From photosharing site Pixdaus via @Uncucumbered
Welcome to Sunday OND, tonight's edition of the daily feature. The Overnight News Digest crew consists of founder Magnifico, regular editors jlms qkw, Bentliberal, wader, Oke, rfall, and JML9999, alumni editors palantir and ScottyUrb, guest editors maggiejean and annetteboardman, and current editor-in-chief Neon Vincent. I only put myself first 'cause we're lined up in day-of-the-week order.
On this Labor Day Weekend, I want to point out this excellent and underappreciated diary series:
Anti-Capitalist Meetup: Working Class Self-Activity: Leading the USA to Democracy
As my study of Marxian socialism has progressed, I've come to understand that self-activity is central to the humanist core of Marx's thinking, and that it represents nothing less than the active, creative aspect of humanity. Creative human activity, aka work or labor, is how we express our deepest selves and how we ensure our survival, but under capitalism labor becomes an activity alien to ourselves, directed and controlled by another, something that degrades us rather than exalting us.
Most Americans, especially those whose politics are even a little bit left of center, are aware of the central role played by workers in achieving social-economic advances like shorter working hours, higher wages, unemployment benefits, pensions, Social Security and a host of others. Many also recognize that even when a given labor union or other grouping of workers is fighting for some change at a single workplace or industry, the benefits of their success (or the costs of their failure) will be felt far beyond that single social locus. Simply put, when one group of workers wins higher pay or shorter hours, they make it easier for the next group to win as well.
Less well known but equally important has been the role of the working class in leading the American nation away from oligarchy and toward democracy. Of course, the advances mentioned in the previous paragraph are crucial to that as well, but here I'd like to focus on progress toward political democracy and equality.
CONFLICT
US suspends training to check Afghan recruits
As the bodies of five Diggers killed last week - three of them in an insider attack - left Afghanistan bound for home, US officials announced that training of Afghan local police and Afghan special operations forces would be on hold for at least a month.
The spokesman said the mission was approved in accordance with normal processes and Australian forces operated under strict rules of engagement specifically designed to avoid civilian casualties and damage to civilian infrastructure but also to provide the maximum protection for Australian troops.
But Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai condemned what he called a ''unilateral operation'' by Australian troops, saying it breached an agreement with NATO. He said tribal elder Raz Mohammad Khan, 70, and his son, Abdul Jalil, 30, who were killed, ''had no relationship with the government or the militants''. Provincial spokesman Abdullah Hemmat and they had been victims of wrong reports.
AROUND THE PLANET
Barclays makes £500m betting on food crisis
Barclays has made as much as half a billion pounds in two years from speculating on food staples such as wheat and soya, prompting allegations that banks are profiting handsomely from the global food crisis.
Barclays is the UK bank with the greatest involvement in food commodity trading and is one of the three biggest global players, along with the US banking giants Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, research from the World Development Movement points out.
Last week the trading giant Glencore was attacked for describing the global food crisis and price rises as a "good" business opportunity.
Poverty forces mom to sell three kids for Rs. 155 in West Bengal
Thrashed along with her children and driven out of the house by her jobless daily wager-husband, a hooch addict, 15 days ago, 30-year-old Purnima Haldar sold all three of her daughters aged between 3 and 9 for Rs. 155 at the Diamond Harbour railway station near Kolkata recently.
She is believed to have told the police that she hadn't eaten for some days and the money would buy her two meals.
The children were rescued after Purnima told vendors at the railway station that she was compelled to sell them as they had not eaten properly for several days.
Fumes in bakery kill father of two
A MELBOURNE man who came to Australia from Cambodia in 1990 as an asylum seeker has died of carbon monoxide poisoning at the bakery where he was working yesterday, Father's Day.
The victim's wife and a co-worker discovered the 43-year-old man dead at a bakery in Ferntree Gully about 7am. His 23-year-old brother-in-law was taken to Maroondah Hospital where he is in a stable condition. The older man, a father of two young boys, was identified as Darren Cole.
The remapping of the Middle East
What we are witnessing behind the immediate scenes of horror in Syria is the most comprehensive attempt to reshape the Middle East since World War I. The Sykes-Picot treaty of 1916 set out the geostrategic parameters of the modern Middle East but the model no longer works for the imperial/post-imperial powers and their regional allies.
We have been through several phases but until now the nation-state has withstood the stress to which it has been subjected. These include the Suez War of 1956, the Western-backed Israeli attack on Egypt and Syria in 1967 and Israel's attempt to set up a puppet government in Lebanon. The center of attention is what used to be called the "fertile crescent", what is now Iraq and what is now Syria, Lebanon and Israel/Palestine.
This entire region lends itself to ethno-religious breakdown if the "West" can get its foot through the door.
The invasion of Iraq was followed by the destruction of Iraq as a unitary state. The constitution written in Washington - much as the constitutions of Iraq and Egypt in the 1920s and 1930s were written in London - turned a secular state into a state with a sectarian religious basis. It created a weak central government and fostered the growth of an increasingly powerful Kurdish governorate in the north. By submitting the future of Kirkuk to a referendum (yet to be held) it encouraged the demographic war that has been taking place as the Kurds seek to build up their numbers in and around this city.
The lines drawn by past war winners are a special interest of mine. I wonder if any of this "remaking" will benefit normal people in their everyday lives.
Murder charges against Marikana miners based on 'sound principle'
The strikers are to be released on a warning, and will not be required to post bail.
"The decision and pronouncement on the final charges to be preferred against any persons involved will only be made once all investigations have been completed," said acting national director of public prosecutions Nomgcobo Jiba. "The murder charges against the current 270 suspects, which was provisional anyway, will be formally withdrawn provisionally in court on their next court appearance. Other provisional charges will remain."
The most serious of the remaining charges relate to illegal gathering with dangerous weapons.
Neither Jiba nor the man responsible for the original decision to press the murder charges, North West NPA prosecutions director Johan Smit, admitted any error in the decision to put those charges before the court, and so causing a public outcry.
I know the NYT has picked up this story, this is from the South African paper and there are several different articles. Labor Day, indeed.
Partial Closure Chaos as Strikes Ground Planes at Frankfurt Airport
It was but a temporary warning strike. But the eight-hour walkout of Lufthansa flight attendants at the Frankfurt airport on Friday caused chaos far beyond the German air hub. Lufthansa was forced to cancel more than 200 flights, stranded passengers filled Frankfurt's main terminal and, shortly after the strike began, all European flights bound for Frankfurt were either cancelled or redirected to other airports.
"It is chaos here at the airport," a spokesperson for the union representing the flight attendants said. "They don't know what to do with all of the airports. At the moment, all flights are cancelled."
The mass cancellations meant that the airport quickly ran out of gates for incoming flights, necessitating the temporary partial airport closure. The strike came to an end as planned at 1 p.m. CET, but it will be some time before air traffic returns to normal at the airport, Germany's biggest.
Mass Dismissal at Paraguayan Ministry
The workers union of the Social Action MInistry in Paraguay has denounced mass dismissal, including 75 percent of the employees and officials, due to political and union reasons in that sector. Union leader Genaro Palacios said that 350 employees were dismissed on Friday, despite having a contract of employment that expires in December this year.
ACROSS THE USA
Blackhawks hope for best on labor front
The threat of a lockout by the owners grows more ominous each day and the sides are not scheduled to meet to discuss a new collective bargaining agreement. The current deal expires Sept. 15 and the league has said it will lock out the players then if a new CBA is not in place. That threatens to affect the 2012-13 regular season with a work stoppage similar to the one that caused the cancellation of the '04-05 season.
Despite the doom and gloom, players are training and preparing for a season that in all likelihood will start later than scheduled. A group of Hawks and other NHL players — including the Capitals' Troy Brouwer and the Panthers' Brian Campbell — have been skating in Chicago and are ramping up their offseason training regimens.
NFL refs
remain locked out at this late date. Also.
Roses & Thistles: Labor Day is another day of labor for many workers
A rose to the laborers who will be laboring Monday on Labor Day. While the rest of us snooze or watch the grass turn brown(er), others will be caring for the sick and elderly, keeping the shelves stocked at grocery stores, piloting police cruisers and standing by at the firehouses. It’s worth remembering the purpose of this holiday is to celebrate working Americans. A reader reminded us of an old quote that’s fit for the day. In an address to the International Labor Congress, titled “What Does Labor Want?” Samuel Gompers, founder of the American Federation of Labor in 1886, said: “We want more school houses and less jails; more books and less arsenals; more learning and less vice; more constant work and less crime; more leisure and less greed; more justice and less revenge; in fact, more of the opportunities to cultivate our better natures, to make manhood more noble, womanhood more beautiful and childhood more happy and bright. These in brief are the primary demands made by the trade unions in the name of labor. These are the demands made by labor upon modern society and in their consideration is involved the fate of civilization.”
She's a Million Mile 'mailman,' and the odometer is still turning
In her 31 years as a "mailman" -- the honorific she uses to describe herself -- for the U.S. Postal Service, Cheryl La Treille has been attacked by men and by dogs. She has suffered a herniated disk from the daily dance required to sort the mail, and she wears a brace to support deranged ankle tendons from lugging the heavy holiday satchel -- O, Pottery Barn!
La Treille got off her aching feet 23 years ago, when she was assigned a route just off what is now the high-tech corridor along San Jose's North First Street, and she's been driving in circles ever since. She was one of 11 San Jose carriers -- among 27 from around the Bay Area -- recently inducted into the Postal Service's Million Mile Club, a metric actually based on years of service rather than the rollover of an odometer.
The ceremony was conducted at the mammoth Oakland Processing and Distribution Center, a structure of 1.2 million square feet dwarfed on that day by the flat feet gloriously assembled there.
Al Jaffe, WWII hero who inspired movie role, dies in South Florida
Second Lt. Abraham “Al’’ Jaffe completed 77 reconnaissance missions in Europe, including one that helped turn the tide of the war during the pivotal Battle of the Bulge.
He was also involved in holding the bridge at Remagen, Germany, enabling U.S. troops to cross the Rhine River two months before the war ended.
His exploits inspired Henry Fonda’s character, Lt. Col. Daniel Kiley, in the 1965 feature film Battle of the Bulge — and earned Jaffe 17 medals, including the Distinguished Flying Cross, the nation’s third highest combat decoration.
Settling in South Florida after the war with his young bride, Jaffe got a job as an investigator for the business rating agency Dun & Bradstreet, then transitioned to banking and business.
He served as chief financial officer of Topp Electronics in the 1970s when, said son Arthur Jaffe, a Plantation CPA, “it was bigger than Panasonic.’’ He became president of Pan American Bank of Hialeah in 1975 and retired in 1994 as a vice president of Barclay’s Bank in Miami.
Although his business career had its share of excitement — he was involved with Jacques Mossler, the Key Biscayne tycoon brutally murdered in 1964, allegedly by his wife Candy and her nephew/lover Melvin Lane Powers, both acquitted in a sensational trial — nothing ever rivaled his wartime experience.
HERE IN UTAH
Workers who bring baggage — and employers who let them — exact a toll
The study of close to 20,000 employees who work at three large U.S. companies found that "presenteeism" — showing up for work but performing at subpar levels because of physical or emotional health reasons — takes an enormous toll on worker productivity. Citing other research, Merrill said presenteeism accounts for about 63 percent of wasted worker productivity, and absenteeism explains the rest.
According to the study, productivity problems show up more often in women and in people who are separated, divorced or widowed. High school graduates and people with some college experience also show lower levels of productivity. Service, clerical and other office occupations seem to give rise to presenteeism, he said.
OTHER
Shattered Genius
Walking to my car, I felt as though I had failed, having gained such rare proximity to Perelman, only to have the man slip through my grasp. But then I paused, for there must have been something I had missed. Perelman was as unadorned, yet just as complex as the conjecture he had proven. He had relieved the Poincaré Conjecture of its mystery, and in so doing had replaced it, becoming the puzzle himself, granting the world knowledge, yet diminishing its enchantment not at all. We don’t have to figure out everything. The unknown has its own value.
Through the windshield of the Hyundai, I watched Perelman and his mother approach their entryway, the bums and the kids and the new mothers of Kupchino going about their lives. Perelman and his mother retreated into the darkness of the vestibule. The metal door slammed closed behind them. Perelman was out, he was in. He had gotten some air.
Weird story in honor of ScottyUrb
California delegate agrees to leave DNC after disturbance
The delegate who was sanctioned Sunday reportedly tried to intervene when hotel staff called paramedics, arguing that the unconscious man had merely had too much to drink and ought to be put to bed. When he tried to move the man’s motionless body, hotel staff called the police.
When officers arrived, the man allegedly claimed to be a member of Congress, before stating repeatedly that he was a state party official. Police threatened to arrest him when he refused to provide identification, and hotel staff threatened to kick him off the property. He later apologized and was allowed to remain in the hotel for the remainder of the night.
Weekly Classics: One flew over the cuckoo’s nest