sunday afternoon radio

"With just one senate seat, Connecticut gets a Republican, a Democrat, and an Independent." - Peter Sagal on Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, a radio show that almost makes the week's worth of nasty depressing news worth it.

nature

"It has been said that wildness is a luxury, a commodity that man will be forced to dispense with as his occupancy of the earth approaches saturation. If this happens, he is finished. Wildness must be preserved; it is a spiritual necessity. Even though few may visit wilderness areas they remain an open back door, a safety valve for those who never enter them." - Eliot Porter

Happy Labor Day

There Is Power In A Union
by Billy Bragg

There is power in a factory, power in the land
Power in the hand of the worker
But it all amounts to nothing if together we don't stand
There is power in a Union

Now the lessons of the past were all learned with workers blood
The mistakes of the bosses we must pay for
From the cities and the farmlands to trenches full of mud
War has always been the bosses way, sir

The Union forever,defending our rights
Down with the blackleg,all workers unite
With our brothers and our sisters from many far-off lands
There is power in a Union

Now I long for the morning that they realise
Brutality and unjust laws cannot defeat us
But who'll defend the workers who cannot organise
When the bosses send their lackeys out to cheat us?

Money speaks for money,the Devil for his own
Who comes to speak for the skin and the bone?
What a comfort for the widow,a light to the child
There is power in a Union

The Union forever,defending our rights
Down with the blackleg,all workers unite
With our brothers and our sisters together we will stand
There is power in a Union

internet polls

I hate to admit it, but I often am a sucker for those side-bar polls that you find on internet websites. Yes, as a political science major I know just how unreliable polling is, and as a decently intelligent person, I can pretty much figure how inaccurate internet polls are. However, there is something fascinating about them -- I think it goes into the whole "click activism" phenom - that we can feel like we're being active & connected even though we're at home on our computers.

Anyway -- I just took one of these polls and the results were quite scary. 70% of those answered said that terrorism is the "greatest threat of our times" while less than 1% said global warming. And these are Slate readers, so I'd only hate to guess what the results would be like on foxnews.com Another question asked what communications do you consider to be "most personal." 70% said cell phone conversations, while less than 1% said banking information or medical records. Whoa -- I guess those polled believe that their completely unsecured conversations in the grocery store are "more personal" than their doctor-patient privileged medical records? Ah, geeze.