Starting a new thread to watch this fascinatingly close election, with what are now looking to be some truly appallingly poor choices being made by staff at the polls: stations where there weren't enough ballots, stations where people were turned away because the clock had gone 10, protests, and likely legal challenges.
Today's Edition of "Conniving and Sinister"
See Deeky's archive of all previous Conniving & Sinister strips here.
[In which Liss reimagines the long-running comic "Frank & Ernest," about two old straight white guys "telling it like it is," as a fat feminist white woman and a biracial queerbait telling it like it actually is from their perspectives. Hilarity ensues.]
Afternoon WHUT
Here's a superweird article about Fred "God Hates Fags" Phelps, and his history as a successful civil rights attorney back in the day.
All righty then.
Radical Feminist Agenda
You know all those man-hating commercials that MRAs (and other highly privileged characters who blame man-hating on feminism or "the feminization of society" or some variation thereof) are always complaining about...? Like basically every single slice-of-kyriarchal-heaven Superbowl advert, for example...?
Yeah. I'm sure you'll be SHOCKED to hear that they're created almost exclusively by white men.
Pass me the smelling salts, Bertha.
First, Do No Harm
[Trigger warning for female genital cutting.]
PZ reports that the American Academy of Pediatrics has proposed a "compromise" on female genital cutting, suggesting a "ritual nick," a minor incision of the clitoris to satisfy the urge to ritualistically disfigure a female child's genitals in order to control her sexuality.
See, this way, people can honor that awesome tradition without actually removing part or all of the genitalia. Everyone gets a little something: Girls get only a little heinous physical and psychological trauma, and their guardians get to practice their violent misogyny, just in a slightly less violent way. Yay for compromise!
*takes deep breaths; resists the urge to smash everything in sight*
FGC is a human rights violation. It has no medical purpose, and its cultural rationale is steeped in gender inequality. There is no reason to tolerate even this proposed alternative version of the procedure in a culture with an ostensible belief in gender equality.
Insert the 10,000 posts I've written about consent and autonomy here.
And, despite the AAP's claim that endorsing nicking will be a deterrent, Equality Now rightly notes that advocating a more minor version of the procedure will almost certainly mean that "mothers who have until now resisted community pressure and not subjected their daughters to FGM in the U.S., in part because of the anti-FGM law, could be forced under the AAP guidelines to ask pediatricians to 'nick' their daughters' clitorises if it is legally permitted."
They are actually robbing mothers, adult women who are under enormous pressure to visit upon their American daughters a trauma they could not avoid, of the best argument they've got in their arsenal if they want to shield and protect their daughters.
Go here to take action.
[H/T to Shaker Ann. Please Note: PZ frames the use of the term "female genital cutting," instead of the more common "female genital mutilation," as a bit of pandering to the ritual's practitioners. This is not accurate. The change in language respects the experiences and self-images of women who have survived the procedure and do not view themselves as "mutilated." It is not accommodating the perpetrators, but respecting their victims. "Cutting" is an accurate description, and it is the preferred nomenclature for this thread.]
My Prayer for Today
Since the President has called on me to pray today, even though a federal judge has declared the National Day of Prayer unconstitutional, I feel it is my civic duty to offer the following spiritual appeal in accordance with my own faith and conscience:
Dear DUC:
Please restore my national government to a state of integrity wherein it respects its own founding documents.
Also, please assure that monkeys fly out of my ass.
Have a shpadoinkle day!
Portly
Quote of the Day
"Karl has always said: People call us a vast right-wing conspiracy, but we're really a half-assed right-wing conspiracy. Now, he wants to get more serious."—An anonymous organizer of "a massive fundraising, organizing and advertising machine" built by Republican architects (such as Karl Rove) to connect powerful conservative operatives and donors with the explicit goal of recapturing Congress and the White House.
Shiver.
Things are about to get even uglier.
Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime
Martin Denny: "Quiet Village"
Yma Sumac: "Ataypura"
Esquivel: "Jalousie/Sentimental Journey"
Speak Softly and Carry a Big Teaspoon
[Trigger warning for attempted violence.]
These ladies are All In:
Five female students, including one who had recently completed a self-defense class, jumped to the aid of a fellow student, grabbing her knife-wielding attacker and holding him until police officers arrived at Husson University [in Bangor, Maine], officials said yesterday.The assailant has been charged with attempted murder and violating a protection order, among other charges.
The student with newly acquired skills lunged for the hand holding a knife, while fellow students grabbed the man's other limbs and wrestled him to the ground, police said.
Officers responding to the report of a domestic fight at 7:40 a.m. arrived to find 45-year-old Horst Wolk of Bangor subdued on the pavement. A campus officer cuffed him, and city police hauled him away.
John Michaud, professor of legal studies, heard the commotion and saw a pile of people on the pavement, while more women stood by, ready to jump in.
"I was very impressed by the students," Michaud said. "How many times do you hear about people walking by incidents like this? These young ladies weren't going to walk past this incident." He said the young women disarmed the suspect and "had the situation well in hand."
How many times do you hear about people walking by incidents like this? Lots. Lots and lots and lots and lots.
And I also hear about
So the fact that these women jumped in, and the fact that they weren't assaulted for their efforts at the scene and aren't being punished after the fact, but being recognized as the heroes that they are, makes me very happy indeed.
[H/T to Shaker theZissilent. Related Reading: All In, Heroes, "No matter what the consequences were, we were going to do what was right.", Not My Problem, Five Good Samaritans Rescue Woman from Assault, Five Reasons Why "Teach Women Self-Defense" Isn't a Comprehensive Solution to Rape, "You Think That Was Assault?", Bullied to Death by Misogynists, LIRR Train Crew "All In" Against Rape, Richmond Rape Case: 911 Caller Was Another Teenage Girl, Victim Blaming-a-Go-Go, Today in Rape Culture.]
The Subtleties of Privilege
I was reading through my LJ list this morning, and came across a post by a friend of mine, a man whose name reflects his South Asian heritage, and not one which is often encountered here in Canada.
I don't normally think about having to deal with telling strangers my name as being a big hassle, but I was just thinking about the fact that I'm apt to give out another name of someone in the party to avoid it or just make up a name. Still, it was surprising to me how much of a difference it made calling up an Indian restaurant to make reservations today and realizing that I could just give them my name and then having them just accept it without asking me to repeat myself or spell it or anything. It was downright soothing, like letting out a tensely-held breath.And it occurred to me that this, here, is a teeny, tiny little piece of the unearned privilege many, many white people - me definitely included - receive on a daily basis.
As you might all guess (see? that's it at work again!), my name (Caitie, or Cait) is short for the Gaelic version of Kathleen: Caitlin. It's a good name for me, though few people ever call me the full version, and none of us pronounce it properly if it were being used among Gaelic-speakers (where it'd be closer to "Kathleen" in pronunciation). But it suits me. It's a name people tend to assume belongs to a white woman, which is good, cause that's who I am.
What's the privilege? Well, having a name that comes from a background which is shared with that of Whiteness on this continent, I never have to spell it for people. Oh, I might have to let them know that I spell it with a "C" and two "I", rather than with a "K" and/or some "Y" in place of the I. But no one looks at me oddly, or makes me repeat it a few times, or requires me to spell it all out.
How is it a privilege? Well, I refer you back to my friend's comment, above, which started me off. It's never occurred to me how many times that difference plays to my advantage, until I read his last line:
It was downright soothing, like letting out a tensely-held breath.I've never had to feel that way, that tensely-held breath, about my name.
Now, yes, I'm aware, many people with white skin have names which require spelling out to strangers, and many with brown skin bear names that don't require it. But that doesn't take away that those white folk could, if they wanted, take a name which wouldn't seem the least bit odd for their ethnicity/background, and take advantage of that tiny privilege.
I imagine the difficulties members of the Black communities face, when they bear names which don't come from the European heritage we associate with whiteness: of applying for a white-collar job with a name that speaks proudly of its owner's Black culture.*
I consider the difficulties East or South Asian, or African, or Latin@ people face, with their names from a thousand places, by far the majority of them outside the little privileged world of "white-appropriate" names.
I think about politicians who introduce bills requiring people to take "American" names.
I ponder the pressure on people with names outside that core group to take names from within the core group.
Privilege. You may not want it, but you're almost certainly soaking in it, over someone, somewhere. Someone's holding their breath tensely, over something you breeze through like a dancing zephyr.
* This section, and the three after it, have been edited, and I wanted to acknowledge that here. The way I wrote it originally spoke from an assumption that my readership shares the privilege I have, which is an othering practice I'm trying to shake: the four paras all started "Think of the...", which of course makes a clear suggestion that my readers can't come up with those possibilities for themselves, quite possibly because they're their lived experience.
As is my wont, I will edit to remove the offensive assumption, but I don't want to hide my mistake, nor the privilege from which I was speaking; if I'm going to hold myself up as someone whose opinion on this deserves being heard, I think it's important to recognize that I'm a long way from perfect on these issues myself. My thanks to Liss for pointing out the error, and my apologies for it.
Impossibly Beautiful
The June 2010 issue of Marie Claire features on its cover the lovely Sarah Jessica Parker:
What's most notable about the changes to this image of SJP is the Photoshopping of her hands, which are rather famously wrinkly.
Articles, usually quite nasty ones, are written about the appearance of her hands, which, perhaps because I am the proud bearer of excessively lined hands myself, I happen to find quite beautiful and remarkable.
If I had to wager a guess, I would imagine that SJP is rather fond of her own hands, as well. Anyone who's watched Sex & the City (which she executive produces) has seen endless close-ups of her hands at her face, brushing aside her hair, or holding a drink. She clutches her hands to her chest excitedly and nervously, a habit that is hers, not just her character's, on display in interviews and in the recent episode of Who Do You Think You Are? in which she traced her ancestry back through American history.
I daresay it was not SJP who wanted her hands Photoshopped to the point of total unrecognizability. I suspect she did not request her hands to be made to look like babydoll hands stuck on the ends of the arms of a confident 45-year-old woman.
My estimation is that Sarah Jessica Parker—smart, talented, personally and professionally successful, legendarily stylish, and uniquely beautiful—still wasn't beautiful enough to grace the cover of Marie Claire with her own body intact.
The editors of Marie Claire may be telling me I should be ashamed of my hands, but I will not be.
------------------------
By way of reminder: Comments that try to suss out what changes, exactly, were made, and even comments noting that, for example, the removal of laugh lines because they are ZOMG wrinkles actually robs a face of its character or humanity, are welcome. Discussions of how "he looks handsomer/hotter/better in the candid picture" and associated commentary (which would certainly make me feel like shit if I were the person being discussed) are not. So please comment in keeping with the series' intent, implicit in which is the question: If no one can ever be beautiful enough, then to what end is the pursuit of an elusive perfection?
[Impossibly Beautiful: Parts One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven, Twelve, Thirteen, Fourteen, Fifteen, Sixteen, Seventeen, Eighteen, Nineteen, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39.]
NQDTR Discussion Thread - R100506
Hiya, Shakers, time for another Discussion Thread for the Not Quite Daily Teaspoon Report!
This is the thread in which you may offer congratulations or admiration for a teaspoon or teaspooner. If you're posting with just congrats or admiration, though, do take a moment and check the thread to see whether other people have said so a number of times already. Remember that no one is required to read here just because they posted over there, so there's no guarantee you'll get a response to a given comment.
The Not Quite Daily Teaspoon Report - R100506
Time for another Teaspoon Report, brought to you by TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR FOOTBALL CLUB AND THEIR SEASON OF RENOWN!*
Leave comments here that describe an act of teaspooning you encountered or committed. They don't have to be big, world-shaking acts; by definition, a teaspoon is a small thing, but enough of them together can empty the ocean.
If you would like to discuss the teaspoons here reported, or even offer congratulations or your admiration to a fellow Shaker, we ask that you do so over here in the Discussion Thread for today's NQDTR.
Shaker bgk has been kind enough to get a Twitter-pated version out there for you young twittersnappers (and by the way, get off my lawn, you meddling kids! *shakes cane*). You can find the details about the Tweetspoons project right here. That runs all the time, as far as I'm aware (*grumblenewtechnologygrumble*), and we encourage you to let other people know that there's at least one tweetstream talking about just going out and doing good things for the human species.
Teaspoons up, let's hear 'em, Shakers!
ô,ôP
* Sorry, big night last night, the football (soccer) team I support won a really crucial game, and will be practicing their McGuffin-in-the-score-hole routine across Europe next year, so Caitie's all excited. :)
UK Election Open Thread
by Shaker Cim
Voters have been going to the polls today for the United Kingdom general election. The polls close at 10pm local time, and it looks certain that whatever the result is, the political direction of the UK will be significantly altered. Which way it gets altered, though, is still up in the air. Here's a quick(ish) introduction to the election for people outside the UK.
The parties
Labour are the current majority party, and are approximately centre-left. They have been in power for 13 years, and the accumulated unpopularity of their decisions - and they've made some really bad decisions in that time - means that they are doing very badly in the polls and are likely to lose at least 100 seats and probably significantly more in this election. Most of their support comes from the inner cities and northern industrial towns.
Their main challengers are the Conservative party (aka the Tories), a right-wing party that has been either the majority party or the major opposition party for the last few hundred years. They look to be the best placed to capitalise on Labour's unpopularity, but are struggling somewhat in the polls themselves, probably because a lot of people remember the last time they were in power, which was great for well-off white heteronormative families, and very bad for everyone else. Their support mainly comes from rural constituencies and wealthy suburban areas in the south of England.
The next biggest party is the Liberal Democrats (often abbreviated Lib Dems). They are also centre-left, but in a very different way to Labour, reflecting their liberal roots rather than Labour's socialist roots. Their support is scattered across the country, though they do have a few regional strongholds in the South West and in Scotland, and also do well in some university towns where the mix of vaguely left middle class students and locals benefits them. They look very likely to get significantly bigger this election, though still a definite third.
In Scotland and Wales, the Scottish National Party (SNP) and Plaid Cymru (PC) respectively are local parties for those countries. They have a lot of power within the regional government but not much outside it. There are several regional parties in Northern Ireland, most of which are loosely allied with one of the big three British parties (which do not stand candidates in Northern Ireland). The influence of these parties in the UK government is generally very limited.
There are several other smaller parties and hundreds of independent candidates, but except in a few rare cases mentioned below, they don't stand a chance in most constituencies.
The major issues
The UK is slowly coming out of a recession brought on by the global financial crisis. Labour have taken a lot of blame for getting us into that mess, but also get some credit for getting us out again. The Conservatives want to make huge cuts to public services to balance the government books, whereas Labour and the Lib Dems are both looking more towards tax rises. (Though whoever is in charge, public services will be cut, and taxes will rise).
A lot of MPs were caught cheating on their expenses, and a lot more putting in claims that were technically within the rules but not really within the spirit of them. Many MPs are standing down at this election as a result of this, and a few are being investigated for fraud. As a result there's a general anti-politics sentiment in the country that's a lot stronger than normal, and all parties are proposing ways to restore trust and improve democracy.
None of the main parties have a great record on helping people who fall outside the social default of white heterosexual non-disabled upper-middle-class cis men (or indeed, on selecting candidates who aren't - the Centre for Women and Democracy have an analyis of the numbers of women standing this time). Labour and the Lib Dems generally at least pretend to care but get things very wrong at times and both have a problem with thinking about people generally, rather than in compartmentalised "women's rights" or "disability" issues. The Conservatives are even worse. Here's a quick summary of the votes on LGB rights by the big three parties, here's one on the last big vote on abortion rights (aye is the anti-choice side) - I can't find convenient summaries for voting related to other forms of oppression, but here's some research by the Fawcett Society on "What about Women", and Operation Black Vote have lots of material on the parties and (anti-)racism, for hints about what might happen next.
Immigration has come up as a big issue during the election campaign. All three major parties (and indeed most of the minor parties) promise to take extra steps against undocumented immigrants, and increase the level of control over documented immigrants. The Lib Dems policies are marginally less bad, in that they promise to stop detaining asylum seekers in abusive situations (search for "Yarl's Wood abuse", but *trigger warning* for most of the links you'll find) and propose a one-off amnesty for undocumented immigrants - policies for which they've been heavily criticised by Labour, the Conservatives and the media. Really, though, if you want a party that might actually consider immigrants (documented or not) to be as equally human as citizens, and makes policy accordingly, you're looking for one of the minor left parties. Everyone else is too busy trying to "look tough" to avoid losing votes to the BNP to actually stand up and say "wait, immigrants aren't actually destroying the country".
The BBC have a pretty good list of the parties major policies, and there are a few quizzes to suggest the best parties for you given your opinion on various policies, which might help you get a better impression of where they stand. Here's one.
The election system
The UK is divided by an impartial Boundaries Commission into 650 constituencies or seats, each of which has around 70,000 voters. The results of the latest redrawing are being used for the first time in this election, which means that for a majority of constituencies, "notional results" are being used, where the "last time" vote is estimated from local Council elections.
In each constituency, each of the three main parties puts up a candidate (except for Northern Ireland, which has different parties, and the constitutional oddity of the Speaker's seat). In most constituencies, some of the other parties will also put up a candidate.
Voters then vote for one candidate, and the one with the most votes wins. This is a terrible system for everyone but Labour and the Conservatives, who mostly benefit from it and aren't doing anything to change it. The Lib Dems, naturally, would really prefer it if it was fixed, and polling suggests that most voters would like that too.
Usually after all the votes are counted, one of the big two parties will have a majority of the MPs, become the government, and spend the next few years doing things varying degrees of wrong.
Election night
At 10pm, all the polling stations close (an advantage of having a country small enough to fit in a single time zone) and the votes are taken to be counted. From this point on, exit polls can be released, and TV channels will compete to see who can put together the silliest animation about the election.
The first constituency (usually an urban safe seat where the votes can be collected quickly and where being off by ten or twenty on the final count won't matter) will usually announce the results an hour or so later, with results coming in through the night and into the next morning. Generally the urban constituencies will declare first, with the geographically large rural constituencies declaring later. (A quick description of the counting process).
Constituencies that will be interesting to watch for more than their contribution to the final result (or if you happen to live there) are:
Once all the results are in, things get really tricky. Assuming the current polls are accurate, there are basically two likely results. As you can guess from the headings, I'm not optimistic about this election.
Simple but bad
The Conservatives might get a majority of the MPs. It's looking unlikely on the current polling, unless they do very well in the crucial constituencies, but if it happens then they get to be the government and we can look forwards to at least four or five years of right-wing policies. David Cameron is relatively moderate for a Conservative personally, though that's not saying a lot, but his party and core supporters are quite a bit less so, and if they win convincingly there'll be a lot of pressure from them to push through an agenda that generally benefits the rich at everyone else's expense.
More complicated, and still probably bad
Looking more likely at the moment is that the Conservatives will be the largest party, but without enough MPs for a majority (in theory they need half - 325 - in practice they could get away, barely, with around 320, because the Speaker doesn't vote, and the Sinn Fein MPs refuse to take an oath of allegiance to the Queen, and so don't take up their seats. This could go several ways:
Firstly, the Conservatives could try to rule as a minority government, as in Canada, and hope the other parties aren't willing to vote them down, especially if they're only a few MPs away from a majority. Secondly, they could go into a coalition government with some of the other parties. Thirdly, if Labour don't lose too many seats, Labour and the Lib Dems could form a coalition to outvote the Conservatives. Finally, the parties might be entirely unable to agree on anything, and we might have a new election very soon (please, no...).
There are a lot of complicated political calculations here, and none of the three main parties is willing to say what it would do in public, so whatever happens, this will get messy - but probably not as bad as a Conservative majority, and a Labour-Lib Dem coalition could in principle be very progressive (or not, depending on which bits of each party's policies get agreed on).
How To Put A Smile On Your Face
Read this.
Go ahead, I'll wait.
See? You're smiling, aren't you? Toldja.
(Shaker SamanthaExplosion provides a link to a Facebook page with all kinds of related material)
Tip of the CaitieCap to Emily W.
Net Neutrality Update
In a move that will stoke a battle over the future of the Internet, the federal government plans to propose regulating broadband lines under decades-old rules designed for traditional phone networks.Yay! ...But wait, what's this?
The decision, by Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski, is likely to trigger a vigorous lobbying battle, arraying big phone and cable companies and their allies on Capitol Hill against Silicon Valley giants and consumer advocates.
Breaking a deadlock within his agency, Mr. Genachowski is expected Thursday to outline his plan for regulating broadband lines. He wants to adopt "net neutrality" rules that require Internet providers like Comcast Corp. and AT&T Inc. to treat all traffic equally, and not to slow or block access to websites.
The decision has been eagerly awaited since a federal appeals court ruling last month cast doubt on the FCC's authority over broadband lines, throwing into question Mr. Genachowski's proposal to set new rules for how Internet traffic is managed. The court ruled the FCC had overstepped when it cited Comcast in 2008 for slowing some customers' Internet traffic.Hold the
In a nod to such concerns, the FCC said in a statement that Mr. Genachowski wouldn't apply the full brunt of existing phone regulations to Internet lines and that he would set "meaningful boundaries to guard against regulatory overreach."
"On the surface it looks like a win for Internet companies," said Rebecca Arbogast, an analyst with Stifel Nicolaus. "A lot will depend on the details of how this gets implemented."Well. That clears it up. Obviously the FCC will pander to corporations as much as it feels it can get away with and still assert to be championing "net neutrality." Awesome.
..."The question is how heavy a hand will the regulatory touch be," [Mike McCurry, former press secretary for President Bill Clinton and co-chair of the Arts + Labs Coalition, an industry group representing technology companies, telecom companies and content providers] said. "We don't know yet, so the devil is in the details."
And the firesale of America to soulless, for-profit corporations continues unabated.
Bad news-ish, then. Sigh.
Bread and Teaspoons Thirty
Good morning (unless it isn't where you are, in which case I wish you Good $TIME_PERIOD), and welcome to this week's installment of Shakesville's networking post, Bread and Teaspoons*.
This is a (theoretically**) weekly post providing a spot for Shakers to network a little with one another, see if we can help each other out some.
NB: I have added a bit to the guidelines for what’s on-topic here, to allow the posting of useful job resources for progressives.
Also remember, if you’re running or part of a small business, you’re encouraged to drop links here for that. I’m happy to see Shakers makin’ their own way in whatever manner that is.
Here's how it works: There should be four sorts of comments here.
1) You comment here with any details of work you're seeking: where, what, that sort of thing. You give an e-mail address at which you can be reached - feel free to set up a special e-mail for it, if you don't want to post your regular one for the world to spam - and if another Shaker has a lead, they can contact you directly to pass it along.
A work-seeking comment should include:
Please do NOT include information such as your full name or telephone number, as this is and will remain a public post, and once posted, there's no taking it back (because it'll be spidered by a search engine, not because we don't want you to).
It is explicitly alright to comment to this each week with similar info.
For example, if I were to comment - rather than taking advantage of my position by posting it up here in the OP! - I'd leave one saying:
I'm a professional translator of French, German and Russian, with 17 years of experience. I'm looking for basically any translation job, academic, commercial, personal, genealogical, you name it, with one exception: I do not currently have certification, so if you need a certified translator (usually for legal docs: birth certificates, divorce decrees, wills), you need someone else.
I am also available as a writer or editor, for academic, journalistic, creative, marketing-oriented or any other type of written communication. Basically, if you'll pay me, I'll write or edit it. My company website is found here.
You can contact me for business purposes through my business address, cait@cogitantes.net.
2) The second type of comment would be task offering: if you've got a job you think might suit someone here, consider posting it as a comment. Use the same guidelines as above: give general information here, and specific information when you exchange e-mails. An offered task might look something like this:
I have a doctoral thesis which needs proofing and editing by Thursday, is anyone available? You can reach me at ABDShaker@shakesville.miskatonic.edu.
We also welcome appropriate job resource sites for progressives, e.g. Canada’s Charity Village, which specializes in jobs with non-profits and NGOs.
3) The third kind of comment I'd love to see is success stories! We’d love to know when this works out, and people actually find some employment through our efforts. If you feel like sharing, tell us how it worked out for you. :)
4) If you’re a progressive working for or running a small business and would like to include a pointer to your business, you may do so. If you’ve never otherwise posted before here (i.e., you’re a lurker), I may check in with you to be certain you’re a Shaker and not a spammer. If it turns into a spamfest, or we start getting businesses that are of dubious progressive credentials, we may need to revisit this one, but let’s give it a try.
So, that's what we'd like to see.
What we do NOT want to see:
So there. Have at it, Shakers, for Bread and Teaspoons!
Important disclaimers: Shakesville makes no endorsement or claim as to the capabilities of anyone commenting to this post, and anyone considering hiring someone should be prepared to treat it like any other business situation: DO YOUR DUE DILIGENCE. We're not doing any screening of this, so you'll want to make sure you check references, use safe-payment procedures (e.g., ask for a deposit), all the things you'd do when working with any stranger on the Internet. While this is intended for Shakers in general, remember that there is no real obstacle to being able to comment here, and do the things you need to do to keep yourself safe.
* As might be evident, this is an intentional reference to Bread and Roses, a longtime slogan of the left. In this case, though, my hope is that if we achieve steady bread, we will use it to power our teaspoon use.
** "Theoretically", because sometimes my life or my depression interfere. :)
The last several Bread and Teaspoons: Twenty-Four. Twenty-Five.
Twenty-Six. Twenty-Seven. Twenty-Eight.
Twenty-Nine.
