Tuesday, March 30, 2004
Taking A Moment To Say "Thanks"
To Jordan Barab, who is celebrating the one year "blogiversary" of her invaluable and unique "Confined Spaces," which is dedicated to presenting news and commentary on issues of "Workplace Health & Safety," as well as "Labor and Politics."
One example: her lead post for Monday, 3/29/04, is the essence of what you need to know to understand the Workmen's Comp crises in California, and how the current Gov's prescription for what ails it is just another example of the unfailing instinct of all Republicans to screw workers. Thank you, Jordan.
Jordan also provides her own one-year anniversary looking back; well worth reading.
When's the last time you heard or read anything about Hanford Washington, site of a now defunct nuclear power plant. Jog your memory and I'm sure something will flip up about how the town, the state, and the workers themselves insisted on believing the plant was safe, except it wasn't, spectacularly wasn't. Well, Jordan will bring you up to date. I'd forgotten that it was called the Hanford Nuclear Reservation; irony lives. Well, the powers that be, in this case Federal Agencies, the private money having gotten out with its years of profits reinvested, no doubt in coal and gas, are managing to screw up the cleanup, no surprise there, but something that needs keeping track of. Thank you, Jordan.
Confined Space is one of the places in blogtopia (first coined by skippy) I visit whenever I get a bit down about how much slippage there's been in the American voter's understanding of just how mainstream liberal/left achievements are: the forty-hour week, SS, unemployment insurance, the weekend, public education, civil rights, none of which were the work of elitists, but achieved only after decades and decades of organized pressure from legions of ordinary Americans working together to make government both representative and responsive to the greatest number of the American citizenery. Jordan's blog is the continuation of that tradition, and visiting there always perks me up. Thank you Jordan.
She has a wonderful quote on her blog from I.F. Stone, who among his other honors, was recently among those whom the ever-playful crowd that hangs out at The Corner, in this case, Jonah Goldberg, viewed as having done great damage to the culture and thus deserved a posthumous "gibetting", a list which included such notable historical figures as Edward Said and Pol Pot, All Soviet Dictators, and both Norman Mailer and Gore Vidal.
The quote is in the left-hand sidebar; go read it and get inspired (no, not to commit genocide), inspired to commit citizen participation in what is still the world's greatest democracy, because of folks like Izzy Stone and Jordan Barab.
Thank you, Jordan.
UPDATE: Text Correction: Jordan Barab is not a woman, though you might have gotten that impression from the pronouns orginally used in this post. Jordan is of the male persuasion. I knew that. Really, I did. Why I used pronouns of the female persuasion is known only to my unconscious. I had just written a post I ultimately decided not to post that made reference to The Great Gatsby, a novel with a famously female, sort of, "Jordan," but that's not much of an excuse, I know. My apologies to Jordan, about whom everything else I said still stands. Thank-you, Jordan.
One example: her lead post for Monday, 3/29/04, is the essence of what you need to know to understand the Workmen's Comp crises in California, and how the current Gov's prescription for what ails it is just another example of the unfailing instinct of all Republicans to screw workers. Thank you, Jordan.
Jordan also provides her own one-year anniversary looking back; well worth reading.
When's the last time you heard or read anything about Hanford Washington, site of a now defunct nuclear power plant. Jog your memory and I'm sure something will flip up about how the town, the state, and the workers themselves insisted on believing the plant was safe, except it wasn't, spectacularly wasn't. Well, Jordan will bring you up to date. I'd forgotten that it was called the Hanford Nuclear Reservation; irony lives. Well, the powers that be, in this case Federal Agencies, the private money having gotten out with its years of profits reinvested, no doubt in coal and gas, are managing to screw up the cleanup, no surprise there, but something that needs keeping track of. Thank you, Jordan.
Confined Space is one of the places in blogtopia (first coined by skippy) I visit whenever I get a bit down about how much slippage there's been in the American voter's understanding of just how mainstream liberal/left achievements are: the forty-hour week, SS, unemployment insurance, the weekend, public education, civil rights, none of which were the work of elitists, but achieved only after decades and decades of organized pressure from legions of ordinary Americans working together to make government both representative and responsive to the greatest number of the American citizenery. Jordan's blog is the continuation of that tradition, and visiting there always perks me up. Thank you Jordan.
She has a wonderful quote on her blog from I.F. Stone, who among his other honors, was recently among those whom the ever-playful crowd that hangs out at The Corner, in this case, Jonah Goldberg, viewed as having done great damage to the culture and thus deserved a posthumous "gibetting", a list which included such notable historical figures as Edward Said and Pol Pot, All Soviet Dictators, and both Norman Mailer and Gore Vidal.
The quote is in the left-hand sidebar; go read it and get inspired (no, not to commit genocide), inspired to commit citizen participation in what is still the world's greatest democracy, because of folks like Izzy Stone and Jordan Barab.
Thank you, Jordan.
UPDATE: Text Correction: Jordan Barab is not a woman, though you might have gotten that impression from the pronouns orginally used in this post. Jordan is of the male persuasion. I knew that. Really, I did. Why I used pronouns of the female persuasion is known only to my unconscious. I had just written a post I ultimately decided not to post that made reference to The Great Gatsby, a novel with a famously female, sort of, "Jordan," but that's not much of an excuse, I know. My apologies to Jordan, about whom everything else I said still stands. Thank-you, Jordan.
