Fighting over posters... it's like something that would happen in a dorm room

But it happened in the Wisconsin legislative assembly.

"This is a sham," cried Brett Hulsey.

I read that aloud and Meade went "Sham! Sham! Sham!" — which is amusing if you know your Wisconsin protest references. (If you don't, look at this and this and this.)

"An envelope full of feces was sent to the office of state Sen. Lena Taylor, D-Milwaukee."

"The return label read, 'Milwaukee Trade Unions Want The Iron Mine.'"

Union nastiness turns on the Democrats who opposed the big iron mine (assuming the return label reflects to the source of the shit).

Here's some info on the mine. Here's a letter to the editor of a Manitowoc newspaper:

Why do the private-sector unions support the Democrats? Not one Senate Democrat will vote for good-paying, union-related mining jobs in Wisconsin. Most of these jobs just happen to be in Democratic Senate districts. They're afraid the water and environment will be damaged, but don't seem to mind letting Milwaukee (Democratic District) pump raw sewage a few times a year into Lake Michigan when it rains too much.

Could it be Democrats and union bosses only want public-sector union jobs, want Indian tribes to have the only businesses in Northern Wisconsin, don't want us to lose our top-10 ranking as most restrictive areas in the world for mining and don't like private-sector union jobs that can't be moved to China?

It's because Gov. Scott Walker wants the mining bill. Thank you, union bosses, for fighting for these good-paying union mining jobs. I heard five trade unions backing the mining bill in Madison March 6, but didn't see any media coverage. I must have missed the news that day.

What a waste of my union dues. How stupid of me. My union dues aren't used for any political reasons. I'd go to the library to get some information on this, but I need a photo ID to get a library card. Wait, I'll just Google it.

Raymond Fanslau

Two Rivers

(Two Rivers and Manitowoc are about 90 miles north of Milwaukee on the shore of Lake Michigan.)

Wisconsin Senate Democrats are losing some union members.

"Lyle Balistreri... represents more than 15-thousand construction trades workers in southeast Wisconsin, men and women who would have benefited from the mining reform bill."

"For the Senate Democrats to vote against this bill is a sign that they're not with us. They're certainly not job creators, and in fact they're job killers. And I'm sick and tired of the partisan politics in the State of Wisconsin. The working people in the state of are taking a beating. Democrats and Republicans are at each other's throats, and this sort of thing has to stop."

ADDED: David Blaska writes:

Real people in economically depressed Northern Wisconsin are paying the price for the Democratic Party’s fealty to government employee unions. Who has declared war on the middle class? Democrats have....

Legislative Democrats defeated the mining bill in order to sabotage the governor’s job-creation efforts. Those Democrats intend to play working men and women off each other: they’ll happily trade the industrial unions, whose numbers have been declining for decades, in exchange for the more numerous and more prosperous teachers unions and AFSCME affiliates.

"For them the whole mountain is a temple..."

"... and the gold and silver below the ground are there for a reason — they contribute to the energy, and it would be best if they just left it alone."

Religion versus mining.

"In truth, the art project is akin to a massive resource extraction project, and under federal law should be treated as one..."

So reads the complaint in a lawsuit brought by a group of University of Denver law students against federal land managers who approved Christo's draping fabric over 6 miles of the Arkansas River.

[I]n classifying an art project as a “recreation activity,” the suit says, the federal analysts framed their assessment in ways that excused the impact of the thousands of bore-holes, rock-bolts and anchors that will have a cumulative effect, the suit says, not unlike industrial mining.

This is a new twist on the old "what is art?" question. These law students are arguing about the art/mining distinction.

Let me add: I love Christo. I used to hate him.

"Working in the Coal Mine."

At Meadhouse this morning, we're talking about the song "Working In The Coal Mine," not because of the abysmal jobs situation these days, but because... well, because there was a little too much milk in my coffee. (This stream of consciousness has nothing to do with the suffering of unemployment and working in coal mines, so please forgive me.)

Meade decided to make me a double-shot, and I — helpful in my usual abstracted way — started playing "Double Shot of My Baby's Love" (by the Swingin' Medallions) — a song about a woman who "loved [her man] so hard" that he woke up with... "the worst hangover [he] ever had."

That got me talking about the frat rock cassette recording that I bought when my kids were very young. It had "Double Shot" along with stuff like "Hang On Sloopy" and "Louie Louie." It was one of a series of tapes that I bought to play in the car after I realized that rock and roll oldies were good children's music. (Well, not "Double Shot.") I first had this realization back in the 1980s when, for some reason — maybe a toddler said "ya ya" — I started singing "Sitting in Ya Ya Waiting for my La La." Baby talk!

"Who sang that?" I ask, playing it on YouTube. Meade says "Sam Cooke." No! It's Lee Dorsey! Do you know any other Lee Dorsey songs? There's only one other that you might remember. It's this. "Working in the Coal Mine." (Not to be confused with this Sam Cooke song, which is, frankly, much better... as a recording. I will not compare the degree of workplace suffering described in the 2 songs.)

But check out these 2 other recordings of "Working in the Coal Mine" — this and this. I can't picture any of those people actually working in a coal mine, but in a pinch, if I had to say, I'd pick The Judds.

Have you had enough coffee this morning? I have.

ADDED: "Get your ya-yas out." Remember when Barack Obama said it? Back in June 2008, when he was thanking his campaign workers for "submerging their egos." The "Ya-yas" remark comes at 10:45. But start here:



Based on that part — before the "ya-yas," I think he didn't expect to win in Iowa. "If I'd lost Iowa, it would have been okay." But: "Because we won, we now have no choice." It seems as though he'd intended to make his mark, then reemerge in 2012 or 2016 as the frontrunner. But he won. It came too soon. Yet he had to plunge forward. It was all a crazy miscalculation. He just didn't expect to be that loved in Iowa.

And now, it's 2011, primary time once again, and our nation turns its lonely eyes to you, Iowa, ya ya ya.

"Vast deposits of rare earth minerals, crucial in making high-tech electronics products, have been found on the floor of the Pacific Ocean..."

"... and can be readily extracted, Japanese scientists said on Monday."

"The deposits have a heavy concentration of rare earths. Just one square kilometer (0.4 square mile) of deposits will be able to provide one-fifth of the current global annual consumption," said Yasuhiro Kato, an associate professor of earth science at the University of Tokyo....

He estimated rare earths contained in the deposits amounted to 80 to 100 billion tonnes, compared to global reserves currently confirmed by the U.S. Geological Survey of just 110 million tonnes that have been found mainly in China, Russia and other former Soviet countries, and the United States....

China, which accounts for 97 percent of global rare earth supplies, has been tightening trade in the strategic metals, sparking an explosion in prices.  

Great news!

"Those snaps are all you need to know."

"The working man's plight is boiled down to the struggle for money.  Ford uses his gospel training to make this fight seem almost as fight that Jesus himself would join to defeat the forces that make him 'another day older and deeper in debt'.  But because he lacks hope of escape, Ford's message here seems to subscribe to the 'take this job and shove it' school of country music as opposed to the aspirational.  The snaps, though; that's the heartbeat of America there."

#180 on List-a-Beefy's top 200 #1 songs of the last 55 years.

"Rescued Miners’ Secrecy Pact Erodes in Spotlight."

Oh, no. I sense that the recent joy will melt into tragedy. What personal details do these men know about each other, and what antipathy will arise as they tell each other's stories and disagree about what really happened?

“We’re poor — look at the place we live... you live off our stories, so why can’t we make money from this opportunity to feed our children?”

Miners have asked for as little as $40 and upward of $25,000 for interviews....

“We paid $500 for the interview,” Ari Hirayama of Asahi Shimbun of Japan, said upon exiting the house. “And it felt like he was withholding details.”

33 men with 69 days together. That's over 50,000 hours of human drama to be remembered and put into words — words that men who've always been poor can now sell. What a strange market! So there is the betrayal of the secrecy pact being broken, and the competition for money, in which the most talkative and imaginative men will win the most and, perhaps, cause the most pain.

[One] interview also touched on the crying fits some men had, the unsanitary conditions they endured, even the rumors that some had sexual relations with others underground...

We will never hear the end of this. 

33 men, trapped 2300 feet underground, must wait 4 months for rescue.

A mine in Chile. For 17 days, there was no contact with the men. Now, there is communication — such as the note from the miners: "All 33 of us are fine in the shelter." There is hope and jubilation and food and water.

"It will take months to get them out," [said Chilean President Sebastian Pinera]. "They'll come out thin and dirty, but whole and strong."

Mr Pinera also saw images of the miners taken by a camera that was lowered down the borehole....

"Many of them approached the camera and put their faces right up against it, like children, and we could see happiness and hope in their eyes," Mr Pinera said.

It's hard to begin to imagine the emotions of the men and the people above ground who love them. First, the shock of the cave-in, with the uncertainty — both underground and above — about survival. Then the 17-day wait, with hope and suffering changing all the time. Then, the immense joy of contact, the families above ground all learning their men are alive and well and the men knowing their loved ones know they haven't died. All the basics of getting food and water. The comfort of notes back and forth. The window to the outside world that is the camera. What a relief to know that rescue is coming. But the wait is so long.

Think what it must be like to be trapped in a group that size, for that long. What do you think they are doing, with all that time? I assume that, since they were miners, they have mental resources for dealing with the fears of confinement and danger that far exceed ours, so maybe it is a bit presumptuous to try to put ourselves in their place, but let's try. I think I would devote myself, above all, to preserving a calm attitude for everyone. You couldn't have any fighting or craziness.

Then, what would you do about the boredom? You would talk, but perhaps you'd get sick of the men who talk too much, and you can't have talk that is upsetting or arguments about what's okay to talk about and what isn't. There would be much prayer, maybe too much for some people. But there are 33 of you, you'd break into small groups or pairs. Some would be religious, others would play games or tell stories. Some would keep to themselves. Would you make sure that no one was despairing or lonely?

There are some ways in which the terrible limitations would intensify the richness of life. And, upon rescue, the true richness of ordinary life will be brilliantly obvious to them. The love, the light, the air — why do we not see that overwhelming beauty all the time?

Subliminal argument against coal mining.

(Enlarge.)

(Photographed at the checkout at Whole Foods.)

"We, the miners of Waldo and Althouse in Oregon Territory, being in convention assembled..."

"... for the purpose of making rules to regulate our rights as miners, do hereby on the first day of April, 1852, ordain and adopt the following rules and regulations to govern this camp":

That 50 cubic yards shall constitute a claim on the bed of the creek extending to high water on each side.

That 40 feet shall constitute a bank or bar claim on the face extending back to the hill or mountain.

That all claims not worked when workable, after five days, be forfeited or jumpable.

That all disputes arising from mining claims shall be settled by arbitration, and the decision shall be final.