Upcoming Stuff

This is the last week of classes at UAA for the semester - Finals Week! Fairly busy for me, but beginning next week, I'm hoping to get far more busy starting to get this darn blog a bit more up to speed.

Today, I'm adding one site to the Statewide Progressive Alaskan Blogs category: Will Schendel's Alaska Employment Law blog. As Will explained to me, "I try to cover employment issues from both union and management sides, but most readers view the blog as labor-friendly. Several days ago we did an analysis of the ConocoPhillips gasline bid. Today’s posting is on an Anchorage FedEx worker’s wage claim. Tomorrow’s blog posting will be on an Alaskan alongshore worker’s claim."

That's progressive enough for me. Take a look at his blog. I'm a member of two unions, my wife of two others. I hope that when my kids get out of college, their jobs will be union jobs. I'd like to see more progressive features incorporated into the activities of some of Alaska's more prominent unions.

I'm going to be spending time with Ray Metcalfe over the winter break, doing a long biographical article about him for Down With Tyranny! And, I'd like to look over the documents he has released over the years, and create a comprehensive timeline of his muckraking activities since he was in the Alaska Legislature. I'm hoping the combination of review and timeline will put to rest the claims that attempt to minimize Metcalfe's role as whistleblower and muckraker.

I'm also going to expand the lists of progressive organizations, to include more local ones, sub-categorized by region. An example would be the organizations listed yesterday in the entry about Lauren Padawer's company, Alaska Glacial Mud Co. She mentions Cascadia Wildlands Project, Copper River Watershed Project, Eyak Preservation Council and Prince William Sound Science Center as projects she wants to support. I hope to list them in regional categories.

Sitka Totem Poles