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Submitted by sky.cosby on Tue, 03/20/2007 - 9:19pm.
Their vocabulary and articulatory skills progress in amazing leaps and bounds, stop dead for a few days and then explode again, roman candles reflected in the mudpuddles and pools of apple juice beneath the kitchen table. I come to consider each day a dance of different activities, best choreographed by exhausted parents moments before each step must be made. This is the part where we collectively sigh and think to ourselves how we all feel that way sometimes but thank goodness we have a few things going for us, some semblance of a plan and a basic grasp on the art of the long view. Right? The number of times a day I am brought to the brink of tears by some beautiful twist of Lyli’s little pink tongue or by some gracious act (often a rarity) by Scarleht on behalf of her temporarily beloved twin sister steadily increases with each passing week. Back and forth their mercurial moods rage on a pendulum anything but pacified. And I sit, seaside, watching their tides roll in. And it’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever born and birthed witness to.
Submitted by stevenl on Tue, 03/20/2007 - 7:42pm.
King Features Syndicate editor Jay Kennedy drowned in Costa Rica last week at age 50. The Danger Room crowd might know him better as the compiler of the landmark Official Underground & Newave Comix Price Guide. A lot has already been written about Jay online, and I have many Jay Kennedy stories, but here in OlyBlog I'd like to share his contribution to Olympia lore. Jay and I never met in person, but during the 1980s and early 1990s we correspondend frequently and occasionally talked on the phone. We connected in late 1981 while he was still compiling the Guide, and discovered we had a mutual interest in comic art, bibliography, and history. He also liked my work, and in 1982 or 1983, when he became cartoon editor at Esquire, he selected three unknown cartoonists to grace the pages of that magazine. Their names: Lynda Barry, Matt Groening, and yes, little old me, stevenl (Matt and I walked away from this deal-- but I'll save that story for another day). What Jay didn't know, was that the three of us knew each other from our days at TESC in the 1970s, and had all worked on the CPJ together when Matt was editor. When Jay discovered this, he coined the term "Evergreen Mafia." In a short time, other TESC cartoonists got their names out there, and the college started gaining a reputation as a cartoonists school (even though they had no cartooning curriculum, as such). The TESC cartoon rep gained national attention through Jay before the Simpsons really got going. Jay was not only a great comix historian, but he was able to spot comix history in the making. See you later, Jay.
Submitted by enpen on Tue, 03/20/2007 - 1:46pm.
Submitted by sky.cosby on Tue, 03/20/2007 - 1:31pm.
Building a radical working class culture is part of the aim of many activists, unionists, and workers. For us in the Industrial Workers of the World, that idea is part of our very preamble: we say that “By organizing industrially we are forming the structure of the new society within the shell of the old.” But it is not only our workplaces that need reorganization and solidarity: it’s also our homes and families, no matter what they look like. Women and single parents are especially hard hit by the way in which capitalism considers childrearing a ‘personal choice’ with no bearing on employer responsibilities. Pregnant women are pressured to leave decent jobs, and after giving birth find it increasingly difficult to find a job that will pay their bills. No parent wants to give up their children, but our society makes it intensely difficult to both have children and care for them. This burden falls disproportionately on women. Working women are 41% more likely to live in poverty than men, according to a study published by policy research center Legal Momentum. Another way of looking at this same statistic is to note that of all the adults living in extreme poverty - defined as making less than half of the poverty standard - sixty percent are women.
» Childcare is a part of this problem. Parents who need to work to pay for housing, clothing, and groceries need to pay for childcare, and the average monthly cost of childcare in 2003 was $340. Single women are again hit disproportionately by this problem. Although men like the author of this sentence may talk a lot about gender equality and feminism, we rarely pull equal weight in the home, whether the work involved is the raising of our own children or the doing of the dishes. Even in dual-income families, women still do the vast majority of this ‘reproductive labor.’ Increasingly, we recognize the importance of supporting parents and children in this culture. Once they have children, new parents - especially mothers - often find themselves marginalized and overworked by the very movements that they helped build. Dependable childcare is often not provided at events. This is a problem for all parents, but women are perhaps the hardest hit. Across nearly every category, women still do the vast bulk of childraising. While women are doing this most vital of labors, radical men tend to have more relative freedom to engage in public work, union organizing, or activism. By default, men continue to dominate our institutions, set our priorities, and find themselves as the most active members of our union... Read More at the Embassy of Arcturus
Submitted by Sarah on Tue, 03/20/2007 - 11:02am.
 I'll be back by next Tuesday, Happy Spring Equinox everyone!
Submitted by Sarah on Tue, 03/20/2007 - 10:09am.
 Think back four years ago, to when you first heard that the Iraq War had started. Were you for or against the war at the time? Why? (adapted from Tuesday topic) I've been against this war (and the one before that) all this time. Why? I truly don't have the words anymore. Fortunately others do have the words. Read David Lynn's poem: Pain is Pain and Death is Death.
Submitted by Sarah on Tue, 03/20/2007 - 7:38am.
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