katherine Graham Cracker @ 11

Shrubco has been very damaging to organized labor and I think the unions have blown it big time by not getting behind Edwards as a group.

they’re hedging their bets — but you’re right. they should go bigtime for him.

Everyone’s hedging their bets including this blog which I understand will not endorse a Democratic primary candidate but will support the Democratic presidential nominee, whoever that might be.

I do not know what motivates people including myself. The year after John Lennon died there were memorials around the country including McLevy Park in Bridgeport. I’m not one for public demonstrations, but after mulling it over ten minutes I got there in time to stand silently for the remaining thirty minutes. I thought John Lennon very special, but to this day I don’t know what got me off my ass.

The point is we have to get motivated to support the writers and to position ourselves for the worst should it come down the pike. Comment sections don’t do it in that they don’t promote solidarity, a trust that others will walk where we walk. Thinking about how we can use the internet to support the writers, something that shows their bosses how many people are aligned against them, strikes me as a first order of business.

I am not a labor lawyer but the back of my mind says secondary boycotts (I’m not sure what they are) are illegal. So I don’t know about boycotts although if a few million people spontaneously stopped going to the movies, it might make an impression. I don’t know about motivation, but I know what we are doing is not enough.

… But how many actual pieces are there critical of the studios on their own? *g* That would be a fun one to look into…

Critical Mass

Author and screenwriter Ellis Avrum Cohen staged a one-man protest on TV Hill this morning as part of the Writers Guild of America Strike.

“I’m a team of one,” said Cohen, a 30-year member of the guild.

“I can only do so much. This is like David and Goliath, but I believe I can do it.”

Hosts of ‘The View’ Support Strikers, Too

“I want to make absolutely positively clear to everybody: we’re supporting what the writers are looking for, we’re supporting what they need and what they want, and we’re here for them,” she said on Monday. She pointed out that the hosts do not perform monologues or read long scripted passages.

TIMELINE: The Hollywood labor dispute

* November 26 – Writers and studios resume contract talks for the first time since the strike began but, in a departure from the public rancor that marked earlier negotiations, they adhere to a media blackout.

I had this brief exchange with Robert Novak on my way to work this morning (we didn’t really connect):

“So you show your face in public, huh?”

“Fuck you!”

Testy motherfucker.

I love you.

In the past week, four of my favorite commentators, Marcy, Christy, Glenzilla, and Hilzoy, have done some awsome takedowns of: Thomas Friedman, Joe Klein, and Mark Halperin in various tag-team combinations. It has been truly delightful.

Hugh at 49 — I read that piece. My favorite incredibly obtuse line was this one: “Mr. Bush’s vision is ambitious, but his strategy is cautious — he may be repeating Mr. Clinton’s role, yet he rejects what he sees as the meddlesome quality of it.” Because invading an entirely different country in a war of choice is the anti-meddle.

I liked that one and also the response to the criticism that it was all a photo-op: “That, however, does not necessarily mean that it will be a failed photo op.” How can you have a failed photo-op. Leave the lens cap on? Forget to put the film or memory chip in? This is a little like saying that this meeting will be trivial but successfully trivial.

An arcane section of a bill passed last December grants special rights to just three crab fishing companies. All of them have heads who have made substantial contributions to Representative Don Young (R-AK), and two of the three also have ties to Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK). According to the watchdog group Public Citizen, the earmark is “typical of Don Young-style legislating” – it “smacks of political favoritism, sidestepped the normal process for changing federal fishery rules, wasn’t subject to a public debate or hearing, and was inserted into a major bill at the last minute.” (Anchorage Daily News)