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By Seattle

It has occurred to me several times in the last few years that I’m living in the wrong decade, if not the wrong century. I’ve got the wrong attitude when it comes to vacations. Around me are adults who, when they think of taking a vacation, they think of taking vacations AWAY from their children. To escape the grind is to escape the grind of parenthood. The concept of the shared family vacation as part of the education of the child by the parent by exposing them to new places, history, natural beauty and time spent outside the home seems a bit old fashioned. An example: a father called and left a phone message for his son from his vacation in a tropical location: “Hey, just came back from snorkling-you would have loved it. I love ya -….” Personally I find that kind of message disturbing. How is a child supposed to feel when a parent calls to let them know what a great time they’re having-without you?

So I took my sons on two vacations in the last two weekends. First we went to Kalaloch Beach in the Olympic National Park coastline. Here is the gazebo at the trail head down to the beach:

And more of the beach proper:

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By order of King George:

The Bush Rules:

I took these photographs while standing on Governors Island, in New York harbor between the southern tip of Manhattan and Red Hook, Brooklyn. This is where Reagan and Gorbachov met in December of 1988, marking the quasi-official end to the Cold War.

BTW, my buddy Tim Perper tells me that the original Gojira has been released on DVD, uncut, without Raymon Burr.

Bill Benzon, WAAGNGNP Minister of Visual Propaganda

The vast inequality of this new Gilded Age didn’t just happen. Nature didn’t ordain it, the market didn’t require it, and Adam Smith’s invisible hand doesn’t sustain it.What happened is the rich declared class war and spent what it took to win.

Not exactly a new story, of course, but the extraordinary new concentration of wealth and power created a juggernaut that makes it harder and harder for democracy to work for all.

From Bill Moyers on Class in America

About a year ago I heard an interview on Air America with a gentleman plugging something - a book, if memory serves - on labor and the working class. I can’t remember the name of the person being interviewed, so let’s call him Interviewee. Interviewee said something very interesting about the definition of “middle class”. He said that if you can’t afford to be without a job for at least six months, you aren’t middle class.

Whether you agree with this or not, it’s a vitally important concept. Why? Because until we as working people re-embrace (or, perhaps simply embrace) our very status as working people, the divide between the haves and have-nots in this country is going to continue to increase because we won’t be organizing as working people.

For quite some time now, America’s been a place where everyone who’s not flat-out rich or flat-out poor wants to define themselves as middle class. “Working class” has become a term only for the poor, and only for blue collar workers. This is bullshit.
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