READING:
Punching Out: One Year in a Closing Auto Plant
Paul Clemens

This story – about the closing/taking apart of a large Detroit stamping press had such potential.

It could have looked – more deeply – at the people affected; it could have been a metaphor for the demise of industrial America; it could have woven the tale of, to some extent, the decline/end of unions and middle class existence.

Instead, is was just the story of the tearing apart of presses, told in a very non-linear fashion, all the while layers on top of a somewhat chronological progression.

Some good insights, but, dude, get an editor!

To be fair, this book would probably have meant more if I was from the Detroit area or was from a manufacturing background.

Still, I read the intro a couple of months ago and was intrigued: Very disappointing.

All books

This past Monday – June 13th – saw the first real Republican Presidential debate (it finally had most of the expected candidates). And it was, sadly, politics as usual:

• Michele Bachmann wants to eliminate the EPA, and she thinks that abortion should be illegal even in cases of rape, incest or if a mother’s life is in danger. ‘Cause, you know, “every sperm is sacred.” [quotation from Monty Python, not Bachmann]
• Mitt Romney finds it immoral to direct disaster-relief funds to, well, disaster areas without finding offsets to pay for this relief (because otherwise our kids will be paying for our christian character wasteful spending).
• Unlike Bachmann, Herman Cain (CEO of Godfather’s Pizza) has some use for federal government: He wants the FDA to inspect food. But at some other point he clarified his remarks on not having Muslim cabinet members: He said he said that because he was just thinking of those Muslims that want to kill us. Yeah Herman, and other folk’s irrational fear of blacks is just because they are thinking about the blacks that want to stick it to The Man. I’m sure you understand, Herman.
• Ron Paul basically wants the federal government to do just about nothing – to be fair to Paul, he seems the most consistent and non-pandering of the Republican bunch. He’s also seems more well-informed on matters on which he speaks.
• Newt Gingrich seems to think loyalty oaths are both meaningless and can uncover some bad guys. Let’s bring back HUAC!

OK, first debate, but, still: This entire pack has moved pretty far right. McCain touted cap-and-trade in 2008. Hell, he wouldn’t get past South Carolina today with that kind of attitude.

On the not-so-much politics as usual side of the coin, there was the small business of New York State’s Senate trying to pass a bill to make same-sex marriage legal.

To pass in the state senate (the measure is apparently more likely to pass in the state house’s other chamber, the Assembly), it needed some Republican votes. And, traditionally, same-sex marriage has been anathema for Republicans.

But then Republican New York State Senator Roy McDonald stepped up and spoke his mind:

“You get to the point where you evolve in your life where everything isn’t black and white, good and bad, and you try to do the right thing,” McDonald, 64, told reporters.

“You might not like that. You might be very cynical about that. Well, fuck it, I don’t care what you think. I’m trying to do the right thing.

“I’m tired of Republican-Democrat politics. They can take the job and shove it. I come from a blue-collar background. I’m trying to do the right thing, and that’s where I’m going with this.”

— Read more: New York Daily News

Just awesome.