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Labor Had Better Get Its Act Together

Dennis Boyer The Cap Times
Dennis Boyer, a retired AFSCME staff member, believes the Wisconsin unions should have been more aggressive in their fightback against Walker. Included in his recommendations for the struggle going forward is the consideration of a general strike.

Labor Had Better Get Its Act Together

Dennis Boyer The Cap Times
Dennis Boyer, a retired AFSCME staff member, believes that the unions in Wisconsin need to be much more aggressive in their fightback. This should include consideration of the use of a general strike.

Review: Oscar-Nominated Russian Film "Leviathan" -- Man vs. System

Masha Gessen The New York Review of Books
The great trial of Job is reborn in Andrey Zvyagintsev’s magnificent Russian film, Leviathan. Compellingly told and stunningly shot, the film is also not subtle. The bad guys—the trinity of the government, the court, and the church—are pure evil. They are Leviathan itself, the Biblical monster that cannot be caught or tamed or killed. The film contended at Cannes, won a Golden Globe, was nominated for an Oscar, but last month was snubbed at the Russian film awards.

Unions Suffer Latest Defeat in Midwest With Signing of Wisconsin Measure

Monica Davey The New York Times
Democrats assert that Gov. Scott Walker’s real motivation for signing the right-to-work legislation is more about politics than job creation: breaking a dwindling union movement in Wisconsin and boosting his standing as the conservative choice for the Republican presidential nomination next year.

Word by Word: A Linguist Reads the Menu

Kent Black The Boston Globe
Stanford linguistics professor and MacArthur Fellow Dan Jurafsky links the origins and evolution of foods to history, culture, tradition and trends. Wide-ranging topics include sexual metaphors in restaurant reviews, relationship of price to the number of syllables in menu descriptions, and the language on potato chip bags...among other things.

Injured Workers Suffer As 'Reforms' Limit Workers' Compensation Benefits

Howard Berkes and Michael Grabell NPR and ProPublica
Over the past decade, state after state has been dismantling America's workers' comp system with disastrous consequences for many of the hundreds of thousands of people who suffer serious injuries at work each year, a ProPublica and NPR investigation has found. The cutbacks have been so drastic in some places that they virtually guarantee injured workers will plummet into poverty. Workers often battle insurance companies for years to get the surgeries, prescriptions and

Word by Word: A Linguist Reads the Menu

Kent Black The Boston Globe
Stanford linguistics professor and MacArthur Fellow Dan Jurafsky links the origins and evolution of foods to history, culture, tradition and trends. Wide-ranging topics include sexual metaphors in restaurant reviews, relationship of price to the number of syllables in menu descriptions, and the language on potato chip bags...among other things.