New Year's to the present was good.
It did point out what age, or blogging, has done to my confronational side.
For New Year's Eve we went to our usual party. As the years go by it gets a little smaller, and a little quieter.
At Hallowe'en I kept my mouth shut when Pournelle said he hoped the Democrats would win, so the fiasco that is Iraq (which he confessed he thought was unwinnable) would be blamed on them, because they would be in charge when we left.
But on Sunday night, someone started to hold forth on why he was against unions.
It was the usual claptrap, they were good once, but they'd gone too far, were drunk on thier own propaganda, weren't really needed, were fighting to see to it that rail-switchers got more money than people with bachelor's degrees (which of course is wrong, a job where one has to be out in all weathers, and mistakes cost body-parts, lives, and can play hob with the economy is surely worth less than the office labor of someone who graduated with a degree in fine arts; with a focus on pottery) and had spread to the point of destroying the country.
Me, I like unions. I used to be of the opinion they'd outgrown themselves (hey, I was an impressionable teen when Reagan was president, cut me some slack), but then I got a job as a machinist. These days I have one friend who is barred from striking, because the City of Los Angeles doesn't like it. She's not a firefighter, nor a cop (and that whole "strikes are forbidden" thing seems wrong to me... if they can't strike, what collective power does a group have when the employer doesn't want to negotiate, or chooses to do so in bad faith, but I digress), but the city got an injunction. So, because she took part in a one day strike, she is barred, under threat of jail, and dismissal, from taking part in any other strike.
So her husband takes days away from his work, to stand in for her.
Sola's boyfriend (that seems inadequate, they've been together for something like five years, but I've nothing else to call him) works for the Dept. of Labor, trying to help farmworkers; seeing to it that they are given the conditions they are entitled to, and making sure they know how to organize, should they want to.
So my recent understanding of unions is perhaps skewed. I also know a bit more about the nuts and bolts than most people.
It was when he said, they were, "too powerful" these days that I spoke up. I asked him just what he meant by, "too powerful."
He said that anytime a union could devastate a city, as he'd seen happen to Los Angeles (several times) in the recent past...
"Excuse me, when did this happen (I being a resident of Los Angeles, lo these many years, couldn't bring this occasion to mind)?"
He made reference to the dockworkers' strike.
It was a pain. There were merchants who didn't get stock. There were lots of cargo containers sitting on the docks, and more sitting on the ships (the Teamsters wouldn't remove the stuff that was waiting. The Longshoremen weren't unloadding any new ones). Ships were sitting off the coast, because the one's at the piers weren't going to leave until they were unloaded. I don't know if the Pilots were refusing to guide ships.
But it didn't shut down the city. No one starved (though he tried to make it sound as if the poor were falling down, because the grapes, apples and oranges from S. America were rotting in the holds).
He then tried to go on about the plethora of unions in places like supermarkets (having just complained that all the workers at the LA Zoo [who aren't animal keepers/handlers/vets] belong to just one union, the Teamsters). He didn't like being told that was because the people who own gorcery stores worked to make it that way, so they'd not need to negotiate with everyone (assuming the baggers, and stockworkers are willing to cross the lines).
He didn't try to tell me that the film industry is too unionized. It is, but not for any of the reasons he would be likely to give me. Gaffers handle lights, because they know lights, and messing with a rack of 2,500 watt kliegs is not for the ignorant. So there are a lot of specialty unions. SAG, SEG, The Writers' Guild, they have their own problems.
No, he didn't like it a bit when I pointed out the halcyon days he was saying were when unions were needed, but not now, were because the numbers of union employees had dropped from almost 40 percent in unions, to about 10 today, and the wage gap from CEO to janitor was less.
Unions (and the GI bill, and Social Security) made the middle class.
He didn't like hearing it.
It may be that had it been some other party, he wouldn't have seemed so defensive (the entire exchange lasted about five minutes, at which point I pleaded a need to be across the room, and left before voices were raised, as passion was already present).
But he was in a cheap suit (it fit him ill) and I was in white tie. I suspect the appearance of class (which americans refuse to admit affects us) was playing against him. I was, after all, obviouly upper crust. I had tails, a cuffed shirt, and mongrammed links holding it shut. I was decidedly not wearing a clip-on tie.
I don't know that, before I was so regularly spouting off, here, there and everywhere; but rather limited to fora with longer delays, I'd have been quite so willing to risk a public scene, over a minor bit of pontification.
At the party friends gave us a pewter tankard. It's huge, in that proportioned way which good drinking vessels can manage, holding 24 ounces of beer, with room for some foam.
For Twelfth Night the usual Tree De-nuding party was convened, and I brought forth a Bottle of Mystery. In the course of cleaning out something at Maia's grandparent's place (IIRC) I'd found a some Anchor Steam Christmas and New Year's Ale, 1988.
The question before
![[profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
skeetermonkey and the rest of us (all of WANOLJ) was, had it survived? The cap was in good shape, despite a spot of rust on the outside, the seal was pristine.
Being well spiced, and hopped, it hadn't gone off. It was mellow, herbal (which is one of the charactaristics of Anchor's holiday ales) and worth the effort. The malt was gone, eaten away by time, but nothing was spoiled.
The other thing I tried this last week was Fuller's Vintage Ale, 2006. The bottles are numbered (this vintage is 100,000 bottles).
Wow. It's running $6-8 per bottle. Rich, vinous, malty, herbed. Head has a dense foam (this was the first thing I put into the tankard. The Anchor we drank from wine glasses, so as to see it)of small bubbles, with a creamy texture, and red-blonde color.
The beer itself was dark-red, with a smooth mouth-feel. Sweet at the front, complex (I find beers harder to define than wines, it's rare one has anything as direct as fruits to compare it to) with spciy notes, like a kitchen garden, and the finish was a fading of the herbs, leaving a slightly tart malt lingering on the palate.
Last night I tried the japanese restaurant two-doors down from the dojo. He didn't hear me order the yakisoba, but my
unagi was very good. It came with miso (not mentioned on the a la carte menu). Since I was running short of time (class was soon to start) I just ordered another pair of the
unagi. Total bill (Miso, tea, four pieces of sashimi), $6.50.
Class was nice. I've been ill (first half of the month) and travelling (second half) so apart from a visit to
Aikido of San Luis Obispo I've not trained at all.
Last night I probably got some advantage from that.
The second class had only eight people, and we did a
jiu-waza (free-flow excercise), only the
nage was blindfolded, so no idea of what sort of attack was coming.
People posted at the edge of the mat, so no one ends up leaving it, and off to the races.
If I'd been tapped first, I'd have been more nervous. But I was fourth, or fifth. I chose an
uke I like; she is very
live has a solid frame, and I can feel her well.
Because I've not been in practice, I ended up having to rely on muscle memory, because nothing was fresh enough in my mind to have me trying to think it through, I was just responding to what I felt, so I did lots of
i-kyo (first teaching).
What I did notice was that I got lower, sank deeper into the mat, and, without visual feedback (sight is a bully, to quote Freff), I did a better job of getting
uke's center, and then keeping it in front of me while I moved her to the mat.
Later Wayne threw me ten times. That was fun. Everyone is different. Wayne is explosive, when he moves, it's not always fast, but the energy comes in quickly. There were a couple of pretty high falls, the kind which seem to have a pause in the middle, as one hits apogee, and then gravity takes over.
When I got to Maia, after class, we spent a few minutes training Rudi. He's four now.
So I got a helmet, and spent time hopping on, and off; from left and right, then Maia had him take some steps, forward and back. With luck, time and patience, he ought to be under saddle, and ready to be trained to hippotherapy by June.
