Salon's advice columnist recently expounded on the state of labor in America, and it's wotht quoting in its entirety:

Whatever happened to "Screw the bosses"? Whatever happened to workers' spirit of resistance?

How did it become the norm to be exhausted, insecure and unhappy in your supposedly white-collar, middle-class or professional job? Is it the death of unions? The absence of consensus about what is a reasonable amount of time to devote to work? If so, how did we get here? Did an oligarchy rearrange the furniture while we slept? And what do we do about it now that we're waking up -- as individuals or collectively?

I have thought a lot about situations such as yours. Although you're by yourself, you're not alone. That is, your same isolated condition is replicated hundreds of thousands of time throughout the system. You are part of a huge class of exploited persons. You just don't talk to each other. Each of you is in your own cubicle worrying about your own boss and your own workload and your own lack of pension.

Strangely, this overworking of people, this destroying of workers' lives, is happening to many hundreds of thousands of people and yet in some sense it is not happening to a group; in every instance it seems as though it is happening to you alone, and it's a problem you alone must solve. No matter that macroeconomic and cultural forces are at work to replicate the same crushing, inhumane circumstances from coast to coast. Still, we think it's we as individuals who are at fault, and it's we as individuals who must solve our problem -- even though it is systemic and replicated throughout society! Why do we think that? Because we are stupid? Maybe. We might be really stupid. It kinda looks that way sometimes. Or maybe we're just scared.

Perhaps that is because workers' organizations have become discredited and fallen into disfavor; they are looked upon as old-fashioned and somehow disconnected from reality. But what are we to call it when from coast to coast individual workers numbering in the hundreds of thousands are struggling to make ends meet, working longer hours than any labor board would allow, without overtime ... for what?

I personally think there are some bottom lines we ought to agree about as a society. For one thing: Eight hours is enough. It's plenty. I have at times worked 12-hour days and more, either because I needed the money or because I believed in what I was doing. But really we've got to start talking about what we're doing to people's lives with all this work. Eight hours is enough.

And I think people have to stop knuckling under to bosses just because they're bosses. Where is our democratic spirit? It's surely not in corporations. Corporations are little authoritarian cultures. I do not see how a democracy can survive when its citizens spend all their days under authoritarian rule. How are we to emerge daily from our 10 hours of ritual authoritarian behavior, and devote the remaining four or six hours to democratic self-rule?

We must begin to bring democratic principles into the workplace.

It's time to start refusing to simply perform as many hours as the boss says. It's time to underperform. Who cares if the work doesn't get done? What kind of work is it, anyway? If you take a break, are you going to leave a child gasping for breath on the operating table? Who's going to die if you take an occasional personal day even though according to your boss, or the schedule, or the project timeline so elegantly represented on your project management software, it's not the ideal time for you to be taking a personal day?

Not the ideal time? So what? There is no ideal time. Stuff happens. Deal with it.

And what is going on with you personally? Why do you have to perform so darned well? Why can't you kind of not do such an incredibly great job all the time? Can't you have an occasional off day? And what of us collectively? What is so great about being the most productive country in the world? What has it gotten us lately but war and the well-earned contempt of everyone who is not an American? What is it getting you, this historic juggernaut? Are you vacationing on the Caribbean, are you basking in diamonds and champagne? Of course not. You're just being played.

And how are you being played? You have been conditioned to be the best. You have been taught to do what they say, or you'll end up on the street. But is there really a risk of ending up on the street? And are your capacities limitless? Are you incapable of error and possessed of infinite stamina? Is that what it says on your résumé? Is that what it says on your job description, that you promise to work unending hours and take infinite amounts of crap because you agree, in writing, that as an employee you have absolutely no choice?

I say slack off a little, in the interest of workers everywhere. What are you worried about? Are you worried that if you don't perform like a superstar you will get fired and won't be able to get another job as good as this one? As happy and fun as this one? As personally rewarding as this one? What if you were to start performing as you wish, working the hours you wish to work, try to make your home life a little more pleasant, and see what happens to the job around you. Just wait and watch. Let a ball or two drop. So what? Let the ball roll under a desk. So what? When asked where it is ... How can you know where it is? Somebody must have dropped the ball. Who could that person possibly be? I don't know. How would I know? This office is full of underperformers and incompetents. I can't keep track of them all.

What will happen? Will your boss berate you? Will that mean anything? Can you handle being berated by someone you don't respect? If you can't handle it, why not? Do you believe what the boss says might be true, that maybe you really don't measure up? Do you believe in undying loyalty to company and country? Do you believe that you don't have the right to put some limits on how much you will do for a company? I say slow down, do what you can, and stop faking it. Stop eating it. Stop trying to be a superstar.

I'm really addressing this to both of you, you and your wife, and to all the other people out there whose lives are falling apart because they are being worked too hard. I say begin a slow and silent revolt. What power do these companies really have over you? They have the power of threats. They can fire you, of course. They can tell you that you're not performing up to standards. They can say they're disappointed! But why not begin to question the whole rationale behind it? What is the meaning of their displeasure with you? Are they the people to whom you look for your deepest values? Is the corporation our only source of moral authority? What has happened to us as workers in America, that our only moral authorities, our only sources of value, are the very forces who would destroy us?

I've got roofers on my house right now. They work hard. It's not fun. They don't get to be interviewed on TV about their opinions. They don't sit down all day. They work. But they show up at 8 and by 4 they're packing up. They don't work all day and all night. And neither should you.

P.S. Don't shoot your wife's boss ... unless he fires first.

Required reading

I've said before that downtown is -- oddly, to those of us accustomed to other cities -- the worst neighborhood in LA. I've said that "skid row," where the homeless crash in tents and boxes, is not just one street but 50 square blocks. Upon glancing into my archives, I also once said the homeless down there weren't too aggressive, but that was before I started occasionally transferring buses at the corner of Main and 6th -- on the western border of skid row.

I'm a staunch advocate of public transit, and I'd love to take the bus more often, but it's just not nice to be physically threatened before breakfast, or see people smoking crack on the sidewalk at 6:30am. Then, before passing into the relatively genteel eastside, the bus goes down 6th street through the worst "living" conditions I've ever seen anywhere.

I haven't really spent enough time on the bus or, god forbid, on the streets down there to describe exactly how badly this place gives me the howling fantods, but now the LA Times' Steve Lopez has spent a week there with a photographer, hanging out with the hookers and/or junkies and/or mentally ill who make my bus route their home. We've got hookers living and turning tricks in porta potties, junkies dying with no veins left for EMTs to insert IVs into, and people smoking crack in front of the mayor (yay, I've got something in common with the mayor...)

If you have any desire to fully understand the state of America -- how quickly it's becoming a third world country, what it's like to be a schizophrenic on the streets, how easy it is to wind up homeless when you are hit by a car sans health insurance -- I *beg* you to visit www.latimes.com/skidrow.

The only thing I wish this series had delved more deeply into is that some of these people have children. At least three of my former students once lived in shelters. On the other hand, maybe I really don't want to know any more.

So much for THAT particular line of fad products

Anti-Bacterial Soap No Better Than Regular Soap in Preventing Illness, Experts Tell FDA Panel

Popular antibacterial soaps and washes offer no more protection than regular soap and water, a federal advisory panel said Thursday, telling companies to prove their products are better if they expect to continue making claims to the public.

The independent expert panel, which advises the Food and Drug Administration, said by an 11-1 vote that it saw no added benefits to antibacterials when compared with soapy handwashing.

Panelists also said soaps that use synthetic chemicals as do many products which claim to eliminate 99 percent of germs they encounter could contribute to the growth of bacteria resistant to antibiotics.

I imagine this also applies to all the ridiculous antibacterial wipes out there, too, like the ones for shopping cart handles

So, the Long Beach (Half) Marathon. I missed the cheering LA 'hoods and the level of corporate giveaways I experienced at the LA Marathon in March. (Side note: The expo bags were plastic grocery-type bags from Best Buy, and we realized THAT'S probably what convinced the drunken nutter that I was homeless).

The free sports drink tasted like ass and the energy bar at mile 10 nearly broke my jaw. But it was nice and flat, and running along the beach was pleasant (Owen, if you're reading, the course went by the brewery and art museum where we hung out last year).

Anyway, you know we're not hardcore runners because we were 15 minutes late to the start line, but my chip time (how long from YOUR start time to the finish line) still somehow came in under 3 hours. So I may be stupid enough to run/walk 13 mile with no real training, but hey...my base level of fitness is such that I CAN run/walk 13 miles (in under 3 hours) with no real training.

Here's the evil graphical representations of my fat ass at the back of the pack.

Regular readers (or regular presences in my life) know that I have a habit of going to a bar, sitting down, and winding up talking to strange old men. They find me, man, they find me.

Today's specimin, after I got done picking up everyone's bibs and bags o'schwag at the Long Beach (Half) Marathon Expo, regaled me with tales of Marine recon (including the viral infection he got in New Orleans three weeks ago) and then asked me, with great concern, why I wasn't letting anyone help me. Because I'm so obviously homeless.

Er.

He later conceded that maybe I just LOOKED homeless, and I'd better get a haircut, a couple of nice outfits, and some general grooming lest my husband lose interest, since I was otherwise so "beautiful" despite my lack of upkeep.

Goddamn, in LA, even the drunk old men have an opinion on your appearance.

Once he accepted that I might have a roof over my head (due to correct answers on pop quizzes like "Who's James Joyce?") he wanted to know why I was a tutor and not a teacher. Which, incidentally, my students have been asking me a LOT this year. Patience, people...one grad student in the household is enough at the moment.

Day 4: Cappuccino tyrrany, cracked-out bus drivers, and drinkin' wine, spo-dee-oh, drinkin' wine

The previous day, I'd been told that the hotel breakfast people would whip you up a cappuccino if you asked. So, today, I politely did. They said no, and pointed me to the regular coffee. I figured they'd gotten too many requests for cappuccino and had stopped doing it...until one of Rick's colleagues sat down at our table with a frothy cup of the stuff. She wondered aloud if I looked too young to choose my own beverage. Fooey.

Feeling like I'd exhauted the tourist possiblities of Scenic But Not Exciting Alghero, I hopped a bus to the nearby town of Bosa. The bus went down a well-known coastal route, the stuff of photos that you think MUST be Photoshopped or somehow faked. They're not. The driver shaved about 5 minutes off the nearly hourlong ride by speeding like crazy on the winding road. "20 DEAD IN ITALIAN BUS CRASH," I thought, in a cold sweat.

Bosa was sleepy but cute, with few tourists and only one real tourist street. Otherwise, we're talking side streets with Italian grandmas hanging the laundry in housedresses. Cool. I tried to see some "former tanneries," which turned out to be some seemingly empty, brick buildings. Everything else was under construction. I imagine this will be a different town in a decade or so.

I finally got my damn cappuccino at a locals cafe in Bosa, then caught the noon bus back, because there was even less to do than in Alghero! On the way back, the driver drove so badly I had to lie down in my seat...and this is after the Dramamine...

For lunch, I got myself an small pizza (mmm, vacation gluttony...but the Italian crust is much thinner, so it's not as bad as it sounds). Then, I sat in cafes, drank wine, and wrote postcards I did not mail. Then I satisfied another bit of pan-European nostalgia, the banana and Nutella crepe. Took my denied siesta for much of the evening, then got up at around midnight, when Rick came in, and we got to work on the bottle of local Bosa dessert wine I'd brought from my morning trip out of town.

If good wine was this cheap in the US, I'd be in trouble.

Day 5: I'll eat the seafood, and you eat the horse...

(Soul Coughing fans can feel free to sing the above title to the tune of "Down to This.")

I'd been harboring this prejudice that Europe has a nice train system. This, I've discovered, is not as pan-European as crepes and kebabs. In my travel journal, I described the Alghero train station (and the train that eventually pulled up) as "some East German, downtrodden shit." The train was all graffiti'd up and everything. This was but a pale example of how tourist traps often have pretty bad economies outside the service industry. I believe 20% of Sardinia is unemployed.

This time, I was headed for Sassari, the second-biggest city in Sardinia (which I believe is a bit like saying Warwick is the second biggest city in Rhode Island). It was busier than Bosa and more "real" than Alghero (like the difference between Brussles and Bruges) but also didn't give me a lot of reasons to stay past lunch.

I did visit Sassari's archaeology museum, but archaeology is just a bunch of broken stuff if you don't understand the text printed under it. The museum was so dead I tripped several motion sensor lights. Most baffling was the...children's play area? A table with anthropomorphic rubber ducks in little outfits, lined up in front of a pile of pasta. I'd have taken a picture, but a workman (the only other person in the museum?) was staring at me (because he couldn't believe someone was actually visiting the museum?)

I suspect Sassari is one of those "nice place to live, but I wouldn't want to visit there" places. It's a college town, complete with a lot of radical graffiti, and after a few (weeks? months? years? Sardinians aren't known for being friendly and open...) it would probably be a cool place to hang. It also had many butchers advertising horse, donkey, and baby goat, but I couldn't find a restaurant serving those things that didn't want to rope me into an expensive, 5-course, full Italian meal.

Feeling hustled on the lunch front, I tried to get a glass of wine while I formulated another plan.

Me: "Uno vino della casa, per favore?" <- same phrase that worked all afternoon yesterday in Alghero
Cafe lady: "No."

No? Do I look too young for cappuccino AND beverage alcohol? There was wine sitting right there. I collected many theories on why this happened, including
a) Goddammit, another tourist
b) Goddammit, another exchange student
c) This philstine is asking for the HOUSE wine? Pfft.
d) Who's this whore walking around without a man?

Anyway, I got a yummy takeout sandwich, wrote "Sassari is a little bitch" in my travel journal, and felt much better.

Our final night in Alghero, we met a bunch of scientists for dinner at the Jamaica Inn (the dessert and moonshine had been reliable two days ago, and it was centrally located). Chatted with Australians and a guy from Zimbabwe, and yes, we ate some horse. There is not much to report, actually. It's not bad, but it's not as good as beef.

Day What-The-Hell-Day-Is-It? Weren't we just ON this plane?

Security seized the knife, from a set of camping utensils, that was in my bag for cutting the last of my Italian cheese during layovers. (Huh huh. She said "cutting cheese.") As anyone who's been camping knows, these knives can barely saw through a dinner roll, let alone be used to hijack aircraft. I could do more damage with a pen. Whatever...

There was a giant African family on the plane from London to LA, and one of the kids got sick as we flew over Iceland. They actually got on the plane PA system and asked if there was a doctor on board. (There was). I thought we were going to have to land in Reykjavik. Instead, when we landed in LA, we were told to stay seated so the paramedics could come through...so this girl was sick for at least 8 hours. We decided to monitor our health closely for a few days to look for signs of any airborne African diseases...

I eventually mailed the postcards.

The End.