We don't need no stinkin' term limitsVideo:
1/2/11
Union Stage Thugs Silence Critics
Why would folks not want to speak up?My wife and I have season tickets for events at Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center. At intermissions, we sometimes watch absently as three or four men in gray suits emerge from the wings to move a piano into place or bring out extra music stands and chairs.(from orthjersey.com)What they do is essential but unremarkable. Turns out that it is remarkably well-paid, however. Would you believe $422,599 a year? Plus $107,445 in benefits and deferred compensation?
How to account for all this munificence? The power of a union, Local 1 of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees. "Power," as in the capacity and willingness to close most Broadway theaters for 19 days two years ago when agreement on a new contract could not be reached.
Wakin reported that this power was palpable in the nervousness of theater administrators and performers who were asked to comment on the salary figures.
Given the accommodations that members of other unions are making in the recession, on both sides of the Hudson and nationally, it would seem that the stages of Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center could be adequately served by men paid less than $300,000 to $500,000 a year.
Progressive Comrades Forever
Hillary end-arounds Dept. of Social JusticeImage:
Miss me yet?US State Department spokesman Mark Toner said earlier this week that the United States hopes to improve strained relations with Venezuela. "We believe it is precisely because there are tensions in the relationship that it is important to maintain diplomatic communications at the highest level," Toner said.(from jamaicaobserver.com)
The US embassy has been without an ambassador since Patrick Duddy finished his assignment and left in July.A previous dispute prompted similar expulsions of ambassadors at the end of President George W Bush's administration. In September 2008, Chávez expelled Duddy and withdrew his own envoy, saying it was in solidarity with Bolivia after President Evo Morales ordered out the U.S. ambassador and accused him of helping the opposition incite violence. The Bush administration denied it and reacted by expelling the envoys of Venezuela and Bolivia.
US-Venezuela relations began to look up after Chávez shook hands with Obama at a 2009 summit in Trinidad. Later that year, the Obama administration and Chávez's government announced they were restoring their ambassadors.
Palmer Raids, Teapot Dome, 55 MPH
On this day: January 2Brigham Young is arrested on charges of bigamy for having 25 wives (1872)
Woodrow Wilson's Palmer Raids begin (1920)
U.S. Interior Secretary Albert Fall resigns over the Teapot Dome scandal (1923)
President Richard Nixon signs a bill lowering the maximum U.S. speed limit to 55 MPH during an OPEC embargo (1974)
b: Willi Graf (1918); d: Daniel Keefe (1929), Dixy Lee Ray (1994)
Community Organizing for the New Progressive Era
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