HippoBLOGamus

For many Americans, Labor Day must seem like a cruel joke. The opportunities for work have evaporated, and the 9.6 percent unemployment rate doesn’t tell the whole story. It doesn’t count the millions who have dropped out of the labor market, or who fill in as temporary, or even day laborers. Millions of people are hurting, and they don’t really need the day off.

In tabling the climate bill, the Senate is putting off the inevitable, which will loom ever more perilously the longer we wait.

I really dislike jellyfish. I love snorkeling, want to start scuba diving and generally love the water. The problem is, jellyfish are there, too. 

Richard Anderson is a smooth-talking cowboy from Galveston, Texas, who earned his spurs in the airline industry working with Frank Lorenzo at Continental Airlines in the 1980s. Lorenzo later fomented a bitter labor dispute and led Eastern Airlines off the cliff, one of the first victims of a reckless airline deregulation policy that has all but crippled air transportation in our nation.

It was poet and philosopher George Santayana who apparently first observed, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” It’s a message that has more relevance with each passing day of historical ignorance, and President Obama is probably the biggest offender.

As someone who has been working for several years to help the good guys battling foreclosure spread the word about where to get mortgage assistance, it has been an eye-opening experience to learn just how low mortgage scam companies will go to make a buck.

As Congress cranks up its cumbersome powers of subpoena to investigate the British Petroleum “shortcuts” in deepwater drilling that are spewing filth into the life of the Gulf, observers would be well advised to ratchet up their own powers of cynical imagination.

The Haiti earthquake was an opportunity to teach my children to see beyond their own world. And now when the calls for help have stopped, my children are keeping the story alive by asking about the people in Haiti – how are they doing and where are they living now?

What if, to be elected, you needed the majority of everyone eligible to vote – including those who sat on the sidelines and don’t vote? It would be hard to elect ANYONE under those conditions.

Nothing gets Tricom’s juices flowing better than working with creative people. Such has been the case with Delta AFA flight attendants, who provided the creative spark for a music video that flight attendants hope will galvanize their efforts to win union representation by the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA.