slow news day

tribute to miners ~ shame to bob murray

The recent tragedy that has likely resulted in the deaths of 6 hard-working miners in Utah is a direct result of the strenuous efforts of the principal owner of Murray Energy Corp, Mr. Bob Murray, who spent more energy side-stepping compliance with basic safety regulations and cheating workers out of equitable wages.
     This is not Murray's first time in the spotlight.
     In 1996, Murray asked mine workers at his Powhatan No. 6 mine in Alledonia, Ohio to agree to a wage freeze through 2001." Att he time United Mine Workers of America Secretary-Treasurer Carlo Tarley recalled "[Murray] said it was so he could establish coal orders and show his customers that there would be long-term labor stability." But in 2001 and 2004 Murray refused to honor other contractural agreements with the workers, has engaged in efforts to disband unionized workers and forced them in to earning lower wages than organized coal miners elsewhere in the nation.
     In 2001, Murray testified before a House Ways and Means subcommittee, on behalf of the National Mining Association, in support of several proposed tax cuts that would benefit mine owners, not workers.
     The Murray Energy Corp. Political Action Committee has given more than $155,000 to Republican candidates, including $30,000 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee, since 2005, according to Federal Election Commission records. Murray's money aided Republican Senate candidates such as George Allen in Virginia, presidential candidate Sam Brownback of Kansas and Katherine Harris of Florida. Murray also personally donated $50,000 to defeated Ohio congressman Mike DeWine who lost after a controversial, deceptive ad campaign against his democratic opponent in 2006.
     But about his mining operations, Robert Murray's Cleveland-based Murray Energy Corp. has 19 mines in five states and his companies have incurred millions of dollars in fines over the last 18 months.
     And although some say that Utah's Crandall Canyon mine, where the fate of the miners still remains unknown, safety record was remarkably good, Government mine inspectors have issued 325 citations against the Utah mine since January 2004, according to federal Mine Safety and Health Administration online records. Of those, 116 were what the government considered "significant and substantial," meaning they are likely to cause injury. Safety violations in other Murray Energy mines, since 1999, have totaled over $3 million in fines; $1.46 million of that paid in 2007 alone, from a mine operation in southern Illinois.
     Even though credible evidence indicates that the tremors from the mine collapse registerd 3.7 in the Richter scale, and geologists have clearly sourced the origins of the tremors to the collapse, Robert Murray disingeneously blames a non-existent earthquake on the mine collapse.
SOURCE INFO: Forbes Magazine, United Mine Workers of America, CBS News, Salt Lake Tribune, CNN, Wikipedia, Salt Lake Desert Morning News, The Militant. BOTTOM IMAGE: Labor Beat published this memorial of the infamous 1898 Virdin Massacre when Chicago-Virden Coal Company’s armed guards fired on striking miners to break the newly formed union. Seven miners and five guards were killed.

wrestling

Just a few little somethings to look at...
A wrestling postcard from the 1880s.
You can see more of this sort of things by going to The Web's best amateur wrestling site. Postcards, programs, collectabile stamps and posters.

There's also a great Flickr website put up by sud273. His approach to taking pictures is thus:
"...you'll find only wrestlers photos, all home made: this is some kind of job I invented for myself. A testimony of what amateur sport can be before money turns it pro"

whoisit?

I'm a sucker for memes;
though I don't always answer as straightforward as some might like.

Who are you?
Name & Nicknames	Jake Compton
DOB/Age	10/23/1958 47
Ethnicity & Nationality	Scottish/Irish/Hungarian
Religion	Buddhist / Native American / Pagan
Employment Status	employed
What are you like?
3 Adjectives to Describe Yourself	stalwart, unconventional, iconoclast
3 Vices/Character Flaws	no time sense / stubborn / indifferent to wealth
What do you want to have accomplished by the time you retire?	that the works I've created last on their own
How far into the future have you planned/contemplated?	not that far, but far enough
Pet-peeves?	finicky people
Favorite Food?	spaghetti, rabbit, venison
Favorite Alcoholic Beverage?	jagermeister + Steel Reserve
Something you would change about yourself	would have socked away money ealier
Life Issues
Pro-Choice/Pro-Life?	pro choice tho I believe life begins at conception
Death Pentaly: For or Against?	not completely opposed but if it's been sentenced then do it and get it over with
What do you think about divorce?	sould be handled by courts interested in fairness to both parties
Do you think Racism is still a big deal in the U.S.?	very much so. but so is social class prejudice
Marijuana: Should it be legalized?	yes
What's more important: Higher Education or Quick Employment?	higher education
Opinion on MCAS?	? WTF ?
Are you Religious?	Spiritual
Should Gays be allowed wed?	sure, why not
People Around You
Your Best Friend	have a couple
Your Boyfriend/Girlfriend	tied the knot
Person you love the most in the world	know a select few
Person you respect the most in the world	Nelson Mandela
Someone you want to date	Brad Pitt [especially after seeing Fight Club]
Someone you wish you hadn't dated	There was that gangster fella, and my ex-wife
Longest friendship	my buddy from home
Longest relationship	current partner
Person you call for advice	very select few, depends on the subject
Person you hangout with for laughs	my cousin
Person you like to party with the most	one of my hunting buddies
Dating/Relationships
Favorite part of the opposite gender's body
Your worst date ever	rather not remember
Your best date ever	a four day extravaganza, my nips hurt after
Biggest turn-off (1 physical & 1 characteristic)	huge tits. listening to someone chew food
Biggest turn-on (1 physical & 1 characteristic)	sucker for a pretty face, genuineness
Worst line you've ever heard or used	not sure I want to remember
How many boyfriends/girlfriends have you had?	enough
Would you rather--
Kiss an unattractive person of the same gender as you or kiss an attractive person of the opposite gender?	Swap spit when kissin an ugly trucker
Party 2 nights in a row without showering or party for a night then go home and take a shower?	forget the shower
Be your current ethnicity or be a different ethnicity?	hey? Who's asking? it's the mental chemistry that counts.
Speak another language of your choice or be a really good singer?	Speak another language
Have a different boyfriend/girlfriend each month of the year (and the breakups are easy/fine) or have one year-long relationship (easy breakup not guarunteed)?	Have a long relationship
Be the hottest person in the world but be as smart/stupid as you are now, or be the smartest person in the world and be as attractive/unattractive as you are now?	satisfied with who I am, thanks
Be a billionaire or have the best sex of your life every time forever?	if I was a billionaire I could probably buy good sex
Be famous and have a lot of friends or be unpopular but have a really good friend?	that's a hard one. I belive none of us have "lots" of friends
Have to live alone in the Arctic or in a communist state?	Living alone in the Arctic has its appeal
Always smell like soap/clean laundry except have bad B.O. when you sweat, or never smell like anything (colognes/perfumes won't work on you)?	I like my body smells
Eat only meat, vegetables or grains?	Had ta pick one it'd be meat
Never experience racism and not know what it's like, or experience racism to learn how it feels?	No one should have to experience racism
Travel & have fun forever or work & contribute to society with your life?	Travel AND contribute to society
Have not taken this survey and spared yourself some good time?	Surveys are a pleasant distraction
CREATE YOUR OWN SURVEY!

winter sports

Ice fishing and logging camps. Both rigorous activities; both my idea of a good time. Well, at least the ice fishing part anyway.
     As for the logging camp, I know there are plenty out there who maintain active fantasy lives that once done at the end of the day, that loggers would return to make hay all night. And while I certainly believe that there were times that the men had to be men and relieve themselves of their tensions, I doubt that these guys would be having non-stop orgies well into the night then getting up the next day and going out and cutting down 100 foot trees, prune off their upper branches, hook the logs up to a team of horses and drag them back into camp without being a tad over-tired.
     Life in a logging camp was far from idylic. Cramped quarters, no insulation [there's likely a good reason why so many of these guys are close to the wood stove] nor indoor flush toilet plumbing; a total lack of privacy [even characters who think that's "hot" have to acknowledge that some moments alone are oft time desired] and close, cramped living quarters. Entertainments ~ when they had them ~ were certainly all male, but as I noted before, I don't doubt that some sexual extra-curriculars took place, but not all the time, and not every night. Still...

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WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT LOGGERS + LIFE IN LOGGING CAMPS?:
Check out Cowichan Forestry Life's From Camp to Community

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well placed wrestlers

Except for the names, which I've hidden, this picture and the caption was in a local paper. The caption writer comments on what a good job the team members have done this year in topping thier competition.

working class hombres

I'm proud of the fact that I work with my hands as much as with my mind. I'm a blue-collar guy, much like the bloke you see pictured on the left. I'll caution you it isn't me you are looking at, just some feller I found pleasing to the eye. That's me in the photo to the lower right]
     I'm pro-labor, support workers' unions and tradesmens' [okay, lemme be politically correct - tradespeople's] guilds and organizations
     I take offense that the pencil necks who run the world scam others with fancy-assed mental footwork designed to con the rest of us out of what is rightfully our due. Corporate giants stealing health benefits from laboring workers while fattening their own pension plans are no different than common thieves. Maybe they are worse, given how many more are harmed by their actions.
     Point being is that you can expect to find some out-front populist rants here about the rampant social injustices heaped upon working people by the powerful.
     But one other component behind the views expressed on this site, and likely the one that brought a number of my readers here, is that it's written by a working-class guy who has a greater fondness for the company of his buddies than for the ladies, and that's both at the bar as well as in the sack. In case you are still dense to that, this means I'm gay. Always have and always will be I expect.
     My aesthetic taste in men runs along the group what I was raised with. No penny-loafered suit is likely to make it to my bed any time soon [not that it would be outside my to entertain such a scumbag in by tool shed or in a manure trough or a pig sty - where the ungrateful scum more properly belongs -- with proper apologies to the pigs, of course].
     What I'm getting at here, is, well, a whole lot of stuff to be certain. Blue collar men ain't stupid, we see though the scams that the dogs at the top of the heap dish out. As for the sex stuff, well, this blue collar guy likes a heap of good clean fun dirty time. Those who can figure out that maze of contradictions can write me. That me, BTW, is the character on the right side of this page.
     What you see is what you get. No so simple, unvarnished, unpolished and sometimes raw. Egalitarian, fair-minded, probably too macho for the metrosexual straight guy to be comfortable with. But that's alright.
     One final note; for those tassel loafered boys eager to sniff at my dirty laundry hamper - go fantasize among your own kind. If you are sex-slumming, then don't come 'round. Buy the Carhartt's and Sears work boots if you like, but if your headed my way 'cause you hear us working stiffs are, well, stiffer, you'll have to prove you want to know me and my buddies after you've shot your wad. I'm going to want to know that you really care about ordinary people, and not just about the "scene" in the sex bar back room.