Interesting times

Did you ever think your gastroenterologist would belong to the same union as the barista who just sold you a coffee?  Doctors who work for Allina Health System, a "non-profit" in Wisconsin and Minnesota, have voted to join the Service Employees International Union, which represents food service workers and janitors as well as low-paid health care providers (nurses, nursing home and home care workers).  Their chief complaint is understaffing which forces them to deal with lab results, prescription refills and even having to take phone calls from customers patients.  I imagine they'd like a bigger share of the (non-) profits as well.  

Understaffing was also an issue in the strike against Kaiser Permanente in California, where a coalition of unions won a 21 percent wage increase over four years after a three-day strike by technicians, nurses and pharmacists.  Labor is flexing its muscles for the first time in decades, from auto workers to the people who write the jokes for which TV hosts get the credit.  (The Guardian quotes Stephen Colbert as if he were Walter Lippmann.)  Bill Ford, the executive chair of Ford Motor Company, says the UAW strike is hurting the company's ability to compete with Tesla and Toyota.  It's been so long, he's forgotten that that's more or less the purpose of a strike -- to make the capitalists feel some of the pain of their workers.

Last February Joe Biden visited Kyiv with no prior announcement, but the world knows he's about to head for Israel.  In return, the Netanyahu government has agreed to at least discuss humanitarian aid to Gaza.  The Romanian prime minister and the German chancellor were there today, but Biden has to wait and see if the House manages to elect a Speaker.  (Jim Jordan failed on the first ballot today, which means we dodged a bullet -- no, a barrage of Katyusha rockets.)  Whatever life-form they settle on will take her/his place in the presidential line of succession, so I hope Kamala Harris's Secret Service detail can be trusted.  Dark Brandon may have problem feet but he runs toward the danger.  Authorities in Gaza say two hundred people died when the IDF bombed Al-Ahli Arabi Baptist Hospital, which means that all three of the monotheistic religions which make this dusty part of the world so significant are now involved.  People thought they would be safer in a Christian hospital.  

Events in Israel and Gaza have sparked violence across the world.  In Brussels a man with an assault rifle killed two Swedes and wounded a third, in the name of his god, of course.  In Plainfield, Illinois, a Palestinian woman was stabbed and her six-year-old son killed, apparently by their landlord, apparently because he was angry over the war.   Police are having to get between competing demonstrations all over the country and the world.  

On October 7, within hours of the attacks, student groups at Harvard already had a statement holding Israel "entirely responsible."  In response, a hedge fund manager named Bill Ackman said he represented "a number of CEOs" who want the university to reveal the names of individual student signers "to insure that none of us inadvertently hire any of their members."  And so the pre-blacklist was born.  Right-wingers who routinely yell about having their speech "cancelled" on elite campuses have been weirdly silent.  Intellectual violence is the second-worst kind.

And Trump...I'm sorry, I needed a moment.  Trump's Dementia Tour '23 continues in Iowa.  Someone must have whispered that calling terrorists "smart" was dumb, so he assured the farmers that he'll bring back the Muslim ban from 2017 and bar refugees from Gaza.  Then he launched into a complaint about how you can't buy flypaper anymore.  While he was babbling, Judge Tanya Chutkan issued a gag order forbidding further "harassment and intimidation" of the special counsel and staff, court staff and potential witnesses.  He promises to violate it because it's "unconstitutional."  Unlike leading an insurrection.  March 4, 2024, Donnie.  No delays, no excuses.  Meanwhile, you can still rage at flies.