Too cute.
yo i am probably going to need a surgery and I noticed I was referred to a religious hospital by default and am not sure what to do about it. I haven't gone there yet. I don't know if I should just ignore that religiousness of it. I was kind of shocked to get a letter in the mail addressed to me with a big ol cross on the envelope.
how do you feel about hospitals (and other health care organizations) that have some tie to religion? I guess a lot of them used to be totally run by churches or whatever but have become somewhat secularized over time. now they get funding from taxes, non profits, insurance companies or whatever.
In my experience it is usually catholic with other christian denominations showing up and many major cities having at least one jewish hospital.
In terms of the anglosphere are there any other religions that have hospitals? I have never heard of a muslim, hindu or buddhist hospital in "the west" though these of course exist elsewhere. do they exist in the US? has anyone ever tried to start one?
In terms of your own (or your family's care)
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do you judge them on their own merits?
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Prefer/boycott them compared to others?
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LGBTQ+++ people: do you trust them?
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women: do you trust them? if you were choosing to carry a pregnancy would you have doubts about going to such a place when the time came?
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religious people: do you trust the ones of other religions? or your own?
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atheists: do you trust them?
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indigenous people: do you trust them?
What kind of hiring practices do these places have? I remember hearing about Salvation Army being anti-queer in hiring. Are they generally allowed to discriminate in accordance of their religious bigotries?
Any other general political ideas too.
Is there any reason these places should be allowed to exist?
there's a few versions out there. linked is "REMIX - Rebel Diaz ft. Dead Prez and Rakaa Iriscience"
Florence Reece wrote the original in 1931. 93 years later still a question worth asking.
August 16, 2024
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — The top United Nations court announced Friday that public hearings will open Dec. 2 in a landmark case seeking a non-binding advisory opinion on “the obligations of States in respect of climate change.”
The U.N. General Assembly sent the case to the International Court of Justice last year, with Secretary-General António Guterres saying at the time that he hoped the opinion would encourage nations “to take the bolder and stronger climate action that our world so desperately needs.”
The court said it had received written comments from 62 nations and organizations related to 91 written statements on the issue it had earlier received. Under the court’s rules, the written filings are confidential. The court can decide to make them public once the hearings open in early December.
The U.N, court’s panel of 15 judges from around the world will seek to answer two questions: What are countries obliged to do under international law to protect the climate and environment from human-caused greenhouse gas emissions and what are the legal consequences for governments where their acts of lack of action have significantly harmed the climate and environment?
Here is the ICJ page for the case: Obligations of States in respect of Climate Change
COVID started in 2020 and now it is 2024. Most jurisdictions, organizations and structures having a nominally democratic process will have had at least 1 round of elections since that time.
Has anyone done analysis of what effects COVID has had?
for example
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were incumbent candidates more/less successful than excepted?
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were parties in power at the time more or less likely to stay in power compared to expected?
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moving to the left, moving to the right?
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differences depending when the democratic processes took place, e.g. elections in 2020 vs 2023
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were any effects seen at local levels compared to national?
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overall an change in voter turnout or public participation?
Probably lots of other interesting questions that could be asked. These are just examples to explain what I'm getting at.
Brass Eye was a brilliant TV show satirizing the news. Hard to believe season 1 was 1997. Totally called so much about media crazed panics.
CW - All the shows are truely about the subjects listed and can go past edgelord.
I can't get any of the invidious links to work so here is all the Brass Eyes on daily motion, which hopefully work OK:
Season 2 only has 1 episode because it got their asses CANCELLED.
One thing you have to understand about all the Brass Eye episodes is that not everyone involved knows they are on a comedy show. All the people doing PSA-type bits are UK celebs and their participation is totally in earnest. There are multiple MPs as well as media people who are tricked into advocating totally crazy shit. The absolute best ep for this is Drugs. It shows the lack of vetting famous people do when they are asked to lend support to something. The deceit was not intricate and many clues were intentionally left to allow the people to realize it was a scam. For example in the Drugs episode they all parrot that the new drug is from Czechoslovakia even though that country hadn't existed for a while at the time. Also Chris Morris didn't hide the fact it was his TV show and he was known to do these kinds of shows previously.
They got this guy to seriously say pedophiles are genetically crabs and then symbolically hammer a nail through a crab to fight child sex abuse
Bethesda Game Studios workers have voted to join the Communications Workers of America, forming the first wall-to-wall union at a Microsoft video game studio.
The workers, consisting of 241 developers, artists, engineers, programmers and designers have either signed a union authorization card or indicated that they wanted union representation via an online portal. Microsoft has recognized the union.
Bethesda Game Studios produces popular games including Elder Scrolls, Fallout and Starfield.
“We are so excited to announce our union at Bethesda Game Studio and join the movement sweeping across the video game industry. It is clear that every worker can benefit from bringing democracy into the workplace and securing a protected voice on the job. We’re thrilled to get down to brass tacks and win a fair contract, proving that our unity is a source of real power to positively shape our working conditions, our lives, and the company as a whole,” said Mandi Parker, senior system designer and member of CWA, in a statement.
The Bethesda Game Studios employees join a surge of workers who have recently formed unions in the video game industry, which had previously been seen as hostile to worker organizing. These works will be members of CWA Locals 2108 in Maryland and 6215 in Texas and join other CWA members at Sega of America, Activision Blizzard, ZeniMax, Tender Claws and more.
“We continue to support our employees’ right to choose how they are represented in the workplace, and we will engage in good faith negotiations with the CWA as we work towards a collective bargaining agreement,” said a spokesperson for Microsoft, in a statement.
“In a groundbreaking achievement, the dedicated professionals at Bethesda Game Studios have demonstrated that, no matter your job title, you too can benefit from having a union,” said Johnny Brown, president of CWA Local 2108, in a statement. “Through securing a protected voice on the job, workers are taking a step forward to negotiating better working conditions, helping to raise standards across the industry. We are incredibly proud to welcome these workers into our union and are confident that together, we will secure a brighter future for all workers in the video game industry.”
“The labor movement in the South is strong and growing. As the video game and tech industries continue to expand in Texas, it is critical that workers have a protected voice on the job to ensure they receive their fair share. We welcome Austin and Dallas based workers at Bethesda Game Studios to CWA and are looking forward to meeting Microsoft at the bargaining table to secure a fair union contract,” said Ron Swaggerty, president of CWA Local 6215, in a statement.
Workers at Bethesda Game Studios in Montreal filed for union recognition with the Quebec Labor Relations Board in late June. When the process is complete, they will be represented by CWA Canada.
The Campaign to Organize Digital Employees (CODE-CWA) is a network of worker-organizers and their staff working to build the voice and power necessary to ensure the future of the tech, game, and digital industries in the United States and Canada. CODE-CWA is a project of the Communications Workers of America which represents hundreds of thousands of workers throughout tech, media, telecom, and other industries.
‘We're unionizing because we love CounterPulse,’ technician Jessi Barber said before the vote.
By Lily Janiak, Theater criticJune 26, 2024
CounterPulse workers held a March on the Boss near their venue in San Francisco's Tenderloin neighborhood on June 4.
Workers at performance art company CounterPulse voted unanimously to unionize — a history-making move in an industry where few office staff are organized.
The 19 employees, occupying roles from administrative staff to technicians to a drum circle instructor, have been dues-paying members of the Industrial Workers of the World since June 4. The vote on Tuesday, June 25, which was certified by the National Labor Relations Board, secures them official recognition from management and means “the employer must begin bargaining in good faith with the union,” NLRB press secretary Kayla Blado told the Chronicle. Both parties have five business days to challenge the result.
CounterPulse workers gather during a June 4 March on the Boss. They voted to unionize Tuesday, a move that the National Labor Relations Board has certified. Dylan Brown/CounterPulse Workers United
“We feel like an exemplary arts org, especially here in San Francisco,” CounterPulse house manager Lonnie Taylor said at the Tenderloin venue minutes before casting her vote. Unionization, she added, marks yet another case of “us doing something that hasn’t been done.”
A June 4 letter notifying Artistic and Executive Director Julie Phelps and the Board of Directors of their joining the IWW echoed those sentiments.
“For too long, the hierarchical structure of CounterPulse has stood in opposition to the art that finds home in our pink building,” the workers wrote, referring to the company’s risk-taking and boundary-blurring output that might feature everything from a game show that tasks the audience with designing a utopia to a dance performance staged in total darkness to affectless but agreeable weirdness involving time machines and shadow puppetry.
Phelps said she was inspired by the workers, adding, “I believe the union holds unique potential to collectivize and share power toward creating more sustainable nonprofit workplaces.”
Board Chair Victor Cordon also expressed support and a commitment to collaborate.
“We are excited by what this process can mean for actualizing new models of nonprofit leadership and for CounterPulse to be part of an important movement at the forefront of reimagining a thriving nonprofit workforce,” he said.
Julie Phelps sits for a portrait at CounterPulse’s building in San Francisco on March 3, 2023.
The letter also made demands for a nonhierarchical structure and collective decision making on staffing issues; union representation on the board of directors and in artistic programming; the company’s full commitment to the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement; and improvements in pay and benefits.
“We’re unionizing because we love CounterPulse, and we believe in the work CounterPulse does, and we want CounterPulse to always exist,” technician Jessi Barber declared before Tuesday’s vote, noting that she’s worked at many other arts organizations where progress on issues such as racial equity evaporates once a committed staff member departs. Unionizing, by contrast, creates a sturdier framework, “furthering the mission, operationalizing the mission,” she said.
Katherine Neumann dances during Charles Slender-White’s “Split,” a 15-minute and one-on-one experience by Fact/SF at CounterPulse on Sept. 7, 2021. Scott Strazzante/The Chronicle
Many theater workers at large companies such as BroadwaySF and the American Conservatory Theater have union contracts through trade-specific rather than venue-specific associations, covering thousands nationwide. For instance, Actors’ Equity Association represents actors and stage managers, while various sister unions cover stagehands and technicians, directors and choreographers, and scenic artists. But no nationwide theater trade union exists, for example, for the administrative staff who want to organize at CounterPulse.
The company’s election could prove a model for other performing arts workers seeking better contracts amid successive waves of labor unrest throughout the country. It might also serve as an alternative to the distributive or collective leadership model many theater companies in the Bay Area have adopted in recent years, partly to address concerns similar to those expressed by CounterPulse workers.
“Are: era” by Psueda at CounterPulse on April 13, 2021, in San Francisco. The art installation allowed pods of up to four audience members at a time inside as part of Combustible Residency 2021.
The vote comes after the pandemic and the racial reckoning of 2020 brought heightened scrutiny to labor conditions in the performing arts, with the We See You, White American Theatre collective and other groups publishing demands for more humane hours, salary transparency, racial equity and more. More immediately, it comes as nationwide disputes between labor and management about the Israel-Hamas war have riven even famously cushy workplaces such as Google. Taylor and Barber also cited worker organization drives at City Lights Bookstore and Peet’s Coffee as inspirations.
Prior to Tuesday, there have been two other recent successful union drives elsewhere in Bay Area arts. In March, employees at the Oakland Museum of California voted to organize, followed the next month by 34 workers at 50-year-old Creative Growth, the studio and gallery for artists with disabilities. Both Oakland shops unionized through the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Cultural Workers United.
Sher-ron Freeman wears her own design during the Beyond Trend Runway event at the Oakland Scottish Rite Center on April 27, 2019. The event by Creative Growth featured the work of artists with developmental, mental and physical disabilities.
Creative Growth United member Sam Lefebvre cited a number of factors that last summer led him and his peers to start discussing the possibility of organizing, including “an overreliance on low-paid contractors and volunteer labor” with the prospect of stabler employment dangled only after a certain period of paying dues.
“I think that’s really typical of employers in the arts,” Lefebvre said. “They expect the prestige or access of working in an arts organization to compensate for low pay.
“Our workplace, like museums and other arts institutions around the country, agrees that you can’t eat prestige.”
Creative Growth Interim Executive Director Tom di Maria said the unionization “reflects our collective commitment to fostering an open, respectful, and supportive work environment.”
Audience members gather before “The Hands That Feed You” event at CounterPulse on Oct. 6, 2023. Noah Berger/Special to The Chronicle
While the long-standing American image of a union member is of a blue-collar worker at a large industrial company, John Logan, chair of the Labor and Employment Studies Department at San Francisco State University, said, “That is beginning to change.”
Cultural workers, he noted, fit the nationwide profile of young, college-educated and low-paid laborers whose interest in organizing was bubbling before — and then was accelerated by — the pandemic. Such workers are less interested in labor behemoths such as the AFL-CIO and more “attracted to the idea of being able to organize your own workplace, organize your co-workers,” he said. They’re also less likely to advocate for traditional union sticking points such as pensions, instead focusing on “cultural issues” such as “diversity in the workplace.”
Will Caldwell as Gene Goo, left, and Julie Phelps as Captain Phelps in CounterPulse’s “How We Spend Our Days.”
“These are workers who entered the paid workforce for the most part after the Great Recession of 2008,” he went on, explaining the shift in labor priorities as generational. “They’ve only ever known precarious employment situations.” Partly as a result of Black Lives Matter movement and campaigns for LGBTQ rights and abortion rights, “They tend to be more skeptical about the more brutal side of U.S. capitalism.”
Then the pandemic spurred workers further.
“They were working often for multibillion-dollar corporations who really didn’t appear to care that much if they lived or died,” he said.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include responses from CounterPulse’s leadership.
One of my top 10 songs of all time. I understand it to remind us not to take each other, or ourselves, for granted.
Another similar rendition of the song I like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIbQHIBkwUc
This may be the last time we shit post together
May be the last time, I don't know.
A lot of invidious instances seem not to be working today. This link is working for me at time of posting: https://invidious.private.coffee/watch?v=VhnCrHZkgNk
Other infos:
June 12, 1956: Paul Robeson Testifies Before HUAC - Zinn Education Project
For the dunk tank I would like to submit whoever designed the fire alarm (or some other device) that has been chirping loooudly every 15 seconds for the past day. Probably has low batteries. I guess whichever of my neighbours is in charge of it isn't home to notice.
I will assume it's a smoke detector or other legitimate safety device and not something stupid.
It makes sense to alert rather than silently failing but how about every few minutes rather than multiple times every minute.
This is good intentions gone bad so I think on topic but I will accept cancellation.
what is the situation with collective colony animals (like ants and bees) under water?
aren't there flowers under water? or isn't there pollen under water?