Labour Literature

I rarely write about politics in this blog but I think that it is important to understand, from literature, why child labour laws are important. Missouri Sen. Jane Cunningham is proposing elimination of her state's child labour laws. The text of the legislation is:

"SB 222 – This act modifies the child labor laws. It eliminates the prohibition on employment of children under age fourteen. Restrictions on the number of hours and restrictions on when a child may work during the day are also removed. It also repeals the requirement that a child ages fourteen or fifteen obtain a work certificate or work permit in order to be employed. Children under sixteen will also be allowed to work in any capacity in a motel, resort or hotel where sleeping accommodations are furnished. It also removes the authority of the director of the Division of Labor Standards to inspect employers who employ children and to require them to keep certain records for children they employ. It also repeals the presumption that the presence of a child in a workplace is evidence of employment."

The obvious comparisons of this legislation are to the works of Charles Dickens who wrote about the horrors of child labour in books like David Copperfield. However, other authors wrote poignantly and pointedly of the misery that the working class experienced before the enactment of union inspired labour laws. Non-fiction works such as Twenty Years at Hull House by the crusader Jane Adams show how desperate the lives of workers were in sweatshops and tenement lives before reforms. The fiction of Rebecca Harding Davis, who wrote Life in the Iron Mills or the Korl Woman, and The Jungle by Upton Sinclair detail the wretched living and working conditions that unions have fought against since the early part of the 20th century to contemporary times. Life in the Iron Mills is about workers in a mill who suffer from harsh labour conditions and an indifferent society. The Jungle is about the dangerous conditions in the meat-packing industry that still exist for many workers today. The mentioned books are a must introduction to the world before unions and labour laws improved conditions for workers.


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Polyvore Contest

Polyvore, a fashion social media and shopping site is having a contest featuring their new Mini-Editor that you embed as a widget on your blog or website. The editor basically allows you to invite your readers to play virtual designer with the items that you have chosen to highlight in a scrolling gallery. The prises for the reader and the blogging gallery creator is $1000 for each winner. Go to the official Polyvore blog for more information. I also invite you to scroll down my blog and have fun with the Victorian-themed fashions I chose for the contest.

ON HIATUS

I am on hiatus with bilateral ear infections.

Sleeping pills, while I despise medication,have been a Goddess-send to deal with the pain and ringing in my ears. I have been writing but I am not sure any of it makes sense.

The only post this week will be an already prepared and queued one on the 21st. I am otherwise, and unfortunately, occupied.

THE CONFESSIONAL

I truly would have not missed this birthday but I have been a little out of touch with the bare necessities of reality. However, the situation is not as if I am trying to remember all the birthdays of my mother's fifteen grandchildren. I do well to recall the anniversaries of the couple I gave birth to, and not the ten that are my biological nieces,nephews, and the five steps. My mother is an ex-Catholic. Enough said.
Where was I? I have recently been on medication for ear troubles and I tend to do ditsy things when off my usual sobriety like putting my computer into a coma because I was fooling around with the package manager on Ubuntu and scragged the OS kernel. Much wailing and gnashing of teeth and calling aforementioned mother on the telephone and saying that I wanted to end it all and my life, which involves being tied to the tenuous fickleness of a damn box, was not worth living. Woe is me.
Much thanks to my very patient spousal person who fixed the computer and retrieved my various documents. Lady Fortuna beguiles me once more, but I now know better than to trust that dirty bitch and to check the dependencies in the package manager one last time before hitting the "Apply" button.

So.....I am sorry to be late by a day but happy birthday to writer Andrei Codrescu.


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IN THE MEANTIME

I am writing for Demand Studios. The pay is not great but the writing gigs are steady and the assignments have a quick turnaround. The jobs are also something that I can do in whatever time margins I can grab because the incompetent Canadian school system has still not allowed my formerly home-schooled daughter to go full-time to classes. I,perhaps, should start billing those poor apologies for educational administration the time I have lost to their halting and stalling tactics. The school administration has choked my writing career and created a great amount of hassle and stress for my daughter and my family.
However, the gigs work for me because I am able to write about any subject that I choose. I like the flexibility in subject matter. This is not to write that the school administrators have given me any favours in their reluctance to provide my daughter with an education, but I can make the most of what little time I can manage.
I have stopped looking at job boards. Employers using these job boards too often want some poor and desperate worker with insignificant knowledge of the English language who will write for two cents or less a page in a search optimization content mill. Quality matters in writing and I do not pity those who hire substandard labourers.

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MAYBE HAPPY NEW YEAR...

Happy New Year! I have started 2010 with revision work on my second novel. The first is finished and under wraps. I have also gained some writing and editing gigs that pay (not a helluva lot of) money!

I am looking forward to the new decade with child number two full time in school and child number one a year away from finishing high school. I will have more time to dream and to write. However, being close to an emptier nest is somewhat disconcerting, but why do parents exist save for to give their children wings? The freedom will have salutary effects for all concerned but it is sad nonetheless.

I am anticipating the new year and new decade with mixed hopes and apprehensions.

I'll keep you posted. TWH

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THINGS TO KEEP THE DEMONS AWAY

I would feel depressed if it were not for the story writing that I do in my spare time. I finished yet another chapter in my second (unpublished) novel and am engaged with the long tight rope act of rearranging the text so the chapters make sense in relation to one another and are not higgledy-piggledy thrown into the air to land on the page in a disordered heap. How's that for slant alliteration? This is an author who definitely needs a chamomile tisane and some sleep.

I have been picking up some writing and editing gigs but the work is sparse. I have almost given up the ghost in terms of being fully employed. I either do not have the requisite years that an employer demands or my rates are too high. Excuse me, but am I Methuselah? How old do you have to be and how much experience do you need before an employer will hire? My rates are not (too) much over standard market but I never cut a bargain because, dammit, I am worth every penny. My prose and editing, of any sort, kicks it like a can-can dancer. I am a meticulous and hardworking editor who does not stop until I have crossed and stabbed the last unholy and obnoxious “t” on the keyboard. Sigh. There are no jobs for the excellent.

Another cuppa, bartender....