Stand my ground

I think I need to end this week with Tom Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down”. Because things.

Crank up the volume.

 

 

Something soothing

If you’re having a week like mine, here’s some flowing water for you.

Ignore the drain pipe.

 

 

 

In the zone

A while ago I posted some pictures of hibiscus flowers in various colors. Someone commented later that they’d never seen white hibiscus and that resonated with me. I mean—while I have seen them, they’ve been rare.

But earlier this month I saw a white hibiscus bush that’s actually two stories tall, so they must really thrive in this area, which is plant hardiness zone 7. 

It may have started out as being cultivated, but it’s clearly taken on a mind of its own.

 

 

New to the 'hood

I have posted in the past about the brown bunny (or bunnies—I only ever see one at a time, but I don’t discount the possibility that there’s more than one) encountered around the ‘hood.

Well, here’s evidence that there are at least two:

You may not be able to tell, but this is one much smaller than my usual sightings; like, by about half size. Also, it's very good at remaining so still that I might reasonably be expected to think it was just another hosta leaf.

Well, all are welcome. (Although, tbf, I suppose I might feel a bit differently if the family were chowing down on my garden. But it's not.)

 

 

Gratitude Monday: turning a corner

The deal for the acquisition of my employer by a much larger company closes today. There’s a lot of uncertainty for the company being acquired in deals like this.

Well, to be precise—there’s a lot of uncertainty and anxiety among the people of the company being acquired. Management always tells you that the acquiring company values the people of the acquired company, but in the end, it’s a crapshoot.

I went through something like this back in 2000. It did not end well.

And, tbh, my position is particularly uncertain, as I am, ah, currently between departments. And you never know what elements of an organization will be considered surplus to requirements in the larger organization.

I’ve been thinking about this for a while, and here’s my conclusion: the gods will make their decision and whatever happens, I’ll deal with it. Perhaps not well, but it’ll be dealt with.

In the meantime, I’m grateful for the opportunity to work in this field, to fight the good fight and to contribute to the whole.

 

 

 

The love that stands the test

Well, giant cracks have appeared in the earth’s surface, the sun did not come up this morning and Queen Elizabeth II has died.

There will be very few around the world who recall a time when Elizabeth did not sit upon the throne of the United Kingdom and at the head of the Commonwealth. They were positions she inherited at age 25, and responsibilities she did not shirk until she drew her last breath yesterday at her castle in Balmoral, Scotland.

You may have gathered that I’m not a fan of empires, nor do I see much of a point to monarchies, genetics being what they are. I also wonder to what extent HM could be said to to have been a leader to Brits who were not White Christians. But in my inconsequential opinion, Elizabeth was a diligent head of state, showing up on time and hitting her marks for seven decades as a representative of Great Britain, whether it be at the opening of a new council office or a state dinner for foreign dignitaries.

Not all of this would have been pleasant—she broke bread with the likes of Idi Amin and Cadet Bonespurs (who may or may not have tried to smuggle an entire pork roast back to Air Force One under his formal attire) without breaking stride. Why, only on Tuesday she greeted both Boris Johnson and Liz Truss with civility, even though the 15 prime ministers she saw come and go during her reign got lower and lower on the animal kingdom scale with each turnover. Gotta give her marks for that.

Also, I love this story about her: 

My favourite story about the Queen… just lovely pic.twitter.com/xueTVRU7oB

— Sophy Ridge (@SophyRidgeSky) September 8, 2022

The 96-year-old monarch has finally hung up her spurs and joins her husband, probably in Windsor Castle, for some much deserved rest.

So my earworm today is “I Vow to Thee, My Country”, which was sung at her coronation in 1953. This hymn was also featured at the funerals of Princess Diana, Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher and is a regular staple of the Festival of Remembrance service held annually at Royal Albert Hall.

This video is from Thatcher’s funeral. You might want to crank up the volume; it’s worth it.

 

 

Pink skies at night

Tuesday was a fairly crappy day for me. Exacerbated because it was in the 80s and just steamy from the get-go. Steady rain in the early morning that did not cool anything off and nasty pretty much through the day.

But around 1930 I stepped outside to toss out some recycling and it was not bad, so I decided to go for a walk. And look how I was rewarded.

Even the reflection on the BMW hood was beautiful.

 

Lilies of the pond

You know what—I need something unrelievedly beautiful today; you may, too. So here are water lilies outside the ArtScience Museum in Singapore.

Social pollution

As I was taking my walk yesterday morning and saw the detritus of a complete fast food meal at the side of the road and various plastic bottles and drink cups along the W&OD Trail and the sidewalk, I said to myself, “Self—you are not in Singapore any more.”

Because Singaporeans for the most part do not litter. I think it’s partly pride in their city and respect for each other, and also partly because their government takes this kind of thing seriously.

Viz:

I did see one instance of littering, in one of the MRT stations. And it was so anomalous of course I took a photo of it.

 

Hard labor

Today being Labor Day, I’m expressing my gratitude for the benefits that organized labor has brought to the workplace. Yes, I’m talking labor unions. Without them, there’d be a whole lot more miserable employment conditions than exist even now.

There are basically only two reasons why you and I are not working in sweatshops with dangerous electrical wiring, hot and cold running vermin and no toilets—unions and litigation. (I would also have added “80-hour weeks” as one of the not-any-mores, but that’s pretty much so last century.)

Business management in companies both large and small do not provide more or less sanitary and safe conditions, ventilation and some standard of minimum wage out of the goodness of their hearts. They do it because over the past 150 years unions have fought with blood and treasure for the concept that labor is part of the value-add of both products and services; and because they’re terrified that if they screw up and get sued, juries will strip their corporate assets in punitive damages like a plague of locusts ranging across Iowa.

I’m not saying that unions haven’t become part of the problem—many of them are every bit as bloated and arrogant and greedy as corporate boards, and in fact you’d have trouble distinguishing one stance from the other across the negotiating table. And I’m also not saying that America’s propensity toward litigiousness doesn’t suck up resources, like some cosmic Jarndyce v. Jarndyce, that couldn’t have been better spent on something like, oh, curing cancer.

But it takes the kind of jackhammer represented by Big Labor and Big Lawsuits to get the attention of the heirs of the Triangle Shirtwaist Company. If you doubt this, I refer you to the history of the textile industry in America: the corporations first moved their factories from states with unions to the South (God bless right-to-work), and then—when even minimum wage became too much for them—to Mexico, India, China and other countries where there’s no concern about pesky things like sweatshop conditions, unsafe factory buildings or child labor.

And it’s not limited to schmattas, either. Twenty years ago during my sojourn in the great, cough, state of North Carolina (which is probably still electing Jesse Helms to the US Senate, corpse though he be), there was a fire in a chicken processing plant that killed 25 workers and injured 54 others. Exit doors from the factory floor had been locked, trapping the men and women in the inferno. Exactly like the Triangle Shirtwaist factory in 1911.

I’m not going to talk about the wages paid or the conditions in the factory, but the plant had never suffered a single safety inspection, so the managers weren’t troubled by having to fork out for any, you know, protections. North Carolina is a right-to-work state, and it don’t hold with no unions.

Let me also bring to your attention the decades of work by César Chávez and the United Farm Workers to bring decent wages, as well as working and living conditions, to the men, women and children who tend and harvest the food we eat. I know that I personally find it easier to swallow fruits and vegetables when I know they aren't the product of slavery-in-all-but-name.

Labor Day was made a national holiday in 1894, in the wake of the Pullman strike, which ended after President Grover Cleveland sent in federal troops to suppress the strikers. As a sop to thousands of workers who’d lost their jobs and their homes, Cleveland created a national holiday to “recognize” labor.

I find that a monumental act of condescension—declaring a holiday "for the workers", kind of like Flag Day, without any meaning behind it. It wasn’t even a paid holiday. And it was set for September to distinguish it from the international socialist/communist labor day of 1 May. But it played well with Cleveland’s corporate constituents.

So it’s incumbent upon us, in times where enormous inroads have been made in the gains unions won for us (I laugh at the notion of a 40-hour week, because no tech employer for the past 15 years has expected anything less than 60 hours per week from its salaried staff), to consider where we’d be if they hadn’t existed.

It’s nowhere I’d care to be, I assure you.

In 2022, the shakeout from the COVID-19 pandemic is still shaking out. We’ve had the Great Resignation, in which millions of workers told their employers to take their jobs and shove them. And we’re currently in the Quiet Quitting, in which more millions of workers are declining to go above and beyond their job descriptions and perform tasks for which they are not being paid—in union terms, they are working to rule. Employers cannot believe their eyes, so we don’t know how that’s going to turn out. But I’m hoping that Millennials and Gen Z are feeling the stirrings of the labor movement of their great-great-grandparents and standing up for the value they bring to the economy.

I am grateful today for the battles that labor unions fought. They didn’t always win, but they did move us forward.