LAYERS OF TREACHERY IN PARADISE—or as close to Paradise as the California coast and a whole lot of money can take you—abound in this brilliant and bitingly satirical riff on both The Stepford Wives and Herodotus. B PLUS
#JustFinished jPod
I would recommend this book to anyone who has ever worked in IT. Especially, executives and managers.
Also, to anyone who has parents that are incompetent mosters (Incompemonsters TM) and need YOU to fix THEIR problems 😂
Today in Labor History June 16, 1869: In the small mining town of Ricamarie, France, troops opened fire on miners who were protesting the arrest of 40 workers. As a result, troops killed 14 people, including a 17-month-old girl in her mother’s arms. Furthermore, they wounded 60 others, including 10 children. This strike, and another in Aubin, along with the Paris Commune, were major inspirations for Emile Zola’s seminal work, “Germinal,” and the reason he chose to focus on revolutionary worker actions in that novel.
I need to reorganize my fiction bookshelves. What system has worked best for you? I'm leaning towards going by author, though that leaves the question of how to treat anthologies. Maybe anthologies could be first, or shelved by the editor's name. Alphabetical by title (preceded by numbers) might work just as well as by author.
I had been doing them by height size, except for the graphic novels, which tend not to match any standard size.
These particular bookshelves are all fiction (except for graphic nonfiction) so organizing by subject seems unwieldy.
Today in Labor History June 15, 1914: Westinghouse strike, Pittsburgh. The Allegheny Congenial Industrial Union (ACIU) struck against Westinghouse. They were demanding union recognition and protesting against the "scientific management" theories of Frederick Taylor. They also wanted an eight-hour day, reinstatement of fired workers, and higher overtime and holiday rates. Women played a major role in the strike and many of the striking workers were women. Bridget Kenny organized marches and recruited workers to join the ACIU and rose to become one of the main spokespeople for the union. She had been employed by Westinghouse but fired in 1913 for selling union benefit tickets on company grounds. The Pittsburgh Leader, one of the city’s newspapers and one that hired numerous women writers, including Willa Cather, nicknamed Kenny “Joan de Arc.” And the women in this strike provided some of the inspiration for the workingwomen characters in Willa Cather’s short fiction. The Westinghouse plant on Edgewood Avenue was one of three they possessed in the Pittsburgh region, and one of the main sights of strike activity. In late June, the company used armed thugs to intimidate the workers, leading to a violent exchange in which several workers, and the East Pittsburgh police chief, were injured.
AN EXTRAVAGANT, SPRAWLING PICARESQUE set in Zaire in the last years of the Mobutu regime is a symphony of voices from every walk of life, from tough street kids to the secret police to high society. Vivid and fascinating. B PLUS
Something a little different this week: after finishing Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin, I'm pivoting hard to The Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean. I didn't love Tales of the City, and I think a large part of that had to do with Maupin's narration: for me, his North Carolina accent didn't translate well to a character driven story set in 1970s San Francisco. Hoping the next book will taste better (pun intended). 😂
HIGH TECH AND HOODOO and the powers of love, art, and community are mighty weapons in this unique adventure set in a near-future dystopian Massachusetts. Rich with the Afrofuturist spirit of funk and beautiful evocations of nature. B PLUS
Vā Stories by Women of the Moana edited by Lani Wendt Young, 2021
In this book you will travel across oceans and meet diverse and deep characters in over 50 rich stories from Cook Island, Chamorro, Erub Island (Torres Strait), Fijian, Hawaiian, Māori, Ni-Vanuatu, Papua New Guinean, Rotuman, Samoan and Tongan writers.
Just finished reading #HananAlShaych's 'Women of Sand and Myrrh'. It is brilliant and a tough read. This is largely because it captures something of the way that women, but actually any human, are trapped in a kind of limbo, unable to be themselves. There is no way out in a world where everything is false. It is able to explore these metaphysical themes by starting from the very particular: exile from Lebanon to a nameless gulf state emerging into an unreal capitalist modernity from an unreal nomadic past.
Wow, what a wonderful historical mystery novel! Roberta Tracy’s Zig Zag Woman hit all the right chords for me. First, it’s an exciting, fun story, well-written, with numerous exciting twists and misdirections. And her historical research is impeccable and artfully utilized to make the characters and events pop out of the book. But what really did it for me were all the social justice themes she subtly wove into her narrative in a way that felt authentic and natural, without disrupting the flow of the story, or my immersion in it.
The setting is Los Angeles, 1910. The protagonist, Margaret Morehouse, is LAPD’s second woman officer. Alice Stebbins Wells, the department’s first female officer, had been hired earlier that same year. So, right off the bat we have a strong woman character, a trailblazer in a misogynistic world. But make no mistake, LAPD was no bastion of progressive thinking. It was a department under fire from the public for its excessive use of force and brutality, and for sexual harassment of women in its jails. Captain Clarke believed the best way to avoid further accusations was to have women officers with “unassailable reputations” be the ones to question female suspects. So, he hired Wells and Morehouse to avoid further scandal.
Margaret Morehouse is no paper cutout of a first-wave feminist. In fact, she probably wouldn’t even have described herself as one, though she does take inspiration from the work of Jane Addams. Margaret is married to a minister and is fairly strait-laced and socially conservative by today’s standards (e.g., concerned with “keeping up appearances”). Yet she is also independent and capable, with a desire for excitement and passion, which is lacking in her marriage. And she is also more than willing to bend social norms in order to achieve her goals. For example, in order to solve a murder case, she goes undercover as an actress at the famous Pantages Theatre, in spite of the dishonor it would create for a woman of her standing to dress as provocatively as she must for this job. Her husband, who is forward-thinking, gives his consent, but only if she has a male chaperone to keep an eye on her. This escort is their family servant, Cushman, whose fascinating backstory slowly unfolds over the course of the novel. Cushman’s special talents, and his discretion, become indispensable to Margaret as she carries out her investigation, which take her from Los Angeles to Chicago, and to the boom town of San Bernardino, California, and even more so when she discovers another murder mystery within in her own family.
All this is set against a backdrop of labor unrest, and the bombing of the Los Angeles Times building. In reference to contemporary media coverage of the bombing, which was universally blamed on labor activists, Cushman says, “Twenty-one people lost their lives and mark my words, no matter who is responsible, it'll be union men who pay." This was precisely what happened repeatedly throughout that era, including IWW organizers Thomas Mooney and Warren Billings, falsely convicted for San Francisco’s 1916 Preparedness Day Bombing; the anarchists falsely convicted for the 1886 Haymarket Bombing; and Western Federation of Miners organizer Big Bill Haywood, who was falsely accused of assassinating former Idaho governor Frank Steunenberg in 1905.
Overall, Roberta Tracy’s Zig Zag Woman is a gem. A fantastic first novel. I can’t wait to see what comes next!
Today in Labor History June 8, 1917: The Granite Mountain/Spectacular Mine disaster killed 168 men in Butte, Montana. It was the deadliest underground mine disaster in U.S. history. Within days, men were walking out of the copper mines all over Butte in protest of the dangerous working conditions. Two weeks later, organizers had created a new union, the Metal Mine Workers’ Union. They immediately petitioned Anaconda, the largest of the mine companies, for union recognition, wage increases and better safety conditions. By the end of June, electricians, boilermakers, blacksmiths and other metal tradesmen had walked off the job in solidarity.
Frank Little, a Cherokee miner and member of the IWW, went to Butte during this strike to help organize the miners. Little had previously helped organize oil workers, timber workers and migrant farm workers in California. He had participated in free speech fights in Missoula, Spokane and Fresno, and helped pioneer many of the passive resistance techniques later used by the Civil Rights movement. He was also an anti-war activist, calling U.S. soldiers “Uncle Sam’s scabs in uniforms.” On August 1, 1917, vigilantes broke into the boarding house where he was staying. They dragged him through the streets while tied to the back of a car and then hanged him from a railroad trestle.
Author Dashiell Hammett had been working in Butte at the time as a striker breaker for the Pinkerton Detective Agency. They had tried to get him to murder Little, offering him $5,000, but he refused. He later wrote about the experience in his novel, “Red Harvest.” It supposedly haunted him throughout his life that anyone would think he would do such a thing.
@judgedread , the GAYFAG HOMOQUEER
vs. @CSB , the ASSMAD TROON CANCERRAT
This is a FULL 48 HOUR MATCH lasting the entire weekend!
Introduction to Judge Dread:
"Is self explanatory. Boomer ex-cop, atheist, GOP armchair analyst, and his life revolves around consooming. He spends all day posting "woke Disney is so bad" type essays. Nigga. Who the fuck cares. He once spent 3 days filling the timeline with a series of essays on how he would "fix" the Disneyland Starwars Galaxy's Edge rides. And he thinks he's smart for doing this. Mega cringe!" - @lonestarr
This is the man who inspired the tournament! Yes, CMD looked at Judge Dread and said "I believe that a fair, open, and honest democratic system would call Judge Dread the biggest faggot on fedi," and that is why you are reading this today.
Judge Dread is basically the posterboy for "Gab refugee who cannot and will not assimilate to fedi culture properly." His utterly trash opinions range from "Gab is more important than church history," "I think 'Team A' and 'Team B' are excellent descriptive names for groups of people," and "here is an essay about Disney and why it matters." If you're here, you're probably blocked by him for disagreeing with at least one of these takes.
What has he done to push himself all the way into the final match of the faggot tourney? When he came over to fedi, he brought with him a group of the most obnoxious pieces of shit, started blocking everyone who mildly disagreed with him, and then used his followers to screech at everyone he has any mild disagreement with! Of course, on the anime-loving, Disney-hating, majority-Christian poast, that ended up being a lot of people!
If he'd just up and blocked everyone at once, then he'd be in his own echo chamber and things would be fine. However, that's not what he did: he makes a point of blocking someone new most days, then bragging about being a thin-skinned blockfag. We have the following hellthread most days:
Poastie A:"Why was I blocked by Judge Dread?"
Poastie B:"He's a thin-skinned faggot, you probably just disagreed with him about something."
Gablin A:"YOU are just SAD because you didn't follow the secret JUDGE DREAD RULES OF ENGAGEMENT and are now BLOCKED BY THE WONDERFUL JUDGE DREAD."
Poastie A: :aniwhat:
Gablin B: "LMAO look at this SAD guy COMPLAINING INTENSELY about being BLOCKED."
Gablin C: "HAHA HE ASKED WHY HE WAS BLOCKED. Obviously Dread is free to block whoever he wants and blocking everyone but mods is beyond criticism no matter what."
Other Fedi A: "Wow you dread fans are massive fags."
Other Fedi B: "Lmao what a bunch of thin-skinned losers."
Gablins: Quote Repost the thread 20 times
He's tried to distance himself from this tournament - a wise choice, but not one that's helped him out in the slightest! His opponents so far have been:
-The tournament organizer himself!
-PonyPanda, a man notorious for posting nigger dicks for several hours straight!
-Tomato, another notorious homosexual known for wanting to fuck trannies!
That's right, Judge Dread is gayer than nigger dicks, trannies, and...even OP! Dread's faggotry is so intense that it shatters iron-clad internet rules, what an incredible and unbearable faggot!
Introduction to CSB:
"The punching bag of NAS" - @dj
"he literally likes drawing crude gross man ass." - @leyonhjelm
"I will concede that he may just be bad at drawing" - @leyonhjelm after having been asked to prove the above.
"NAS rules state that it is MANDATORY that at every opportunity...remind CSB that he is a fucktard, faggot, cunt, jew (preferably dirty) or other slur..." - @fuknukl
CSB, what have you done? You were under the radar completely at the start of this tournament, and your repeated insistance to be removed from it and constant threats to block people who vote for you and intense lockfaggotry have propelled you to the finals!
You have managed to show yourself to be a bigger faggot than:
-Every third tranny on the internet
-A groomer tranny who shoves dead possums up their ass to masturbate and hangs out with pedophiles - one whose poor behavior has got them kicked off of 109 instances!
-A beloved rat who was genuinely trying to win as a joke
THAT is what you have been a greater faggot than, despite having every advantage possible to get yourself out of this tournament early! At every single junction, the tournament organizer wanted you to lose: your faggotry has forced his hand each and every time. You rallied up NAS hard enough that they put you past Paulo. You went into the thread and pissed off so many people that your actions caused you to beat Maija. You carried this momentum into the match with Ratposter, who was actively trying to win by posting the gayest things he could think of in the thread. That is right - you are gayer than what someone imagines to be the gayest thing they can post.
Well, this time you're up against the guy that the tournament organizer made the tournament to mock. CSB, winning this would be a major feat of faggotry - and you will have only yourself to blame. Can you please shut the actual fuck up for long enough that CMD can convince people to vote for Dread? Look, NAS is even pulling a punch here: I gave them a shot to write this chunk of this post, and they apparently decided that you're such a giant faggot that they can let someone sympathetic to you write it. Just go away from the internet for a weekend, please. dread_vs_csb.png dread_2.PNG dread_3.PNG dread_1.png dread_4.PNG csb_2.png csb_3.png csb_1.png
THE WORLD OF 1950s BOMBAY comes alive in this story of twin sisters trying to follow their own dreams and meet the expectations of their very proper Punjabi family, still unsettled by the violence of Partition. Lovely, rich saga. A MINUS
Today in Labor History June 7, 1929: Striking textile workers battled police in Gastonia, North Carolina, during the Loray Mill Strike. Police Chief O.F. Aderholt was accidentally killed by one of his own officers during a protest march by striking workers. Nevertheless, the authorities arrested six strike leaders. They were all convicted of “conspiracy to murder.”
The strike lasted from April 1 to September 14. It started in response to the “stretch-out” system, where bosses doubled the spinners’ and weavers’ work, while simultaneously lowering their wages. When the women went on strike, the bosses evicted them from their company homes. Masked vigilantes destroyed the union’s headquarters. The NTWU set up a tent city for the workers, with armed guards to protect them from the vigilantes.
One of the main organizers was a poor white woman named Ella May Wiggans. She was a single mother, with nine kids. Rather than living in the tent city, she chose to live in the African American hamlet known as Stumptown. She was instrumental in creating solidarity between black and white workers and rallying them with her music. Some of her songs from the strike were “Mill Mother’s Lament,” and “Big Fat Boss and the Workers.” Her music was later covered by Pete Seeger and Woodie Guthrie, who called her the “pioneer of the protest ballad.” During the strike, vigilantes shot her in the chest. She survived, but later died of whooping cough due to poverty and inadequate medical care.
For really wonderful fictionalized accounts of this strike, read “The Last Ballad,” by Wiley Cash (2017) and “Strike!” by Mary Heaton Vorse (1930).
Today in Labor History June 7, 1896: Anarchists supposedly set off a bomb during a Corpus Christi parade in Barcelona, Spain. As a result, a dozen people died and thirty were wounded. No one knows who actually set off the bomb, but the government blamed anarchists, who had set off numerous bombs over the previous four years. Consequently, the government went on a witch-hunt, arresting and torturing dozens of anarchists in the infamous Montjuich Prison. However, many leading anarchists denied the accusations and said they would never have set off a deadly bomb in a working-class community like this. They reserved their attacks for members of the ruling class. Nevertheless, the government tried and executed five anarchists, all of whom proclaimed their innocence. They sentenced 67 others to life in prison. Worldwide protests erupted in response. Montjuich Prison was graphically depicted in the opening scene Victor Serge’s epic novel, Birth of Our Power, which he wrote while imprisoned in the Soviet Union for his opposition to Stalin.