No benefits until you've logged over 1-3 years on the rolls (that's not counting holidays and sick time, which of course you don't get paid for even when the business is closed). Regular employees treat you like trash, completely disposable and utterly contemptible, and employers still believe the hype that the people working as temps are moms whose kids have gone off to school so they're looking for something to fill their days and get a little mad-money. The real catch-22 is that after a year of temp work on your resume, all future employers think you only temped because you're such a fuck-up no one would hire you permanently.

I temped for years, working "temp" at some jobs up to two years. To stay constantly employed, I often had to be on call for several temp agencies, which means I rarely logged enough hours at any one temp agency long enough to be eligible for any benefits. It really is a thankless job, and one that has been steadily growing in the US since the Reagan era.

If being an object of ridicule kills political careers, we wouldn't still have Ted Kennedy in the party, or Howard Dean, John Kerry, Barney Frank, Dennis Kucinich, or John Murtha. And since the Clintons have similar name recognition as the Kennedy's, and both Clintons have successfully weathered intense public ridicule in the past, I think it's doubtful that anything that happens this primary season will be enough to fatally wound HRC's future political viability.

I'm neither defending nor decrying her conduct in this primary, I'm just noting that others have been shat upon by the media and even other Dems, yet they've endured to continue long and successful political careers.

As a white woman who's been working very hard for ten years to fully understand and transcend my own white privilege, I'm dismayed by how surprised I continue to be by common sense statements like "far from being biased toward him because he is black, black voters are not biased against him because he is black."

I also loved the Boo Boo the Fool statement. I work for an overwhelmingly black organization, of the three black people who run this place, one has a Masters and two have Ph.D.s. In fact, 80% of the people I interact with on a regular basis all over the country in this job are highly educated black people; I may know more blacks with advanced degrees than whites at this point. I makes my head hurt when I hear white people marvel at Obama's intelligence. Unfortunately, that demographic includes my parents and in-laws.

Thanks for another thoughtful post.

*Edited b/c my typing is atrocious.

in 2003, the school got in big trouble with the alums, the Board, and the local conference. It was hinted that our Methodist funding might be severely affected. After that all editorials in the justice and peace newspaper had to be run with a disclaimer saying editorial opinons weren't necessarily held by the school, blah, blah, blah. Now it looks like the vast majority of those people agree with me.
Vindication is mine!

successfully smeared as losers for both having already lost in presidential runs. Then there'd be the smearing of Gore for his "extremist" environmental policies, and we'd have to listen to the banal sniping of Edwards for his haircuts ad infinitum. What's worse, the RW media could also smear the whole Democratic party for not having the guts/flip-flopping on trying to elect a woman or a black man. The fact is, the way the media is tilted against the left, no candidate or ticket we put forth will be embraced by the media.

I also think the SD's putting up a ticket of two monied, white, male southerners would split the party apart more than having either Clinton or Obama as our candidate. African Americans and youth who have been working for Obama would be pissed off, and they'd also piss off the women and blue collar folk who have been working so hard for Clinton. I think usurping the two candidates we have now would lead to much more disillusionment, apathy and disenfranchisement than the 47%% of Clinton supporters who'll defect if Obama gets the nod, or the 37% of Obama supporters who'd leave if Clinton is chosen. The SDs will never dismiss the voting that has already happened, especially since so many of them are up for re-election themselves.

He said their deaths befitted their complicity, but that's not the same as saying they deserved to die for it. If a person who's overweight, doesn't exercise, and eats nothing but McDonalds even when he knows all those things are bad for him, if that person dies of a heart attack, his death befits him. But I would never say that he deserved to die for his actions.

And in fact, all Americans are guilty. Do you pay your taxes? You're complicit in funding the war and Dick Cheney's closed energy meetings. Do you buy anything that's made in overseas sweatshops? Of course you do, it's nearly impossible to live in this country and only buy local, USA made products any more. How about your electricity and heat? Do they come from 100% renewable, sustainable sources? If not, you're complicit. No one living in mainstream America is exempt from being a part of the system. Doesn't mean you deserve to die, it just means you live in the United States.

To compare Churchill with Phelps is ridiculous. Churchill's comments were first presented in a secular, academic paper and taken out of context by Fox News. Phelps spews his deranged and delusional ignorance to anyone who will listen because he thinks he's a Messiah.

To defend Bill O'Reilly in any way is indefensible, imo.

When you sign up, it's like you're moving to DU Town. First you stay on the main drags, Rte. LBN, GD Ave., Lounge Blvd. and the GDP Freeway. But after a while, you get curious about your surroundings. Neighbors give you directions, co-workers mention the hot spots in town and you go check them out. In theory, GD could include everything under the sun, but then it would be much harder to find what you're looking for because none of the neighborhoods would be distinguishable from each other, and the roads would have no names. So the topic forums have evolved over time as a way for the admins to direct traffic.

You can try DU's Activist HQ to see what's cooking in there.

You can learn all you can in the Election Reform forum, then educate others in your community.

You can meet other DUers in your region by going to the State and Country forums.

You can access all these DU resources without a being a DU donor.

Mostly, though, I'd Google "election reform" and your state or city to find out what grassroots actions are already underway in your community, then go to their next meeting. Reform movements really are built one person at a time, by people who show up to do the work.

No one leaning left can afford to sit this one out. The left has to turn out in numbers so big the Republicans can't steal it. Again. For a third time.

No matter who you're for, your candidate obviously has very devoted supporters who will work to hold the eventual president accountable to their (the supporters) point of view on the issues. Isn't that the core of Democracy--people of many ideals working together for the common good? We know for sure McSame will nothing for the common good. I can't believe every person on the left wouldn't do anything it would take to eject the Bush/Cheney junta and reclaim the Constitution.

makes it a conflict of interest for the NCC to have co-sponsored the debate. At the very least, it opens Clinton up to charges of a kind of political inside trading.

I used some of his stuff when educating (overwhelmingly white) volunteers about white privilege when I was working in Mississippi after Katrina. Because he's a white guy, I really think that whites can "hear" him better than when black leaders speak. It's a clear case of white privilege, but at least he's using his WP for good not evil.

He's got a lot of good stuff up on his homepage: http://www.timwise.org /
You can also check out his ZNet essays and articles: http://www.zmag.org/bios/homepage.cfm?auth...

The fact that the airwaves and newspapers are controlled by very few media giants means that the truth just isn't getting to people. I'm specifically thinking of folks like my folks who live in a rural, conservative part of Michigan. They aren't web-savvy, their local newspaper prints little about what's happening in the country and the world outside their little community, and their cable network only has Fox, not even MSNBC. When millions of people around the world and across the US protested the impending Iraq invasion in 2003, my mother hadn't heard a word about it until I mentioned it to her a few years later. My step-father swears by Fox, since everything he sees there is echoed in their local newspaper.

Makes more sense since the most recent news I could find on terrorist infiltration risks points to Canada:

CNN (Oct. 2007): Report: Security on U.S.-Canada border fails terror test

Christian Science Monitor (March 2005): US-Mexican border as a terror risk
(I found more recent examples of a Mexican border threat from 2006, but the most "legit" new source carrying that story was Fox. 'Nuff said.)

Oh, wait. I forgot. Canada is a predominently white country, so obviously terrorists wouldn't come from there.

Angels were never human. Boddisatva are beings who have attained Nirvana but stay behind to help enlighten others. That sounds literally like what she did. She found this transcendent place and gave her spirit up in joining everything, then awoke and was so inspired by what she experienced/learned that she fought to recover so she could get the message out.

But either way, angel or boddisatva, that was a remarkable video, and she is a remarkable woman.

Here are the two places I can recommend because I know the organizations pretty well:

Hands On New Orleans: http://www.handsonneworleans.org/AboutUs/i...
I stayed at Hands On in Biloxi, MS when I was first down there doing recovery work. I stayed with the NOLA Hands On a couple times, they had bunk beds with air mattresses as I recall. Hands On is a secular organization and you can do anything from rebuilding to working with children or cooking for the camp. I'm in my 40's but most of the short-term volunteers were in their 20's. There was usually good music playing and a very laid back atmosphere. Hands On is a national organization that's working out of NOLA and ask for a donation of $20 a day to provide food, and pay for gas and overhead. All tools, safety gear and building materials are provided by corporate sponsors (just FYI if you have a problem with Home Depot or something).

Moving Forward Gulf Coast: http://movingforwardgc.org/17501.html
This is a local grass-roots organization out of Slidell (20 minutes outside NOLA, but where the eye of the storm passed over). You'd be staying with a family, probably Creole, who'd also provide your food. It's unclear from their website if they require any money to work with them. The Executive Director is super-cool and wicked smart, so I know she'll put you to good use (though maybe not rebuilding) and hook you up with nice folks to stay with. All materials are donated by community members and relief organizations.

The only other secular places I can think of are:

Habitat for Humanity: http://www.habitat-nola.org/volunteer/inde...
I only know what they say on their website, but it looks like you can get lodging for $150/week ($30/day) at an elementary school turned into a volunteer camp. You need to buy all your own food.

Common Ground: http://www.commongroundrelief.org /
The most grass roots group, but it looks like (from their web site) they may be filled up the week you're looking to go down, and they might be only looking for skilled labor. But check out the site anyway, I'm only skimming it to give you some basic info.

ACORN: http://www.acorn.org/index.php?id=9943
Their volunteer page doesn't say anything about lodging or food, but you could always ask them.

Good luck finding housing and work, and thank your pointy little head for wanting to go down and help.