Recognize!

Do the kids still say that? Nothing more pitiful than a big ole middle aged white woman talking hip hop but hell, it's part of my charm.

Verizon workers have decided to go back to work under their current contract while negotiions between the unions and Verizon resume under what I hope is better circumstances.

I saw my son smile this morning for the first time in weeks.
Right now he and Hope are out in the yard looking at bugs and flowers - one of their favorite things to do together early in the morning.

THANK YOU to the Verizon workers who stayed solid and committed through long days of picketing and worrying about their families.

THANK YOU to NJ Citizen Action a group that always does its best for the community. They kept the awareness out there and they sent members to picket lines to support the workers. My son spent a day picketing with a woman from NJCA who he said reminded him so much of me. Clearly she must have been wonderful.

THANK YOU to you. Each of you who read the past few posts and sent support and comfort. Comments where you shared you own financial concerns or mentioned that you thought of my son when you passed picket lines in your own area. As always our community of blog/real friends is there when needed.

THANK YOU to Mother Nature for pouring down rain and flooding manholes and ripping down wires. Although the storms caused a lot of grief for commuters and residents they also provided a real life lesson for fat ass management who had to leave their big ass desk chairs and try to keep a network running. This burst the bubble of bullshit about how the landline workers aren't necessary. The whole fucking thing depends on them asshats!

F**K YOU to Verizon Wireless managers. Not the workers who had no choice but to cross lines for the crappy hourly wages they need but the store managers and the regional managers who called the police for every little move a picketing worker made. You fuckers will need a union one day. Just because wireless is showing the big numbers right now don't feel so secure and superior. Upper management will step on your heads one day.

F**K YOU to those who said the workers should just be happy to have jobs. That is NOT what America is supposed to be about. Take crap and smile? Let the few rule the many? Get your selfish heads out of your clogged up asses and have the balls to fight the real enemy.

And ...

Big

Giant

Collosal

F**K YOU to Ivan Seidenberg and Lowell McAdam - the top 2 at Verizon. You miserable filthy slimy bastards. You are so out of touch you don't understand how your own network functions and what it needs.

F**K the over $100,000 a day the two of you make. It's positively pornographic to see you pieces of trash sitting in the private jet.

Ivan tries to explain what a conduit box is. Bigger than a bread box?

Lowell laments the size of his dick


And on we go ...

If You Can't Say Something Nice Then Just Tell The Truth

I haven't posted all week because I have been just plain foul. In a mood that could kill puppies and wither gardens with a slight glance.

And you know me - if I can't be the spiritual equivalent of Mother Teresa and Jesus then I'm just not me.

hehehehehehehehehe - I crack myself up.

It hurts my heart to see how tired and tense my son is. He has been at the picket lines 12 to 16 hours a day, everyday, since the CWA strike against Verizon began. He shuttles workers from one picketing location to another, he picks up workers at rail connections to bring them into lower Manhattan, he collects signs and leaflets at CWA offices and distributes them to sites and then he joins his crew on Canal Street.

This is one of CWA's latest ads ...

Click HERE to sign the solidarity petition


I asked Hope what a grumpy mood looked like ...

Then I asked her what a Nana mood looked like ...

Thank goodness and light and the universe for hope and Hope.

And on we go.

Oh Where To Begin ...

So Michele Obachmann (as Letterman refers to her) won the Iowa straw poll
OK

She reminded me of Georgie Bushie declaring a mandate
Stupid

She said Iowa is a state of social conservatives and as such Iowa had spoken
This liberal believes it’s possible to be a social conservative and still not be bat shit crazy
I think all her win means is that the others have not yet spent enough millions to rally more asshats

How about a language lesson?
Submissive means - unresistingly or humbly obedient
Respect means - esteem for or a sense of the worth or excellence of a person
Michele was asked what she meant when she said she always submits to her pray away the gay husband and she said it meant they respected each other
Clearly she has read even less than Palin
Kudos to the reporter who asked the question as the knowledge seekers around him booed and hissed.

Note: If you Google submissive to check my definition be careful where you click, especially if you’re socially conservative

No not that, but maybe Michele's husband can pray away wrestling


Dear Network News …
The CWA and IBEW strike against Verizon enters its second week today
Could you try covering it!
I know the fascination with missing blond women is more than you can resist but please – just pass that on to Nancy Grace and cover a story that directly affects thousands of workers and their families

If you go to YouTube you can search ‘verizon strike news’ and find some decent coverage

And if you search ‘verizon scabs’ you’ll be entertained by videos of management trying to do a job they’re not trained to do and finally realizing how difficult the job is

Cherry pickers and overhead lines and explosive manholes – OH MY!
Among my favorites …
A CWA member singing “oh where oh where can the dial tone be” as two scabs try to restore service
A crowd of picketers hooting and hollering while a scab tries to drop an overhead line while looking like he’s lassoing a bull

I’m relieved that the encounters have been non-violent and hope it stays that way
The tension and anger is palpable

I have never seen my son so disappointed and angry and disillusioned with a system and a country he has always been so patriotic about

As Jon Stewart would say ...
"Here's Your Moment of Zen"
a quote from Michele Bachman - "We're running out of rich people in this country."
Hey Voters!
Can you hear her now?
 

I Am A Union Mom

My son, a member of the Communication Workers of America  along with his brothers and sisters of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers went on strike at midnight this past Sunday. Verizon is asking for huge concessions from over 45,000 union workers by misrepresenting the decline of landline business and dismissing the contribution these workers have made to building the company and to keeping it going. They compare themselves to non-union providers who pop up and disappear on a daily basis and claim they need workers to give back so they can remain competitive.

Verizon has posted close to 20 billion dollars of profit over the past few years. One of their executives earns $49,000 a day. A day. Many workers don't make that in a year yet they are being asked to pay for their healthcare coverage. For an average family that coverage could cost $1200 a month. A win for Verizon and a win for a giant health care corporation - screw the workers.

Salary concessions could bring pay scales back to 1960s rates. This while the CEO earns $18 million a year excluding his perks and bonuses.

The attack on working people in this country goes on. I have heard many people say that the unions should simply be happy to have jobs in this economy and that they are selfish for striking.

Yet again this country gets angry with the wrong people. We blame immigrants and tenants and workers while putting up with the greed and corruption of corporations and Congress and the small percentage of our population that controls the vast majority of wealth and power.

As the banner at the CWA website says ...

If You're Not Angry, You're Not Paying Attention

May I add - get angry at the real villains not the ones that are easy to blame.

My niece captured this off the screen when NY1 News was airing the picketing at Verizon HQ
That's my son in the middle

At the Verizon store on Canal Street

My son is wearing the red cap at the front of the group

Later that day at the same store. Barricades were put up to keep the picket line away from the store. They may not be able to see them but they can still hear them.

More soon ...