Per Petterson

En el blog de Lisa, supe del escritor noruego Per Petterson, quien dice: “If you consider it, what you say has less importance in your life compared to what you think. The words you say are also outnumbered by your thoughts.” Per Petterson “I wanted to do what the good writers did, and I knew … More Per Petterson

Bandera Tricolor E

FOR EXPLANATION AND SOURCE SEE BANDERA TRICOLOR “The Department of Labor does basically nothing,” says Jeff West of LLS. “It’s up to us,” he says, to insure workers are not mistreated. The effectiveness of this voluntary system depends on the whims of contractors. LLS managers–who charge workers a relatively low $165 fee–know many recruits by … More Bandera Tricolor E

Bandera Tricolor D

FOR EXPLANATION AND SOURCE SEE BANDERA TRICOLOR With thousands of new guest workers pouring into the Gulf Coast in the wake of Rita and Katrina, such conflicts have multiplied as the region has become a test case for the use of foreign temporary labor. If Congress passes an expanded guest-worker program, some labor experts believe, … More Bandera Tricolor D

Bandera Tricolor C

FOR EXPLANATION AND SOURCE SEE BANDERA TRICOLOR “Where we are there’s very little work,” Ana Maria Méndez, 25, tells me. She and a cousin made the eighteen-hour car trip from their small town in Veracruz, where most people subsist on homegrown corn and beans. Now Méndez fidgets nervously on a chair in the LLS waiting … More Bandera Tricolor C

Bandera Tricolor B

FOR EXPLANATION AND SOURCE SEE BANDERA TRICOLOR While unfamiliar to most Americans, the program has become the template for an expanded guest-worker program now being hotly debated in Congress. Proponents of the plan argue that temporary labor visas give immigrants greater rights and protections while providing employers with a reliable labor force. Yet workers, labor … More Bandera Tricolor B

Bandera Tricolor A

 FOR EXPLANATION AND SOURCE SEE BANDERA TRICOLOR It’s late afternoon at the Latin Labor Solutions recruitment office in Monterrey, Mexico, and hundreds of prospective workers are crammed into the narrow alleyway between the office and the building next door, waiting restlessly in the 90-degree heat. They perch on duffel bags or lean against the stucco … More Bandera Tricolor A

Bandera Tricolor

While unfamiliar to most Americans, the [existing guest-worker] program has become the template for an expanded . . . program now being hotly debated in Congress. Proponents of the plan argue that temporary labor visas give immigrants greater rights and protections while providing employers with a reliable labor force. Yet workers, labor organizers, lawyers and … More Bandera Tricolor

AAUP Censure

This is the news (as reported by AP), and this is what Ashley Morris says about it. Morris’ post includes a copy of Tulane President Scott Cowan’s comments on the matter. Cowan says Tulane followed its Faculty Handbook very closely. But I have read Tulane’s Faculty Handbook (in its pre-Katrina version). It was a very … More AAUP Censure

Flag Day

See Siegfried Sassoon’s Survivors, written at Craiglockhart in October, 1917: No doubt they’ll soon get well; the shock and strain Have caused their stammering, disconnected talk. Of course they’re ‘longing to go out again,’ — These boys with old, scared faces, learning to walk. They’ll soon forget their haunted nights; their cowed Subjection to the … More Flag Day