Take Action against National Restaurant Association

The Mafia, in another form…

Tuesday, May 13, 2014
CONTACT: Nikolina Lazic, nikolina@prwatch.org

TAKE ACTION! TELL CONGRESS TO REJECT THE NRA’S WAGE-CRUSHING AGENDA
   
The National Restaurant Association or the “Other NRA” is a lobbing powerhouse doing the dirty work of many Fortune 500 restaurant corporations like McDonald’s, Darden, and Taco Bell.

NRA is a leader in the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) where it has pushed a measure to ban paid leave ordinances at the local level. (they don’t want to give those restaurant workers a day off when they have the flu!) It is a leading opponent of raising the minimum wage in states, helping Oklahoma’s governor ban local paid sick days and minimum wage hikes in one fell swoop! Plus, the NRA has successfully kept the tipped minimum wage at $2.13 since 1991!

Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist, Mark Fiore, takes the Other NRA’s corporate agenda of profits over people to task in his new video, check it at: https://www.youtube.com/embed/hr_crQuzWL4 and then take action below!

Tell your elected officials that you find the NRA’s wage-crushing agenda hard to stomach! http://org2.salsalabs.com/o/7326/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=17255

Take action at: http://org2.salsalabs.com/o/7326/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=17255

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CONTACT CMD:

Center for Media and Democracy
409 East Main Street, Suite 100
Madison, Wisconsin 53703-4929
Phone: 608-260-9713
Email: editor@prwatch.org

DONATE: https://org.salsalabs.com/o/632/p/salsa/donation/common/public/?donate_page_KEY=9668

SUBSCRIBE TO THE SPIN: http://www.prwatch.org/sub

Diet and Health, via Weston Price **edited

A member of the mercury support group posted this link to the Spring Caustic Commentary on the Weston Price Foundation website.

It’s pretty informative for those who are unfamiliar with Weston Price’s work.  He was a dentist who traveled the world, observing the indigenous tribes.  He discovered that they had perfect teeth–no dental decay.  When they became industrialized, and ate a more Western diet, their dental health began to suffer.  Price also observed the changes in mouth structure–before the Western diet, the parents had bright, wide smiles….but the generations afterward had more narrow smiles and misshapened teeth by overcrowding the mouth.  And yet, Western doctors refuse to see the connection between diet and overall health and wellbeing.

**edited to add the link. Geesh.

Freedom of the Press and Democracy

David Swanson has a post up at FDL on James Risen being targeted with threats of jail time if he doesn’t reveal his sources.  Journalists have relied on sources to get information out to the pubic that they would not see otherwise.  It has been the backbone of our press.  Sunlight is the best defense against the dark ones who wish to move about without detection.  Good reporters need their sources and must have the ability to keep their identities secret.  Otherwise, they will not come forward with information that is imperative for a robust democracy.

What is happening to James Risen goes against the intentions of the First Amendment.

I hope you will sign the petition.

 


Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

~~~~~~~~

Amendment IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

From this link.

Creepy Ads and total cluelessness

The Dish posted a piece on UNICEF’s creepy ad campaign to persuade people in India to use the loo instead of defecating in the streets (I can’t comment on the video…couldn’t make past the first minute).

Hello? They don’t seem to *get* that they are not doing it from ignorance, but because, like the author says, they are poor–therefore their struggle for each day is to find food, clean water, and not die.  Having a loo in the vicinity is a luxury they cannot afford.

Why didn’t UNICEF use whatever overpaid money they put into this ad campaign and purchase some composting toilets for these folks? Or construct public restrooms near the poor?  Or, better yet, put on an ad campaign for jobs with livable wages so they could take care of themselves??

Obama High School and Affirmative Action

Fred Klonsky posted his viewpoint on Barack Obama College Preparatory School and Obama’s silence on a Supreme Court decision on Affirmative Action.

President Obama, however much I disagree with his education policies, is entitled to his opinion…whether it be for or against Affirmative Action.  I presume he is for it, but chose not to speak out at this particular decision.  I really don’t recall him speaking out on much regarding Supreme Court decisions— so because he’s black, he should speak out on this particular decision?

Perhaps I’m misinterpreting things…but this piece just struck me wrong.

As a side note~ Cabrini Green?  Really?  That was the housing project that was famously featured when former Chicago Mayor Jane Byrne *cough* moved in….the press was all over it…but what they forgot to tell people was that she wasn’t moving in as in moving all her household…but rather, she kinda sorta stayed there one night a week./snark

Or perhaps it was a few hours in the daytime./snarkier

Or perhaps she just drove past the place…on her way to her real home…./snarkiest

We need jobs, not eggs.  Funny how it’s been thirty years and not much has changed, eh?

Oh, wait…

Rahm builds an elite high school on this historical spot….not only do you not get jobs, but you get thrown out.

 

Arne Duncan is not only racist, but sexist, too

Carol Burris, a highly regarded public school principal, has a piece up exploring the degrading comments directed at opponents to Arne Duncan’s brainless education policies.

He actually states that the Governor of NY, Cuomo, is a “profile in courage”.  Bwahahahaha *snort*  Yeah, because it takes courage to make children cry from tests that are above their intellectual development level….

He dismissed parents who criticized his policies as “white suburban moms” who thought their little darlings were much smarter than they actually were….because education guru Arne said they were. Someone whom has never taught in school…methinks Arne thinks he’s smarter than he is.  Ahem.

Burris also notes the misogyny in Duncan’s comments…labeling women opponents as “hysterical” and “dramatic”.  Oh, and “noisy”, to me, equals “uppity” women.   Yep.  He must be taking his cues from Freud’s playbook, the Diagnostic Manual.

As a side note~~I found a blog on misogyny here.

And on the link for reddit creep shot, this disturbing info on the rape/violence against women culture:

The fiasco comes on the heels of a highly-publicized flap between reddit and Gawker, after Gawker journalist Adrian Chen’s investigation of an infamous user of the subreddit who went by the handle, Violentacrez. According to the The Guardian, that user “set up hundreds of sub-forums where users post links and images including bestiality, rape fantasy, under-age porn and upskirt photos.” 

Among the sections that Violentacrez created or moderated were: Chokeabitch, Niggerjailbait, Rapebait, Hitler, Jewmerica, Misogyny, and Incest

~~~~~~~~~

…created by 49-year-old computer programmer and misogynist, Michael Brutsch.

But back to Arne Duncan…what do his comments signify?  That perhaps his hatred of public education proponents, mostly women, is part of a hatred of women in general?

And “stay the course”….really?  You couldn’t think of something original besides Bushisms? Yeah, because the Bushes have done *so much* for this country and public education with No Child Left a Mind…/snarky to the extreme

Duncan keeps knocking our public school system, especially the individualistic nature of public school before NCLB or Race to the Bottom…while ignoring those folks who made phenomenal contributions to society, from those same individualistic school systems, such as Neil Armstrong, Maya Angelou, Frank Church, Paul Wellstone, Birch Bayh, Dwight Eisenhower, a great grandson of immigrants, who loved art, math, spelling, and history; Gloria Steinem, and any number of musicians who got their start in music programs that included actual instruments, that went on to get private instruction to become great musicians.  Same with artists.

If you view Duncan’s video, it is stunning that in the first minute, he talks of John being orphaned at a young age…and he had teachers –-public school teachers–who helped him along his path to become productive.  He also was a product of the public education system before NCLB could dull his creative expression, his critical thinking skills, and his own expression of his individuality.

I wonder what his public education teachers think of him trying to destroy those very things in children today with the rigidity of Common Core and Race to the Bottom…?

He mentions that the First Lady had a teacher that told her she shouldn’t aspire to Ivy League schools because it was too good for her.  That makes me sad to hear.  Is that a reason the First Lady is against public education?  I suspect that those who are against public education had bad experiences with teachers…and then project that onto all teachers.

I had some bad teachers, but for the most part, my experience with public education was good.  Yes, those experiences with bad teachers were hurtful but the ones who were encouraging when I was discouraged made up for that.  And it was an intrinsic thing, too, because I loved learning.

I guess that is where you have to be responsible for your own education…to go on even though they tell you that you can’t.  Because, believe it or not, my first class of composition in college, I had a white instructor who, when I asked her about a career as a writer, told me “don’t quit your day job.”  So, there you go…

 

 

 

Low blood sugar and anger

Okay, if you ignore the stupid methods of using voodoo dolls in this study, it does make sense.

I could have saved them the $$ spent on the study…my oldest child was getting into trouble –which usually meant picking on his sisters.  I began to notice a pattern that it almost always happened before dinner.  Aha! Low blood sugar!  So then I would give him something to eat to keep his blood sugar level–cut down on the arguments.

So, yeah…all they had to do was ask a Mom…

Update: Shanesha Taylor

I went back to look for updates on Shanesha Taylor, the mother who left her kids in a car to go to a job interview. She pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Leonard Pitts has a good piece up on her plight–the difficulties the poor face in trying to get out of poverty.  He makes some stinging observations about all the waste in Congress…and yet…they would rather deny people food and aid to get out of poverty…