Thursday, May 16, 2013

FAME AT LAST
















Russell Hunter (the Deviants drummer) has emailed me yesterday
“Wandering under the Westway on Sunday, we discovered this.
You are first in line on the Portobello Road Wall of Rock'n'Roll
Fame! (At least a third of the others are dead, so you're also
ahead on that score.)” Which I though was pretty fucking cool!

The secret word is Bask

CORPORATE GLOBAL GIVES NOTHING FOR NOTHING











I had long assumed Henry Ford started paying his workers reasonably well so they could consume the cars they were making. (And the UAW played it’s part.) But seemingly this was not so….

“To build cars cheaply enough for the average person to buy, Henry Ford had to redesign the assembly line according to the dictates of Frederick Taylor, breaking down each task into its simplest components so that each worker was responsible for a single task that could be repeated all day with a minimum of wasted motion and time. This proved so dehumanizing that turnover skyrocketed to 350 percent. To counteract this, Ford doubled his wages. This paradox of rote work and high wages ushered in the beginnings of the great American urban middle class:
"Ford's assembly line and his production techniques in general were exemplars of 'scientific management,' a phrase and approach made popular by Philadelphia engineer and businessman Frederick Winslow Taylor. Taylor was one of the nation's first specialists in shop-floor management, and his short book The Principles of Scientific Management was the best-selling business book of the first half of the twentieth century. Taylor believed that workplaces could be made more efficient by training, inducing, and compelling workers to labor more steadily and intensively. He conducted time and motion studies to analyze the tasks workers were expected to perform and then encouraged employers to reorganize the work process to minimize wasted motion and time. He also favored piece-rate payment schemes to compel employees, many of whom he described as 'stupid,' to work more quickly. 'Faster work can be assured,' wrote Taylor, 'only through enforced standardization of methods, enforced adoption of the best implements ... and enforced cooperation.'
"Not surprisingly, most industrial workers resisted such schemes. One worker at the Ford Motor Company complained that 'when the whistle blows he starts to jerk and when the whistle blows again he stops jerking.' At Ford and elsewhere, a common response to the brutal intensification of work was absenteeism and high quit rates: in 1913, Ford's daily absentee rate was 10 percent, while annual turnover exceeded 350 percent. To reduce turnover, which was costly to the company, Ford doubled the daily wages of his most valued employees, to five dollars a day. This strategy was successful in stabilizing the labor force and reducing operating costs." Pauline Maier, Merritt Roe Smith, Alexander Keyssar, and Daniel J. Kevles – Inventing Americ  (Norton)

Click here for the Captain of Industry

THE FROZDICK FAMILY















When Bernie Frozdick went out for a smoke, he went out for a smoke.


Sunday, May 12, 2013

SUNDAY BREAKFAST


Okay, so let’s neck down two or three of these here margaritas and get going!

Click here for the Rolling Stones

The secret word is Tequila

WE’RE FUCKED #397












We reached the 400 parts per million (ppm) of CO2 on Thursday—a first in human history—marking "a moment of symbolic significance on road of idiocy" Reaching this threshold level represents a global failure to deal with runaway greenhouse gas emissions; as Al Gore wrote today, it shows "we are reaping the consequences of our recklessness."

“George Monbiot in The Guardian slams the 400 ppm mark as "a moment of symbolic significance on road of idiocy." The problem is the overarching power of fossil fuel companies, he writes. The problem is simply stated: the power of the fossil fuel companies is too great. Among those who seek and obtain high office are people characterised by a complete absence of empathy or scruples, who will take money or instructions from any corporation or billionaire who offers them, and then defend those interests against the current and future prospects of humanity.” Click here for more.


MARILYN SEZ…





















“I think I’ll just sit here and catch my breath.”