitting one more activity into your over-packed schedule only leaves you feeling more stressed out.
Shooting for the moon with our New Year’s resolutions — No more sugar! Run three miles a day! Be kind to your enemies! — and then falling short is a fast track to aggravation, self-loathing and the joyless consumption of massive quantities of week-old fruitcake.
Bite-sized goals are easier to digest. Climbing stairs instead of taking elevators or choosing a “bad” parking space to take a brisk walk might not please your aerobics trainer,
I spent this weekend as a Santa Monica resident for the first time in seven years. Interesting!
Technically my new digs are across the street, the dividing line between Santa Monica and Mar Vista. Coincidentally it’s the same area that I wrote about in my second murder mystery Rip-Off, the airport location of a clusterfuck shootout that shames my hero, Detective Dave Mason of the Santa Monica Police Department.
I’ve been in the city off and on, but as a visitor in these last few years. Now I have a base. My dog Lily and will be here from time to time in an effort to develop a plot for my next Dave Mason mystery.
The contrasts of Santa Monica fascinate me. I drive down Broadway and see the dark doorway of the union hall where I used to work. Three homeless men are huddled there.
» Read more about: Back to the Beach: An Activist Returns to Town »
UNITE HERE!-represented workers at Pleasanton, California’s Castlewood Country Club were locked out for two years before an NLRB administrative law judge finally ruled in their favor; Castlewood was on the hook for $1.8 million in back wages and benefits due to management’s refusal to bargain in good faith and animus towards the union. Overjoyed, 45 of 61 locked out Castlewood employees returned to their jobs. There’s just one problem: they haven’t gotten their back wages yet.
The NLRB’s ruling requires Castlewood management to pay back wages within 28 days or make some other settlement with workers, but as of late December, neither had occured. Castlewood management does have the opportunity to appeal the NLRB ruling, but lacks the option of total inaction. The failure to act had workers returning to a now-familiar mode of protest on the Thursday before Christmas. The East Bay Express was on the scene:
About 30 union members gathered Thursday morning outside Castlewood’s offices to urge management to pay up.
» Read more about: Teed-Off Workers Protest at Golf Course »
The cliff that America sidestepped with time to spare in 2012 was the one on the nation’s docks. On Friday, harbor operators and shippers reached an agreement with the union representing nearly 15,000 longshoremen on the East and Gulf coasts. The key point holding up the signing of a new contract was whether dockworkers would continue to receive royalties on the containers they hoisted on and off ships. With that issue resolved, apparently to the workers’ satisfaction, their union agreed to call off a year-end strike pending the resolution of less contentious points, and the nation was spared a work stoppage that would have slowed imports and exports to a relative trickle.
Had the workers walked, the attacks on them would be easy to imagine. Dockworkers are among this country’s best-paid blue-collar workers; many make more than $100,000 a year. They’re sitting ducks for union critics and are objects of wonderment for many Americans who can’t fathom how nonprofessional work can pay so much.
» Read more about: New Longshore Contract: Racing to the Top »
As a nation, we’ve already given countless billions of dollars in gifts to the one percent in the form of tax cuts, loopholes and corporate subsidies. If you think that’s not enough, here’s a list of more personal gifts you can buy for your favorite One Percenter.
In the 21st century, even the lowliest One Percenter can surround himself or herself with personal assistants, stylists and specialty chefs. For a truly unique experience, add a personal tanning butler to his or her entourage on a $3000/night booking at the Ritz Carlton. Even the dullest One Percenter will take a shining to this gift. The tanning butler will help apply sunbathing lotion and spritz you with Evian water while you sunbathe.
If your one percent friend is an expecting celeb,
» Read more about: Regifting for the Few Who Have Everything »
Most job seekers take care to scrub evidence of last night’s party from their social media profiles, but the employment consequences of more nuanced online interactions are still being determined. Just before the Christmas holiday, the National Labor Relations Board issued a decision ordering the reinstatement of five workers who were fired for responding to a co-worker’s criticism on Facebook. The decision goes some way to establish Facebook posts as protected under the National Labor Relations Act, and may discourage employers from basing personnel decisions on social media behavior in the future.
JD Supra reports on the case:
The case stemmed from a message that an employee of a nonprofit organization posted on Facebook outside of work hours. After Lydia Cruz-Moore told Marianna Cole-Rivera that she planned to discuss her concerns about employee performance with the Executive Director of Hispanics United of Buffalo,
» Read more about: NLRB Likes Facebook Defense of Fired Workers »
» Read more about: You Can’t Always Get What You Want: Post-Cliff Reactions »