Paying Attention

Herein be random ruminations on politics, history, ideas, spirituality, religion, education, media, life, relationships, culture... and Boston sports when I really want to vent.

"If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention." (ubiquitous)

"Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never has and never will." (Frederick Douglass)

"I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do, because I notice it always coincides with their own desires." (Susan B. Anthony)

"Clearly the trick in life is to die young as late as possible." (William Sloane Coffin)

January 16, 2012 3:02 pm

GARBAGE TIME (MLK DAY)

The private corporation hired by the city to pick up our garbage sent its crews to my neighborhood today, on Martin Luther King Day, just like they do every Monday.

It’s ironic because Dr. King was shot while supporting striking sanitation workers trying to organize a union,  (The strike began when a black worker who was required to ride in the back of the truck with the garbage accidently got ground to bits.)  Today, our sanitation workers have no union and have to work on MLK Day. 

I know American workers get fewer days off than workers in any other “developed” nation.  I know sanitation workers, including black workers, get treated better than they did.  But MLK Day should be a paid holiday — if not for sanitation workers, than for whom?   If not for organizing unions, than for what?  What we’re left with is the unnoticed irony of  honoring Dr. King with speeches and store sales while telling the people he died trying to help to shut up and get back to work.

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