Yesterday's great civil disobedience made it onto the front page of the Globe business section. You can read it, without the great pictures of us sitting down in the lobby and shouting "we'll be back" through the closing doors of a very full elevator, here.

They clean hotel rooms, tend bars, cook meals, and wait tables

at many of Boston's prestigious hotels and universities, an army of mostly

immigrant and low-wage workers that labors behind the scenes.



But yesterday, after learning that 4,000 hotel workers in San

Francisco are locked out of jobs at 14 hotels, about 85 members of this largely

hidden workforce walked into the sedate lobby of the Hyatt Regency Hotel in

Downtown Crossing and, seated on the floor, demonstrated until police officers

arrived and arrested six protesters on trespassing charges.



Outside, the demonstration continued as the protesters filed

out of the elevators, chanting, ''No Justice in San Francisco, no peace in

Boston."

It's a very good article, and does a pretty solid job of talking about the consolidation and globalization of the hospitality industry and has some solid quotes from our union's recording secretary Sebastiana Montero as well as Robert Reich and John Wilhelm:

''I will fight here with pleasure," said Sebastiana Montero, a

56-year-old housekeeper at The Lenox Hotel. Montero, a member of Hotel Workers

Local 26, marched in front of the hotel as a show of support for a sister union

in San Francisco.



''It is not fair what they are doing to the workers in San

Francisco," said Montero, who has worked at the Lenox for 29 years. ''They have

children; they have to support their families."

It was a great action. The hotel corporations responsible for the lockout in San Francisco better get the message. If not, "we'll be back."

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Watching the game last night was fun, even by myself in my lonely and slightly smelly apartment. Watching the local fox affiliate morning show personalities argue over the gravity and/or existence of the post-game riot was also pretty awesome. I think Thomas, Lauren, and Amelia would have found it very amusing.



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This Island may be significantly poppier than previous Le Tigre records, but i disagree with Nick Sylvester's conclusion on pitchfork today that it therefore lacks subtlety or depth. I find it hard to see how Sylvester can make the case that This Island is a less subtle record than, oh, Feminist Sweepstakes. This is very clearly not the case. And whereas Sylvester finds "New Kicks" a complete failure, for me it's both a shrewd update of/return to a tactic begun with Feminist Sweepstakes' "Dyke March 2001" and one of the first instances in which popular music has sought to grapple with the implications of one of the more momentous events in recent world history - the 10,000,000 strong global uprising against the iraq war. Sylvester's ruling of "I'm So Excited" as a failed attempt is utterly abitrary and unconvincing, and while some of his criticisms of the record may have some value, (though you'll have to tell me which ones these are,) I find his review, dissapointingly, largely, unjustified. I used to hate pitchfork. I think their positivist rating system is unquestionably ridiculous and some of the reviewers are in desperate need of either an editor or a reality check, but they've also got some folks who clearly love the music they write about and love writing about the music they love, and kn0ow their shit when it comes to independent music. I guess that's why i get so frustrated when they publsih a review that's this off. At any rate, I like This Island and recommend that fols go out and listen to it amd make up their own minds.