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Quote of the Month
More
than a Labor Day, America needs an all-out labor rebellion.
~Jim
Hightower
News of the Month
Labor Day, an annual
celebration of workers and their achievements, originated during one of American
labor history’s most dismal chapters. In the late 1800s, at the height of the
Industrial Revolution in the US, the average American worked 12-hour days and
7-day weeks in order to eke out a basic living. Despite restrictions in some
states, children as young as 5 or 6 toiled in mills, factories and mines across
the country, earning a fraction of their adult counterparts’ wages. People of
all ages, particularly the very poor and recent immigrants, often faced
extremely unsafe working conditions, with insufficient access to fresh air,
sanitary facilities and breaks.
As manufacturing
increasingly supplanted agriculture as the source of American employment, labor
unions, which had first appeared in the late 18th century, grew more prominent
and vocal. They began organizing strikes and rallies to protest poor conditions
and compel employers to renegotiate hours and pay. Many events turned violent
during this period. Others gave rise to longstanding traditions: On September 5,
1882, 10,000 workers took unpaid time off to march from City Hall to Union
Square in New York City, holding the first Labor Day parade in US history. The
idea of a workingmen’s holiday, celebrated on the first Monday in September,
caught on in other industrial centers across the country, and many states passed
legislation recognizing it. Congress did not legalize the holiday until 12 years
later.
Today, more and more of
us are producing goods and services more efficiently. The average hourly
employee’s productivity has increased 80% over the past four decades.
Unfortunately, economic disparities, long-term unemployment, wage stagnation,
inflation and other challenges remain problems in a US economy still struggling
to recover completely from the Great Recession. Many of us work longer and
harder than ever before - the average American now spends 47 hours per week on
the job - yet half of all workers make less than $520 a week, a figure that,
adjusted for inflation, matches the level of earnings 18 years ago.
And that was before the
coronavirus, which has led to historic unemployment numbers. By the end of
April, more than 30 million people — or nearly 19% of the total US labor force —
had filed for unemployment claims. By the end of June, nearly half the US
population was without a job. Of those still employed, up to 35% worked from
home. While the unemployment rate declined in May and June, permanent job
loss accelerated over this period.
The labor market effects
have not been evenly borne across workers of different genders, races and
educational attainment. The effects of the coronavirus will likely lead to high
long-term unemployment and weakened labor market attachment for years to come.
There is likely to be a massive reallocation in who works, how they work, and
what kinds of jobs they do.
While Congress has
scrambled to save airlines in the belief that air travel is essential for a
well-functioning modern economy, they have overlooked what is perhaps the most
important industry in a modern economy: our child-care providers and schools.
The pandemic has highlighted the fact that child care is not a women’s issue or
a personal issue. It is an economic issue. Parents cannot fully return to work
until they are able to ensure that their children can safely return to
child-care and educational arrangements.
In addition,
job-protected paid sick leave as well as medical and family leave are more
important than ever. There is one more thing of note this year, and it’s big:
Some parts of the labor movement, particularly at the rank-and-file level, seem
to have reached their breaking point.
Then and Now
09/01/1864 -
Atlanta fell to Union forces.
09/01/1939 - WWII
began as Nazi Germany invaded Poland.
09/01/1942 - A
federal judge in Sacramento upheld the wartime detention of Japanese-Americans
as well as Japanese nationals.
09/01/1951 - The
US, Australia and New Zealand signed a mutual defense pact, ANZUS.
09/01/1961 - The
Soviet Union ended a moratorium on atomic testing with an aboveground nuclear
explosion in central Asia.
09/01/1998 -
Federal legislation made airbags mandatory.
09/01/2020 -
Anant Chaturdashi – Hindu
09/02/1666 - The
Great Fire of London broke out claiming thousands of homes but only a few lives.
09/02/1789 - The
US Treasury Department was established.
09/02/1864 -
Sherman occupied Atlanta.
09/02/1901 - VP
Theodore Roosevelt offered the advice: Speak softly and carry a big stick.
09/02/1945 - Ho
Chi Minh declared Vietnam an independent republic.
09/02/1945 -
Japan formally surrendered in ceremonies aboard the USS Missouri, ending
WWII.
09/02/1963 -
Alabama Governor George Wallace prevented the integration of Tuskegee High
School by encircling the building with state troopers.
09/02/1969 - The
first ATM opened for business.
09/02/1973 - JRR
Tolkien, the author of the best-selling fantasy novels The Hobbit and
The Lord of the Rings, died at the age of 81 in Bournemouth, England.
09/02/1998 - A UN court handed down the first international conviction for
genocide, finding Jean-Paul Akayesu, the former mayor of a small town in Rwanda,
guilty of nine counts,
09/02/2020 - VJ
Day
09/02/2020 -
Zhongyuan Jie (Hungry Ghost Festival) – traditional / Buddhist / Taoist
09/02/2020 -
Ullambana (O-Bon / Festival of Souls lunar) through the 14th – Buddhist, Shinto
09/03/1777 - The
American flag was flown in battle for the first time on this day in 1777, during
a Revolutionary War skirmish at Cooch's Bridge, Delaware.
09/03/1783 - The
Treaty of Paris between the US and Great Britain officially ended the
Revolutionary War.
09/03/1939 -
Britain and France declared war on Germany, two days after the Nazi invasion of
Poland.
09/03/1978 - The
Roman Catholic Church installed Pope John Paul I as its 264th pontiff.
09/04/476CE - The
Western Roman Empire fell when Romulus Augustus, the last emperor of the Western
Roman Empire, was deposed by Odoacer, a German barbarian who proclaimed himself
king of Italy.
09/04/1781 -
Spanish settlers founded Los Angeles.
09/04/1886 - The
last American Indian warrior surrendered when Geronimo, the wiliest and most
dangerous Apache warrior of his time, finally surrendered in Skeleton Canyon,
Arizona.
09/04/1951 -
President Harry S. Truman's opening speech before a conference in San Francisco
was broadcast across the nation, marking the first time a television program was
broadcast from coast to coast. The speech focused on Truman's acceptance of a
treaty that officially ended America's post-World War II occupation of Japan.
09/04/1957 -
Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus called out the National Guard to prevent nine
black students from entering Central High School in Little Rock.
09/05/1774 - In
response to the British Parliament's enactment of the Coercive Acts in the
American colonies, the first session of the Continental Congress convened at
Carpenter's Hall in Philadelphia. Fifty-six delegates from all of the colonies
except Georgia drafted a declaration of rights and grievances and elected
Virginian Peyton Randolph as the first president of Congress. Patrick Henry,
George Washington, John Adams and John Jay were among the delegates.
09/05/1793 - The
Reign of Terror began during the French Revolution as the National Convention
instituted harsh measures to repress counterrevolutionary activities.
09/05/1836 - The
Republic of Texas elected Sam Houston as president.
09/05/1877 -
After his victory at Little Bighorn, US Army forces led by Colonel Nelson Miles
pursued Crazy Horse and his followers. His tribe suffered from cold and
starvation, and on May 6, 1877, Crazy Horse surrendered to General George Crook
at the Red Cloud Indian Agency in Nebraska. He was sent to Fort Robinson NE,
where he was fatally bayoneted on this date by a US soldier after resisting
confinement in a guardhouse.
09/05/1972 - Arab
guerrillas attacked the Israeli delegation at the Munich Olympic Games. They
killed eleven Israelis, five guerrillas and a police officer.
09/06/1941 -
Germany ordered Jews over the age of six in German-occupied areas to wear yellow
Stars of David.
09/06/1975 -
Czechoslovak tennis star Martina Navratilova, in NY for the US Open, requested
political asylum.
09/07/1901 - The
Peace of Beijing ended the Boxer Rebellion in China.
09/07/1940 - Nazi
Germany began its initial blitz on London during WWII.
09/07/1977 - The
Panama Canal treaties, calling for the US to eventually turn over control of the
waterway to Panama, were signed in Washington.
09/07/2020 -
Labor Day
09/08/1664 - The
Dutch surrendered New Amsterdam to the British, who renamed it New York.
09/08/1900 - A
hurricane that killed about 6,000 people stuck Galveston TX.
09/08/1935 -
Senator Huey P. Long (The Kingfish) of Louisiana politics was shot and morally
wounded. He died two days later.
09/08/1952 -
Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea was first published.
09/08/1971 - The
John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts opened in Washington DC with a
performance of Leonard Bernstein's Mass.
09/08/1974 -
President Ford granted an unconditional pardon to former President Nixon.
09/09/1776 - The
Second Continental Congress made the term United States official,
replacing United Colonies.
09/09/1948 - The
People's Democratic Republic of Korea (North Korea) was created.
09/09/1957 -
President Eisenhower signed into law the first civil rights bill to pass
Congress since Reconstruction.
09/09/1976 -
Communist Chinese leader Mao Tse-tung died in Beijing at the age of 82.
09/09/2002 - Iraq
challenged the US to produce "one piece of evidence" that it was producing
weapons of mass destruction.
09/10/1608 - John
Smith became president of the Jamestown colony council in Virginia.
09/10/1846 -
Elias Howe received a patent for his sewing machine.
09/10/1939 -
Canada declared war on Nazi Germany.
09/10/1955 -
Gunsmoke premiered on CBS.
09/10/1963 -
Twenty black students entered Alabama public schools following a standoff
between federal authorities and Governor George Wallace.
09/10/1991 - The
Senate Judiciary Committee opened hearings on the nomination of Clarence Thomas
to the US Supreme Court.
09/11/1962 - The
Beatles made their first record for EMI, Love Me Do and P.S. I Love
You.
09/11/1973 -
Chilean President Salvador Allende died in a violent military coup.
09/11/1997 -
Scots voted to create their own Parliament after 290 years of union with
England.
09/11/2001 -
Terrorists flew hijacked airliners into the World Trade towers in NYC and the
Pentagon in Washington. A fourth plane crashed in Pennsylvania.
09/11/2020 -
National 401(k) Day
09/11/2020 -
Patriot Day
09/11/2020 -
Rastafarian New Year's Day
09/12/1609 -
English explorer Henry Hudson sailed into the river that now bears his name.
09/12/1944 -
During WWII, US Army troops entered Germany for the first time near Trier.
09/12/2000 -
Hillary Rodham Clinton became the only First Lady to win an election as she
claimed victory in the NY Democratic Senate primary.
09/13/1943 -
Chiang Kai-shek became president of China.
09/13/1948 -
Elected to the US Senate, Republican Margaret Chase Smith of Maine became the
first woman to serve in both houses of Congress.
09/13/2020 –
Grandparents’ Day
09/14/1814 - On
this evening, Francis Scott Key stood onboard the ship Minden in
Chesapeake Bay and composed the lines known as The Star-Spangled Banner.
09/14/1940 -
Congress passed the Selective Service Act, providing for the first peacetime
draft in US history.
09/15/1821 -
Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador proclaimed their
independence from Spain.
09/15/1935 - The
Nuremberg laws deprived German Jews of their citizenship and made the swastika
the official symbol of Nazi Germany.
09/15/1963 - A
bomb went off during Sunday services at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in
Birmingham killing four black girls.
09/15/2020 -
September 15 through
October 15 is National Hispanic Heritage Month.
09/16/1810 -
Mexico began its revolt against Spanish rule.
09/16/1919 - The
American Legion was incorporated by an act of Congress.
09/16/1940 - Sam
Rayburn of Texas became Speaker of the US House.
09/16/1940 -
President Franklin Roosevelt signed into law the Selective Training and Service
Act which set up the first peacetime military draft in US history.
09/16/2020 -
Mexican Independence Day
09/16/2020 -
Mayflower Day
09/17/1787 - A
majority of delegates attending the constitutional convention in Philadelphia
completed and signed the Constitution of the US.
09/17/1920 - The
American Professional Football Association, a precursor of the National Football
League, was formed in Canton OH.
09/17/1939 - The
Soviet Union invaded Poland, more than two weeks after Nazi Germany launched its
assault.
09/17/1978 -
After meeting at Camp David, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian
President Anwar Sadat signed a framework for a peace treaty.
09/17/2020 -
Citizenship Day and Constitution Day (Federal law now requires all schools
receiving federal funding to teach the Constitution on this day. Doesn’t that
seem a little contrary to the spirit of the Constitution?)
09/18/1850 -
Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act which allowed slave owners to reclaim
slaves who had escaped to other states.
09/18/1970 -
Jimmy Hendrix died in London at age 27.
09/18/2020 - Rosh
Hashanah begins at sunset and ends on the 20th at nightfall – Judaism
09/19/1796 -
President Washington's farewell address was published.
09/19/1912 - When
feminist Rebecca West, 19, reviewed Marriage by HG Wells, 45, and called
him "the old maid among novelists," Wells asked to meet her. By the next spring,
they had embarked on what became a 10-year love affair.
09/19/1957 - The
US conducted its first underground nuclear test in the Nevada desert.
09/19/1986 -
Federal health officials announced that the experimental drug AZT would be made
available to thousands of AIDS patients.
09/20/1519 -
Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan set out from Spain on a voyage to find a
western passage to the Spice Islands in Indonesia.
09/20/2001 -
President George W. Bush gave an address to a joint session of Congress
cautioning the nation that there were "struggles ahead and dangers to face."
09/21/1792 - The
French National Convention voted to abolish the monarchy.
09/21/1897 - The
New York Sun ran its famous editorial that declared, "Yes, Virginia,
there is a Santa Claus."
09/21/1949 - The
People's Republic of China was established.
09/21/1970 -
NFL Monday Night Football made its debut on ABC.
09/21/1981 - The
Senate unanimously confirmed the nomination of Sandra Day O'Connor to become the
first female justice on the Supreme Court.
09/22/1776 -
Nathan Hale was hanged as a spy by the British during the Revolutionary War.
09/22/1862 -
President Lincoln issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation which
declared all slaves in rebel states should be free as of January 1, 1863.
09/22/1949 - The
Soviet Union exploded its first atomic bomb.
09/22/1980 - The
Persian Gulf conflict between Iran and Iraq erupted into full-scale war.
09/22/2020 -
First day of autumn
09/22/2020 -
Shubun no Hi / Autumnal Equinox Day – Shinto
09/22/2020 -
Autumn Equinox – Wicca, Celtic
09/23/1806 - The
Lewis and Clark expedition returned to St. Louis from the Pacific Northwest.
09/23/1846 -
German astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle discovered the planet Neptune.
09/23/1957 - A
white mob forced nine black students who had entered Little Rock Central High
School in Arkansas to withdraw.
09/24/1789 -
Congress passed the First Judiciary Act which provided for an Attorney General
and a Supreme Court.
09/25/1690 -
Publick Occurrences, Both Foreign and Domestick, the first newspaper
published in America, was printed by Richard Pierce and edited by Benjamin
Harris in Boston. It contained 3 printed pages and 1 blank page.
09/25/1789 - The
first US Congress adopted 12 amendments to the Constitution and sent them to the
states for ratification. Ten of those amendments became the Bill of Rights.
09/25/1897 -
Author William Faulkner was born in New Albany MS.
09/25/1957 - With
300 US Army troops standing guard, nine black children forced to withdraw from
Central High School in Little Rock, because of unruly white crowds, were
escorted to class.
09/25/1979 -
Evita opened on Broadway.
09/25/2020 - Roi
Wangol, Mousindi – Voudon
09/26/1789 -
Thomas Jefferson became America's first secretary of state.
09/26/1914 - The
Federal Trade Commission was established.
09/26/1950 - UN
troops recaptured the South Korean capital of Seoul from the North Koreans.
09/26/1960 - The
first televised debate between presidential candidates Richard Nixon and John
Kennedy took place in Chicago.
09/26/1962 -
The Beverly Hillbillies premiered on CBS.
09/26/1986 -
William Rehnquist became the 16th chief justice of the US.
09/27/1779 - John
Adams was named to negotiate the Revolutionary War's peace terms with Britain.
09/27/1954 -
Tonight, hosted by Steve Allen, debuted on NBC.
09/27/1964 - The
Warren Commission issued a report concluding that Lee Harvey Oswald had acted
alone in assassinating President Kennedy.
09/27/1996 -
Afghanistan's Taliban drove the government out of Kabul and captured the
capital.
09/27/2020 - Yom
Kippur (Atonement) begins at sunset – Judaism
09/28/1066 -
William the Conqueror invaded England to claim the English throne.
09/28/1850 - The
US Navy abolished flogging as a form of punishment.
09/29/1542 -
Portuguese navigator Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo arrived at present-day San Diego.
09/29/1789 - The
US War Department established a regular army with several hundred men.
09/29/2020 - Gold
Star Mother’s Day
09/29/2020 -
Manman Aloumandia – Voudon
09/30/1791 -
Mozart's opera The Magic Flute premiered in Vienna.
09/30/1868 - The
first volume of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women was published.
09/30/1954 - The
US Navy commissioned the first atomic-powered vessel, the submarine Nautilus.
09/30/1962 -
Black student James Meredith succeeded on his fourth try in registering for
classes at the University of Mississippi.
09/30/2020 -
Maitresse Délai – Voudon
Online Resource Links
Ahead of election 2020: Tips on finding information you can trust
What ISIS Really Wants: The Islamic State is no mere collection of psychopaths.
It is a religious group with carefully considered beliefs, among them that it is
a key agent of the coming apocalypse. Here’s what that means for its strategy
and for how to stop it |
ISIS
Claims Responsibility, Calling Paris Attacks First of the Storm |
Syria Iraq: The Islamic State Militant Group
| Isis:
The Inside Story |
Frontline: The Rise of ISIS |
Council on Foreign Relations: A Primer on ISIS
|
Cracks in ISIS Are Becoming More Clear
|
How ISIS’ Attacks Harm the Middle East
|
Timeline: the Rise, Spread and Fall of the Islamic State
What it’s like to live on $2 a day in the United States (PDF)
Check out
Today's Front Pages. Each day, you can see the front pages of more than 800
newspapers from around the world in their original, unedited form.
Whether or not you noticed, the earth's population passed 7 billion a while back.
You might enjoy NPR's wonderful video,
Visualizing How a Population Grows to 7 Billion.
Check out the St. Louis Fed's presentation
The Financial Crisis: What Happened?. The original video is no longer available
but you can view the power point presentation.
Want to take a survey but not sure how many responses to collect? This
Survey Calculator gives you the number for any given population size and desired
confidence level. A reverse calculator lets you enter characteristics of an existing
survey and gives the confidence interval (±X%) to apply to the results. The Survey
System site, sponsored by a survey software company, also gives clear explanations
of statistical significance, survey design and related concepts. Also check out
20 Questions a Journalist (and You, too!) Should Ask About Poll Results.
PBS's
30 Second Candidate allows you to view more political ads than you ever knew
existed. Choose the Historical Timeline link to see how political ads have changed
over the years. Start with the infamous
Daisy Ad that Lyndon Johnson used against Barry Goldwater. Click on Watch
Johnson ads. Then click on either the QuickTime link or the Real Video link
next to Daisy.
Check out
Political Compass. The site does a good job of explaining political ideologies
(although with definitions different from those I use) and gives you a chance to
discover your own political philosophy.
Law Library of Congress: North Korea: Collection of links to websites on North
Korean government, politics and law. Includes legal guides, country studies and
links to constitutions and branches of government (where available).
Council on Foreign Relations: North Korea: Background, articles and opinion
pieces about North Korea government and politics. Many of the articles focus on
North Korea's nuclear program. From the Council on Foreign Relations, "an independent
membership organization and a nonpartisan think tank and publisher."
State of the Union (SOTU): The site uses an interactive timeline to provide
a visual representation of prominent words in presidential State of the Union addresses
by displaying significant words as "determined by comparing how frequently the word
occurs in the document to how frequently it appears throughout the entire body of
SOTU addresses." The Appendices section describes the statistical methods
used. Also includes the full text of addresses.
Small Town Papers: This site provides access
to scanned images of recent issues of dozens of small town newspapers from throughout
the United States. Newspapers are updated periodically, 2-3 weeks after publication.
The site also includes a searchable archive (of articles, photos and advertisements),
which covers different periods for each paper, some as far back as the 1890s. Access
to the archives requires free registration.
This website serves as a centralized location to learn about the
Congressional Research Service and search for CRS
reports that have been released to the public by members of Congress. (CRS Reports
do not become public until a member of Congress releases the report.) Features a
searchable database with more than 8,000 reports, a list of recently released reports,
other collections of CRS reports and a FAQ about CRS.
Stem Cell Research: See the official NIH resource for
Stem Cell Research. In 2005, NOVA aired an overview of
The Stem Cell Issue.
Instances of the Use of United States Armed Forces Abroad, 1798 - 2020: This report lists hundreds of instances in which the United States has used its
armed forces abroad in situations of military conflict or potential conflict or
for other than normal peacetime purposes. It was compiled in part from various older
lists and is intended primarily to provide a rough survey of past US military ventures
abroad, without reference to the magnitude of the given instance noted.
Government
Product Recalls
Homeland Security Knowledge
Base
If you're worried about retirement, try some of the following sites.
IRS Tax Information for Retirement Plans
Social Security Retirement Planner
Retirement Planning Resources from Smart Money
Keeping the Shi'ites Straight Based on the opinion
that no story has been more confusing for the Western news media to cover in postwar
Iraq than the politics of the country's Shi'ite majority, this article provides
a basic outline of Shi'ite religious history. Discusses the Sadr family (Muhammad
Baqir as-Sadr, Ayatollah Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr, and Muqtada as-Sadr), Muhammad
Baqir al-Hakim and other figures.
This commercial site presents brief information about dozens of
Black Inventors from the United States. Some entries
include portraits and images. Also includes a searchable timeline covering 1721-1988.
Does not include bibliographic information.
Annenberg Political Fact Check: This site describes
itself as a nonpartisan, nonprofit, consumer advocate for voters that aims to reduce
the level of deception and confusion in US politics. The site provides original
articles, with summaries and sources, analyzing factual accuracy in TV ads, debates,
speeches, interviews and news releases. Searchable. From the Annenberg Public Policy
Center of the University of Pennsylvania.
White House Tapes: The President Calling: Three
of America's most compelling presidents -- Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon -- bugged
their White House offices and tapped their telephones. In this documentary project,
American Radio Works eavesdrops on presidential telephone calls to hear how each
man used one-on-one politics to shape history. Includes audio, a transcript of the
documentary and background information on each president and the tapes.
The State of State and Local Finances: New studies afford a state-by-state
or city-by-city analysis of fiscal well being.
The Year of Living Dangerously: While leaders in a growing number of states
appear to believe they're serving the public good by squeezing government dry, there's
little question that minimizing management carries a host of dangers that directly
affect the lives of citizens.
Government Debt by Country Map: Shows countries' general government gross
debt as a percentage of GDP in 2012.
First Amendment Library: Provides info on Supreme
Court First Amendment jurisprudence, including rulings, arguments, briefs,
historical material, commentary and press coverage.
Community Service
If you need a presentation or workshop for your group,
use this
Community link
or the link at the top of the page.
The link will take you to a list of the topics I currently have available.
To schedule a date or for more information, feel free to contact me at
dramyglenn@gmail.com
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