Hundreds of Bangladeshi women have been burned or crushed to death while making *our* clothes! In days, major fashion companies could sign an agreement that will either be a strong safety code or a weak PR ploy. If 1 million of us get the CEOs of GAP and H&M to back a life-saving code, the rest will follow:  

We’ve all seen the horrific images of hundreds of innocent women burned or crushed to death in factories while making our clothes. In the next few days we can get companies to stop it happening again.
Big fashion brands source from hundreds of factories in Bangladesh. Two brands, including Calvin Klein, have signed a very strong building and fire safety pact. Others, led by Wal-Mart, have been trying to wriggle out of signing by creating a weak alternative that was pure PR. But the latest disaster has triggered crisis meetings and massive pressure to sign the strong version that can save lives.
Negotiations end in days. GAP and H&M are most likely to flip first to support a strong agreement, and the best way to press them is to go after their CEOs. If one million of us appeal directly to them in a petition, Facebook pages, tweets, and ads, their friends and families will all hear about it. They’ll know that their own and their companies’ reputations are on the line. People are being forced to make *our* clothing in outrageously dangerous buildings — sign on to make them safe, and forward this email widely:
https://secure.avaaz.org/en/crushed_to_make_our_clothes_dm_usa/?biEWLbb&v=24830
The recent tragic collapse fits a pattern. In the last few years, fires and other disasters have claimed a thousand lives and left many others too injured to work. Bangladesh’s government turns a blind eye to dismal conditions, allowing suppliers to cut costs to make clothes at a pace and price that global fashion giants expect. The big brands say they check up, but workers say  the companies’ own audits can’t be trusted.
The worker-backed safety agreement calls for independent inspections, public reports about supplier factory conditions, and mandatory repairs. It’s even enforceable in courts of the companies’ home countries! Full details of which companies were buying from the factory that collapsed weeks ago aren’t yet known, and there’s no evidence GAP or H&M did so. But workers have died in other GAP and H&M supplier factories in Bangladesh and getting them onboard now would put tremendous pressure on other companies to follow.
The companies are making up their minds right now. Let’s call on the CEOs of GAP and H&M to lead the industry by signing the safety plan. Sign your name then share this email widely — once we reach 1 million we’ll take out ads that they can’t miss:
https://secure.avaaz.org/en/crushed_to_make_our_clothes_dm_usa/?biEWLbb&v=24830
Time and time again, Avaaz members have come together to fight corporate greed and support human rights. Last year, we helped 100 Indian workers safely return home when a Bahraini corporation refused to let them leave. Let’s now take a stand to stop the deadly race to the bottom in factory safety.
With hope and determination,
Jamie, Jeremy, Alex, Ari, Diego, Marie, Maria-Paz, Ricken and the Avaaz team
PS –  Many Avaaz campaigns are started by members of our community! Start yours now and win on any issue – local, national or global: http://www.avaaz.org/en/petition/start_a_petition/?bgMYedb&v=23917
MORE INFORMATION:
Collapse renews calls for safety agreement (Wall Street Journal) http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2013/04/25/bangladesh-deaths-renew-calls-for-safety-agreement/
15 May deadline set for Bangladesh safety plan (Industriall) http://www.industriall-union.org/15-may-deadline-set-for-bangladesh-safety-plan
Western companies feel pressure as toll rises in Bangladesh (NBC News) http://www.nbcnews.com/business/western-companies-feel-pressure-toll-rises-bangladesh-6C9624611
Avoiding the fire next time (The Economist) http://www.economist.com/news/business/21577078-after-dhaka-factory-collapse-foreign-clothing-firms-are-under-pressure-improve-working
Bangladeshi garment factory death toll rises as owner arrested on border (The Guardian) http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/apr/28/bangladesh-garment-factory-collapse-owner-held
Bangladesh factory safety under scrutiny after collapse (CBC) http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2013/04/26/bangladesh-factory-building-safety.html
Hazardous workplaces: Making the Bangladesh Garment Industry Safe (Report, Clean Clothes campaign) http://www.cleanclothes.org/resources/publications/2012-11-hazardousworkplaces.pdf/view

Source: Google Images

Malcolm Shabazz was visiting Mexico to meet with the leader of an activist group and was supposedly the victim of an attempted robbery when he was killed.  The details surrounding his murder have not been released and attempts to reach Mexican officials have turned up unsuccessful.  To read the full story on NBC News, click the link below.

NBC News Full Article on Shabazz Murder

Niccolo Machiavelli

In fact, “The Old Nick” became an English term used to describe Satan and slander Machiavelli at the same time.

The truth, however, is more complex. Machiavelli was a passionate Republican, who spent most of his adult life in the service of his beloved city-state, Florence.

The years he spent as a diplomat were tumultuous ones for Italy–with men like Pope Julius II and Caesare Borgia vying for power and plunging Italy into one bloodbath after another.

Machiavelli is best-known for his writing of The Prince, a pamphlet on the arts of gaining and holding power. Its admirers have included Benito Mussolini and Joseph Stalin.

But his longer and more thoughtful work is The Discourses, in which he offers advice on how to maintain liberty within a republic. Among its admirers were many of the men who framed the Constitution of the United States.

Also contrary to what most people believe about Machiavelli, he did not advocate evil for its own sake. Rather, he recognized that sometimes there is no perfect–or perfectly good–solution to a problem.

Sometimes it’s necessary to take stern–even brutal–action to stop an evil (such as a riot) before it becomes widespread.

His counsel remains as relevant today as it did during his lifetime (1469 – 1527)–especially for politicians.

But plenty of ordinary citizens can also benefit from the advice he has to offer–such as those who are asked to give advice to more powerful superiors.

Machiavelli warns there is danger in urging rulers to take a particular course of action:

“For men only judge of matters by the result, all the blame of failure is charged upon him who first advised it, while in case of success he receives commendations. But the reward never equals the punishment.”

This puts would-be counselors in a difficult position: “If they do not advise what seems to them for the good of the republic or the prince, regardless of the consequences to themselves, then they fail of their duty.

“And if they do advise it, then it is at the risk of their position and their lives, for all men are blind in this, that they judge of good or evil counsels only by the results.”

Thus, Machiavelli warns that an advisor should “take things moderately, and not to undertake to advocate any enterprise with too much zeal, but to give one’s advice calmly and modestly.”

The person who asked for the advice may follow it, or not, as of his own choice, and not because he was led or forced into it by the advisor.

Above all, the advisor must avoid the danger of urging a course of action that runs “contrary to the wishes of the many.”

“For the danger arises when your advice has caused the many to be contravened. In that case, when the result is unfortunate, they all concur in your destruction.”

Or, as President John F. Kennedy famously said after the disastrous invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs in April, 1961: “Victory has a hundred fathers and defeat is an orphan.”

By “not advocating any enterprise with too much zeal,” the advisor gains two advantages:

“The first is, you avoid all danger.

“And the second consists in the great credit which you will have if, after having modestly advised a certain course, your counsel is rejected, and the adoption of a different course results unfortunately.”

Finally, the time to give advice is before a catastrophe occurs, not after. Machiavelli gives a vivid example of what can happen if this rule is ignored.

King Perseus of Macedon had gone to war with Paulus Aemilius–and suffered a humiliating defeat. Fleeing the battlefield with a handful of his men, he later bewailed the disaster that had overtaken him.

Suddenly, one of his lieutenants began to lecture Perseus on the many errors he had committed, which had led to his ruin.

“Traitor,” raged the king, turning upon him, “you have waited until now to tell me all this, when there is no longer any time to remedy it—” And Perseus slew him with his own hands.

Niccolo Machiavelli sums up the lesson as this:

“Thus was this man punished for having been silent when he should have spoken, and for having spoken when he should have been silent.”

Be careful that you don’t make the same mistake.

However, the reported snail got away before anyone was able to capture it.

via Giant disease-spreading snails found in Houston | News – Home.

Just a sampling of some of the remarks made by Congressional Democrats during the Benghazi hearings yesterday….Typical of such spineless behavior, they attempt to deny and deflect so as to shield the Obama administration…

“Congress has been cheap on the cheap of providing protection to our personnel.”

Rep. William Lacy Clay (D-MO) attempting to blame budget restraints for the fiasco in Libya…

“And, as I listen to your testimony I could not help but think of something that I said very recently — two years ago now — in a eulogy for a relative. I said that death is a part of life, so often we have to find a way to make life a part of death. And, I guess the reason why I’m saying that, going back to something Mr. Nordstrom said, he wanted, I guess all of you said this, he wanted to make sure we learn from this..”

The embarrassing Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) more or less saying sh*t happens….deal with it….

“I find it truly disturbing and very unfortunate that when Americans come under attack, the first thing some did in this country was attack Americans,” …. “Attack the military; attack the president; attack the State Department; attack the former senator from the great state of New York, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.”

The MORONIC Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) going out of her way with little C.Y.A. for Mrs. Clinton….

Of course, as to be expected, the media is doing ALL it can to diminish and discredit the hearings… a couple of examples:

@washingtonpost Who’s tweeting about Benghazi? Rich middle-aged men, and Chick-fil-a lovers

“I make sure to discredit the subject of my story if I don’t agree with them politically..It’s just part of my job as an “objective” journalist…as it is with most reporters today…”

From Kasie Hunt, NBC News

“So would there be so much coverage of this Benghazi hearing if John Kerry had been SecState at the time? #doubtful #hillary 2016″

It was clear as it could possibly be what was going on with the Democrats on the committee. The objective is to protect President Obama at all costs! Never mind that four Americans died, likely needlessly. Never mind that the administration was and is mired in incompetence and indifference when it comes to the national interests of the nation. The TOP priority of today’s Democratic party is to excuse and impugn. It’s shameless, gutless, and disgusting. And it was on display for the nation to see in these hearings.

“You bet I can lie!…And I’m pretty fu**ing good at it, too!”

More…

BENGHAZI SHOWS DEMOCRATS AT MOST DESPERATE – Charles Hurt @ The Washington Times

HILLARY CLINTON’S BIG BENGHAZI LIE – Katie Pavlich @ Townhall

FROM BIMBOS TO BENGHAZI - Jeffrey Lord @ American Spectator

BENGHAZI: BEGINNING OF END – Dick Morris @ The Hill

It’s a bum!

It’s a drunk!

It’s Untermensch!

Yes, it’s Untermensch–strange visitor from an unknown pesthole who came to your neighborhood with powers and abilities far below those of normal men.

Untermensch!  Who can pollute the streets of mighty cities, hoist beer bottles in his bare hands.

And who, disguised as an innocent victim of oppression, fights a never-ending battle for booze, drugs and the welfare way.

* * * * *

The California Legislature is about to make the streets safe for DDMBs.

That’s Druggies, Drunks, Mentals and Bums, as they’re known to many of the first responders like paramedics and police who are forced to deal with them.  Or as “the homeless,” to those of Politically Correct persuasion.

Under a measure introduced in April by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco), DDMBs would be legally allowed to sleep and sit in public places and accost hard-working citizens for unearned money.

The bill has already passed the Assembly Judiciary Committee on a 7-2 vote, and must be approved by at least one other committee before possibly going to the full Assembly.

Titled ”The Homeless Person’s Bill of Rights and Fairness Act,” it was first introduced on December 5, 2012.

The measure states that every person has a right to use public spaces, regardless of housing status.  Among the “rights” the bill would create:

• “The right to rest in a public space in the same manner as any other person without being subject to criminal or civil sanctions, harassment, or arrest by law enforcement, public or private security personnel….because he or she is homeless, as long as that rest does not maliciously or substantially obstruct a passageway.”
• “The right to decline admittance to a public or private shelter or any other accommodation, including social services programs, for any reason he or she sees fit, without being subject to criminal or civil sanctions, harassment, or arrest from law enforcement, public or private security personnel….”
• “The right to assistance of counsel if a county chooses to initiate judicial proceedings under any law set forth in Section 53.5….  The county where the citation was issued shall pay the cost of providing counsel….”
• “Every local government and disadvantaged unincorporated community within the state shall have sufficient health and hygiene centers available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for use by homeless people. These facilities may be part of the Neighborhood Health Center Program.”
• “The right to solicit donations in public spaces in the same manner as any other person without being subject to criminal or civil sanctions, harassment, or arrest by law enforcement, public or private security personnel…because he or she is homeless.”
• “‘Harassment’ [of DDMBs] means a knowing and willful course of conduct by law enforcement, public or private security personnel…directed at a specific person that a reasonable person would consider as seriously alarming, seriously annoying, seriously tormenting, or seriously terrorizing a person.”

“Seriously alarming” and “seriously annoying” behavior by DDMBs–such as aggressively demanding money from passersby–would, of course, not be considered illegal.

The bill further states: “Any person whose rights have been violated under this part may enforce those rights in a civil action.

“The court may award appropriate injunctive and declaratory relief, restitution for loss of property or personal effects and belongings, actual damages, compensatory damages, exemplary damages, statutory damages of one thousand dollars ($1,000) per violation, and reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs to a prevailing plaintiff.”

In short, the aim of the bill is three-fold:

1. To arm society’s undesirables with the full force of law to demand unearned monies from those who actually work for a living;
2. To arm them with the right to infest, with their psychotic behavior, drug/alcohol addiction and often disease-carrying belongings, any public place they choose; and
3. To put hard-working, law-abiding “squares” on the defensive in protecting themselves against the filth, aggressiveness and risk of injury from such DDMBs.

In recent years, several cities concerned about the number of undesirables occupying public spaces have passed local ordinances banning them from sitting and lying on streets and sidewalks.

These include Los Angeles, Santa Cruz, Palo Alto and San Francisco (where it is unenforced).

Ammiano’s bill would forbid police from enforcing ordinances regarding resting in public places unless a county has provided sufficient support to such undesirables.

The legislation has as so far received little attention from the media.

For citizens who don’t want their children–and themselves–constantly menaced by

• psychotic/alcoholic/drug-addicted bums,
• their feeces/urine, and
• their stolen shopping carts filled with filthy, bedbug-infested possessions

there is still time to make their views known.

Scientists are warning residents of Houston, Texas, not to handle giant African land snails because they can carry meningitis.

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/05/07/18107999-deadly-giant-snail-found-in-houston?lite&lite=obnetwork

That’s what happened to about 40 employees of Rapid Reality, a New York-based residentia real estate brokerage firm, in return for a 15% raise in commission.

Behind such an outrage lies the justifiable fear of employees that their employers will throw them into the street and pocket their earnings.

Click here: Rapid Realty discusses company tattoos – YouTube

And the terms of such an overhaul can best be summed up in a nationwide Employers Responsibility Act (ERA)

Eleven of its ts povisions have already been outlined.  Here are the remaining ones:

(12) The U.S. Departments of Justice and Labor would regularly monitor the extent of employer compliance with the provisions of this Act.

Among these measures: Sending undercover agents, posing as highly-qualified job-seekers, to apply at companies—and then vigorously prosecuting those employers who blatantly refused to hire despite their proven economic ability to do so.

This would be comparable to the long-time and legally-validated practice of using undercover agents to determine compliance with fair-housing laws.

(13) The Justice Department and/or the Labor Department would be required to maintain a publicly-accessible database on those companies that had been cited, sued/ and/or convicted for such offenses as discrimination, harassment, health and/or safety violations or employing illegal aliens. Employers would be legally required to regularly provide such information to these agencies, so that it would remain accurate and up-to-date.

Such information would arm job applicants with vital information about the employers they were approaching. They could thus decide in advance if an employer is deserving of their skills and dedication. As matters now stand, employers can legally demand to learn even the most private details of an applicant’s life without having to disclose even the most basic information about themselves and their history of treating employees.

(14) CEOs whose companies employ illegal aliens would be held directly accountable for the actions of their subordinates. Upon conviction, the CEO would be sentenced to a mandatory prison term of at least ten years.

This would prove a more effective remedy for controlling illegal immigration than stationing tens of thousands of soldiers on the U.S./ Mexican border. With CEOs forced to account for their subordinates’ actions, they would take drastic steps to ensure their companies complied with Federal immigration laws. Without employers eager to hire illegal aliens at a fraction of the money paid to American workers, the invasions of illegal job-seekers would quickly come to an end.

(15) A portion of employers’ existing Federal taxes would be set aside to create a national clearinghouse for placing unemployed but qualified job-seekers.

* * * * *

For thousands of years, otherwise highly intelligent men and women believed that kings ruled by divine right. That kings held absolute power, levied extortionate taxes and sent countless millions of men off to war–all because God wanted it that way.

That lunacy was dealt a deadly blow in 1776 when American Revolutionaries threw off the despotic rule of King George III of England.

But today, millions of Americans remain imprisoned by an equally outrageous and dangerous theory: The Theory of the Divine Right of Employers.

Summing up this employer-as-God attitude, Calvin Coolidge still speaks for the overwhelming majority of employers and their paid shills in government: “The man who builds a factory builds a temple, and the man who works there worships there.”

America can no longer afford such a dangerous fallacy as the Theory of the Divine Right of Employers.

The solution lies in remembering that the powerful never voluntarily surrender their privileges.

Americans did not win their freedom from Great Britain–-and its enslaving doctrine of “the divine right of kings”-–by begging for their rights.

And Americans will not win their freedom from their corporate masters–-and the equally enslaving doctrine of “the divine right of employers”-–by begging for the right to work and support themselves and their families.

And they will most certainly never win such freedom by supporting right-wing political candidates whose first and only allegiance is to the corporate interests who bankroll their campaigns.

Corporations can–and do–spend millions of dollars on TV ads, selling lies–lies such as the “skills gap,” and how if the wealthy are forced to pay their fair share of taxes, jobs will inevitably disappear.

But Americans can choose to reject those lies–and demand that employers behave like patriots instead of predators.

In 1970, Congress finally recognized the threat organized crime posed to the Nation’s security and passed the Organized Crime Control Act.  This gave law enforcement agents and prosecutors powerful weapons against the Mafia and similar criminal groups.

It’s long past time that Congress be forced–by fed-up voters–to recognize the threat posed to the financial and social security of the Nation by the unchecked power of greed-fueled corporations.

It’s time for Congress to apply to corporate slave-masters the wisdom of Robert F. Kennedy’s warning about the Mafia: “If we do not on a national scale attack organized criminals with weapons and techniques as effective as their own, they will destroy us.”

At a time when we are hearing more and more about school security, including the possibility of armed police or teachers on campuses and school-centered training exercises for law enforcement, we can’t forget the the reason we have the kids there: to teach them and to have them learn. K-12 schools are not incarceration-minded daycares meant to imprison young people for eight hours a day until they’re old enough to leave and get jobs. What is getting lost in the school security debate is: if we handle schools under the basic idea that “any kid could be the next school shooter” then we will be ignoring the fact that any of those same kids could also be the next Martin Luther King, Jr. or Harper Lee or Steve Jobs. And if we’re so busy with security concerns that we forget why we’re there, then we’ll be in sho’nuf rough shape!

As an example of what I mean, last week NBC Nightly News ran an education story that was easy to miss, since the little preview screen next to Brian Williams’ face said simply “The Big Idea.” Frankly, I almost missed it because I get really weary of NBC’s Education Nation segments. I am always frustrated by their three-minute over-simplification of the issues facing schools, so I barely listened to this story when it aired. The next day, our principal e-mailed it to us, and that’s when I actually paid attention to it and got what they were saying. (Yes, I too am guilty of closed-mindedness sometimes, but I’m glad I gave this one a second chance.)

This principal at a low-performing middle school in Boston decided to get rid of the school’s massive “security infrastructure,” as he called it, and use that money to hire arts teachers instead! As the sixth principal in the school’s seven years, coming into a school that had problems with both violence and poor academic performance, he said that the place “definitely had a prison feel” to it. So rather than continuing down the same trajectory, he made the decision to begin tapping into the students’ creative minds rather than continuing to clamp down on them. And it has worked! The school is a success story with decreasing violence and improving academic performance. (Click the link above to watch the story.)

It’s no wonder that when we treat young people with care, respect and common decency, most of them will respond with the same. The private school that I attended for the latter half of my K-12 schooling used to justify their rigid dress code by telling us that people will conduct themselves in the way they present themselves— basically if you’re dressed well then you’re more likely to behave well. Even though I didn’t like it back then, I’ve always remembered that justification, and now as a teacher, I apply a similar logic. If these students were having to present themselves every day as security threats, then it’s no wonder that many of the students were acting like security threats. When that environment changed, so did the students. It’s the basic premise behind the idea of a self-fulfilling prophecy— if you’re going to treat me like a “security threat” in a “dropout factory” in a “bad neighborhood” then I might as well be that, if I’m going to be treated like that way anyway. This principal, who was told that he was committing career suicide with this decision, chose to treat his students like students, and it paid off.

And what did he replace his “security apparatus” with— a rigorous academic load with required after-school classes and twelve-hour school days? No. Arts programs, and lots of them. He remarked specifically in the story about wanting to see student work posted in the hallways. He showed them respect as human beings who have value, and it worked. I raise this point because I also get tired of news stories that seem to declare that the best way to turn around a failing school is to work the absolute hell out of the students (and their teachers). These are children that we’re talking about, and children are naturally creative and curious. Children naturally want their ideas to be valued. This Boston-area principal ignored every currently popular bad idea that was being suggested to him, and we see that he was right when he replaced security measures with good teaching.

The other story was run late last month on the website of The Atlantic, and it deals with an issue that I’ve already written about: the Common Core. In “Why I Support the Common Core Reading Standards”, college professor Karen Swallow Prior describes how important reading and writing skills are to educational success . . . and moreover how too few students have these integral skills when they arrive at college. Yet, this is not another one of those articles that decries the state of education through anecdotes about twelfth graders reading on a third grade level and stuff like that. No, Prior eschews those generalities (for the most part) and focuses on the actual act of reading as she sees her students attempting to do it; she writes:

Years of their so-called “reading” is spent “making connections” between themselves and text or the world and the text, but the foundational step of actually reading the words on the page is neglected often to the point that actually reading the assignment isn’t necessary: Students become skilled at responding to leading questions that solicit merely their opinions or experiences. And they apparently get decent, or even excellent, grades for doing so.

I see these same kinds of stab-in-the-dark approaches to answering questions about texts in my high school classroom, too. And I also work to undo these bad habits before the students get to college. One problem with these widespread bad habits is that I often can’t tell who actually read and didn’t understand, who skimmed right before class, who perused and browsed the pictures and headlines, who asked their classmate what the text was about, and who is making up crap to cover up not doing anything at all.

Though I respect the work of elementary teachers in teaching young children to read, I am aware that I spend a lot of time combating the skill called “fluency,” which encompasses the ability to skip words we don’t know and use “context clues” to guess the meaning. The problem is that the guesses are often completely wrong, and the student was not taught with equal vigor to look up the meaning every single unknown word they encounter in any text. Many of my students stare at me totally appalled when I suggest reading every assignment as many times as it takes to understand it and looking up every word they don’t know, taking notes on those words’ definitions. The approach that I teach gives no points for reading fast; it gives all of its credit for reading well.

Like Karen Swallow Prior, I teach this way:

I have to train them to look down at the words rather than looking at me or up at the ceiling or into their hearts in order to comprehend the meaning of the language. I have to remind them to cite passages as evidence when they answer questions, something more and more of them are unaccustomed to doing. I have to exhort them to use dictionaries to look up words they don’t know because the approach to “reading” they are so familiar with does not depend on knowing the meanings of words. Instead, they have been expected merely to offer “reader-response” answers to questions that prompt readers to react superficially to the text rather than to comprehend it.

According to Prior, Common Core’s methodology contains some remedies to these problems. This educational system has students reading and thinking and writing constantly. Constantly! And I love it! I’m for it, and I want it implemented as soon as possible!

When people ask me what I think or how I feel about some debate or issue within education, I always tell them the same thing: I’m for teaching and learning, and I’m against any policy that stands in the way of it, and I’m for any policy that supports it. Any mandated task that takes me away from teaching and grading papers and helping students is a task that I would just assume be eliminated. The best educators – whether teachers or administrators or specialists — are the ones who care most about that one thing: seeing to it that children learn. Plain and simple. Both of these education stories strike at the heart of that very notion.

“It’s kind of like a, like a slap in the face,” Platt told NBC News during a stopover in Chicago. “We’ve been trying to work through this for three years now, and we have no help whatsoever, and we’ve lost lots.”

This statement came from one homeowner/victim interviewed in the NBC News article linked below:

http://openchannel.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/05/02/18022071-foreclosure-compensation-checks-arrive-but-anger-some-homeowners?lite

Many homeowner’s have spent far more in preventing or defending themselves in foreclosure proceedings than the $300 check they received. Some are even holding their checks in protest – although I don’t think the banks will feel the weight or feel the slightest bit guilty.

Bottom line – foreclosures are the market of today…perfect credit is a thing of the past for most. This economy, this market is affecting everyone. Make sure your family is on the money making side of this economy and provide for their financial stability by turning foreclosures into something YOU can take to the bank. You can match foreclosures with hungry cash investors who are standing ready to buy, and make money doing it! I can show you how – get my free report and let me help you on your way to financial stability!

http://www.getpaidfindingforeclosures.com/freereport

Brands and publishers continue to seek out new ways to maximize their online engagement with consumers. One of more effective strategies has been around user generated photographs, with brands encouraging consumers to check in share photos while attending events, or to submit and share tagged photos as part of promotional contests.

Y-Combinator alumni Chute is capitalizing on this wave by offering publishers and developers a platform for ingesting, analyzing, and managing this real-time visual content at scale. Today the company announced a $7 million in Series A financing round led by Foundry Group, with participation from existing investors Freestyle Capital and US Venture Partners.

Foundry Group is very public with its thematic investment strategy and Chute falls squarely within its Glue theme, according to both Managing Director Ryan McIntyre, who led the Chute round, and Chute co-founder Ranvir Gujral. The Glue theme is a reference to “the Web infrastructure layer that facilitates the connections between Web services and content companies.”

“We are deeply interested in companies that provide ‘magic infrastructure’ for developers that makes it simple for them to deploy complex yet elegant functionality at scale that integrates easily with their new and existing mobile and Web apps,” McIntyre says.

Chute is helping developers deal with a massive and rapidly growing number of mobile photos being taken and shared. Over 500 billion mobile were taken in 2012, and while this is a massive opportunity, making sense of the noise can be challenging at the best of times. Chute offers image uploading, processing, moderation, commenting, and sharing tools, as well as a variety of third-party API integrations to make this process manageable.

Following its participation in the YC Winter 2012 accelerator class, Chute immediately began the 12 week Turner Media Camp, a “graduate accelerator” for companies at the intersection of technology and media. By demo day, the company had more than taken advantage of its time rubbing elbows with old media titans, having signed contracts with NBC News, CNN, Huffington Post, NBA, House of Blues, Today, Condé Nast, and the Democratic and Republican National Conventions.

Alongside its financing announcement, Chute is debuting its newest product today. Chute Ads allows brands to inject real-time visual content into digital ad units. Condé Nast Traveler will be the first publisher to use the product beginning in early June. With this new integration, brands will be able to combine paid, owned, and earned media to make ads more interactive and more personal.

“The ads encourage user interaction and provide a more engaging and immersive experience, which makes the ads more effective and more attractive to consumers,” says Condé Nast Traveler Network Global Head of Digital Sales Craig Kostelic. “Real-time content means audiences will never see the same ad twice, and in-ad calls-to-action ensure engagement and long-term relationships.”

While acknowledging that Chute’s financing is on the larger-than-average end of the A-round spectrum – as was its $2.7 million Seed round – McIntyre called the volume of images the company has handled for prominent clients and the associated revenue growth over recent quarters “nothing short of impressive.”

Chute operates in a competitive space with an innumerable number of technology companies competing for the business of brands and publishers seeking to increase online engagement with consumers. When asked what keeps him up at night, Gujral was quick to answer, “hiring and continuing to build out this platform to operate at scale.”

The company is relying on its ability to listen to customers and provide a comprehensive yet simple solution to their needs to provide some measure of defensibility in the space. As a result, the bulk of Chute’s product roadmap has been dictated by inbound requests from its customers, Gujral says. The company has been heavily focused on building out ancillary services such as CMS integration and moderation and rights management tools to help its clients operate more efficiently.

There’s little doubt that the volume of digital content published by consumers will continue to grow as time goes on. With this growth, comes opportunity for brands looking to drive authentic engagement, but only for those companies that are capable of keeping up with the accelerating rate of content creation. With today’s financing and the credibility fostered by its premium clients, Chute is well positioned to be one of the infrastructure elements facilitating this brand to consumer interaction.

That’s what happened to about 40 employees of Rapid Reality, a New York-based residentia real estate brokerage firm.  In return, they got a 15% raise in commission.

Although this story has received wide media attention, it has been treated as an oddity out of “Believe It or Not.”  No one has pointed out the sheer barbarity of such a proposal.  Or the sheer barbarity of a culture that bestows such unchecked power on corporate employers.

And the antidote to such employer barbarism: A nationwide Employers Responsibility Act (ERA).

Such legislation would legally require employers to demonstrate as much initiative for hiring as job-seekers are now expected to show in searching for work.

In Part One, I outlined its first two provisions.  Here are an additional nine:

(3) Employers would receive tax credits for creating professional, well-paying, full-time jobs.

This would encourage the creation of better than the menial, dead-end, low-paying and often part-time jobs which exist in the service industry. Employers found using such tax credits for any other purpose would be prosecuted for tax fraud.

Under current law, part-time employees are not protected against such abuses as discrimination, sexual harassment and unsafe working conditions. Closing this loophole would immediately create two positive results:

• Untold numbers of currently-exploited workers would be protected from the abuses of predatory employers; and
• Even predatorily-inclined employers would be encouraged to offer permanent, fulltime jobs rather than only part-time ones—since a major incentive for offering part-time jobs would now be eliminated.

(7) Employers would be encouraged to hire to their widest possible limits, through a combination of financial incentives and legal sanctions. Among those incentives: Employers demonstrating a willingness to hire would receive substantial Federal tax credits, based on the number of new, permanent employees hired per year.

Employers claiming eligibility for such credits would be required to make their financial records available to Federal investigators. Employers found making false claims would be prosecuted for perjury and tax fraud, and face heavy fines and imprisonment if convicted.

(8) Among those sanctions: Employers refusing to hire could be required to prove, in court:

• Their economic inability to hire further employees, and/or
• The unfitness of the specific, rejected applicant.

Companies found guilty of unjustifiably refusing to hire would face the same penalties as now applying in cases of discrimination on the basis of age, race, sex and disability.

Employers would thus fund it easier to hire than to refuse to do so.  Job-seekers would no longer be prevented from even being considered for employment because of arbitrary and interminable “hiring freezes.”

(9) Employers refusing to hire would be required to pay an additional “crime tax.”

Sociologists and criminologists agree that “the best cure for crime is a job.” Thus, employers who refuse to hire contribute to a growing crime rate in this Nation. Such non-hiring employers would be required to pay an additional tax, which would be earmarked for agencies of the criminal justice system at State and Federal levels.

(10) The seeking of “economic incentives” by companies in return for moving to or remaining in cities/states would be strictly forbidden.

Such “economic incentives” usually:

1. allow employers to ignore existing laws protecting employees from unsafe working conditions;
2. allow employers to ignore existing laws protecting the environment;
3. allow employers to pay their employees the lowest acceptable wages, in return for the “privilege” of working at these companies; and/or
4. allow employers to pay little or no business taxes, at the expense of communities who are required to make up for lost tax revenues.

(11) Employers who continue to make such overtures would be prosecuted for attempted bribery or extortion:

1. Bribery, if they offered to move to a city/state in return for “economic incentives,” or
2. Extortion, if they threatened to move their companies from a city/state if they did not receive such “economic incentives.”

This would protect employees against artificially-depressed wages and unsafe working conditions; protect the environment in which these employees live; and protect cities/states from being pitted against one another at the expense of their economic prosperity.

Read original article…

Rapid Reality, a New York-based residential real estate brokerage firm, made that offer to its 800 employees, and nearly 40 of them agreed to permanently ink themselves with the company logo.

“I don’t see myself going anywhere, and if I have it on my arm, it’ll force me to keep going and working hard,” Brooklyn-based broker Adam Altman said in a Rapid Realty video  while getting the tattoo. “It’s there for life. Rapid for life, yo.”

Rapid Realty tattoos

And who came up with this new idea in employer barbarism?  Why, no less than Anthony Lolli, the founder of the comopany.

“They wear it like a badge of honor,” said Lolli. “They get a lot of respect from the other agents with the amount of commitment that they have.”

Lolli claimed that the new tatoos help brokers close deals because clients “love the fact there’s someone who’s 100% dedicated to the business.”

Bragging about his brainchild, Lolli tweeted:  “Talk about marketing–they’re walking billboards!”

Click here: Rapid Realty discusses company tattoos – YouTube

For thousands of years, slaves in the ancient world were branded with the mark of their master.  So were slaves in America before the Civil War finally ended 300 years of slaveocracy throughout the South.

During the 20th century, the Nazis tattooed each arriving inmate to their ever-expanding series of extermination camps such as Treblinka and Auschwitz.

Concentration camp inmate tattoo

Behind the practice of branding has always been the equation of “Who/Whom?”  As in: “Who can do What to Whom?”  The one who does the branding is the Conqueror; the one being branded is the Vanquished.

The same holds true for the work-slaves of American corporations as it did for those of the ancient Romans and 20th-century Nazis.

Behind this is the fear American employees justifiably have that, no matter how well or faithfully they work, their employer will cast them into the street.  And, if he does, it will most likely be to pocket their salaries for himself.

The Thirteenth Amendment was supposed to end slavery within the United States.  But the corrupting financial  power of corporate America has turned American workers into so many wage-slaves.

All of which serves as another reason why the United States needs an Enployers Responsibility Act (ERA).

If passed by Congress and vigorously enforced by the U.S. Department of Justice and Labor, an ERA would ensure full-time, permanent and productive employment for millions of capable, job-seeking Americans.

And it would achieve this without raising taxes or creating controversial government “make work” programs.

Such legislation would legally require employers to demonstrate as much initiative for hiring as job-seekers are now expected to show in searching for work.

An Employers Responsibility Act would simultaneously address the following evils for which employers are directly responsible:

• The loss of jobs within the United States owing to companies’ moving their operations abroad—solely to pay substandard wages to their new employees.
• The mass firings of employees which usually accompany corporate mergers or acquisitions.
• The widespread victimization of part-time employees, who are not legally protected against such threats as racial discrimination, sexual harassment and unsafe working conditions.
• The refusal of many employers to create better than menial, low-wage jobs.
• The widespread employer practice of extorting “economic incentives” from cities or states in return for moving to or remaining in those areas.  Such “incentives” usually absolve employers from complying with laws protecting the environment and/or workers’ rights.
• The refusal of many employers to provide medical and pension benefits—nearly always in the case of part-time employees, and, increasingly, for full-time, permanent ones as well.
• Rising crime rates, due to rising unemployment.

Among its provisions:

(1) American companies that close plants in the United States and open others abroad would be forbidden to sell products made in those foreign plants within the United States.

This would protect both American and foreign workers from employers seeking to profit at their expense. American workers would be ensured of continued employment. And foreign laborers would be protected against substandard wages and working conditions.

Companies found violating this provision would be subject to Federal criminal prosecution. Guilty verdicts would result in heavy fines and lengthy imprisonment for their owners and top managers.

(2) Large companies (those employing more than 100 persons) would be required to create entry-level training programs for new, future employees.

These would be modeled on programs now existing for public employees, such as firefighters, police officers and members of the armed services. Such programs would remove the employer excuse, “I’m sorry, but we can’t hire you because you’ve never had any experience in this line of work.” After all, the Air Force has never rejected an applicant because, “I’m sorry, but you’ve never flown a plane before.”

This Nation has greatly benefited from the humane and professional efforts of the men and women who have graduated from public-sector training programs. There is no reason for the private sector to shun programs that have succeeded so brilliantly for the public sector.