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You may recall that my current comedy-before-bed TV sleep aid is a sitcom from my childhood: "Bewitched". I've been thoroughly enjoying watching its ridiculous, predictable humour and sometimes surprising messaging. I was in the middle of the eighth and final season when Netflix pulled the show. (Argh!) But thanks to our amazing world of media, I was able to switch over to YouTube, viewed on TV via Roku. In Season 8, episode 21 and 22, Bewitched recycles a template from an earlier episode. In Season 1, daffy Aunt Clara (played by Marion Lorne) mistakenly brings Ben Franklin into the 20th Century, an opportunity for a hijinks and history lessons. When Marion Lorne died during Season 5, Aunt Clara's role was replaced by the daffy Esmeralda (played by Alice Ghostley), and it's Esmeralda who mistakenly brings George Washington into the present. This is a well-worn conceit of magic and time-travel, but imagine my surprise when the Founding Father becomes a defender o

This month, four decades of anti-woman, anti-abortion hysteria in the US hit a new low. Last August, an Indiana woman sought medical attention after a premature delivery resulted in the death of the fetus. The emergency-room doctor called the police. In April, that woman was sentenced to 20 years in prison. From WaPo : Indiana woman jailed for "feticide." It's never happened before. ...Informed that officials were heading to her home, Patel told her doctors that she'd had a miscarriage and had left her stillborn fetus in a dumpster behind a shopping center. Still in his hospital scrubs, McGuire followed police cars to the scene and examined the fetus, which he pronounced dead on arrival. Patel was charged with child neglect, and later with killing her fetus, and on Monday she was sentenced to 20 consecutive years in prison. The verdict makes Patel the first woman in the U.S. to be charged, convicted and sentenced for "feticide" for ending her own pregnancy,

Today, working people across North America - and the world - will rally, demonstrate, and go on strike for two demands: fifteen and fairness. In the US, fast-food workers are joined by childcare workers, contract (adjunct) teachers, airport workers, and other low-wage earners, as this movement continues to grow. They will demonstrate in more than 50 cities. They are demanding 15 and a union : a $15/hour minimum wage and the right to organize without fear of reprisal. In Ontario, workers will demonstrate outside the Ministry of Labour in Toronto, demanding Fifteen and Fairness : a $15/hour minimum wage, decent hours for decent jobs, paid sick days, and labour laws that protect every worker. There have been significant victories. Seattle and San Francisco raised the minimum wage in those cities to $15/hour; Oakland raised it to $12.25. Poverty-pay giants like Walmart and McDonald's have been forced to concede major pay raises, with more to follow. Massive movements in New York, Chica

Did you know that 50,000 Mexican farmworkers are on strike? If your answer is no, you have plenty of company. The Los Angeles Times  is the only English-language mainstream media venue to regularly cover the strike. Canadian media, predictably, only wants to know how it will affect food prices . These farmworkers harvest the fruits and vegetables that fill our supermarkets and our tables. They are paid $8  per day - that's right, not per hour, per day. They are gouged at company stores where they must purchase necessities, and see their pay routinely withheld without explanation. They are denied breaks and access to clean drinking water. They are not paid for overtime. Company housing is filthy and vermin-infested. Female workers are subjected to sexual harassment on a regular basis. What decade, what century is this? The working class fights this battle again and again. From Sonali Kolhatkar, writing in Truthdig: Years ago the sparsely populated San Quintín area was converted int

What did I learn at the CUPE Ontario Library Conference? Technically, nothing. If learning means encountering something new, then no, this was not a learning experience. But learning must also mean living with knowledge, absorbing it, seeing your theoretical knowledge translated into action. Understanding new configurations of that knowledge. Digesting it, assimilating it into our sense of ourselves. In that sense, I'm learning this union stuff every day. So here's what I "learned". (I learned that people are still overusing air quotes!) All libraries everywhere have the same problems. Staffing levels are too low. Full-time jobs are disappearing. Positions are being deskilled. Work is increasingly precarious. It has been this way at libraries for a long time, but is now at a point where library systems are being destroyed. The ones that float do so at the peril of dedicated workers who are carrying burdens far too large. Here's what else I "learned". All

At this very moment I am on the train from Toronto to Ottawa, en route to the CUPE Library Workers Conference. This will be my first time attending this annual event. I don't know what to expect, but I'm super excited! Last week I was off work for a few days for my annual Spring New York City fix, and this week for the CUPE Conference. Somehow I am managing to stay on top of things at the library. Being compulsively organized has its advantages. I'm blogging courtesy of my old netbook, the first time I've turned it on in many months. Allan and I worked on it to see if we could resurrect it from the near-dead - deleting bloatware, cleaning out spyware, uninstalling every unnecessary application. I enjoy my tablet, and I've made my peace with touch-screen technology, but there's still no substitute for a real keyboard, especially for a speedy touch-typist like me. So now I have a desktop, a netbook, a tablet, and - yes, it's true - a BlackBerry phone. It seems

The resurgent workers' movement scored a huge victory earlier this year, when Walmart announced it was raising wages  - a step on the road to a true living wage and the right to unionize without fear of harassment. Other big corporations, such as Target, TJ Maxx, and Marshalls, followed with similar wage-hike announcements. Naturally, it sounded like another important victory when McDonald's announced it was raising wages to $10/hour... until we read the fine print. On Wednesday , McDonald's followed the lead of fellow low-wage employer Walmart, announcing a small raise that puts its starting pay at $1 above the federal minimum. By Thursday, however, workers had taken to the streets to protest what some are calling a PR stunt by the word’s largest fast food chain. At issue: McDonald’s new $8.25 per hour salary applies only to the 90,000 employees at company-owned restaurants, not the 750,000 working for franchisees who decide their own pay policies. Some 90% of those makin

Every year since embarking on graduate school, then beginning to work full-time, I've thought: I have no time to write, I don't write any more. And every year, Allan chooses a sizable number of wmtc posts as best-of for that year. I'm always surprised at how much I've written. I believe 2015 will finally change that. Adding my new union responsibilities to the mix seems to have displaced this blog. This time next year, we'll see if that proves to be true. For now, this page has been updated. Thank you, as always, for continuing to read wmtc.

I'm in New York for a few days, visiting my mom and some friends. Today at a Whole Foods, my mother said to the cashier, "Don't make the packages too heavy." And the cashier said, "OK." I was a bit surprised. My mother is a very polite, friendly person. Yet I thought she sounded somewhat rude. And then I thought, no, this is what people sound like here. In Canada - even in Mississauga, where supposedly we're practically American  - this same conversation "at the cash" sounds like this: "Hi, how are you today?" "Fine thanks, and you?" "I'm doing fine. If you don't mind, could you please not put too much in any one package? I'm not very strong!" "Oh sure, no problem. Is three bags all right? Or would you prefer four?" "Three is fine, thank you!" "Do you need help getting out to your car?" "No that's fine, I'm good." "Are you sure?" "Yes, I pro