Toys R' Us recants.

72 fahrenheidt and apocalyptic in the sun yesterday. My brother tried to get me to go see "metal ballet" with him, but I begged off and procrastinated at home instead. Spooky scratched me again, the schmuck. I listened to Mastodon's Blood Mountain in lieu of Metal Ballet, and also Joanna Newsom's Ys, which I liked more than I thought I would and more than The Milk-Eyed Mender or whatever the first album was called, although 16 minutes is probably too long for a song if your name is not Miles Davis or Cecil Taylor. That said, it's a shockingly good 16 minute long song, lyrically potent and melodically intriguing despite the fact that i could walk to the post office and back listening only to it. (Actually not true, because the post office is really pretty far from here, and I'd have to stand on line for an hour anyway.)

Alek has provided a visual aid for Walter 3000. It's awesome.

I intended a substantial entry but I've lost the interest, so here's some C.L.R. James:

We say, number one, that the Negro struggle, the independent Negro struggle, has a vitality and a validity of its own; that it has deep historic roots in the past of America and in present struggles; it has an organic political perspective, along which it is travelling, to one degree or another, and everything shows that at the present time it is travelling with great speed and vigour.

We say, number two, that this independent Negro movement is able to intervene with terrific force upon the general social and political life of the nation, despite the fact that it is waged under the banner of democratic rights, and is not led necessarily either by the organised labour movement or the Marxist party.

We say, number three, and this is the most important, that it is able to exercise a powerful influence upon the revolutionary proletariat, that it has got a great contribution to make to the development of the proletariat in the United States, and that it is in itself a constituent part of the struggle for socialism.

In this way we challenge directly any attempt to subordinate or to push to the rear the social and political significance of the independent Negro struggle for democratic rights. That is our position. It was the position of Lenin thirty years ago. It was the position of Trotsky which he fought for during many years. It has been concretised by the general class struggle in the United States, and the tremendous struggles of the Negro people. It has been sharpened and refined by political controversy in our movement, and best of all it has had the benefit of three or four years of practical application in the Negro struggle and in the class struggle by the Socialist Workers’ Party during the past few years.

Modest Mouse, a band I don't like, recently added Johny Marr, formerly of The Smiths, one of my favorite guitarists of all time. This strikes me as patenlty unfair. Sort of like how the Yankees can dump a 38 year old Gary Sheffield on the Detroit Tigers and just like that, pick up Humberto Sanchez for nothing. I hate the Yankees.

Anyway, oitchfrok links to a stream of a new modest mouse song, which is very poppy and in the GNFPWLBN vibe. Nothing particularly interesting other than Marr's guitar work, which is still awesome and may necessitate me listening to or even buying the new record when it comes out just to hear Johnny Marr. Which is unfair, really, because Modest Mouse are extremely boring.

Toys R' Us discriminates against the children of undocumented restaurant workers

The baby girl, Yuki Lin, was an American citizen from the second the ball dropped in Times Square, where the Toys “R” Us flagship store draws thousands of shoppers from around the world. But like 6 out of 10 babies born in the city — including at least two others born in Brooklyn about the same moment — she has immigrant parents. And according to the contest’s fine print, the chain decided, she was ruled out because her mother was not a legal resident.

The first baby of the year is usually a one-day story. But Albert H. Wang, a corporate lawyer who read about Yuki Lin’s lost chance on the Web site of the Chinese-language newspaper The World Journal, was outraged enough to start an e-mail campaign that is enlisting the ire of prominent Chinese-Americans like the president of the Asian American Business Development Center and officers of the Organization of Chinese Americans.

Their criticism, and threats of a media campaign against the company, come just a month after the chain opened its first store in China, in Shanghai.

“They want business from China,” said Mr. Wang, 39, adding that most of the chain’s toys are made by Chinese workers in China. “But when it comes to this Chinese-American U.S. citizen, she was deprived of $25,000 intended to be used for her college education, because of who her parents are.”

Kathleen Waugh, a spokeswoman for the company, confirmed yesterday that Yuki Lin, born at 6.5 pounds and 19 inches long, had been close to winning the prize. The baby won a random drawing to break a three-way tie with hospitals in Gainesville, Ga., and Bay Shore, N.Y., which also claimed a baby born at midnight.

But, Ms. Waugh added, “in working with New York Downtown Hospital to verify the potential winner’s information and obtain a signed affidavit of eligibility — which is required under the official rules of the sweepstakes — the sweepstakes administrator was informed that the mother of the baby born at New York Downtown Hospital was not a legal resident of the United States.” Contest rules say that only mothers who are legal residents are eligible, Ms. Waugh said, adding that such requirements are common in sweepstakes.

The award went instead to the runner-up in the drawing, Jayden Swain, born 19 seconds after midnight at Northeast Georgia Medical Center to Renee Swain, 20, described by her mother as “a black American.” “She’s an American all the way,” Ms. Swain’s mother, Janet K. Keller, said in a telephone interview.

The baby at Bay Shore was born to a couple from El Salvador.

Mr. Wang and other Chinese-Americans say the winner was to be the baby, not the mother, and they see implications of second-class citizenship that strike an ugly chord. It only seemed to add insult to injury, they said, that the baby was instead given a $100 gift basket, just like all the others the chain gives to the first New Year’s babies born in any hospital that signs up for it.

“People are just pretty much outraged,” said John Wang, president of the 13-year-old Asian American Business Development Center, on Wall Street, adding that he was perplexed by the company’s actions.

“The schools accept children whose parents are illegal aliens in this country, so why is Toys ‘R’ Us taking this kind of position?” he asked. “They’re supported by many people, whether they’re legal or illegal, shopping in their stores, and they’re injecting themselves into this debate.”

This is distrubing on many levels. First, the baby in question is of course a U.S. citizen, as is anyone born in this country. The curtailment of a citizen's rights based on the legal status of her parents suggests a two-tiered citizenship structure, in which some are once again less equal than others- not that this is anything new. Pitting any African American baby against the child of undocumented Chinese immigrants is also particularly disturbing. And of course, fundamentally, "no human is illegal:" by claiming that "legal residency" or lack thereof of the baby's parents should define a U.S. citizen's rights, Toys R' Us is not only foreclosing the citizenship rights of the baby but also instantiating the exploitation of the parents. And that's fucked up.

This blog's been besieged recently with google image search hits for "wilford brimley." (In February I noted how GSOCers were frequently commenting on his resemblance to NYU Provost David McLaughlin.)

I have to wonder whence this crazed desire for Wilford Brimley pictures originates? A nostalgic desire for a national past that never existed as depicted in oatmeal commercials? An appreciation of Mr. Brimley's fine acting in such films as Cocoon, The Thing, and The Firm? I don't get it.

Reading back over those contentious comment wars as i scan those february posts, I think about where I was wrong ("the leadership change wasn't pressing," etc.), and where I was right (the most important thing was always organizing, transforming), and how absolutely insane last year was, and how we must learn from it in moving the academic labor movement forward. If I were to post a longer "end of the year post," as I have done in previous years, it would be about that. But I still don't feel comfortable airing all that on a blog, particularly this blog. So I'm not going to do that.

Instead, I'm going to go out for a walk and check on my feline charge, who yesterday spent a good half hour jumping around her apartment chasing around a stuffed mouse.

Just spilled dumpling sauce all over my pants and had to come home and change clothes.

I have no idea why I am writing this on the internet.

Time to go check on the cat.

cat scratch fever

Spooky, the racially-insensitively named black cat for whom I am babysitting until the 11th, has been getting way too comfortable around me. For the most part, this is good, because she gets all affectionate and nuzzles me and jumps up on the couch, and it's really cute. But she also sometimes confuses my hand with her stuffed mouse, grabs me in her claws, and tries to bite me. For a small cat, Spooky has some very sharp claws, and both my hands are now covered in red scratch marks.

I had a strange dream last night involving some sort of dating bazaar and a lot of people i went to high school with and haven't seen in at least six years. I think Phoebe was there too. And someone made a lame joke about workers and capitalism so I said something about striking and dating, and then I woke up.

Year end post. Yeah, sorry about that. It was too detailed in depictions of personal aporia, union frusrations, academic angst. Maybe I'll revise and post. Maybe i won't. It was an insane and difficult year and I hope 2007 turns out much, much better.

Went to Hoboken last night which was cool - new year's came on the path train and a drunk dude in a funny hat shook everyone's hand. all though the train coming home at 5 am had vomit all over it and i stepped in it, which sucked enormously. Also i hurt my ankle.

Never been to Hoboken before. Lots of people lined outside of bars talking about the Jets. Huge lofts and shy cats and somewhere, I'm sure, Ira Kaplan and Georgia Hubley.

I walked through prospect park yesterday and then down 10th to McDonald down McDonald to Forth Hamilton down Fort Hamilton to the cemetery entrance, and then across greenwood cemetery back to 5th and down 5th home to Sunset Park. The cemetery is beautiful and ancient, mausoleums with ornate masonry and crypts built in rows into hillsides and it was totally quiet and felt like another century except for the odd car that drove by every ten minutes.