for lefties too stubborn to quit
Gewerkschaftler suggested this yesterday:
I suggest this blog should have a regular (weekly) slot where people can post happenings at the personal or political level that gives them hope that we’re perhaps not going to hell in a handbasket as quickly as we thought. Or as the phlegmatic Germans put it “hope dies last”.
It’s a great idea. Any contributions this week?
| banjoagbeanjoe on That talk of a Labour/Social D… | |
| roddy on What you want to say – 17th Ap… | |
| tomasoflatharta on What you want to say – 17th Ap… | |
| sonofstan on What you want to say – 17th Ap… | |
| tomasoflatharta on What you want to say – 17th Ap… | |
| ‘Killed for not spea… on ‘Killed for not speaking… | |
| WorldbyStorm on ‘Killed for not speaking… | |
| Tomboktu on ‘Killed for not speaking… | |
| raymonddeane on News platform? | |
| WorldbyStorm on Spirit of Revolution: Ireland… | |
| sonofstan on A stick? | |
| sonofstan on Spirit of Revolution: Ireland… | |
| Tomboktu on What you want to say – 17th Ap… | |
| WorldbyStorm on A stick? | |
| banjoagbeanjoe on A stick? |
worldbystorm2014ATgmailDOTcom
The Cedar Lounge Revolution
Further Education unions in Scotland have won restoration of a national contract, with uniform pay across the country, meaning a 33% pay rise for the lowest paid.
http://uniteresist.org/2016/03/eis-scotland-colleges-strikes-how-we-won-on-all-key-demands/
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Fantastic news.
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Ireland violates women’s human rights by preventing access to abortion according toUN human rights committee.
A step forward. It’ll be good to watch the Fg/ff semi government squirm on that one!
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Yeah, that’s a good one.
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The difference with this one is that it was an individual case (“communication” and “views” in UN-speak).
The UN human rights treaty bodies have been pretty clear before now. Here’s the recommendation in 2014 from the same body, on our compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (source PDF here):
Here is the body charged with assessing our compliance with the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, in 2015 (source PDF here):
Here’s what the body charged with assessing our compliance with the Convention on the Rights of the Child said in 2016 (the source PDF is here):
Next year we get examined under the Convention for the Elimination of All forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). I wonder if we will have changed the law by then or will there be another finding that we’re breaching human rights law.
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Very informative – thanks Tombuktu.
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I thought the LUAS outcome was overall quite positive. Establishing that money is available for pay rises, that those pay demands aren’t unreasonable and that strong union activity can work.
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Well it’s a glass half full one, but it’s summer and the second level teachers are enjoying their well deserved 3month holiday, most of them on full pay. Thankfully they haven’t been casualised into precarity yet at any rate. As Mrs LATC is one of said teachers I’m also enjoying the more relaxed summer regime.
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Someone should write an ode to the phrase “Contract of Indefinite Duration”. Since she got hers two years ago, Ms Nightdub no longer has to spend all of July under house arrest correcting Leaving Cert papers for the sake of the measerly few bob the piece rate offers. Watching her unwind into the summer is great.
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CID’s are great. My only gripe was that where I had one (I had to give it up for various reasons in the end) it was used pretty much as a block on further progress. So it depends on the place and – perhaps as always – the bosses one has.
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Similar in my own house , although my wife is doing some work as the exam co-ordinator in her school but has split the job with another lady so it’s not every day. I’ve even come home a few times to find a dinner waiting for me 🙂 ..I normally do the cooking.
My 16 year old son is off and much to my daughters dismay he is collecting her from school for June!
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Would this be an appropriate area to enthuse about books, music, film etc. that we’ve enjoyed, learned from, or that steady our nerve for the struggles that are always ahead?
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I keep making people read and watch Strumpet City …
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i’m enjoying the film.Still have to see the last 5 or 6 episodes Read the book in the past
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I have a framed poster of the cover of “London Calling” in the living room. Just to keep me grounded.
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So, assuming it’s the affirmative with regard to my suggestion up there, I’d like to recommend, though to whom I’m not sure since EC appears to have vanished, John Corbett’s book ‘A Listeners Guide to Free Improvisation’
Completely jargon free, and dedicated to demystifying what is, in essence the simplest music in the world, but often the most difficult to get in the zone with, Corbett expalins how to listen.
Free improvisation is not by any means the only kind of music I listen to, and it’s not my favourite recorded genre, but nothing beats it live, at least when it works. It’s like watching revolutionary praxis happen in front of your eyes and ears. It’s also, by a long shot, the most international and least hegemonic type of music practice I know; while certain towns have a concentration of practitioners – London, Amsterdam, Oslo, Chicago – they don’t get to decide how it’s done the way London gets to dictate Grime, Atlanta Trap, and SiCo the charts. It also does that difficult thing of being democratic without grinding to occupy -type stasis; you get to speak, but you are required by the forms of social organsation to have something to say and the ability to say it.
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Sorry yeah definitely the place to enthuse. That’s a great steer on a part of music I’ve only the haziest acquaintance with
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Check – improvisation is not consistent with recording. And when you hear a really good outfit live it’s like nothing else.
Most music colleges include it as an option / sometimes compulsory I believe. Of course until the 19th century practically every musician was expected to be able to improvise within the rules of the agreed structures / genres / traditions.
And yes, it does prefigure the kind of open social improvisation that will part of the ‘solution’ we so badly require.
Not sure if I’ll ever get to read the book, though.
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And if we’re enthusing about poetry and music to steady us for what lies ahead, Autumn Journal:
and Qualcuno era comunista:
https://paraffinalia.wordpress.com/2013/05/19/some-of-us-were-communists-because/
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Well. The big son is in discussions with a publisher to publish a book of poems – not the first time but he thinks this is for real. The daughter just qualified. And the small son has started the Leaving and all is well so far.
Is this too much like Facebook blowing?
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‘we were very lucky to have the chance to….’
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Podemos Unidos second in the polls in the Spanish elections.
Whatever you may think of Podemos the power of the corrupt Spanish political duopoly is waning. Sound’s familiar?
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Lithuanian migrant workers in UK have won their civil case for compensation against a viciously exploitative firm of gangmasters:
http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2016/jun/10/court-finds-uk-gangmaster-liable-for-modern-slavery-victims-kent-chicken-catching-eggs?CMP=share_btn_tw
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Seeing SF and FG compete on who will get a bill to ban onshore hydrocarbon through the dail first is good as it is something us antifrackers in Leitrim/Roscommon have been working towards for years. SF footdragging with regard to doing anything to stop the drilling of dubious legality presently happening on the edge of woodburn reservoir in antrim is not so good.
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HYDROCARBON EXPLORATION AND EXTRACTION
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