provinceorstate:illinois

  • Les nouvelles technologies remettent en cause la reproduction des élites économiques | It’s the economy, stupid !
    http://economieamericaine.blog.lemonde.fr/2013/05/07/les-nouvelles-technologies-remettent-en-cause-la-rep

    Si plus de 60 % des membres de la très fermée « liste Forbes » appartenaient à une famille aisée dans les années 1980, ce taux a chuté de moitié aujourd’hui. C’est ce que montrent deux chercheurs américains des universités de Stanford (Californie) et de Chicago (Illinois) dans une étude parue en avril.

    En observant le parcours personnel des 400 Américains réunis dans la fameuse liste pendant trente ans (1982-2012), Joshua Rauh et Steven Kaplan ont réalisé que les autodidactes et les classes moyennes devenaient majoritaires parmi les personnes ayant le mieux (financièrement) réussi.

    Ce tournant, qui marque la fin de la reproduction des élites telle qu’elle a pu être observée auparavant, se serait produit vers 2001, estiment les chercheurs. Un moment où des industries en plein bouleversement – nouvelles technologies, finance et commerce de détail (au premier chef la grande distribution) – ont donné naissance à de nouveaux riches.

  • Ce récit donne une description impressionnante de la situation dans les prisons US et du rôle des groupes ethniques et politiques dans la vie des prisonniers. Pour nous qui ne sommes pas derrière les barreaux l’observation sur le rôle de l’état dans la protection contre les nazis est au moins aussi intéressant.

    David Arenberg Reflects on Being Jewish in State Prison | Southern Poverty Law Center
    http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2009/winter/a-jew-in-prison

    I grew up in a Chicago suburb, Evanston, Ill., next door to Skokie, the infamous site of an attempted march by Nazis in the late 1970s through a city with a large Jewish population, including a high number of concentration camp survivors. Because Evanston and Skokie shared a high school, I knew many of these survivors, whose children were friends of mine. When the Nazis threatened to march, these were the people who were prepared to take their places on the front lines, baseball bats in hand, ready to meet the fascists. There is no question in my mind that the Nazis ultimately backed down at the last minute not because they were put off by the Skokie City Council when it hastily enacted an ordinance preventing the march, nor because the Anti-Defamation League made the Nazis “irrelevant” by advising people to ignore them, nor because the ACLU helped the Nazis “make their point” that free speech is allowed and this made the march moot. Rather, it was because they were afraid of the Jewish and other anti-fascist demonstrators who organized against them and made it clear that they were going to offer armed resistance. The Nazis knew that if they came to Skokie, no amount of police protection could keep them safe.

    • Au contraire, D.A. raconte comment l’état ne fait rien contre les nazis. C’est justement son rôle quand on considère que le fascisme n’est qu’une forme particulièrement brutale du capitalisme.

  • Vote (serré) attendu aujourd’hui à la Chambre des représentants de l’Illinois pour autoriser l’utilisation médicale de la #marijuana

    Doctors ask for medical marijuana legalization - SFGate
    http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Doctors-ask-for-medical-marijuana-legalization-4438625.php

    CHICAGO (AP) — Nearly 250 Illinois physicians put their names behind a proposal Tuesday that would legalize marijuana for patients with serious illnesses, hoping to give a boost to the legislation one day before an anticipated vote on the House floor.
    Three of those doctors spoke at a press conference in Chicago, saying the drug can be a safer and more effective treatment than narcotics for patients with diseases such as cancer, Parkinson’s disease and HIV.
    (…)
    The Illinois House is expected to vote Wednesday on a bill that would create a medical marijuana pilot program. It would allow physicians who have an existing relationship with a patient to prescribe marijuana for certain conditions.

    Patients would be limited to buying 2.5 ounces [70 g] at a time from dispensaries licensed and regulated by the state. They would be prohibited from growing their own marijuana, and both patients and caregivers would have to undergo a background check.

    The vote in the House is expected to be close. If it passes the legislation still must go to the Senate.

  • Etats-unis : à Chicago, l’éducation primaire publique brutalement attaquée. 60 écoles en cours de fermeture.

    The attack on public education in Chicago - World Socialist Web Site
    http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/03/25/pers-m25.html

    The attack on public education in Chicago
    25 March 2013

    The announcement of plans in Chicago, Illinois to shut down 61 elementary and middle schools marks a new stage in the assault on public education and the social counterrevolution in America.
    The WSWS needs your support!

    Your donations go directly to financing, improving, and expanding the web site.
    Donate

    It is the largest single school closure announcement in US history. In the latest phase of school shutdowns, some 13 percent of primary schools in the nation’s third-largest district will be closed, affecting 30,000 students and laying off some 1,000 teachers. These cuts will produce higher class sizes and greater strains on the schools that stay open, and four percent of all teachers in the city will immediately lose their jobs.

  • Chicago announces plans to shut 61 public schools - World Socialist Web Site

    http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/03/23/chic-m23.html

    Chicago announces plans to shut 61 public schools
    By Shane Feratu
    23 March 2013

    In the face of mass opposition, the city of Chicago, Illinois announced plans to close 61 public schools after the close of the school year, affecting 30,000 students. About one thousand teaching positions will be moved or eliminated. The closure of 13 percent of public schools amounts to one of the largest mass school closings in US history.

    #états-unis #éducation #biens-publics

  • Ça peut en intéresser certains de ce côté-ci de l’Atlantique :

    « Illinois appeals court finds that bad rap lyrics are not a crime »

    http://www.slate.com/blogs/crime/2013/03/12/olutosin_oduwole_illinois_appeals_court_finds_that_bad_rap_lyrics_are_not.htm

    If you’re interested in First Amendment issues, you might already be familiar with the case of Olutosin Oduwole, the Illinois college student who in 2011 was sentenced to five years in prison for attempting to make a terrorist threat—even though he never actually attempted to threaten anybody. Last week, an Illinois appellate court reversed Oduwole’s conviction, issuing an opinion that’s a thoughtful affirmation of free speech principles and a rebuke to all those who would prosecute people for thought-crime.

    #rap_US #rap_agressif #US #justice #liberté_d_expression

  • It does get better for gay teens, study says | Gay Star News
    http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/it-does-get-better-gay-teens-study-says070213

    Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender teens face less bullying as they get older, a study has shown.

    The study of 8,700 English students, carried out by The University of Illinois and Brunel University in London, says homophobic bullying against young people declines as they get older and leave school.

    #lgbt

  • Ce que le film « #Lincoln » ne dit pas sur Abraham Lincoln - Mémoire des luttes
    http://www.medelu.org/Ce-que-le-film-Lincoln-ne-dit-pas

    Lincoln, lorsqu’il était membre de la Chambre des représentants de son Etat (l’Illinois), sympathisait avec les revendications socialistes du mouvement ouvrier, non seulement américain, mais aussi international. Pour lui, le droit des travailleurs à contrôler le produit de leur travail était un droit humain, ce qui constituait à l’époque – et constitue encore aujourd’hui – une position tout à fait révolutionnaire. Or ni le film ni la culture dominante aux Etats-Unis n’en font état. Cet aspect a été opportunément oublié par les appareils idéologiques de l’Establishment américain contrôlés par la corporate class.

    En réalité, Lincoln considérait l’esclavage comme la domination suprême du capital sur le travail. Son opposition aux structures de pouvoir des Etats du Sud s’expliquait justement par le fait qu’elles représentaient pour lui les piliers d’un régime économique fondé sur l’exploitation absolue des travailleurs. Il voyait ainsi dans l’abolition de l’esclavage la libération non seulement de la population noire, mais de tous les travailleurs, y compris ceux appartenant à la classe laborieuse blanche, dont le racisme allait selon lui à l’encontre de ses propres intérêts.

    Pour Lincoln, « le travail précède le capital. Le capital est seulement le fruit du travail et il n’aurait jamais pu exister si le monde du travail n’avait tout d’abord existé. Le travail est supérieur au capital et mérite donc une plus grande considération (…). Dans la situation actuelle, c’est le capital qui détient tout le pouvoir et il faut renverser ce déséquilibre ». Il n’aura pas échappé aux lecteurs des écrits de Karl #Marx, contemporain d’Abraham Lincoln, que certaines de ces phrases sont très proches de celles utilisées par le penseur allemand dans son analyse de la relation capital/travail au sein d’un système capitaliste.

  • Street Art - How to Use Cars in a Smart Way

    Quelles oeuvres d’art avec des voitures ? Quelques exemples :

    The Berwyn Spindle, Illinois

    May 2, 2008 was a tragic day in the heart of Silly America. On that day a crane entered Cermak Plaza in Berwyn, Illinois and my beloved Spindle was torn down. And just like that, another glorious roadside attraction was stripped from the American landscape.

    http://www.sillyamerica.com/blog/tag/berwyn

    Connecticut’s Ghost Parking Lot

    In 1978, an artist half-buried and covered two dozen junker cars from the 60s and 70s with pavement at the Hamden Plaza, a suburban Connecticut shopping center of no other distinction besides being home to a duck pin bowling alley. There the ghost cars sat for 25 years.

    http://cache.jalopnik.com/assets/images/12/2011/11/a1b5dd62f8adbf27c48da8b4c00cbb27.jpg

    http://jalopnik.com/5665629/connecticuts-ghost-parking-lot

    Cadillac Range, Texas

    Imaginez un amas de vieilles Cadillac sagement plantées au beau milieu de nulle part sur le bord de la mythique route 66. C’est le Cadillac Ranch, une sculpture démesurée réalisée par trois architectes américains en 1974. Quand l’art rencontre l’automobile quelque part au fin fond du Texas, le résultat est étonnant. Eve-Auto vous emmène à la découverte du Cadillac Ranch !

    http://www.eve-auto.fr/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/cadillac-range.jpg

    http://www.eve-auto.fr/cadillac-sexpose-en-plein-air-sur-la-route-66-cadillac-ranch

    #automobile #art

  • MasterAdrian’s Weblog
    http://masteradrian.com

    Boy, 14, ‘sodomized by high school soccer players during team hazing ritual sanctioned by coaches’

    Mother of the freshman at Maine West High School in suburban Chicago is suing the school district
    Two other boys allegedly sexually assaulted, as well
    Attack was part of hazing tradition that dates back four years, according to boy’s attorney

    By Michael Zennie

    PUBLISHED: 08:04 EST, 20 November 2012 | UPDATED: 08:27 EST, 20 November 2012 A 14-year-old boy says he was sodomized by fellow players on his suburban Chicago high school soccer team as part of a horrific hazing ritual that dates back four years.

    The student’s mother is suing Maine West High School in Des Plaines, Illinois, claiming that the coaches sanctioned the sexual assault of her son and at least two other boys in September, during school hours.

    The furious parent appeared in a dramatic press conference on Monday wearing sunglasses and a baseball cap pulled low across her face to hide her identity and protect the anonymity of her child.

    Scroll down for video
    Furious: The mother of the high school freshman wore a hat and sunglasses at a press conference in an attempt to hide her identity and protect her child’s anonymityFurious: The mother of the high school freshman wore a hat and sunglasses at a press conference in an attempt to hide her identity and protect her child’s anonymity

    Ritual: The attorney for the boy and his family says the Maine West High School soccer team has done the hazing ritual for the past four yearsRitual: The attorney for the boy and his family says the Maine West High School soccer team has done the hazing ritual for the past four years

    ‘I thought my son would be safe at school,’ she said, her voice quivering. ‘You think when you drop off your son, it’s a safe place to be. But I feel like the coaches should have kept him safe on the soccer field, and they didn’t do that.’

    Her lawyer, Antonio Romanucci, says the high school freshman was attacked on September 27 on school property when he and two other boys were promoted to the varsity soccer team, according to ABC7 TV in Chicago.
    Discipline: Head coach Mike Divincenzo and four other coaches have been fired or reassignedDiscipline: Head coach Mike Divincenzo and four other coaches have been fired or reassigned

    He claims that the teens were shoved to the ground and beaten by the older members of the varsity team. The players then held them down, pulled down their pants, tore off their underwear and sodomized each of them.

    The coaches supported the hazing ritual, Mr Romanucci says, by ordering a ‘campus run’ after the three freshman made the senior team, the Daily Herald reports.

    A Des Plaines police investigation of the incident led to six students being sent to juvenile court to face hazing charges.

    The school district said it has disciplined ten students.

    Two coaches who are also teachers at the high school, head coach Mike Divincenzo and varsity coach Emilo Rodriguez, have been transferred with pay, pending the outcome of a school district investigation.

    Three other coaches have been fired.

    Mr Romanucci, the attorney who filed the lawsuit on behalf of the student and his parents, said the hazing practice has taken place at the school for the last four years.

    ‘That behavior, in today’s society, is disgusting,’ he said. ‘It should never be condoned. It should never have happened.’

  • HISTORY OF THE CAR RADIO

    Seems like cars have always had radios, but they didn’t. Here’s the true story:

    One evening, in 1929, two young men named William Lear and Elmer Wavering drove their girlfriends to a lookout point high above the Mississippi River town of Quincy, IL, to watch the sunset.
    It was a romantic night to be sure, but one of the women observed that it would be even nicer if they could listen to music in the car.

    Lear and Wavering liked the idea. Both men had tinkered with radios (Lear had served as a radio operator in the U.S. Navy during World War I)and it wasn’t long before they were taking apart a home radio and trying to get it to work in a car.

    But it wasn’t as easy as it sounds: automobiles have ignition switches, generators, spark plugs, and other electrical equipment that generate noisy static interference, making it nearly impossible to listen to the radio when the engine was running.

    One by one, Lear and Wavering identified and eliminated each source of electrical interference. When they finally got their radio to work, they took it to a radio convention in Chicago.

    There they met Paul Galvin, owner of Galvin Manufacturing Corporation. He made a product called a “battery eliminator” a device that allowed battery-powered radios to run on household AC current.
    But as more homes were wired for electricity more radio manufacturers made AC powered radios.

    Galvin needed a new product to manufacture. When he met Lear and Wavering at the radio convention, he found it. He believed that mass-produced, affordable car radios had the potential to become a huge business.

    Lear and Wavering set up shop in Galvin’s factory, and when they perfected their first radio, they installed it in his Stuebaker. Then Galvin went to a local banker to apply for a loan. Thinking it might sweeten the deal, he had his men install a radio in the banker’s Packard.

    Good idea, but it didn’t work — Half an hour after the installation, the banker’s Packard caught on fire. (They didn’t get the loan.)

    Galvin didn’t give up. He drove his Studebaker nearly 800 miles to Atlantic City to show off the radio at the 1930 Radio Manufacturers Association convention. Too broke to afford a booth, he parked the car outside the convention hall and cranked up the radio so that passing conventioneers could hear it. That idea worked — He got enough orders to put the radio into production.

    WHAT’S IN A NAME
    That first production model was called the 5T71. Galvin decided he needed to come up with something a little catchier. In those days many companies in the phonograph and radio businesses used the suffix “ola” for their names - Radiola, Columbiola, and Victrola were three of the biggest. Galvin decided to do the same thing, and since his radio was intended for use in a motor vehicle, he decided to call it the Motorola.

    But even with the name change, the radio still had problems: When Motorola went on sale in 1930, it cost about $110 uninstalled, at a time when you could buy a brand-new car for $650, and the country was sliding into the Great Depression. (By that measure, a radio for a new car would cost about $3,000 today.)

    In 1930 it took two men several days to put in a car radio —The dashboard had to be taken apart so that the receiver and a single speaker could be installed, and the ceiling had to be cut open to install the antenna.

    These early radios ran on their own batteries, not on the car battery, so holes had to be cut into the floorboard to accommodate them. The installation manual had eight complete diagrams and 28 pages of instructions. Selling complicated car radios that cost 20 percent of the price of a brand-new car wouldn’t have been easy in the best of times, let alone during the Great Depression —

    Galvin lost money in 1930 and struggled for a couple of years after that. But things picked up in 1933 when Ford began offering Motorola’s pre-installed at the factory.

    In 1934 they got another boost when Galvin struck a deal with B.F. Goodrich tire company to sell and install them in its chain of tire stores. By then the price of the radio, installation included, had dropped to $55. The Motorola car radio was off and running.

    The name of the company would be officially changed from Galvin Manufacturing to “Motorola” in 1947.

    In the meantime, Galvin continued to develop new uses for car radios. In 1936, the same year that it introduced push-button tuning; it also introduced the Motorola Police Cruiser, a standard car radio that was factory preset to a single frequency to pick up police broadcasts.
    In 1940 he developed with the first hand-held two-way radio — The Handie-Talkie — for the U. S. Army.

    A lot of the communications technologies that we take for granted today were born in Motorola labs in the years that followed World War II.
    · In 1947 they came out with the first television to sell under $200.
    · In 1956 the company introduced the world’s first pager; in 1969 it supplied the radio and television equipment that was used to televise Neil Armstrong’s first steps on the Moon.
    · In 1973 it invented the world’s first hand-held cellular phone.

    Today Motorola is one of the largest cell phone manufacturer in the world —And it all started with the car radio.


    WHATEVER HAPPENED TO
    The two men who installed the first radio in Paul Galvin’s car, Elmer Wavering and William Lear, ended up taking very different paths in life.
    Wavering stayed with Motorola. In the 1950’s he helped change the automobile experience again when he developed the first automotive alternator, replacing inefficient and unreliable generators.

    The invention lead to such luxuries as power windows, power seats, and, eventually, air-conditioning.

    Lear also continued inventing. He holds more than 150 patents. Remember eight-track tape players? Lear invented that. But what he’s really famous for are his contributions to the field of aviation.

    He invented radio direction finders for planes,aided in the invention of the autopilot, designed the first fully automatic aircraft landing system, and in 1963 introduced his most famous invention of all, the Lear Jet, the world’s first mass-produced, affordable business jet.

    (Not bad for a guy who dropped out of school after the eighth grade.)

  • This Weekend In Gay History FRIDAY, OCTOBER 26 « MasterAdrian’s Weblog
    http://masteradrian.com/2012/10/26/this-weekend-in-gay-history-friday-october-26

    This Weekend In Gay History FRIDAY, OCTOBER 26
    October 26, 2012
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    Gay Wisdom for Daily Living…

    from White Crane Institute
    Exploring Gay Wisdom
    & Culture for over 20 Years!

    www.gaywisdom.org

    |8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|

    This Weekend In Gay History
    FRIDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2012

    1900 - on this date the Swedish writer, translator and poet, KARIN BOYE was born in Gothenburg. She studied at Uppsala University from 1921 to 1926 and debuted in 1922 with a collection of poems, “Clouds” (Sw. “Moln“). During her time in Uppsala and until 1930, Boye was a member of the socialist group Clarto. Boye is perhaps most famous for her poems, of which the most well-known ought to be “Yes, of course it hurts” and “In Motion” from her collections of poems “The Hearths“, 1927, and “For the Sake of the Tree“, 1935. She was also a member of the Swedish literary institution Samfundet De Nio (“Chair Number 6″) from 1931 until her death in 1941.

    In 1931 Boye, together with Erik Mesterton and Josef Riwkin, founded the poetry magazine Spektrum, introducing T. S. Eliot and the Surrealists to Swedish readers. Together with the critic Erik Mesterton, she translated Eliot’s “The Waste Land”. She was largely responsible for translating the work of T. S. Eliot into Swedish.

    Between 1929 and 1932 Boye was married to Leif Bjrck. The marriage was apparently a friendship union. In 1932, after separating from her husband, she had a Lesbian relationship with Gunnel Bergstram, who left her husband, poet Gunnar Ekelöf, for Boye. During a stay in Berlin 1932-1933 she met Margot Hanel, whom she lived with for the rest of her life, and referred to as “her wife.”

    Boye was given two very different epitaphs. The best-known is the poem “Dead Amazon” by the poet Hjalmar Gullberg, in which she is depicted as “Very dark and with large eyes”. Another poem was written by her close friend Ebbe Linde and is entitled “Dead Friend”. Here, she is depicted not as a heroic amazon but as an ordinary human, small and grey in death, released from battles and pain.

    In 2004, one of the branches of the Uppsala University Library was named the Karin Boye Library (Karin Boye-biblioteket) in her honor. The literary association Karin Boye-sällskapet (the Karin Boye Society) was founded in 1983 and is dedicated to contributing to keeping Karin Boye’s work alive spreading it among new readers.

    1946 - today’s the birthday of Puerto-Rican Transgender actress and former Warhol superstar HOLLY WOODLAWN. Born Haroldo Santiago Franceschi Rodriguez Danhakl in San Juan, Puerto Rico, she appeared in Warhol’s movies Trash(1970) and Women in Revolt (1972). Her transformation was summarized by Lou Reed in his iconic song “Walk on the Wild Side”:
    “Holly came from Miami FLA, / hitch-hiked her way across the USA, / plucked her eyebrows on the way, / shaved her legs, and then he was a she…”

    Woodlawn adopted the name Holly as an homage to the heroine of Breakfast at Tiffany’s and in 1969 added the surname from a sign she saw on an episode of I Love Lucy. After changing her name she began to tell people she was the Heiress to the Woodlawn Cemetery. After Warhol’s death, she was a frequently requested commentator on his life and influence. She currently resides in West Hollywood. Woodlawn began performing in cabaret shows in sold-out New York and Los Angeles performances in the early 2000s. She continues to travel with her cabaret show, most recently appearing in Krakow and London in 2008.

    1953 - today’s the birthday of B-52′s multi-instrumentalist and songwriter KEITH STRICKLAND. Born in Athens, Georgia he was one of the founding members of the The B-52′s. He was originally the band’s drummer, but moved to guitar after the death of guitarist Ricky Wilson in 1985. Strickland also plays keyboards on many of The B-52′s recordings, and has occasionally provided backing vocals.

    1971 - today’s the birthday of American actor, writer and singer ANTHONY RAPP. Born in Joliet, Illinois, as Anthony Dean Rapp, his brother is the playwright Adam Rapp. He’s best known for originating the role of Mark Cohen in the Broadway production of Rent in 1996 and later for reprising the role in the film version and The Broadway Tour of Rent in 2009. He also performed the role of Charlie Brown in the 1999 Broadway revival of You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown. Rapp is currently touring the U.S.A. with Rent and will also be in Japan and South Korea.
    Rapp, a self-identified “queer,” is an advocate in show business for LGBT rights, having first come out as Bisexual at the age of 18 to his mother over the phone. In 2006, Rapp released a memoir about his days in RENT, as well as his mother’s struggle with cancer and his experiences growing up, entitled Without You: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and the Musical Rent. The memoir was made into a stage production


    2001 - on this date the American writer, cartoonist and illustrator, KRIS KOVICK died of breast cancer. Her books include What I Love about Lesbian Politics is Arguing with People I Agree With, How Would You Feel if Your Dad was Gay?, and Glibquips: Funny Words by funny Women.

    Kovick was born in Fresno, California and attended California State University in the early 1970s, moved to Seattle for five years, and then settled in San Francisco in 1980. In San Francisco, she lived in the Bernal Heights neighborhood, where she became known as “The Mayor of Norwich Street”, a take-off on assassinated San Francisco gay activist Harvey Milk’s nickname “The Mayor of Castro Street.” She was the first woman to become a member of the printing trade union in the Pacific Northwest.

    Kovick was well known as a cartoonist in Lesbian and feminist publications. Her book of essays and cartoons, “What I Love About Lesbian Politics Is Arguing With People I Agree With“, was published in 1991 by Alyson Books. Her writings and cartoons were also published in such anthologies as “Glibquips: Funny Words by Funny Women,” and in LGBT publications such as theSan Francisco Bay Times and Gay Comics. Kovick was friends with other writers and cartoonists such as sex columnist Susie Bright, and cartoonist Alison Bechdel, the artist behind the popular “Dykes to Watch Out For” series who memorialized Kovick in cartoon form in 2008.

    Kovick was also known as a writer and performer. She is credited with launching the Lesbian spoken-word scene in San Francisco. She toured nationally with Sister Spit, a group of women writers that also included such well-regarded authors as Michelle Tea, Eileen Myles, and Lynn Breedlove. In 2000, she founded a reading series at the Jon Sims Center for the Performing Arts, called “San Francisco in Exile.” Selected performances from the San Francisco in Exile series are archived on the internet.


    SATURDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2012

    1848 - the English author and poet KATHERINE HARRIS BRADFORD, (and the other half of Edith Emma Cooper) was born on this date. Bradford wrote poetry and plays under the joint pseudonym “Michael Field.” Katharine called Edith “Henry” and Edith called Katherine “Michael” and for the rest of their lives they were known to each other and to their friends by these names. Where the name “Field” came from is anybody’s guess. Among their closest friends were Royal Academy painter, Charles Ricketts and Charles Shannon, who lived together near them in a relationship comparable to their own. The poems of “Michael Field” are rich in love lyrics to women, and they were well received until it was discovered that the “male” poet was in fact two women. From that time on their work was treated by ever-increasing coldness by the literary world.

    Of course, many people knew the identity of “Michael Field” from the beginning, including Robert Browning, who was a friend. But even Browning asked for an explanation when Long Ago, based on fragments from Sappho, appeared in 1889. Their friendship with Browning is telling. The Brownings wrote their poetry separately. The two women, on the other hand, wrote theirs jointly, believing themselves to be “two bodies joined as one.” The contrast was not lost on “Michael Field.: “These two poets, man and wife, wrote alone; each wrote, but did not bless and quicken one another at their work; we are closer married.”

    1903 - on this date in an article in the German publication Die Zeit, Sigmund Freud was quoted as saying homosexuals are not sick and should not be treated as sick.

    1911 - on this date the photographer MARCEY JACOBSON was born (d. 2009). She spent decades in the southern Mexican highlands documenting the lives of the indigenous Indian peoples. Ms. Jacobson was eking out a living in New York City doing mechanical drafting when she first visited San Cristobal in 1956, intending only a short stay. Instead she found a place she called “the solution to everything,” and, with her companion, Janet Marren, a painter, settled there for the rest of her life.

    She took up photography with a borrowed Rolleiflex camera. Patiently exploring the colorful city, the central marketplace for the Mayan-speaking Indian villages of the region, she won the trust of the often camera-shy locals and taught herself the craft of making black-and-white pictures from what she saw in its cobblestone streets and muddy byways, in its dramatic landscapes and weather events, and perhaps most of all, in the faces of the inhabitants. Her portraits were haunting. The results, about 14,000 negatives produced mostly from the 1960s to the 1980s, describe the local daily life, its mercantile, religious and familial rites, in sensitive detail. The images are housed in the Na Bolom Museum in San Cristobal.

    Most of Ms. Jacobson’s work preceded the Zapatista revolution of 1994, when San Cristobal was one of the cities briefly seized by leftist forces demanding better treatment for Mexico’s indigenous people. But what the photos frequently reveal are the tensions inherent in an ingrained caste system and the changes in a city and a society undergoing modernization.

    In 2001, when she was 90, her work was at last widely recognized; 75 of her photos were collected in a book, “The Burden of Time”/”El Cargo del Tiempo,” printed in a bilingual edition by Stanford University Press.

    “I love being locked up all alone in a darkroom, where nobody can get at me,” Ms. Jacobson said in a 1990 interview published in 2006 in Bridges, a Jewish feminist journal. “You take a negative, you put it in the enlarger, you expose a piece of lined paper, you put it in the developer. It’s absolutely blank. But then it develops, and you watch it, the image floats up to you. And then — you re-experience what you experienced when you took the photograph.”

    In 2009 she died in San Cristobal de las Casas, Mexico, in the state of Chiapas. She was 97.

    1950 - today’s the birthday of American author and humorist FRAN LEBOWITZ. Born Frances Ann Lebowitz in Morristown, New Jersey, Lebowitz is best known for her sardonic social commentary on American life as filtered through her New York sensibilities. Some reviewers have called her a modern day Dorothy Parker.

    After being expelled from high school and receiving a GED, Lebowitz worked many odd jobs before being hired by Andy Warhol as a columnist for Interview. This was followed by a stint at Mademoiselle. Her first book was a collection of essays titled Metropolitan Life, released in 1978, followed by Social Studies in 1981, both of which are collected (with a new introductory essay) in The Fran Lebowitz Reader.

    For more than twenty years she has been famous in part for not writing Exterior Signs of Wealth, a long-overdue novel purportedly about rich people who want to be artists, and artists who want to be rich. She also made several appearances on Late Night With David Letterman during the early part of its run. Â Lebowitz also made recurring appearances as “Judge Janice Goldberg” on the television drama Law & Order.

    In September 2007, Lebowitz was named one of the year’s most stylish women in Vanity Fair‘s 68th Annual International Best-Dressed List, and is known to sport tailored suits by the Savile Row tailor Anderson & Sheppard. On November 17, 2010 Fran made a return appearance on Late Night With David Letterman after a 16-year absence. She discussed her years-long writer’s block, which she jokingly referred to as “writer’s blockade.” On November 22, 2010, HBO debuted a documentary about her entitled Public Speaking, directed by Martin Scorsese, that consisted of interviews and clips from speaking engagements. Â You should look for it — it’s a hilarious documentary about a very witty intellect.

    1951 - on this date the French postal service issued postage stamps with Gay lovers Paul Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud.

    1970 - on this date forty members of the Gay Activist Alliance invaded the New York offices of Harper‘s magazine to protest an article which presented homosexuality as a mental illness. GAA president Arthur Evans verbally attacked editor Midge Decter for publishing an article which would add to the suffering of homosexuals. The protest led to a three part television news series on Gay liberation.

    1971 - on this date the film “Some of My Best Friends Are…” was released with the description: “It’s Christmas Eve 1971 in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village and the regulars of the local gay bar “The Blue Jay” are celebrating. Not much has changed since Stonewall and its not all “Peace on Earth. Good Will to Men” but the times are a changin.” Â An American International production, the film was written and directed by Mervyn Nelson and starred Fannie Flagg, future Golden Girl Rue McClanahan, and Candy Darling in a rare dramatic role. Â Gary Sandy (of later “WKRP in Cincinnati” fame) portrays a drugged out, self-loathing closet case who attacks Darling’s character and is kicked out of the club by the angered patrons. Â The film is now regularly shown at Gay film festivals as “the film you love to hate” but at the time it was thought of us a rare portrayal of life in gay bars of the era. Â You can watch a few clips of it on youtube here:
    http://www.youtube.com/playlist?p=PLB9EB785E9BDCCCC7

    1977 - on this date in a meeting between the Quebec Human Rights Commission and representatives of Gay group ADGQ resulted in public recommendation that government amend Human Rights Charter to include sexual orientation.

    1990 - on this date the U.S. CONGRESS repealed a law barring homosexuals from being admitted to the United States on grounds of mental illness.

    1992 - on this date the Federal Court of Canada ordered the military to lift the ban on Gay and Lesbian service personnel. The Defense Department declined to appeal the decision.

    Allen schindler.jpg
    1992 - On this date US Navy radioman Allen R. Schindler, Jr. is brutally murdered by shipmates for being Gay, precipitating first military, then national debate about Gays in the military that resulted in the United States “Don’t ask, don’t tell” military policy. Schindler was from a Navy family in Chicago Heights, Illinois and was serving as a radioman on the amphibious assault ship USS Belleau Wood in Sasebo, Japan. According to friends of his, Schindler had complained repeatedly of anti-Gay harassment to his chain of command in March and April 1992, citing incidents such as the gluing-shut of his locker and frequent comments from shipmates like “There’s a faggot on this ship and he should die.”

    While on transport from San Diego to Sasebo, Japan, The Belleu Wood made a brief stop in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Afterwards en route to Japan, Schindler made a personal prank announcement “2-Q-T-2-B-S-T-R-8″ on secured lines reaching much of the Pacific Fleet. When he was brought before the disciplinary “captain’s mast” for the unauthorized radio message. Schindler requested the hearing be closed. It was open, with two to three hundred people in attendance. Schindler was put on restrictive leave, unable to leave the ship until a few months after arriving to Sasebo and four days before his death.

    The captain had been visited by Schindler, who had many times requested to be transferred to another location because he was being threatened by other shipmates for being Gay. The captain denied Schindler’s request and kept the man’s sexual orientation and his death a secret for months. It was not reported until a special team composed of a psychologist, two lawyers, a counselor, and a corpsman from Yokosuka incidentally met at a bar in Sasebo.

    Airman Apprentice Terry M. Helvey who was a member of the Ship’s weather department stomped Schindler to death in a toilet in a park in Sasebo, Nagasaki. Schindler had “at least four fatal injuries to the head, chest, and abdomen,” his head was crushed, ribs broken, and his penis cut, and he had “sneaker-tread marks stamped on his forehead and chest” destroying “every organ in his body” leaving behind a “nearly-unrecognizable corpse.” Schindler was left lying on the bathroom floor until the Shore Patrol and the key witness to the incident (Jonathan W.) carried out Schindler’s body to the nearby Albuquerque Bridge. Jonathan W. witnessed the murder while using the restroom. He noticed Helvey jumping on Schindler’s body while singing, and blood gushing from Schindler’s mouth while he attempted to breathe. The key witness was requested to explain in detail to the military court what the crime scene looked like, but would not because Schindler’s mother and sister were present in the courtroom.

    After the trial, Helvey was convicted of murder and the captain who kept the incident quiet was demoted and transferred to Florida. Helvey is now serving a life sentence in the military prison at the United States Disciplinary Barracks, although by statute, he is granted a clemency hearing every year. Helvey’s accomplice, Charles Vins, was allowed to plea bargain as guilty to three lesser offenses, including failure to report a serious crime, and to testify truthfully against Terry Helvey and served a 78-day sentence before receiving a general discharge from the Navy.


    1997 - on this date the cable television network BET-TV succumbed to homophobic pressure and withdrew an invitation to Gay African-American activist (and former Clinton administration staffer) KEITH BOYKIN to appear on a show with homophobic fundamentalist gospel singers Angie and Debbie Winans. The Winans objected to his presence on the show, which featured their anti-Gay song “It’s Not Natural.” Thus proving their cowardice in refusing to be challenged on their hateful rhetoric.

    1999 - on this date in the provincial government in the Canadian province of Ontario changed 67 statutes to give same-sex couples equal treatment to heterosexual couples.

    1999 - also on this date during the primaries, the two Democratic presidential candidates Al Gore and Bill Bradley promised that if elected they would do everything in their power to ensure equal rights for Gay and Lesbian Americans. The promise was an unprecedented declaration by a candidate for a party’s nomination. George W. Bush would win the presidential election promising the absolute opposite position on equal rights for Gay and Lesbian Americans and became the first president to publicly call for a constitutional amendment to explicitly take away rights from a class of people. Those people being Gay people. Proving once again that elections do matter.

    2007 - on this date two 16 year-old boyfriends in Davis, California were elected Homecoming “Princes” after a successful write-in campaign at Davis Senior High School. With each boasting a white sash declaring his title as “Prince,” the two 16-year-olds rode through the city of Davis in the school’s annual homecoming parade.

    2009 - on this date the students of the College of William and Mary in Virginia, elected their first ever Transgender homecoming queen. Jessee Vasold, who identified as “genderqueer” took the field at halftime of the school’s football game against James Madison.


    SUNDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2012

    1903 - British poet and novelist EVELYN WAUGH was born on this date. The English writer is best known for such satirical and darkly humorous novels as Decline and Fall, Vile Bodies, Scoop, A Handful of Dust and The Loved One, as well as for broader and more personal works, such as Brideshead Revisited and the Sword of Honor trilogy, that are influenced by his own experiences and his conservative and Catholic viewpoints. Many of Waugh’s novels depict British aristocracy and high society, which he satirizes but to which, paradoxically, he was also strongly attracted. In addition, he wrote short stories, three biographies, and the first volume of an unfinished autobiography. His travel writings and his extensive diaries and correspondence have also been published.

    In 1944, American literary critic Edmund Wilson pronounced Waugh “the only first-rate comic genius that has appeared in English since Bernard Shaw,” while Time magazine declared that he had “developed a wickedly hilarious yet fundamentally religious assault on a century that, in his opinion, had ripped up the nourishing taproot of tradition and let wither all the dear things of the world.” Waugh’s works were very successful with the reading public and he was widely admired by critics as a humorist and prose stylist. In his notes for an unpublished review of Brideshead Revisited, George Orwell declared that Waugh was “about as good a novelist as one can be while holding untenable opinions.” The American conservative commentator William F. Buckley, Jr. found in Waugh “the greatest English novelist of the century,” while his liberal counterpart Gore Vidal called him “our time’s first satirist.”

    After gallantly protecting T. S. Eliot from “the specious assumption that he was homosexual,” T.S. Matthews in Great Tom, suddenly became viciously ungallant: “It is peppery, glaring little men like Evelyn Waugh who are sexually suspect – as his diaries bear witness.” Aside from the psychologically interesting opposition of “great” Tom and “little” Evelyn, it’s perfectly clear that the former editor of Time magazine had no particularly liking for either homosexuality or Evelyn Waugh. The very word “suspect” is suspect. Many people disliked Waugh personally. He could be unkind, ungenerous and ornery. But he was one of the greatest prose stylists of the 20th century, if not the greatest, and the idea of using the word “little” on a giant such as he is at best, odd.

    Indeed, his diaries do clearly reveal him as a Gay man. But then so do his novels, particularly Brideshead Revisited, in which the friendship of Charles and Sebastian, despite the limitations of what he was allowed to write in the early 1940s, is magnificently drawn.


    1909 - the Anglo-Irish born painter FRANCIS BACON was born on this date (d. 1992). He was a collateral descendant of the Elizabethan philosopher Francis Bacon. His artwork is well known for its bold, austere, and often grotesque or nightmarish imagery. Bacon discovered that he attracted a certain type of rich man, an attraction he was quick to take advantage of, having developed a taste for good food and wine. One of the men was an ex-army friend of his father, another breeder of race-horses, named Harcourt-Smith. Bacon later claimed that his father had asked this friend to take him ‘in-hand’ and ‘make a man of him’. Francis had a difficult relationship with his father, once admitting to being sexually attracted to him. Doubtless, Eddy Bacon was aware of his friend’s reputation for virility, but not of his penchant for young men.
    In the early Spring of 1927 Bacon was taken by Harcourt-Smith to the opulent, decadent, “wide open” Berlin of the Weimar Republic, staying together at the Hotel Adlon. It is likely that Bacon saw Fritz Lang’s Metropolis at this time.

    His visit to a 1927 exhibition of 106 drawings by Picasso at the Galerie Paul Rosenberg, Paris, aroused his artistic interest, and he often took the train into Paris five or more times a week to see shows and art exhibitions. Bacon saw Abel Gance’s epic silent film Napoléon at the Paris Opéra when it premiered in April 1927. From the autumn of 1927, Bacon stayed at the Paris Hôtel Delambre in Montparnasse. In 1929 he met Eric Hall at the Bath Club, Dover Street, London, where Bacon was working at the telephone exchange. Hall (who was general manager of Peter Jones) was to be both patron and lover to Bacon, in an often torturous relationship.

    In 1964, Bacon began a relationship with 39-year-old Eastender George Dyer, whom he met, he claimed, while the latter was burgling his apartment. A petty criminal with a history of juvenile detention and prison, Dyer was a somewhat tortured individual, insecure, alcoholic, appearance obsessed and never really fitting in within the bohemian set surrounding Francis. The relationship was stormy and in 1971, on the eve of Bacon’s major retrospective at the Paris Grand Palais, Dyer committed suicide in the hotel room they were sharing, overdosing on barbiturates. The event was recorded in Bacon’s 1973 masterpiece Triptych, May-June 1973.
    In 1974, Bacon met John Edwards, a young, illiterate, handsome Eastender with whom he formed one of his most enduring friendships, eventually bequeathing his £11m fortune to Edwards after his death.

    Bacon died of a sudden heart attack on April 28, 1992, in Madrid, Spain. Bacon bequeathed his entire estate (then valued at eleven million pounds) to John Edwards after his death. Edwards, in turn, donated the contents of Francis Bacon’s chaotic studio at 7 Reece Mews, South Kensington, to the Hugh Lane gallery in Dublin. Bacon’s studio contents were moved and the studio carefully reconstructed in the gallery. Additionally draft materials, perhaps intended for destruction, were according to Canadian Barry Joule bequeathed to Joule who later forwarded most of the materials to create the Barry Joule Archive in Dublin with other parts of the collection given later to the Tate museum.

    Bacon’s Soho life was portrayed by John Maybury, with Derek Jacobi as Bacon and Daniel Craig as George Dyer (with some lovely frontal nudity on Craig’s part) and with Tilda Swinton as Muriel Belcher, in the film Love is the Devil (1998), based on Daniel Farson’s 1993 biography The Gilded Gutter Life of Francis Bacon. Bacon is also cited in interviews with contemporary British artist Damien Hirst as being one of the latter’s principal influences.

    1970 - the author KATE MILLET publicly came out on this date. She would later speak at the first Gay and Lesbian March on Washington in 1979.


    1987 - the HUMAN RIGHTS CAMPAIGN FUND began running ads on this date in response to an amendment introduced in the Senate by the virulent homophobe Sen. Jesse Helms (R-NC) and passed by the house and senate to restrict funding to AIDS organizations which distributed Gay-related prevention literature.

    1987- At the University of Vermont in Burlington nineteen people were arrested in a demonstration protesting the CIA’s exclusion of Gays and Lesbians on this date.

    1990 - on this date during a campaign speech, US Congressman Jesse Helms [twice in one day? apologies] referred to Gays and Lesbians as “people marching in the streets demanding all sorts of things, including the right to marry each other.” Imagine that?

    1990 - on this date PLACIDO DOMINGO and ANDRE WATTS raised $1.5 million at a fundraiser for the Gay Men’s Health Crisis.

    1992 - on this date Episcopal bishop A. THEODORE EASTMAN issued an order to clergy in Maryland not to bless same-sex unions.

    1992 - on this date copies of the Lesbian comic book “HOTHEAD PAISAN #7´´ was seized from the Toronto Women’s Bookstore. Officials sited “sexual degradation” as the reason for the seizure, though it contained no sex. The prohibition would be lifted seven months later.

    1997 - on this date the NATIONAL BLACK LESBIAN AND GAY LEADERSHIP FORUM condemned homophobic gospel singers Angie and Debbie Winans for their anti-Gay song “It’s Not Natural” and BET-TV for providing them with a one-sided forum to promote their homophobic views. Earlier in the year, BET-TV refused to air MeSHELL NDEGEOCELLO’s video “Leviticus Faggot,” about a black Gay teenager’s struggle to come to terms with his sexuality.

    1998 - on this date Welsh secretary RON DAVIES resigned from Tony Blair’s Labour Party government after British tabloids reported he was robbed at knife-point in a London park while looking for a male sexual companion. Although he subsequently came out as Bisexual, Davies referred to the incident as his “moment of madness.”

    In 1999 Davies was successfully elected on 6 May 1999 as Member of the Welsh Assembly in the Caerphilly Constituency, and chaired the Economic Development Committee after Alun Michael refused to appoint him to his Cabinet. Shortly before the 2003 assembly elections, “The Sun” revealed that Davies had been visiting a well-known cruising spot near a motorway lay-by (rest stop). When challenged as to what Ohe had been doing there, Davies initially denied being there, then told reporters that he had been going for a short walk, adding: “I have actually been there when I have been watching badgers.” Davies was forced to stand down as Labour candidate in the election.

    2008 - on this date Gus Van Zant‘s Harvey Milk biopic premiered to a star-studded audience at San Francisco’s Castro Theater. MILK would go on to win various Oscars at the 2009 Academy Awards.

    2010 - on this date President Barack Obama signed the The Matthew Shepard Act (officially the “Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act”) into law. The Act expanded the 1969 United States federal hate-crime law to include crimes motivated by a victim’s actual or perceived gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability. It was finally passed after almost two decades of attempts to pass it through Congress and over stiff opposition by members of the Republican party. During debate in the House of Representatives, Republican Representative Virginia Foxx of North Carolina called the “hate crime” labeling of Shepard’s murder a “hoax.” Proving once again that elections do matter.

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  • Etats Unis Chicago Villes

    LeTemps.ch | Chicago, entre gangs et machine politique

    http://www.letemps.ch/Page/Uuid/c432b3fe-c9e0-11e1-be5d-8d4a665c0b3b/Chicago_entre_gangs_et_machine_politique
    Stéphane Bussard

    Chicago est la troisième plus grande ville des Etats-Unis. La mégapole, dont le nombre d’homicides a explosé en 2012, compterait près de 600 petits gangs. (Stéphane Bussard)
    Chicago est la troisième plus grande ville des Etats-Unis. La mégapole, dont le nombre d’homicides a explosé en 2012, compterait près de 600 petits gangs. (Stéphane Bussard)

    Même si Al Capone et Michael McDonald sont des figures du passé, la ville de l’Illinois a un mode de gouvernance marqué par les stigmates de sa turbulente histoire. Portail d’entrée du Midwest,elle revendiqueune identité propre et une douceurde vivre menacéepar la prolifération des petites bandes criminelles

    « Chicago, plutôt côte est ou côte ouest ? » La question paraît naïve. Elle est en réalité vécue comme une provocation. La plus grande ville de l’Illinois estime n’être animée ni par l’esprit de Boston ou Washington, ni par celui de Seattle ou San Francisco. Elle se définit comme le portail d’entrée du Midwest. Le Chicagolais a le pas moins pressé, mais n’est pas nonchalant. Dans la rue, saluer un inconnu ne lui apparaît ni comme une politesse excessive, ni comme une incongruité.

  • SCADA : attention, ça commence à devenir chaud | bluetouff
    http://reflets.info/scada-attention-ca-commence-a-devenir-chaud

    Il y a quelques temps, l’ami @fo0_ éveillait notre attention sur un hack un peu particulier d’un système SCADA survenu aux USA, à Springfield, Illinois. Des intrus se seraient introduits sur le système supervisant l’approvisionnement en eau de la ville. Compromettant d’abord le système d’information du constructeur, ils seraient ensuite parvenus à détruire une pompe a eau en jouant avec le système de monitoring, l’allumant et l’éteignant. Pour le moment, vous noterez que nous sommes encore dans un contexte relativement proche de la blague d’étudiant… et heureusement. En faisant quelques recherches comme nous en avons l’habitude chez Reflets, nous sommes tombés sur des pages assez intéressantes. Nous avons par exemple mis la main sur un le fichier de configuration de la base de données d’un PLC (Programmable logic controller) de la structure d’approvisionnement en eau de la ville de Springfield : <Config conVer= »0.15.1″ serial= »460847047″ model= »PLC800-U-1-2M00-12-0″ password= »c1o9o3p17″ modNet1= »7″ modNet2= »836″ modVer1= »2.01″ modVer2= »" ntp= »" offUTC= »01:00:00″ dayLightSaving= »True » synchroNodes= »True » language= »es » gsmBand= »0″ decimalSeparator= ». » dayReadBill= »1″ profileDepth= »30″ timeBetwRetries= »5″> Cette ligne nous renseigne sur le modèle, un concentrateur destiné à contrôler et mesurer (...)

  • Jailed for $280: The Return of Debtors’ Prisons - Yahoo! Finance
    http://finance.yahoo.com/news/jailed-for--280--the-return-of-debtors--prisons.html

    How did breast cancer survivor Lisa Lindsay end up behind bars? She didn’t pay a medical bill — one the Herrin, Ill., teaching assistant was told she didn’t owe. “She got a $280 medical bill in error and was told she didn’t have to pay it,” The Associated Press reports. “But the bill was turned over to a collection agency, and eventually state troopers showed up at her home and took her to jail in handcuffs.”

    Although the U.S. abolished debtors’ prisons in the 1830s, more than a third of U.S. states allow the police to haul people in who don’t pay all manner of debts, from bills for health care services to credit card and auto loans. In parts of Illinois, debt collectors commonly use publicly funded courts, sheriff’s deputies, and country jails to pressure people who owe even small amounts to pay up, according to the AP.

  • Foreign #hackers targeted U.S. water plant in apparent malicious #cyber_attack, expert says - The Washington Post
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/checkpoint-washington/post/foreign-hackers-broke-into-illinois-water-plant-control-system-industry-expert-says/2011/11/18/gIQAgmTZYN_blog.html

    Foreign hackers caused a pump at an Illinois water plant to fail last week, according to a preliminary state report. Experts said the cyber-attack, if confirmed, would be the first known to have damaged one of the systems that supply Americans with water, electricity and other essentials of modern life.

    “It was tracked to Russia. It has been in the system for at least two to three months. It has caused damage.

  • Les républicains ouvrent la chasse aux syndicats - Libération
    http://www.liberation.fr/economie/01012368695-les-republicains-ouvrent-la-chasse-aux-syndicats

    « Les offensives auxquelles nous assistons aujourd’hui dans le secteur public sont sans précédent », observe Robert Bruno, professeur à l’université de l’Illinois. Pour ce spécialiste des syndicats américains, « c’est clairement un châtiment infligé aux syndicats pour leur contribution à la victoire démocrate en 2008 ». Durant la campagne d’Obama, le mouvement syndical a fait la différence dans des Etats clés comme la Pennsylvanie, le Wisconsin ou l’Ohio. Pendant un moment assez bref, on a pu croire que les syndicats allaient réussir à changer les lois du travail en faveur des salariés. « C’était très effrayant pour le patronat et les républicains, qui ont fait de la lutte antisyndicale une priorité », explique Robert Bruno. Dans les entreprises privées, les efforts pour empêcher la formation de syndicats « n’ont rien de nouveau », rappelle Kate Bronfenbrenner, spécialiste de la question à l’université Cornell à New York, mais ces attaques « s’intensifient ».

    Une étude publiée en 2009, portant sur 1 000 entreprises où des syndicats ont tenté de se créer, a révélé que 57% des patrons avaient menacé de fermer tout ou partie de leurs sociétés plutôt que de laisser leurs salariés s’organiser ; 47% ont menacé de réduire les salaires ; et 34% ont licencié des agitateurs ou supposés tels. « Les techniques de surveillance et de dissuasion sont devenues très sophistiquées, souligne Kate Bronfenbrenner. Parfois, il suffit d’afficher une carte géographique, pour suggérer où l’entreprise pourrait être délocalisée. Ensuite, le patron convoque les chefs de poste pour expliquer que leur tâche numéro 1 est d’empêcher la formation du syndicat, sinon ils perdront leur emploi. »

  • 2010/03/05 > BE Etats-Unis 198 > La liberté d’expression sur Internet préoccupe Washington
    http://www.bulletins-electroniques.com/actualites/62513.htm

    Le sénateur Dick Durbin (Démocrate, Illinois) prépare un projet de loi qui imposerait des sanctions civiles et pénales aux compagnies Internet américaines se pliant à la pression de gouvernements étrangers en violant les droits de l’homme. Très peu de détails sur le projet de loi ont été dévoilés lors de l’audition du Comité Judiciaire sur les droits de l’homme du Sénat rassemblé mardi dernier, mais le sénateur affirme qu’il souhaite inscrire dans la loi des sanctions pour les entreprises qui violeraient la liberté d’expression des bloggeurs, activistes et internautes vivant sous des latitudes répressives.

    #Internet #démocratie #liberté #for:twitter

  • Docteur Barack et Mister Obama - Gauches | blog à gauche de Thibault Dumas
    http://www.gauches.fr/post/2008/11/01/Docteur-Barack-et-Mister-Obama

    Le positionnement du nouveau président démocrate tout au long de la campagne sur les questions de société est révélateur de cette ambivalence. Sur le contrôle des armes à feux son « agenda » n’est pas tranché : il est pour l’interdiction des armes d’assaut et le contrôle du casier judiciaire de l’acheteur sans remettre en cause la vente libre (2e amendement). Pourtant lorsque qu’on creuse un peu, on trouve que Obama est noté F par la NRA (voir les notations), « véritable ennemi des armes à feu ». On découvre que lors de son mandat au Sénat de l’Illinois (1996-2004) il a porté des lois fédérales très régulatrices en la matière. De même au Sénat américain il a voté pour l’interdiction des armes à feux dans le District of Columbia (DC) en 2008. Les exemples sont pléthoriques. Sur la peine de mort la aussi beaucoup de prudence dans son programme : il est pour la peine de mort dans les cas les plus extrêmes (violeurs d’enfants). Quand on se penche sur sa carrière à Chicago on trouve qu’il

    #politique #usa