Unions? Yes.

To avoid any claim that I do not agree with Black Lives Matter, or that I am somehow a purveyor of the White Privilege Patriarchy, let me state right up front that this is so strongly disproved by the history of my GLBT and Labor advocacy, what led up to it, and what resulted from it, especially as my greatest success did not in any way benefit me, but students of all races, colors, creeds etc., which shreds even the slightest possibility of such a charge.

So don’t even go there.

My concern is that Americans have been deprived of the opportunity to learn about the history of unions in school, and this is a conscious act. An example of this lack of information is laid bare by those who tend toward the extreme in the demands made by people who too often assume a position to speak for the BLM movement, as opposed speak with it. You know who you are. You are the White woke people who unintentionally support the oppression and prevent serious discussion as you act as the White Saviors of People of Color while White-splaining what the Black people are demanding and saying. You have let your enthusiasm overtake the reality of the moment, and you feel that making the most extreme demands somehow makes you an important leader in the cause.

One such demand, “defund” the police, whose real intent is often obscured by a more negative political mistruth, had off-shoots, some of which morphed into “Abolish” the police. And, along with this goes a grossly uninformed demand to destroy the police union because the lack of historical information has people accepting that unions are intrinsically bad.

So, let me explain.

Labor unions came about to counter the abuses of workers by those who ran the factories, mines, trucking companies, those business owners who made their profits by suppressing wages and having people work under poor conditions for too many hours that left little time for living decent lives.  The less management paid employees and the less they paid out to make their factories more humane, the more profits went to the company.

Those who have been in any of the old factories from the 19th Century that still stand in formerly major manufacturing cities like New Bedford, Fall River, and Lowell, may have noticed that the window sills in the workers’ areas are not parallel to the floor, slopping instead at a 45 degree angle. What they may not know is that the reason for that slope was to prevent workers from bringing some humanity to their work space by simply placing a potted plant or anything decorative on the window sill to brighten the place up a bit.

Yeah, things were that oppressive.

Unions came about because workers wanted more control of their hours, wages, and conditions of employment, and this generally annoyed the company owners who saw how this could cut into the company’s profits and their own personal fortunes.

If you live in places like New Bedford, Fall River, Lowell, and Lawrence, the beautiful mansions of the business owners from days gone by are a source of historic pride. What might escape your attention, on the other hand, are those blocks of old 19th Century cookie cutter homes that were built  close to the factories by the owners so that their employees could live close  to work and wouldn’t miss any of their long hours. Because their landlord was the company for which they worked, while wages were low, the factories that begrudgingly had to pay the any wages, got a lot of the money they begrudgingly put into wages back through rent..

There is a reason that American children are not taught the history of unions in school, and politicians with more loyalty to the 1% than their actual constituents demonize unions. Employers want their workers to reject unions so that they no longer have a say in their own hours, wages, and conditions of employment, so their wages can be kept low, their hours can be increased so they can be overworked, and their working conditions can be kept poor. Painting unions as something bad, and getting people to accept this not knowing they are being used against themselves , is a strategy to take power away from workers, and for them to accept whatever crumbs they might get..

And it is working.

I do not in any way condone police abuse or the wall of silence that keeps good cops from helping to eliminate bad and abusive cops. So I fully support the call to reform policing in the United States, and such calls are generally reasonable.

But, lacking any knowledge of the history and purpose of unions, those competing to be angrier than the next guy, go a little too far when they call for the abolition of police unions, playing into, and proving the effectiveness of those who have been working hard to keep people ignorant of facts and to support what is against their own self interest.

40 hour work weeks, weekends, holidays, overtime pay, employee provided health insurance, the minimum wage, lunch breaks, bathroom breaks, these are things workers got because they unionized, not because owners and management were generous.

People do not like what seems to be an all powerful police union, and they have the right to address obviously bad or dangerous policing, but many ,if not most people, who oppose unions of any kind and police unions in particular, may not understand, because they were never told, or choose to ignore what they should know, that the union does not have total control over what is in their contracts because the contract is the product of negotiations between management and labor, and what ends up in the contract is the result of compromise between the two parties. The union does not hand over a contract with unilaterally arrived at provisions and force management to accept it, Every provision in a contract is argued and hashed over between the two parties to establish what will be in it.

People assign blame to the rank and file union members while giving the other side of the collective bargaining process a free pass. If people want to address union problems, they need to look beyond the union to the people on the other side of the negotiations table. What’s in the contract is there because they allowed it.

The contract protects all members, and what people often fail to realize is that when a union defends a member, it is not actually protecting that individual, but the contract that protects all members. If they allow a provision of a contract to be violated or ignored in the case of a bad employee, they allow a protection for all the good ones to be weakened making them victims of management whims. The person they are protecting is only the Some of the prostate cancer signs associated to urination include; Pain or burning during urination Persistent need to urinate at viagra without prescription http://www.devensec.com/news/Current_Projects_May_2014.pdf night Blood in urine (hematuria) Reduced velocity of urine stream Difficulty when urinating and loss of libido. Moreover, these foods must be eaten raw, or within the case of rice, unwashed, as trace minerals tadalafil order are lost. Impotence is a hard thing to deal with and that is the reason a lot to companies all over the world now is producing Sildenafil citrate production with buy viagra online lowest cost. Though there can be dozens of health associated reasons behind, but treating online order viagra them does not always put an end to your ED woes. conduit though which the strength of the contract that protects all is upheld.

Removing bad employees is easy to do if the provisions for doing so that are in the contract are followed. If, when management violates the established procedure in the case of a bad employee, the union does not hold them to negotiated procedures, good employees can be dismissed for the weakest of reasons as well. There would be no reasonable job security.

A good employee can be disciplined and fired wrongfully if protections are weakened, and if people take the time to study the situation, they would understand that.

It is, sadly, the worst employees that need the publically seen protection, and not the myriad of those employees who can safely report to work each day and who simply do their jobs which no one sees.

We rarely give any attention to the cars zipping along the highway with us, but we certainly notice the car pulled over in the breakdown lane, especially if it is an accident. But that car does not represent all those cars we simply gave no more than passing attention to but which were there.

If you do not protect the contract when someone ignores or abuses it, you lose the protections for the good workers, and they become victims of management whim. Allow a bad employee to be dismissed in spite of the contract, and you allow good people to be fired on management whim.

I think the effects of the demonizing of unions and the lack of education about unions, where they came from, and why they are important has borne the desired fruit. Many people are calling for ending police unions without any understanding  the above information.

Rather than just demand the abolition of police unions, citizens should demand that those with whom they negotiate do a better job of it.


Police unions are not some invading army that forced their demands on a victimized management, but a group of workers who want decent hours, wages, and conditions of employment.

Let’s remember that in many major cities like Boston, New York, and Chicago where the Irish-Americans were seen as second class citizens locked out of decent employment and relegated to factory work with low pay and long hours in inhumane working conditions, with few options beyond dangerous jobs like firefighter and police officer. And, if employed in either,  you were treated accordingly.

Because of their hours, wages, and conditions of employment, Police officers unionized.

Until they did, police officers  worked a 7-day week, with one day off every 15 days and that one day off could be taken away at will, as it too often was, Police officers could not leave town without the expressed permission of the commissioner because they needed to be easily called into work. Those on the day shift worked 73 hours, those on the night shift 83, and those who drove the police wagons, commonly referred to as Paddy Wagons because of the Irish cops’ connection with St. Patrick and Paddy being a derogatory term for them, worked 98 hours a week.

After their one day off, an officer’s first day back was a 15 hour shift, performing various tasks such as doing paperwork, wagon runs, and attending the front desk, followed by a three hour break after which they were required to report to the station where they slept for three hours, so that at midnight when the next day began they could report to roll call and begin their street patrol duty after which they could finally go home.

An officer who had the day shift worked a 10 hour day spending one night a week in the station house on reserve.

Are all unions pure? No.

Are some union leaders corrupt? Yes.

But this is why reform is necessary, while total abolition is simply ridiculous.

And if you think unions are not important to guarantee at least decent wages and job security, a person would be naive to think that when the right thing is done structurally, and laws are enacted to meet the goals of the BLM Movement, everything is complete, society has changed, and the mindset of those who otherwise might have been guilty of continued acts of bigotry, but for the existence of the new laws, will have been changed to abandon all their bigotry and looking for subtle ways to still exercise it.

Many Gay people have experienced this. When it became illegal either through state  law or local ordinance  to fire someone just because they are Gay, those with animus would look for other ways to either force you out or take the chance of a law suit they really do not want, and cut you lose claiming some concocted  reason to justify it.

It would seem, if the actions of these past few weeks bear fruit, we Gays will be joined closely by the beneficiaries of the changes made because of the BLM Movement and other youth let action groups, and will see subtle forms of bigotry in action.

Management may encourage, tacitly condone, or covertly commit acts of bigotry, so workers, even in a reformed police department, will need protection from violations of their contract, and that would be themselves, joining together.

Unions, and, yes, some need some corrections, are what could be the only place for a new cop in a newly reformed police department  to turn.

Just once

So, you should only use VigrX male enhancement pills. cialis sample Why? According to his repeated clinical research based on a large quantity of patients with chronic pancreatic disorders to healing mineral cheap viagra levitra spas for hundreds of years. Quit smoking, using alcohol and also drugs and keep up a crevice of no less than 24 hours between two discover for more info now tadalafil india cialis (2) doses. It is always recommended using an oral medication like soft viagra pills. alt=”” class=”wp-image-13612″ width=”588″ height=”471″/>

just sayin’

So you have to pfizer viagra generic be careful and stay straight. Vitamin A deficiencies commonly cause thickening of the scalp, dry hair, and dandruff. get viagra online In this article, it is shown that the herb saw palmetto has the same effect as finasteride in cheapest price viagra treating people with benign prostate enlargement. Initially however, any healthcare provider will recommend that you try out prescription drugs for treatment for erectile dysfunction. online prescription viagra without alt=”” class=”wp-image-13607″ width=”351″ height=”415″/>

with friends like that

It’s like backing up way back, bending at the waist, and then running full force into the nearest brick wall, but I find it necessary to try and point out once again that, instead of offering evidence to prove it is true, there are still some GLBT people who need to be shown that in his actions, Trump is not the friend to the Community that he claims he is.

As proof of his support of GLBT people, the best he could come up with was that he has reduced unemployment, so by default that benefitted GLBT people. Then quietly, he had his justice department fight the Obama administrations inclusion of sexual orientation and gender identity in the Civil Rights Act to protect their employment by filing an Amicus brief in August2019 asking the Supreme Court to legalize anti-gay discrimination in the workplace. The amicus brief claimed that federal prohibitions on employer discrimination do not extend to sexual orientation.

So Trump may have claimed that he indirectly supported GLBT people by increasing employment, but he actively moved to make it legal to fire us for no other reason than sexual orientation and gender identity regardless of work performance.

When the Supreme Court ruled by a clear majority that the Civil Right Act did, indeed, cover sexual orientation, Trump was none too happy saying that he was “surprised” because he was “supposed” to win.

sale of viagra But, more often than not, the results may be different from one person to another and because of this, more and more hair loss sufferers have been discouraged and have been very keen in searching for an online pharmacy. Plus, you should use it as directed by purchase cialis online a medical professional to prevent adverse effects. Men can get mount their productiveness amount by exercising medicine. sildenafil delivery This helps in promoting the desire of quitting the habit to smoke by working with your subconscious mind devensec.com cialis 20mg no prescription to deal with your addiction.

“I was surprised, I was surprised. Some people felt that it was a decision that they weren’t as surprised as I was. Yeah, I was surprised.”

He had, after all, gotten two conservative judges on the Court, and the expectation was that they would rule in his favor when he needed them to. As he explained,

“Look: We’ve had a lot of losses, with a court that was supposed to be in our favor.”

Obviously he does not understand that the Supreme Courts ids supposed to make rulings that favor the U.S. Constitution.

But there is still a possibility that he could get what he wants as he went on the explain,

“We need – you know you’ll probably have a couple of more judges in the next four years. It could even be more than that. It could be three or four.”

So, yeah, that best thing might be a little questionable.

Trump the labeller

Trump is now misrepresenting the current call for revamping law enforcement as a desire to abolish police. Defunding police actually calls for taking some non-police duties away from the police department and reassigning them to those trained in the necessary fields, and this will require a moving around of funds presently going to the police departments and being moved to those non-policing agencies that will do the appropriate work. Instead of having the local police deal with drug addiction, homelessness, domestic violence, mental illness, and school discipline, what it referred to as “Defunding” the police, actually calls for taking some excess money away from the police departments and using it to hire those professionals trained in those fields. It also means bringing the police back to being a department that keeps communities safe as friends of the people in the community by ceasing to use funds to buy military style equipment that makes them look like an invading army.

The local chief of police in my city told a recent group of new officers that they were not some foreign force coming to town every day to control members of the community, but they were part of the community keeping their neighbors safe. Their job was not to treat every citizen as a potential criminal but as people who might need to turn to them for help in the event of a crime.

I once lived in a small town where the federal government required the local police force to accept ownership of a military personnel vehicle or lose funding in other areas. The chief was able to prevent it from being equipped with all manner of assault weaponry, but had no control over the letters U and S from being emblazoned on the sides. There was no need to have it, and its presence was a little disturbing. There weren’t enough police officers to require more than a few squad cars to get the whole department to any one location, and if its purpose was to either drive around to other towns to collect more officers, or wait until officers from other town drove to it to get to where they could have gone in their own squad cars, both situations would be very poor approaches if the intention was to keep a situation from escalating. It eventually was stored in the municipal garage behind the town hall, police and fire department complex where it sits until once a year it is brought out for Touch a Truck Day.

But money has to be spent on the upkeep of the vehicle and the training of officers to operate an unnecessary vehicle.

That money could have been better spent. The town actually needed a second ambulance and a few more defibrillator as the town has a large senior population, and, as a summer beach community, a huge The existence discount sale viagra of the condition has increased noticeably over the past few years, all that has started to change. With regard to men, the top many diseases they are able provide lower prices, they let clients purchase their daily medications discounts on cialis in bulk, and offer services like databases of pharmaceutical information and facts. Dietary supplement of soy and wild yam can help men achieve DHEA that helps produce testosterone in body. viagra generika It surely provides a user true benefit of having an ED medicine for indulging in sexual intercourse. buy cialis cheap Pills for Dealing with Sexual Dysfunction Also known as pink levitra, buy levitra works well for attaining resilient result with zero side effects. population increase in the summer month. The money for those things had to come out of money that could have been used for necessary programs because it couldn’t come from the funds that went to the personnel vehicle.

“Defunding the police” could help change that.

In his rally speech in Tulsa and on other occasions, Trump has misrepresented the idea of defunding the police to make the idea something that it is not in order to scare people into believing he was going to save them from anarchy.

He goes beyond the real demand to defund and adds that those who want to defund also want to abolish. The reality is that while some do want to abolish the police, they are a few among many who want a reasonable reform.

We saw the president do the same thing with NFL players taking a knee by claiming it was an attack on the flag and the troops, so the actual purpose of bringing attention to racial disparity was covered over.

While Colin Kaepernick was specific in his motivation, Trump decided to avoid dealing with the racial issue by claiming the action attacked the flag, the troops, and all cops.

Three years later we are having protests, marches, and the unnecessary destruction of property perpetrated by those who use the orderly protests as cover for their irrelevant intention of causing that destruction because an issue that should have been dealt with wasn’t.

Trumps distraction exacerbated a condition. With a little attention it should be obvious that when Trump distracts from what the real motivation of an action is, disaster follows where solutions could have.

So if history teaches us anything, just as with the taking-a-knee game that Trump played, in the not too distant future, no good will come of his attempting to refrain the call for the police, and rather than salving a wound, salt will be poured into ti with no good results.

At the Trump clinic

Experiencing inabilities during the sessions of intimacy viagra pfizer achat wherein, this adversely impacts over the functioning of the organ. The discharge is actually the sign of puberty when hormonal as well as buy sildenafil canada bodily changes occurs all throughout the day which is unlikely with other brands.A high percentage of users increased their muscle mass and displayed increased strength. When taken it’s great to ordering viagra online your body after around 60 minutes, which implies that you’ll have the capacity to regard erectile brokenness, for example, needle therapy and homeopathy. In this present era, erectile dysfunction has turned into the most popular oral drug solution http://www.devensec.com/forms/Applic_1_Day_License.pdf acquisition de viagra of men’s erection issue. alt=”” class=”wp-image-13597″ width=”377″ height=”421″/>

Rural NIMBY

When I lived in a state with a lot of rural areas, whenever a major crime was committed in a local community, a shooting, a horrible sexual assault, a bizarre murder of an individual or a group, during a television news report, while the police are gathered in the background dealing with the crime scene with the ambulance with the victim(s) in it pulls away, someone having their once in a lifetime chance to be seen on TV points out that these are the things that only happen in New York City.

Actually, the incident of the moment happened right where the person is being interviewed, so, obviously, these crimes do not just happen This enzyme increases levels of a chemical chain reaction and it gets all the cheap cialis 20mg blood pumped into the penis that helps in maintaining erection for a longer time period. If you’re thinking of following a high fiber diet, it’s essential for you to follow through with a large amount of water to levitra sales uk icks.org engulf. Joint conditions with painful symptoms are usually a very serious cause for the decrease of life quality in a patient, since canadian viagra dysfunctional joints are known to affect even the simplest daily activities. Means that generic levitra icks.org has the same therapeutic properties as levitra, since generic generic levitra the same active ingredient in similar proportion. in New York City but actually everywhere even where people live in denial.

As a result, while NYC is prepared for such events and may attempt steps to prevent a future event, or is prepared to handle the next one that happens, these little places assume they will happen somewhere else and take no preventive steps and have to scramble when one happens.

The same is now happening with COVID 19 as rural areas, after believing it only hits places like New York City, are showing signs of  a spike in cases that could have been controlled had it not been for the erroneous belief that things like this only happen elsewhere.

Weaponizing MLK

Martin Luther King has been weaponized, and not by the Black people for whom he fought.

For the years leading up and now including the popping of the racism pimple, any Black person who dared speak out against the conditions they faced had Martin Luther King White-splained not because it added to what was needed to bring about change, but because it hopefully influence that person to stay in their place.

As an openly Gay teacher in a very red city in a very red state, I was told by administrators of the school district that my posting GLBT positive information about GLBT people and history in my classroom during GLBT History Month, or any time when there was positive news throughout the school year, making me the only source of such necessary information for GLBT students and their peers since both groups needed the traditionally denied information to counter the traditionally allowed misinformation, that it was “militancy”.

The campus chapter of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes followed the agenda items that were suggested by the national organization, and one of the topics to be discussed was “Homosexuality”.  This might not have been so objectionable if there was a Gay person in the meeting to answer questions and to dispel misperceptions, but that was not the case. Homosexuality was discussed during a “Meet up” led by the sponsor and, obviously, what was discussed and whatever information given passed through the filter of the Christian sponsor of the group.

The Bible study group would also discuss the Biblical prohibitions to Homosexuality, and throughout the building there were posters announcing Christian events held both on and off campus.

Once a year to get into the building before school a person had to walk by the Prayer at the Pole crowd who gathered at the flag pole by the school’s front entrance while an assistant principal led students in prayer. One year they thought it necessary to pray for me by name as I walked by.

There was a number of GLBT people employed by the district, and it was an open secret. People knew who the GLBT administrators and teachers were. Nothing was ever said, but the adults in the district knew very well who they were or at least they thought they knew as sometimes they assumed sexual orientation based on stereotypical characteristics. The students didn’t know, though, so while the adults knew there were positive role models for GLBT students, the students did not benefit from that because they were kept from seeing them.

If you were a teacher looking for an administrative position or an administrator looking toward a higher administrative position with the increased salary, staying in the closet with its glass door that allowed your peers comfortable deniability was the way to go.

Because of this I was asked many times to be like those other GLBT people who did not make an issue of their being Gay. They were the good Gays because they were quiet and ignorable.

The problem with their approach was that as adults and some students came to recognize the reality, the idea that there must be something wrong with being Gay that required the silence was promoted to and seen by students, both Gay and Straight. For the Gay kids the silence reinforced the need for them to deny themselves. For the Straight kids it meant being Gay was wrong and they had the right to deal with it in often destructive ways, especially since they did so in the name of Jesus

Be quiet and don’t may your straight peers uncomfortable was the expectation. And when they had baby and wedding showers for a faculty member after school hours, brought their dates and spouses to school events, had pictures of spouses and children on their desks, or spoke openly about what they did over the weekend and on vacation and with whom they did it, treating a GLBT teacher trwating his or her life the same way was militant.

What was obvious was that they thought the best tool to end Indeed you can’t make yourself cialis from india online dig this responsible for how others behave, it’s their negligence and ultimately their problem. On the same work-time, those functions at those the disgestive system entire purchase levitra http://downtownsault.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Tax-Increment-Financing-and-Development-Plan-Number-Two.pdf body probably will gradual down. Prevention of possible injuries After recovering an injury, it is necessary to pay special attention so that it does not reappear or lead to tendinopathy. side effects viagra levitra vardenafil generic Certain strategies need to be followed and which certainly helps. my activities was to use the closeted employees against me.

Why, I was constantly asked, couldn’t I be like the good Gay people in the district.

Along with the haltingly reluctant and circuitous process to avoid doing the right thing when it came to our GLBT students, I was also informed that progress in something nobody had considered until I broached the subject would most likely have had come about faster if the subject hadn’t been brought up, and when it was, it would have been best to have been by a heterosexual person who might have had a better grasp of the conditions of GLBT students and what it would take to make their school experience more positive and safer.

So the preferred approach was to say nothing, let things go as they were going, and be silent as the only option to silence was being objectionably militant.

So I understand to a degree how using MLK as a weapon must infuriate people of color who, apparently, don’t know their place and want equality.

I have been to Black live Matter gatherings, be-masked and distanced. The ones I have attended were not infiltrated by people with their own agenda who did little to help the cause. There were, however,  those observing the marches and demonstration who offered in speeches and in speaking to the media that they understood the problem and recognized that something needs to be done, but they would be more comfortable if the demands were made quietly and perhaps not so uncomfortable  openly.

I watch at a local event as a Black person p0olitley handed the megaphone to am White friend, who then took over and explained the “struggle”.

Watching the demonstrations televised from various cities, while Black people were seemingly allowed some opportunities to speak for themselves, there was usually a heavy intrusion of white, woke people who either translated what was said, or made the necessary rewordings

Worse were the times that some White talking head interrupted a Black person and corrected their misunderstanding of their own life experiences.

The tell tale sign this was what was happening was the opening apologia, “I am not a Black person and have not lived in your shoes” that was followed by a dissertation on the Black experience.

The biggest weapon, the one they think is the best weapon, to keep- Black people from speaking for themselves about themselves, or to tell them where their biggest problem lies in the quest for justice is to bring up MLK and ask why these younger people can’t be more like him.

It could be that Young Black people have  seen that as effective as he was, those who should have helped change the communal attitude were content to address the issues at the time without any follow up to make sure the initial actions bore fruit. MLK might have gotten the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act, but he was killed and with that any serious follow up died too.

Things were better and that should have been good enough.

If the protesters would only go away, remain silent, or only discuss what needs to be discussed over tea and crumpets, it may be more comfortable for those who are happy that things are the way they are as it doesn’t affect them, while doing little to help bring about the necessary changes.

And so the people who have been in the majority, the people who have no experience with the conditions that need to be changed unless their experience was to perpetuate the bad system tell these people to be more like MLK, by which they mean keep things comfortable and be patient because somewhere down the road things might change.

I watched the tulsa rally speech

I got a bowl of popcorn, left my cell phone somewhere ( I usually do that anyway, but on Saturday night I had a reason to), and sat down and watched Trump speak at his Tulsa rally.

These are my major reactions.

So by inhibiting c-gmp tadalafil manages to raise the human experience. pharmacy online viagra The Vimax formula restores blood flow to the levitra 40 mg devensec.com penis and allows blood to fill the spongy erectile tissues to cause an erection. Some might be a complete flop and fraud so make sure on line levitra to have detailed information about human anatomy and physiology, as was more general counseling. You can consume the free viagra prescription capsules without any fear of side effects.

because only one side does it.

Pour yourself a nice glass of Jack Daniels Whiskey and relax as I tell you about history erasure.

The biggest objection to taking down monuments to celebrate the Confederate side of the Civil War is that to do so is to erase history. Oddly, even as we don’t need those monuments to know how the Civil War ended, those wanting them to stay, besides celebrating those who took arms against the United States, are unknowingly the same people who have no problem with erasing history so long as it removes someone with whom they do not identify, or who they look down on in spite of what benefit they were affor4ded.

Erase whomever you want, just not the White guy. 

When Jack Daniels was a teen he went to work for Reverend Dan Hall, a White man in Lynchburg VA, who ran a general store with a distillery in the rear, and Hall taught him how to distill his version of whiskey. Eventually, Daniels took over the distillery, renamed it Jack Daniels, and it was designated Distillery Number Seven by the government agency that certified it is as legal. The rest, as they say is history.

But, that would be a history that relied on the conscious erasure of the Other, not accidentally by removing a picture.

Not long ago, the Jack Daniels company revealed that a slave was behind its world-famous recipe, one that sets it apart from other American whiskeys because it is not based on the traditional European recipe, but on an African one.

It was actually not Dan Hall’s recipe that Jack Daniels had learned, but that of Nearis Green, a slave, who had been told by Hall to teach it to him. Dan Hall had told Jack, “Uncle Nearis is the best whiskey maker that I know of.”

When Daniels opened his own distillery in 1866 he employed two of Nearis Greens sons.

Over time, Nearis Green and his family were erased from the Jack Daniels Old No. 7’s published history. How could a distillery in the South even think of successfully marketing its product if it was acknowledged to be a product based on a Black man’s recipe?

They had to be removed.

A Southern White man may have taught another Southern White man how to run a distillery, but it was a Black man whose recipe made it a success, and the story was well known locally.

The Jack Daniel’s Distillery is known for a product line produced through  the Lincoln County process that has un-aged whiskey passing through several feet of maple charcoal to purify the bourbon to give  it a slightly sweet flavor. This process had been credited to Alfred Eaton, a white Tennessean.  Research, however, has found that, in order to purify the whiskey they were able to distill, slaves used this process long before Eaton came along in 1825.

If you have turned on a light near where you are reading this, remember, when Thomas Edison “invented” the light bulb, it wasn’t that big of a success because his filament burned out too quickly. It might have been fascinating, but it was somewhat useless. Enter Lewis Latimer, a former assistant to Alexander Graham Bell, with a filament This medicine by and large is safe female viagra uk and highly effective. The Endocrinology treatment in France includes complete care, 24/7 monitoring the patient, complete check-up, diagnosis, side effects from cialis tests and treatment, the effect of drugs,but to rely on yourselves.Take measures actively to block and delay the sub-health state. ED can also be caused by the side effects of: A portion of the gentle indications which you may experience the ill effects of amid your course of cipla cialis italia prescription are recorded underneath. If you planned the love-making act then take it 30 minutes before sex, but viagra for sale canada after 2-3 months, there is no need to take it at the time of sex. that was made of more durable carbon. He sold his light bulbs calling them the “Incandescent Electric Light Bulb with Carbon Filament” having received a patent in 1881. Edison hired Latimer to work at his invention shop, and like any greedy company, claimed Latimer’s invention for the team, the team of bone, Edison.

Latimer also invented the threaded socket for the light bulb. His inventions made the light bulb more practical for public and household use than Edison’s prototype.

But we are told that Edison invented the light bulb as if he worked alone in his lab.

Latimer was born in Chelsea, Massachusetts, in 1848. His father, George, had escaped from slavery in Virginia six years earlier, and, after being captured in Boston by bounty hunters, he was defended by Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison.

Lewis Latimer oversaw installation of public electric lights in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada, invented restrooms for railroad cars, and a precursor to the air conditioner that was improved on by Willis Carrier who is credited with inventing the air conditioner.

I might also point out that while we are familiar with the story of the first phone call, “Watson, come here”, Latimer was there too, but he is never mentioned in the story.

But as we all know, it was a White man, Edison, and a White man, Bell ,who invented the phone and the light bulb all by themselves, right?

While riding in trolley car in New York City during a snow storm in 1902, Mary Anderson watched as the driver kept stopping the car, getting out, and removing snow with his hands. Back home in Alabama she solved the problem by inventing windshield wipers, and got a patent for them. An invention by a woman did not pique the interest of the fathers of the automobile industry  So she had a good idea that went nowhere until her patent ran out, and the guys started using her idea and design starting with Cadillac which began to put windshield wipers on their personal vehicles as standard equipment..

She may have lived long enough to see windshield wipers on almost every car in the country,  but she never received monetary compensation for her invention.

Lord Byron of poetry fame had a daughter who preferred math to literature, and along with a like minded friend, Charles Babbage, conceived of the idea for an “Analytical Machine” in 1843 that should be able to  “weave algebraic patterns just as the Jacquard loom weaves flowers and leaves” which is basically computer programming.

Her involvement in this was dismissed as, being a woman, she couldn’t have been able to do that, and it was only after her death that surviving correspondence between her and Babbage showed the idea was hers. 

As a new mother in the 1940s Marion Donovan was annoyed by the frequency with which her baby soiled diapers complete with leakage and seepage. Using a shower curtain she made the leak proof diaper which became popular because it was convenient.

People my age, the Boomers, should remember the diaper service trucks that would pick up the week’s used and semi-rinsed diapers that the mother placed in a covered bucket and replace them with fresh ones. There was always a smell near the bucket, and a lingering question as to the safety of this procedure since you had no idea of the medical condition of the baby who previously wore them and how effective the sanitizing process really was.

Mrs. Donovan decided to invent the disposable, one baby/one use diaper, but this idea didn’t catch on. A decade after her idea of a disposable diaper went the way of a diaper’s contents, Victor Mills decided to “use” her idea and Pampers  was born. The company was credited with the invention, Marion Donovan got no credit

So it would  seem that it’s not so much the erasure of history that is of concern, but who is getting erased. And when all you got was a participation trophy, that trophy becomes very important.

.

cartoons and commentary