Deanna Dee-Dee Taylor

This call to action can be found on Operation 2012.

Of the 45 million Americans who have no health insurance over 10 million of them are children. The inflation-adjusted value of the minimum wage is 26 percent lower today than it was in 1979. Since 2000, a net 394,000 private-sector jobs have been lost and leaving nearly 8 million workers unemployed. Those that have kept their job are working longer hours for less pay. Today we have witnessed the biggest government rollback of overtime pay rights since passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) in 1938. Meanwhile the Bush administration has ushered in tax-cuts that benefit America’s wealthiest families. Operation 2012 calls upon the AFL-CIO Executive Council and Change to Win to call for all 13 million members to walk off the job in protest of the greatest government deficit in U.S. history. Its time we demanded greater accountability from our elected officials and forced the government to listen to the voice of the American working class. Support the Operation 2012 petition to call for a national worker walk out.

I have been engaging in blogging dialogue with the citizen blogger panelist who spoke at the Freedom Forum in Salt Lake City last week. I’m finding it kind of fun and a good way to practice my “listening” skills and a chance for me to articulate things on my mind in a different way.

Ken Bingham’s post today,
A New Hope For The Iraqi People!, starts off by insinuating that protestors of the U.S. Occupation in this country were disappointed in the smooth election and little violence yesterday. He also claims that Iraqi’s are now “free” and that the U.S. has planted the “seeds” of democracy. His comment section allowed me to make some portion of my comments I wanted to make, but wouldn’t allow me to provide links to sources, so here is my whole response to his post:
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Ken:
I take exception to the first part of your sentence, “Much to the chagrin of some in the United States, insurgence and terrorists in Iraq, the vote for a new Constitution went smoothly and with little violence in Iraq today.”

You are insinuating that people in the U.S. who oppose a U.S. occupation of Iraq, all of whom support the concept of democracy, advocate a violent voting experience for the people of that country. That could not be further from the truth. Most people want a non-violent voting experience. It’s too bad that voting experiences in our own country do not even set that example.

Also, I would like to point out that the people of Iraq are not free. They are under occupation.

If they Iraqi people are indeed “free”, why are many of the headlines touting “U.S. victory”? I thought this was supposed to be an Iraqi “victory”, yet it is not being billed that way.
Continue reading →

Updated: The project described below is the project of Triple Pundit

This was waiting for me in my emailbox when I opened it a few minutes ago:

It looks interesting. All you green bloggers might want to join.

It’s very sad that we are in anticipation of the 2000th soldier to be killed in Iraq. Cities all around the country have organized vigils for the impending event (including Salt Lake).

A video is being circulated in the e-waves. Here it is:

2000th soldier

I got this from the Organic Consumers Association.

SENATE DEBATES CUTTING FOOD AID TO 150,000 IMPOVERISHED U.S. CHILDREN
The Senate is currently debating cutting $3 billion from farm conservation and food stamp programs. Spearheaded by Senator Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga) and GOP supporters, the proposal would eliminate food stamps for more than 300,000 impoverished people. Currently, more than half of all food stamp recipients are children, and a quarter are senior citizens. While millions of Americans are looking for ways to cope with the aftermath of hurricanes and drought, powerful members of the Senate are being swayed by agriculture industry lobbyists, who are pushing for food stamps cuts while supporting massive tax payer subsidies to the nation’s wealthiest industrial agriculture operations. “Right now the difference between life and death for many Americans is the food stamp program,” said Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont. “We should not, we cannot, cut the very nutritional programs that are literally saving lives.”

Send a letter to your U.S. Senator here: http://www.organicconsumers.org/rd-subsidy.htm

In today’s news:
Utah:
The Deseret News continues its series on illegal immigration:
Status questions ignored; counting cost comes 2nd – While the political fight over illegal immigration polarizes the community, professionals such as doctors and teachers who interact with undocumented families daily accept them without question.
and
Calling Utah home: Churches choose to stay out of questions of status
Update on Rocky’s Italy trip issue

New tack on hate-crime law
U. disputes claims nuclear facility unsafe
Envirocare cleaning up in New England
Activists ratchet up fight over Kane roads

Elsewhere:
Ken Sain has interesting links to news items on the Bushites.

Margaret Thatcher questions Blair’s motives for invading Iraq.

Islamabad, other cities receive 67 jolts in last 24 hours

Vivian Malone Jones, the first black person to gradutate from the University of Alabama, died yesterday at age 63.

Jones is most famous for being escorted to the doors of the school which resulted in (then Alabaman governor) George Wallace’s famous “stand in the schoolhouse door”.

Read the Associated Press article on
CNN
and
London Guardian

More links to Jones:
Opening Doors
“The Schoolhouse Door” — Forty Years Later
Kennedy Library Draws Boston Public School Teachers to Six-Day Civil Rights Institute
Wallace in the Schoolhouse Door
Vivian Malone Jones: Leading the way

I received the email pasted in my box today. It is from a doctoral student at the U of U regarding the Wheels of Justice Tour that is in Salt Lake City through tomorrow.

From: Jeff Spiegel [mailto:rfs4@utah.edu]
Sent: Thursday, October 13, 2005 8:38 AM
other recipient names snipped;Deanna Taylor
Subject: UofU and terrorist apologist speakers on campus RE: Salt Lake speaking Events Oct 13 and 14

Mazin Qumsiyeh is a terrorist sympathizer and as a student of the University of Utah, I find it deplorable that the university campus is being used by “Wheels of Justice” (name snipped) to bring such speakers to campus. Academic freedom does not mean supporting hate-mongering speakers who develop conspiracy theories against countries they hate.
Continue reading →

I thought I’d lump a few of today’s headlines into one post.

We’re number one! We’re number one! We’re number one!

There is a lot of news in today’s Utah papers about Utah’s “accomplishments”, including highest in the nation in gender disparity in the workforce, highest in birth rate, and the homicides at its highest in two years. Read on:
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Utah is great in a lot of areas….including treating men better than women in the workforce.

Women often do the same job as men yet get paid less, according to an article on a federal report in today’s Salt Lake Tribune’s Utah among highest in gender wage gap.

One of the reasons, according to the report, is that there is a gap in the education of men and women, with a higher percentage of men than women obtaining post high school degrees. And the reason for that statistic is because women are having more kids and being pulled out of the labor force at times during the most salary gain.

But, Sarah Wilhelm, an economist for the nonprofit Utah Issues, says the wage difference can be attributed to what she calls “channeling,” where girls are told to go into different professions than boys.

If you look at the demographics and culture of the state, in my opinion, it makes sense that a certain percentage of women here would not only be treated this way, but would do as they are told.

Fortunately there are women in Utah who are trying to change that mindset and getting more women into higher paying fields.
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But wait….there’s more!

Utah is tops in birthrate

With two months left, Utah’s homicide rate highest in years

And in other news:

The Deseret News continues its series on immigration:The role of the law: Enforcing immigration laws not so easy

Where did that state surplus of funds go? Not to mass transit:
UTA riders may face a 25¢ fuel surcharge