Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

Who Is The Jordan Peterson of Animals?

What do animals make of human behavior?

Why We Always Cover Union Fights From the Perspective of Workers, Not Bosses

This month marks the 10th birthday of our continuing labor reporting project, Working In These Times. While In These Times has long been a champion of the union movement, WITT stepped it up with daily reporting at InTheseTimes.com. Our Golden Rule: Report from the perspective of workers, not bosses.

Reviewing some of the more than 4,500 stories, I am struck by the workers we’ve met. There’s former turkey plant worker Esmundo Juarez Carranza, fired for taking a bathroom break. “They treated us worse than animals,” he says.

There’s Samantha Rodriguez, who reported sexual harassment to her boss at a Walmart warehouse, only to have him ask her out. She says: “I pride myself on being an independent woman. I do remodeling, I hang drywall, I put in floors. ... I went to warehouses because I like doing that kind of work. Now, I won’t step foot in a warehouse. I refuse to.”

There’s YMCA worker Linda Aguilar, who says: “The Y claims they want to ‘disrupt the cycle of poverty.’ But it’s not lost on me that they’re employing mostly Black and Brown women, and they’re paying them poverty wages.”

There’s Fight for $15 leader Douglas Hunter, a single father and $9.25-an-hour McDonald’s worker: “Many people thought we were crazy two years ago when we walked off our jobs in New York and demanded $15 an hour. They don’t think we’re crazy now.”

Corporate America has spent 50 years turning a weak labor law regime even more to its advantage. Democrats have done little to stop them, while Republicans cheer them on. U.S. union density has declined from 20.1% in 1983 to 10.5% today. That means 90% of workers are at the mer- cy of their bosses. Most can be fired at will.

Our original labor reporter, David Moberg, never one to be a Pollyanna, said organized labor was “stuck, but stirring” in 1976. In 2015, he wrote a piece titled, “Saving Labor’s Sinking Ship.”

But in reading the past 10 years of reporting, I see workers taking up the oars. 

I became Working In These Times’ editor in 2012, a complete novice to the beat. (When reporter Bruce Vail talked about “the Fed,” I thought he meant the Federal Reserve, not the AFL-CIO.) Labor was riven by turf battles, like the notorious inter-union “nurse wars” in California. The innovative energy was in workers’ centers, which represented those hindered from unionizing by law: domestic workers, warehouse workers, restaurant workers, car-wash workers. The Chicago teachers were just about to walk out and the public launch of Fight for $15 was still four months away.

I never would have guessed that fast-food workers would make $15 a basic demand or that teachers in a dozen states would follow Chicago and walk out, not to mention that National Domestic Workers Alliance Director Ai-jen Poo would be Meryl Streep’s 2018 Golden Globes date.

Little of this activity, however, has increased union density, and the Supreme Court’s 2018 Janus decision chips away at public-sector unions, organized labor’s last bastion.

Perhaps we should instead focus on union propensity—the fighting union spirit, as old-school labor folks might say. WITT proves that spirit alive and well. A growing strike wave indicates a stirring. As the singer-organizer Joe Hill put it:

If the workers take a notion, they can stop all speeding trains / Every ship upon the ocean, they can tie with mighty chains / Every wheel in the creation, every mine and every mill / Fleets and armies of the nations, will at their command stand still.

David Moberg, forgive me, but I’ll say it: The labor movement is on the move. We look forward to introducing our readers to the workers who power it in the years to come.

The Answer To Burn Out At Work Isn’t “Self-Care”—It’s Unionizing

It’s Monday morning and your alarm goes off. As you wake up, the dread of going to work creeps in. You’re feeling exhausted, stressed out, underpaid and underappreciated. It's a mindset you can’t shake, and no amount of coffee will fix: You have workplace burnout.

Compost key to sequestering carbon in the soil

In a 19-year study, scientists dug roughly 6 feet down to compare soil carbon changes in different cropping systems. They found that compost is a key to storing carbon, a strategy for offsetting carbon dioxide emissions.

A society's cultural practices shape the structure of its social networks

Biologists used mathematical models to show that societies that favor generalists, who have a wide range of skills, are less well-connected than those societies that favor specialists, who are highly skilled at a smaller number of traits. The findings have implications for improving information flow and problem-solving in settings from business to academia.

Another reason not to use Skype

https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/14/20805801/microsoft-privacy-policy-change-humans-listen-skype-cortana-voice-recording

Could Your Newsroom Use Help With Its Most Important Work?

by Bank Phrom on Unsplash

Freedom of the Press Foundation is expanding our technical efforts, and we want to work with you—and for you. Today we're opening a Call For Projects, to hear from interested journalistic organizations or individuals that could use a few months of outside technical help on a well-defined project that furthers press freedom or protects journalists and their sources.

We are especially looking for initiatives in any of the following areas:

censorship resistance
privacy
digital security
anonymity
government transparency and accountability

We plan to spend three-month cycles working directly with newsrooms, media organizations, independent journalists, documentary filmmakers, or other groups with a journalistic focus, on projects shaped in conjunction with those teams, with feedback from select Freedom of the Press Foundation staff and members of our board.

The projects we hope to identify with this new Call for Projects could include the development of prototyping tools for communicating with sources, for working with sensitive documents, or for exercising the public's right to know. We're open to assisting with technical research and planning, or with other projects with a technical dimension that aligns with our mission: to protect, defend, and empower public-interest journalism in the 21st century.

Even if your idea is not fully formed, we want to hear from you, and we can work with you or your organization to define the scope and goals that we will work towards over a three-month production cycle. If the proposed project is beyond the scope of this cycle, we may be able to work towards a proof-of-concept or a prototype of the final idea.

Our small special projects team has launched several initiatives—projects like online backups for news archives under threat of deletion, a Twitter bot that monitors media outlets for stories that rely on public records reporting, and a tool that automates FOIA requests for FBI Files of recently deceased public figures. Previously, Freedom of the Press Foundation has also created a website that automatically tracks how dozens of news outlets have deployed security features to protect readers’ privacy.

Now we want to focus our technical expertise directly on journalists or news organizations that need it. We aim to do so by helping to bridge the gap between exciting developments in the tech world and the reporters, whistleblowers, and readers who can benefit from them.

So please, if you've got an idea for a project, fill out our short Call for Projects form by Friday, August 30, and we'll be in touch about how we can work together.

For any other questions, please reach out to special-projects@freedom.press.

Here Are Five Lies About Iran That We Need to Refute to Stop Another Illegal War

The Trump administration is lying about Iran and its nuclear program. The media has to debunk this false drumbeat for war.

The post Here Are Five Lies About Iran That We Need to Refute to Stop Another Illegal War appeared first on The Intercept.

#Microplastics ‘significantly contaminating the #air’, scientists warn | #Environment | The Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/aug/14/microplastics-found-at-profuse-levels-in-snow-from-arctic-to-alps-contamination

#Pollution #Plastics

Trump Backs Down on Chinese Tariffs

This headline probably deserves a Pulitzer prize: Wiping out America’s soybean farmers? Sure, not a problem. Increasing the price of Christmas gadgets a few percent? No can do. The political calculation here is pretty transparent. Trump figures that Midwest farmers are going to vote for him no matter what. What’s more, they can be bought […]

The Anthropocene Is a Joke https://prismo.xyz/posts/da6070d2-66ba-4a94-badd-972414566e84

A #purism community member, inspired by our #runsonlibrem5 campaign, has created their own "Ask me for any app and I will show it" https://forums.puri.sm/t/ask-me-any-app-i-will-show-it/6707 #librem5

Fracking prompts global spike in atmospheric methane, study suggests

As methane concentrations increase in the Earth's atmosphere, chemical fingerprints point to a probable source: shale oil and gas, according to new research.

Sunscreens release metals and nutrients into seawater

Beachgoers are becoming increasingly aware of the potentially harmful effects UV filters from sunscreens can have on coral and other marine organisms when the protective lotions wash off their bodies into the ocean. Now, researchers have studied how sunscreens release different compounds -- trace metals and inorganic nutrients -- into Mediterranean seawater, with unknown effects on marine ecology.

Clue: Jeffrey Epstein Edition

Was it the Clintons on the private island with the dagger? Or Trump in the White House with the candlestick?

How America Responded To This Mass Shooting Might Surprise You

(It will not surprise you.)

Air pollution can accelerate lung disease as much as a pack a day of cigarettes

Air pollution -- especially ozone air pollution which is increasing with climate change -- accelerates the progression of emphysema of the lung, according to a new study.

Arctic could be iceless in September if temps increase 2 degrees

Arctic sea ice could disappear completely through September each summer if average global temperatures increase by as little as 2 degrees, according to a new study.

If I can get 2,141 more subscribers on LBRY... I'll have the most subscribed to channel on LBRY. I just decided I want that.

Help me get there and I'll bring back #LinuxThursday. ;)

#Bribery #NotAboveIt #SanDimasHighSchoolFootballRules

https://open.lbry.com/@Lunduke#e