I am homesick.

I just made oatmeal for breakfast. I accidentally put cumin in it instead of cinnamon. I only noticed after I mixed it in. I ate it, it was gross.

For those who will attend the protest against the Israeli attack of Gaza on Monday, January 5th, from 4:30-6, please make sure the media is contacted. I have sent an email to KIII, KRIS, and KZTV. I will call them tomorrow. I suggest that we have several people do this, even if you cannot attend the protest.

KIII NEWS
news@kiiitv.com
361-855-6397

KRIS NEWS
newsroom@kristv.com
361-886-6100

KZTV NEWS
crystal.george@kztv10.com
jennifer.lira@kztv10.com
myra.arthur@kztv10.com
ben.gegenheimer@kztv10.com
scylla.visperas@kztv10.com
(any one of these should do)
361-883-7070

Solidarity,
Michael

Alright I got a new phone and I need numbers. My phone number is the same. So, call/text me, or reply to this entry. Comments are screened. Go!

By todd

October 31, 2008 10:13 AM | Link to this

No big loss there. Austin will actually save money if the buses stay parked. CapMetro is just glorified jobs program. Dissolve CapMetro and give us our 1% sales tax back.

By REM41

October 31, 2008 10:17 AM | Link to this

A look into the future. Strong support and legislation for the unions will lead to strikes and further surpression of the economy.

By Dan

October 31, 2008 10:25 AM | Link to this

No surprise that they didn’t set the strike for Election Day Tuesday. They don’t want to hurt any chances that the favorite political party of unions gets hurt.

By wayne

October 31, 2008 10:26 AM | Link to this

great capmetro, genius organization. raise the fares as much as 80% for monthly pass…more buses are late than ever i hear and experience…you have drivers with attitudes… and you change up long established routes. now a strike too….keep ‘em coming. great management.

By chuck

October 31, 2008 10:34 AM | Link to this

This is incredible. At a time when people across the country are losing jobs, and taking paycuts — and soon even here in Austin, ATU rejects an extremely fair and reasonable offer. Shame on you Mr. Wyatt. This is NOT about union busting. It’s about misguided union leadership trying to bust a transit agency. Union leaders apprently have no clue about their role in preserving the economic health and vitality of the very institution that provides union members a great living.

By Non Cents

October 31, 2008 10:43 AM | Link to this

Very considerate of the UNION to disreguard the riders who they serve.

By hunt

October 31, 2008 10:47 AM | Link to this

CapMetro is an ill organized and poorly run organization. Disband the company. If the employees go on strike, replace them with people who want to work. Let the Capmetro employees find other jobs. Unions have a history of taking advantage of the public. DO NOT ALLOW THE UNION TO RUN OUR CITY!!!!!

By Bill Ball

October 31, 2008 11:12 AM | Link to this

Who cares what the bus drivers do?! Fire ‘em all. Who exactly is going to notice? And then fire all their bosses and start over … How does Das Capital Metro get away with ignoring the voters wishes?!!! This has to be the only large city where a city manager lets a rogue department full to the rim with uneducated minorities control spending money the way they want to instead of answering to their boss. Obviously, the city manager has opted for manipulation by sucking up to the workers.

By Rick

October 31, 2008 11:13 AM | Link to this

Poor babies didn’t get a raise. Hey quick question if your union finally decides on a fair extortion rate how much of that will go to union dues. Austion should bite the bullet and close down this service and restart it with NO UNION. Unions are old fashioned and can not help our business’ and the economy. Poor babies!!!

By 78704blogger

October 31, 2008 11:15 AM | Link to this

The colapse of a bus system because of one person’s arrogance.

By Nobama

October 31, 2008 11:19 AM | Link to this

Here’s a clue:

If you don’t like the pay and benefits of being a bus driver, do something else.

By dennisl59

October 31, 2008 11:26 AM | Link to this

OK, so if they go on strike,(and all are fired and should be) will there be job openings for Bus Drivers? I need a job, so where do I apply?

By Robin

October 31, 2008 11:48 AM | Link to this

Frankly, everybody who wants a $20/hour job with at least some health care coverage should apply if the bus driver positions are going to be open.

The sooner we have the buses up and running effectively the better for all Austinites and our visitors!

The mere fact that they had to remember that election day was upcoming is again another stall in this oft-bandied-about strike:”Maybe the strike will happen and maybe it won’t”.

Also depending on these guys, I know that an actual union, with an actual work ethic mentality WOULD have called it irrespective of the ‘special event’ occuring throughout the city.

That is actually if Capital Metro drivers were really ‘oppressed’ for recieving their $20/hour wage with health care benefits…right?

By HelYa

October 31, 2008 11:57 AM | Link to this

How on earth did a union get into Capital Metro anyway? I thought Texas was an “at will” State? I guess that only counts when you don’t work for the government. If you are a government employee for some reason this entitles you to be an overpaid loser with an attitude and inconvenience people who are trying to make a better life for themselves than you have.

By mo

October 31, 2008 12:02 PM | Link to this

Well we can all tell that JR hopes to benefit by striking. To speak of how it worked well before Gilliam went to Cap Metro only indicates that others didn’t care. Twenty years ago with limited routes and a 1% sales tax, perhaps giving in to the union wasn’t a problem. Driving a wedge to a bigger paycheck will only prove a disservice to the passengers. It will lead to fewer buses, fewer drivers (yes that bigger paycheck could also be your last), fewer routes, less maintenance on buses, etc. In the long run that only shrinks the bus system….

The one who stands to lose the most is Wyatt who lines his pockets off the union membership. He does not drive a bus, but he makes a lot of money off those who are the ones who actually drive buses.

What do you think your dues pay for? He has also spent a lot of money on lawyers. You didn’t think he goes to the negotiations table…he sends lawyers to do it for him. Here’s a novel idea…quit the union and save those $$…it will be like an instant raise!

--------

There were 2 or 3 positive/ambivalent comments.

The strike begins November 5th. Don't cross the line.

Registration for Spring 09 was today. I think I'm only going to take 12 hours, possibly making my last semester of college the least hectic since my first (I took 13 hours then, but all the classes were easy. I've taken 15 or 16 hours/semester since). I also did my very best to avoid classes earlier than 10 in the morning or classes that had a significant writing component (such classes are marked with a "W" on the course catalogue). Winding down is awesome.

I'm registered for the following:

Social Change in Developing Nations
This course examines social change broadly defined. In the first part of the semester we study theories of economic development. We compare patterns of economic growth in contemporary developing countries to those of industrialized countries in earlier historical periods. We also consider the relation between economic development and the type of political regime. Next, we discuss theories of social movements and revolutions. We examine the origins of peasant rebellions as well as urban political movements.

The readings for the course are drawn from some of the most important works on the subject in the last several decades. We will not be using a textbook since an objective of the course is to teach students to read sociological arguments in their original form (it takes some practice to be able to read journal articles and original monographs).

Texts:
Theda Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979
Doug McAdam, Political Process and the Development of Black Insurgency, 1930-1970, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982

Social Movements
Protests and social movements are vital to public life. They are important sources of social change. This course explores why people rebel, demonstrate, riot, bomb buildings, sign petitions, organize trade unions, demand equal rights, save baby seals, block abortion clinics, and burn draft notices.

This course will track American protests and social movements from the 17th century to the present. This course surveys the history of American protests and theories trying to explain their emergence, development, and impact.

(No listed texts)

Medieval Warfare
This one semester course will examine the development of warfare between the last Roman Empire and the early modern world (c. 400-1500). It will concentrate on the lands around the Mediterranean including northern and eastern Europe.

Students will become acquainted with developments in warfare over the course of more than a millenium through the use of lectures and discussions, readings, photographs, and video. Among other things this course will examine the following topics: the collapse of the Roman military, the advent of feudalism, the rise of cavalry and its disputed connection to feudalism, infantry in medieval warfare, the birth of knighthood and chivalry, evolving Christian and Muslim views of Just War, the Crusades and Crusading orders (such as Knights Templar), the medieval castle and the race between fortifiers and attackers, medieval arms and armor, the influence of improved missile weapons on medieval warfare, the gunpowder revolution of the later Middle Ages.

Texts:
Charles Oman, The Art of War in the Middle Ages.

England in the 19th Century

This lecture course surveys the political, social, economic, and intellectual history of Great Britain over the course of the "long nineteenth century" spanning from the beginning of the French Revolution in 1789 to the outbreak of the First World War in 1914. The central theme of this survey is the rise of Britain as the preeminent political and economic global power in the aftermath of the Napoleonic wars and its decline and fall amidst the Great Power rivalry, world warfare, and economic crises of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The course charts the impact of the European "dual revolutions" (the French and the Industrial) on British politics and society, the rise of mass democracy and industrial capitalism, the formation of a class society, the creation of a global economy, and the acquisition of the largest empire in world history. As such, the lectures place British history firmly within its European and global contexts.

The major topics covered include the impact of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars; the Industrial Revolution, the rise of the factory system, and class formation; parliamentary reform, party politics, and extra-parliamentary radicalism; the Union with Ireland in 1808; the abolition of slavery; urbanization and the transformation of the environment; Romanticism as a cultural movement; evangelism and secularization; liberalism and utilitarianism; Victorian family life and civil society; criminality and the rise of the police; Chartism and trade unionism; Britain's role in the revolutions of 1848; imperial expansion in Africa and Asia; the formation of the world market; the Great Rebellion of 1857 and the British Indian empire; the economic crisis of the 1840s and 1870s; Social Darwinism, racism, and the new imperialism of the late nineteenth century; the rise of Indian nationalism; socialism and feminism; and Great Power rivalry and the outbreak of the First World War.

Texts:
Eric J. Evans, The Forging of the Modern State: Early Industrial Britain, 1783-1870
Colin Matthew, ed., The Nineteenth Century, 1815-1901 (Short Oxford History of the British Isles)
E.P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class
Jan Goldstein and John W. Boyer, University of Chicago Readings in Western Civilization, Vol. 8: Nineteenth-Century Europe: Liberalism and Its Critics
Marilyn Butler, ed., Burke, Paine, Godwin, and the Revolution Controversy (Cambridge English Prose Texts)
Thomas Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population
Friedrich Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in England
Charles Dickens, Hard Times
John Stuart Mill, On Liberty and the Subjection of Women
Matthew Arnold, Culture and Anarchy
Rudyard Kipling, War Stories and Poems

------------

I'm considering a class on 20th century Eastern Europe instead of the class on England. I'm not sure yet though.

I take the GRE tomorrow. I am yet to write any statements of purpose, get any letters of recommendation, or construct a writing sample (or even begin the research for the writing sample, for that matter). I quit my job so that I have time to work on all that; I've got $1000 saved up (plus the $700 or so I've got in the bank and another check on the way) that should last me to the end of the semester without much problem. If I get into either of the three schools I'm applying to, though, it'll probably be miraculous. I wouldn't be surprised if I didn't make it in, and I wouldn't really be distraught either; after the end of this semester, I will have gained field research experience, and after the end of next summer, I will probably have gained field research experience in another country. I'll also have like a year to come up with a better polished writing sample, etc, to apply again. Plus getting to chill is awesome.

hey what was today again?

Me: Man, I wish I had some more chili.

Matt: Yeah. It would be awesome if dinosaurs chased a bunch of cops into a volcano.

Peru: national strike against the Alan Garcia government

On July 9th tens of thousands of workers and peasants took to the streets in Peru as part a national strike. The strike had been called to protest against the right wing economic policies of the government of Alan García.

...

The strike was also called to protest the high cost of living and the harsh repression used by the government and the authorities against a whole series of mass movements that have rocked the country in the last few months.

--------------

Venezuelan Recycling Workers Struggle for Justice

“Once they got their wages, [the workers] occupied the installations and demanded that the company go, then they occupied the offices and demanded that the administration of Sincreba [Merida Waste Incineration and Recycling System] retire,"

...

The workers protested, declared the sacking of Vielma’s board of directors and took over the plant on September 22, 2007. The plant was run under workers’ management for two weeks.

“Everyone earned the same, including the leaders, and they invested money to fix the trucks and machinery that had been abandoned and damaged by the company. In the first week, sorting was manual, by hand, as the machines were damaged. By the second week they had managed to get the machines to work at 50% capacity”, Rodriguez said.

...

Rodriguez argued that the PSUV is party that “has members from all the different classes”. He said that “some militants of the PSUV have supported the struggle as individuals”. The mayors, he claimed, are “just wearing red t-shirts”.

--------------

Sprinkler fitters' strike ends with contract approval

(followed up from Strike shuts down Seattle building sites)

A strike by workers who install fire sprinklers ended Friday after they approved a contract that includes a wage increase and improved health benefits.

...

The contract includes a wage raise of $13.05 per hour, spread out over three years. The first increase, of $2, will be backdated to July 1, he said. Union members also will receive better health benefits, including lower deductibles and fewer out-of-pocket expenses, Dahl said.

--------------

From wildcat strikes to general strike: how Belgium is “catching up”

(I tried to find coverage of this event elsewhere to no avail. It seems like this website has a tendency to sacrifice, to some degree, accuracy in reporting in favor of presenting incendiary and inspirational content.)

A strong wave of spontaneous strikes took off in January. This was a typical offensive movement of the working class on the economic front. Literally every day there was a strike in at least one significant factory in Belgium that month. The bosses compared it to an "epidemic of wild strikes". They grumbled about the lack of respect for the "agreed and established rules of negotiations". The union leaders were being accused of having lost the credibility of their members. What the bosses are really complaining about is the growing inability of the union tops to hold back their members as they did before. The truth of the matter is that the union leaders, as well as the bosses, were completely taken by surprise by this sudden surge of strike activity.

...

Soon the economy will be affected by a slowdown. Belgium is considered to be one of the countries that are most vulnerable to the recession spreading from the USA because of its very open economy. Only Luxemburg has a more "international" economy. The main industrial associations have a gloomy perspective for economic activity over the next six months. They are predicting factory closures and sackings to start soon. The renewed working class militancy that has emerged since the beginning of the year will be put to the test by a recession. The partial successes in the economic struggles have had the effect of starting to transform a layer of the working class and have given them a new confidence. A new round of wage negotiations is scheduled for the autumn. The bosses are on the offensive and are preparing for a showdown if necessary; the working class also. In this situation new class conflict is inevitable and it will provide new opportunities for socialist ideas to spread among the workers and youth.

--------------

The going rate of exploitation

(From the blog Lenin's Tomb by marxist Richard Seymour, which everyone can [and should] read via LJ syndicated feed)

Found on the Marxmail mailing list, this little beauty from the Irish Times. It tells us that the average Irish worker produces 48,500 euros of profit per year for the owners. These figures were produced by the Unite union to disprove the idea that profits for Irish capitalists are somehow 'too low' or being squeezed by unjustifiably higher wages. Actually, it suggests an extraordinary rate of exploitation.

...

Where to begin? With the fact that for every 2.5 euros of value produced by an Irish worker, the capitalists get to keep 1.5, just because they own the means of production? Or with the fact that the rate of exploitation has clearly risen quite dramatically, and Irish capitalists are complaining about this state of affairs? "No fair! Every increase in value produced should go to us exclusively, not those greedy bloody workers!" It is just this core aspect of production that should be borne in mind when you read statistics about inequality, usually couched in moralistic terms or those of social cohesion. Growing inequality is a state of affairs produced by class struggle, by capital's endeavour for more profit in particular. It is a social injustice rooted in the system, not a deviation from it.

--------------

Good websites:

www.socialistworker.org
www.mrzine.monthlyreview.org
www.isreview.org
www.marxist.com
www.labornotes.org (several US updates here which I didn't mention in this post)
www.venezuelanalysis.com

Instead of:

Race, Culture, and Migration

This course is focused on mobility, with immigration being only one such form of movement. We will examine the notion of 'mobility' by exploring historical and contemporary movements of people, capital and ideas. We will review theoretical developments in the sociological study of 'race', examine processes of racialization and cultural texts to better understand the ways in which identities are socially produced. Throughout, attention will be placed on forms of black cultural production and political action to question how such practices are shaped by migrations within the African diaspora.

I'll be taking:

Marxist Economics

Marxian economics is an analytical framework for studying the development and crises of modern capitalist societies. Within its own analytical framework it studies all the usual topics of economics: labor economics, macroeconomics, the behavior of the firm, technological change, commerce and trade and so on, at both the national and international levels. This course provides an introduction to that framework through the reading of Volume I of Karl Marx's major work: Das Kapital, and through the application of that work to the analysis of contemporary society and its crises. In this course Capital is studied primarily within the present. That is, the course is oriented toward the relevance of Marx's ideas today rather than an interpretation of the text within the mid-19th Century when it was written. This involves not only thinking the analytical categories in the present, but also extending them to new spheres of social relations which have developed since Marx wrote. Most importantly this means extending the analysis to those periods of time which workers have successfully liberated from factory and office work, but which have been subsequently colonized by capitalist relations, e.g., the time of children, of housewives and of peasants, as well as the leisure time of workers in general. We will look at how the struggle over work in the factory and office is paralleled by a struggle over work in these spheres of life, over the degree to which these periods of time can be used by people for themselves and the degree to which they find themselves reduced to the work of reproducing current class relations.

----------

I wish I had time for both, but I've been really excited to take this class since last fall, when I heard it was offered at UT.

Other than that, I'm going to try to be more active with the ISO and I'll be having to worry about applying to graduate schools, ie getting a writing sample ready and studying for/taking the GRE. On top of that, I'll still be working. This semester is going to be busy as shit. I'm not looking forward to it.

Maybe I just haven't really been paying attention, but I think this might be SW's most revealing Obama article to date:

"I will bring to the White House an unshakeable commitment to Israel's security. That starts with ensuring Israel's qualitative military advantage. I will ensure that Israel can defend itself from any threat--from Gaza to Tehran.

Defense cooperation between the United States and Israel is a model of success, and must be deepened. As president, I will implement a Memorandum of Understanding that provides $30 billion in assistance to Israel over the next decade--investments to Israel's security that will not be tied to any other nation."

http://socialistworker.org/2008/06/11/obama-the-hawk

There was just golf ball sized hail outside. It was like 85 degrees and the sun was out. What the fuck?

Finished my last final today.

Someone go out to eat with me, I'm fucking hungry.

Sociological Theory
The purpose of this course is to introduce the student to some of the more important theoretical foundations of the discipline of sociology and to current debates in modern social theory. The first part of the course covers select classical theorists. The second part provides an introduction to twentieth-century social theory and critical perspectives on the classical foundations of sociology. The third and final part presents a highly influential response to these challenges by a leading sociological theorist of our day. Throughout the course, the main topics of interest are the rise and transformation of modern society, the changing relationship between the individual and social institutions, the role of social structures and agency in social theory, the role of moral and instrumental action in agency theory, the challenge of critical theory to the social sciences, and contemporary attempts at a critical and multidimensional theory of society.

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Marx-Engels Reader, ed. Robert Tucker, Norton
Emile Durkheim, On Morality and Society, ed. Robert N. Bellah, Chicago
Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Roxbury
Georg Simmel, On Individuality and Social Forms, ed. Donald Levine, Chicago
Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents, Norton
Michel Foucault, The Foucault Reader, ed. Paul Rabinow, Pantheon
Jurgen Habermas, Jurgen Habermas on Society and Politics: A Reader, ed. Seidman, Beacon

Surveillance and Social Control
This course will provide an overview of theories in the sociology of social control, with a focus on risk, power, ethics and surveillance. We will examine historical transformations in social control and the distributions of power in U.S. and global contexts, with attention to gender, race and class. Course topics include: slavery; prisons and punishment; the gaze, voyeurism and reality television watching; the Internet; travel and state borders; privacy; biometrics and the body. Students will be encouraged to develop critical reading and analytical skills. Through the use of film (The Experiment, Enemy of the State), the Internet and other visual media, students will be challenged to better understand how surveillance practices inform modern life.

Giorgio Agamben, Sovereign Power and Bare Life, Palo Alto, CA: Standford University Press, 1998
Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks, New York: Grove Press, 1967
Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, 1979
bell hooks, Ain't I A Woman: black women and feminism, Boston: South End Press, 1981
Erica Meiners, The Right to be Hostile: Schools, Prisons and the Making of Public Enemies, New York: Routledge, 2007
Torin Mohanan, Surveillance and Security: Technological Politics and Power in Everyday Life, Edited Volume, New York: Routledge, 2006

Race, Culture, and Migration
This course is focused on mobility, with immigration being only one such form of movement. We will examine the notion of 'mobility' by exploring historical and contemporary movements of people, capital and ideas. We will review theoretical developments in the sociological study of 'race', examine processes of racialization and cultural texts to better understand the ways in which identities are socially produced. Throughout, attention will be placed on forms of black cultural production and political action to question how such practices are shaped by migrations within the African diaspora.

Les Back and John Solomos, editors, Theories of Race and Racism: A Reader, Routledge Readers in Sociology, London: Routledge, 2000
Vivien Burr, An Introduction to Social Construction, London: Routledge, 1995
Stuart Hall, editor, Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices, London: Sage Publications, 1997
Barnor Hesse, editor, Un/settled Multiculturalism: Diasporas, Entanglements, Transruptions, London: Zed Books, 2000
Kamari Maxine Clarke and Deborah A. Thomas, editors, Globalization and Race: Transformations in the Cultural Production of Blackness, Durham: Duke University Press, 2006
Katherine McKittrick, Demonic Grounds: Black Women and the Cartographies of Struggle, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2006
Michael Parenti, The Soft Cage: Surveillance in America from Slave Passes to the War on Terror, New York: Basic Books, 2003
Rinaldo Walcott, Black Like Who? Writing Black Canada, Toronto: Insomniac Press, 2003
Howard Winant, The New Politics of Race: Globalism, Difference, Justice, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2004

---------------

Then I'm also taking Spanish IV and Intro to Research Methods, the titles of which I think are pretty self-explanatory. I'm excited for the fall semester. I could have taken Sociology of Labor and Labor Movements, but the professor sent me the reading list, and it didn't really look like I'd get much from taking it. If there is a labor course offered next semester, though, I'm definitely going to take it. I was also going to take a course called Sociology of Masculinities:

Sociology of Masculinities
This course is devoted to a sociological examination of the most important debates and discussions about men's experiences of masculinity in contemporary patriarchal societies. In this course, we will examine social and individual meanings of masculinity, the dominant paradigms of masculinity that we take as the norm, and the problems, contradictions and paradoxes men experience in modern society. We will examine these themes while looking at the social and cultural dynamics shaped by class, race/ethnicity, sexuality, age, and culture in a variety of social contexts and arrangements. Although we will study men representing the diverse cultural groups in the United States, we will pay special attention to the experiences of Latino men. We will examine the privileges as well as the costs of rigid expressions of masculinity. In our discussions we will explore avenues for social justice and change.

It was cancelled, though, so I took the Race, Culture, and Migration class instead, which looks like it might actually be more interesting for me.

school school school