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My Back Pages: Of Unions, Companies, Strikes, and Broken Promises... : August 19, 2011 I am a bit under the weather today, but better than I have been in the past week or so. It all started out with a s...

   Of Unions, Companies, Strikes, and Broken Promises August 19, 2011 I am a bit under the weather today, but better than I have been in the past week or so. It all started out with a simple ear infection... something that I have not had in over thirty three years. As a matter of fact, the last time I had an ear infection is when I re-joined the Bell System after a 3 year hiatus, having been laid off from Western Electric in 1975. Soon after re-joining the Communications Workers of America, my service was bridged, and I had health insurance right away.. a good thing, since I soon came down with an ear infection and was out of work for a week. I was never one for taking time off for illness, but this was one of the exceptions.   Flash forward thirty three years, and there I was with an ear infection being paid for by the same health insurance plan. I am retired now, and over the years, CWA took less in wage compensation so that we would be assured coverage for our illnesses.

                                      I'm Tired!                      August 10, 2011 Facebook I'm tired, folks.. not just tired from lack of sleep, although this is also true. No, I'm tired because of the constant, daily haranguing from the media about everything and anything. Someone needs to tell me, when we became a country that lives in a perpetual state of crisis? From one day to the next, from one hour to the next, there is something that we rend our garments like the prophets in the old testament, because conditions are so dire, so overwhelming, that we cannot possibly overcome them. From the panicky sissies on Wall Street who SELL, SELL, SELL and the drop of a decimal point, through the crazed media that followed the Casey/Cayley Anthony debacle like it was a religious event, to the loud mouthed pundits such as Limbaugh, Hannity, Matthews, Madow, and the entire group of them from both sides, who predict, with a giggle, the eminent demise of the the United