r to vote Republican than Democratic.First off, I think it’s a sad commentary if workers for any company choose a president based on what they’re bosses say. I have more faith in all of you out there.But, Wal-Mart may have stepped over legal boundaries with this latest move, one in a series of attempts by the retail giant to derail unionization of its workers.This from the Wall Street Journal law blog:  Labor groups — including American Rights at Work, the AFL-CIO and WakeUpWalMart.com — are filing the letter with the FEC (Federal Election Commission), asking the Commission to determine whether the company “made prohibited corporate expenditures” by organizing meetings across the country to warn employees that a Democratic president would back legislation known as the Employee Free Choice Act, which the company opposes. Both labor and business agree the legislation would make it easier for the labor movement to organize more workers.  Basically Obama voted for the Act and McCain voted against it, hence the urging by Wal-Mart managers to vote for a Republican this fall.During the meetings with workers, Wal-Mart honchos supposedly gave employees bogus information on what the Act would mean, including telling them they’d see a cut in pay and would be forced to join unions even if only a small percentage of workers wanted to organize, if the law passed.Many labor law experts believe the Election Commission will probably end up investigating Wal-Mart’s behavior, and this whole episode will likely drag on. But in the meantime, workers everywhere have to start educating themselves when it comes to political choices and the laws politicians support.Here is a link to the legislation.And here’s a great, balanced overview of the Act written last year by Dale Russakoff at the Washington Post. I’m emphasizing balanced because all of us have to be aware of where information comes from when it comes to proposed laws. Reading about this Act on the AFL-CIO’s website, or the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s website, will likely give you a slanted view of what the bill will mean to you. Be aware of the endless sources we have on the Web and read stories that offer some well-researched information from both sides of an issue.And please, please, please, don’t rely on your managers to tell you how to vote! Keep democracy alive, be the boss of your own political decisions.
In what will surely be the most damaging leak of this political season, Pajamas Media has just published a memo from David Axelrod, of the Obama Campaign.  The memo is written in response to the media learning that tickets for “The One’s” acceptance speech in Denver next month carried, in addition to the price tag, a coercive requirement of “volunteer” labor on behalf of the “One,” presumptive nominee, Barack Obama. Read the entire thing.  It is quite disgusting to discern the cynical views of these “professional” pols in their own words, and quite amusing to note that Mr. Axelrod also indulges in the messianic nomenclature regarding “The One.” VOLUNTEER FOR OBAMA, OR ELSE! The following memo was leaked to PJM anonymously from a server tracked to a hotel in downtown Denver.August 14, 2008 - by Stephen GreenSupport Pajamas Media; Visit Our Advertisers
Had a bad night, having a bad morning.Joined Twitter as research for an article I want to write - it’s very frenetic and I don’t know how much I will be able to take of it.  Good thing I haven’t signed up for it on my mobile.I just logged into my Gmail account (which I don’t use) and there were 835 backlogged messages from the Moveon.org Writers for Obama group I joined and various other spammy social-networking/listserv/reply all type emails.I wish people wouldn’t hit “reply all.”  I just unsubscribed from a ton of their listservs.  Blah.In addition there were some creepy comments from some dude on Flickr who was looking at a series of pictures I took of my feet last year.  Ew.  I thought I set those to private!I also got some email from a dude at Cisco Systems congratulating a KIM Kotler on the new job she was leaving Cisco to take.  Weird.  August 14, 2008Categories: Bullet Points of Life . . Author: adorkablegrrl 4 Comments
  Maggie says:My typical politics-nerd self is surprised at my own lack of interest and/or excitement in the Obama Veepstakes. I just can't get into it. Weird. My gut reactions - aside from a huge disinterested shrug - are:Kaine. Probably the person I'd most like to see in there from this shortlist. I like the cultural balance, I like that he's from Virginia. Good energy. Catholic, Spanish-speaker, son named Woody all bonus points.Biden. Loose cannon. Arrogant. Defense/security bonus points. The elder stateman choice, I guess. But isn't he too acerbic to be considered an elder stateman?Bayh. Blah. Bland. Voted for the war. There's a reason he's always mentioned but never chosen. RepublicanLite. Boringzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz........................Who are you guys feeling, if anyone?ps: The blogosphere seems to be guessing Biden lately, for whatever that's worth. The VP night of the convention is a "Security" theme, etc. Earlier this week they were hot for Bayh. Kaine has been kind of dismissed.
Banana Express - another great video this week from the Indy Mogul gang. Featuring richard blakeley, lindsay campbell and Amber Lee Ettinger (aka Obama Girl), among others.justin writes:  Steve and I spent over 36 of the last 72 hours on this. I’m pretty pleased with the end result. Lots of locations, make sure to check out the original to see how close we got a lot of the time.
 HELENA, Mont. (AP) — The National Rifle Association said Wednesday that Barack Obama’s campaign is trying to mislead voters about his past support of gun control, calling the Democratic candidate “a poster child of the extremist, elitist gun control movement.”…
  What a stellar cast last night for the August Salon at the Gershman Y!  Eric Okdeh  , of Philly’s Mural Arts Program, led off with an inspiring account of the creation of his most recent mural at 41st and Market on the Elwyn building. The piece is quite extraordinary in its brilliant colors, owing in no small part to the liberal use of stained glass arranged in mosaic patterns. And no less extraordinary was Okdeh’s feat in organizing legions of volunteers to painstakingly create large swaths of the design. Artists often strive to give form to an “uncompromising vision,” but it’s fascinating to see collaborative artists like Okdeh (and, in June, Don Gensler) for whom artistic “vision” inherently demands compromise. Eric Okdeh’s site is here.  Matthew Borgen’s life-sized angel wings, part of his Wing Rack installation, added a whimsical touch to an occasionally painful memoir of the last ten years charting his emergence as an artist and struggle for success. Working backward from the first installation of the piece in a gallery in Florida, Borgen sifted through his journals, sketches and recollections to find the narrative strands that led to the actual development of the work. Though treading into occasionally arcane art-historical and philosophical territory, Borgen made a convincing case for the multi-layered accessibility of his work, borne out when, at intermission, audience members (myself included) gleefully hoisted pairs of the wings onto our own backs and made like angels. It was, for a moment at least, not unlike what heaven must be for artists.  Andrew David Watson  –who you may also remember from the October Salon–took the stage after intermission to share two lovely short documentary paeans to the bicycle. Both were shot using a still camera and a cheap audio recording. The first, produced during his brief stint at Fabrica, looked at the small Italian town of Treviso from the seat of a bicycle. The second followed a local cyclist, nicknamed the “Broad Street Bully,” who has turned riding his bicycle into a full-time retirement plan. Both pieces were a testament to the power of inexpensive and simple tools in telling great stories. Watson is now following the Obama campaign for IFC as well as pursuing numerous independent projects. His camera work can be seen at the First Person Festival screening of Joshua Camerote’s Swallow Your Pride, a documentary about Philadelphia’s Wing Bowl. (Details announced soon!) See more of what he’s up to here.Finally, Juliet Wayne took her success as the winner of last year’s Grand Slam to the next level with a rollicking longer-form story about a bus trip that turned into an acid trip and led, finally, to a trip to an abortion clinic. The universe Wayne evokes in her storytelling, so true and at the same time so truly warped, is populated with characters with names like Taw-Taw (an opportunist in all media), conspiratorial nurses, back-stabbing best friends, naive young teachers on vacation, and ex-boyfriends with misplaced entrepreneurial impulses. It’s an entertaining world, filtered through Wayne’s hilarious and, ultimately, despite her protests to the contrary, optimistic, hindsight. If you haven’t seen her work one way or another, you can certainly get a flavor at her blog. Highly recommended!
 Wreaths and flowers lined the sidewalk in front of Arkansas' Democratic Party headquarters Thursday while police and others tried to explain why a man who lost his job at a Target store drove more than 30 miles and fatally shot the party's chairman.Until Wednesday morning, when he wrote profanity-laced graffiti on a store wall, Timothy Dale Johnson had been a good employee in a stockroom, a Target spokeswoman said.  Johnson apparently lived alone and had never married. Under most circumstances he probably would have continued this isolated, but not all together unproductive life. He probably had certain emotional difficulties with people. According to neighbors he kept to himself, yet was considered a model employee at Target. Yet, after losing his job (or leaving it), the first action he decided to take was to murder a prominent liberal and Democrat, much like Jim David Adkis