I was listening to NPR yesterday and the discussion was about the "service industry" and the loss of manufacturing jobs and what that all means for the economy. One of the callers was a single mother working as a health-care worker in a nursing home. She clearly outlined the bad conditions of her job -- minimum wage, works 40 hours a week, comes home exhausted and still can't afford to pay rent or buy her kids new clothes. And yet, the profit margins for nursing homes are among some of the highest... etc.

After she had hung up the guests and the announcer started talking about why people in these industries don't organize and one of them said something about the workers mostly being women with children who were worried because their paycheck is what supports the kids, and because they're so exhausted after working the number of hours they do and so on and so forth. And I couldn't help but remember images of the miners in various struggles, covered with coal dust, obviously exhausted nearly to death, standing and defying the mine owners with the guns pointed at their heads.

An interesting comparison ... maybe the suffering just hasn't gotten bad enough yet to force people into the kind of bravery that has nothing to lose?

AND MICK!!! You're on. Where do we start? Email me and let's discuss this. I think it would be brilliant...

ww