At the time I challenged her to open up her Mika Burger franchise and I repeat that challenge today.
Mika you and a group of your progressive friends should simply open up a restaurant, have a starting pay of $15 an hour for all workers and before you can say “franchise fee” Mikaburger franchise will be all over the country resulting not only a living wage for the workers but profit for Mika & her friends that can be used for all kinds of delightful progressive causes.
In fact I’d like to suggest that Seattle be the location for the first Mikaburger franchise, because I hear in that city there is a lot less competition than there used to be:
Seattle’s $15 minimum wage law goes into effect on April 1, 2015. As that date approaches, restaurants across the city are making the financial decision to close shop. The Washington Policy Center writes that “closings have occurred across the city, from Grub in the upscale Queen Anne Hill neighborhood, to Little Uncle in gritty Pioneer Square, to the Boat Street Cafe on Western Avenue near the waterfront.”
Of course, restaurants close for a variety of reasons. But, according to Seattle Magazine, the “impending minimum wage hike to $15 per hour” is playing a “major factor.” That’s not surprising, considering “about 36% of restaurant earnings go to paying labor costs.” Seattle Magazine,
“Washington Restaurant Association’s Anthony Anton puts it this way: “It’s not a political problem; it’s a math problem.”
Now one might think that such news might discourage Mika & people like her but it doesn’t matter if there is snark from Twitchy:
McDonald’s has been experimenting with point of sale automation for taking orders and Applebee’s rolled out smart tablets at tables in multiple locations last year. The latter solution is the most interesting to me because it seems like the easiest for younger consumers to adapt to. Most of the people going out to eat in such places are already familiar with laptops, tablets and smart phones anyway. Having one waiting at the table which takes the place of not only the menu, but the waitress as well, isn’t going to come as much of a shock to the system.
Welcome to the land of $17 dollar cheeseburger. And, as you can figure out fairly quickly, everything else will be more expensive too … which, of course, erodes the purchasing power of that $15 wage. More importantly, if you work for one of those establishments that is closing, your wage is $15 times zero hours, isn’t it?
These naysayers and their math are no match for the combined effects of the power of progressive thinking plus the bonus of a restaurant fronted by a liberal celebrity in a liberal city anxious to prove her right.
So Mika the field has been cleared, go boldly forward and prove us wrong! It should be a cinch.
Speaking to the Aspen Institute on February 6, Michael Bloomberg said cities should ban young minority males from owning guns, both as an effort to reduce crime and to keep those minority males “alive.”
According to The Aspen Times, Bloomberg addressed a variety of topics, and after commenting on poverty and education, he discussed guns. The Times reported that he said, “Cities need to get guns out of [the] … hands” of persons who are “male, minority, and between the ages of 15 and 25.”
As many southern blacks from the civil rights era will tell you, it was their ownership of guns that kept the violence against blacks (from Democrats, let us remember—Bull Connor was a member of the Democratic National Committee) from being even worse than it was. Sure we have gang-bangers today who take a fearsome toll. But how many law abiding minorities in bad neighborhoods want to place their safety in the hands of the response times of Mayor DeBlasio’s NYPD right now?
Picture if Ted Cruz, Mitt Romney or Bill O’Reilly said something like this, would there be any other story in the media anywhere?
Mike Bloomberg is not a Mitt Romney, O’Reilly or Ted Cruz (the latter as a 2nd amendment friend would never even think this) He is an ally of the left and a potential source of hundreds of millions of dollars for their causes and themselves and no amount of statements that would make any contender for the white house an “unperson” will cause the left to throw away a potential gravy train.
One of the stories of my youth that always struck was the story of how my paternal grandparents, born in Italy and not familiar with the law or english, first received social security.
My parents were visiting their house when my mother discovered in conversation that her retired father in law was not collecting social security. She asked why. They told her it was because they didn’t want to give up their land.
Confused by the answer she asked what that had to do with it and they told her they weren’t allowed to collect social security if they had land in their name.
Incredulous my mother told them that wasn’t the case and asked where on earth they got that idea. They told her everyone knew that. In fact her sister in-laws noted a local paisano had arranged to help other Italian immigrants get around this requirement by letting having fellow Italians sign over their land to her so they would qualify for their checks, then doing the paperwork necessary for them to collect.
Mom wasn’t having that. She told her father-in-law that he didn’t have to give up his land to anyone to collect and insisted she would fill out the paperwork herself so he could get his social security. His daughters ridiculed her for thinking she knew more than a respected leader in the Italian American community at least they did until my grandfather got his first social security check with his property intact. Not long afterwards my mother did the paperwork for her mother-in-law as well earning the favor of my paternal grandparents (and ironically the scorn of their daughters who would ironically inherit their parent’s land) for the rest of their lives.
This kind of story was not uncommon among immigrants. Coming to a new country, unfamiliar with the law and the language, they often found themselves exploited by their fellow countrymen who used the bonds of race, religion and culture and their fears of the powers that be to cement their own positions and wealth. They would become leaders using their position as the go betweens with the greater culture to provide positions in civil service (or not so civil services) to those looking for favors in return and thus cement their positions as leaders within the community and their contact with the general culture. Meanwhile if the political bosses of the greater culture needed bodies, muscle or votes from that community they were the people who you dealt with.
Such power (or scams) depended on a fresh set of immigrants coming in to the community so there would be a steady unending supply of alienated people separated from the rest of society as a whole, because once children & grandchildren were educated and assimilated into the greater culture, the gravy train of the bosses was over.
And that in a round about way brings us to not just Mississippi’s GOP primary but the block voting of the Black community that (currently) keeps Democrats in power.
From the Italians to the Poles to the Chinese and even Blacks from Africa , people have passed though the cities, and had their political power funnelled through bosses & leaders building little Italies, Polands and Chinatowns while their kids became assimilated. Once they did the little Italies, little Polands and Chinatowns of the cities slowly shrank into insignificance compared to what they once were as the children and grandchildren moved out and up becoming not so much Italian Americans or Polish Americans or Chinese Americans but Americans.
As a rule this didn’t happen to the black community, a very large part of said community remained apart, first due to Jim Crow in the south and to some degree redlining in the north, both extended the lives of the political boss far beyond their normal dying point.
America being America this could not continue forever and eventually laws were passed ending these practices and imposing stiff penalties to those who would violate them.
One would have expected that once that process was complete the America Black community would have integrated and the era of the bosses would be over.
You would be wrong.
While new African immigrants followed the path of other immigrant groups the black community who had suffered under these laws remained to a large degree separated. A big part reason for this were the actions of black leadership.
Like the “bosses” of various communities their prosperity depended on keeping their community separate but unlike those bosses they had several advantages that the other bosses did not.
Firstly the members of the community had decades of history with discrimination because of this history they were naturally distrustful that new laws and rules would be enforced.
Secondly because the political machine was linked to black church “bosses” were inevitably church leaders. It’s no wonder the two biggest race hucksters in the nation are the Reverend Jessie Jackson and the Reverend Al Sharpton.
Thirdly the leader most likely to have encouraged integration into society as a whole M. L. King’s was murdered.
Fourthly with the cold war it was in the interest of those opposed to American Power to do all possible to encourage said separation. They had wisely used Jim Crow as a counterweight to mitigate their own abuses and because of this had entre to black leadership once it was over. (This incidentally is the same reason why Nelson Mandela had no problem lionizing some of the most murderous and oppressive regimes in the world it was to a large degree understandable payback for aid when they needed it.) It’s no coincidence that Black Democrats were almost uniformly on the side of the Soviets, of the Sandinistas, of Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro.
But the most important factor was gerrymandering and seniority. Under normal circumstances a party will attempt to draw districts that dilute the voting power of their opponents. For example in Massachusetts a fair amount of conservatives live in Worcester County however that voting strength is divided among three different congressional districts.
However Black Democrats in congress and Republicans alike realized that by redrawing lines, under the requirements of the voting rights act to create black majorities in district both would benefit.
With the vast majority of the overwhelmingly black vote in a single district suddenly the GOP’s prospects increased geometrically
Meanwhile black democrats ended up with practically primary proof districts guaranteeing their power for as long as they wanted it along with all the patronage that comes with it. That also meant they could create their own mini-machines with sub bosses able to turn out the vote when the time or the money was right.
And when Thad Cochran came knocking with five figures to spend for two weeks work, the price was right.
Cochran as a white republican was able to buy the black vote in Mississippi because it increased the power and the credibility of the bosses,
Meanwhile a black republican can never count on that support because she is not willing to allow them to wet their beaks. Her very existence is a threat to their entire power structure in both the political and the academic world that the political machine helped finance.
That is the real crime of black republicans in the eyes of black leaders. Not their voting records or beliefs but the fact they attempt to gain power outside of their structure and if they succeed the process of integration that the bosses have managed to delay for generations might actually begin and the black community freed from the leaders who would keep them in peonage.
And to those leaders whose wealth and power depend on that simply can’t allow that to happen.
That, in my opinion, is the real scandal not just of Mississippi but of the black vote in america and until that changes, no matter how many “minority” representatives are voted into congress, no matter how many Black studies programs grace the universities, the Black community in the United States will never reach its full potential.
In Godfather 2 there is a telling exchange between a twenty something Vito Corleone when he first sees the actions of Don Fanucci in the US.
Genco: Fanucci’s with the Black Hand. The whole neighborhood pays him. Even my father, in the grocery store. Vito Corleone: If he’s Italian…why does he bother other Italians? Genco: He knows they have nobody to protect them.
When I see what has happened in Chicago, in the inner cities I ask the same question that Vito does, and I must conclude the answer is even worse than Genco, it’s not that they have no protector, it’s that it’s in their “protectors” interest to remain effectively serfs for the sake of their “protector’s” power.
God has given Commandments unto Men. From these Commandments Men have framed Laws by which to be governed. It is honorable and praiseworthy to faithfully serve the people by helping to administer these Laws. If the Laws are not enforced, the People are not well governed.
Yesterday I paid my first ever visit to MIT’s rather odd-shaped chapel
to cover and participate in the Eucharistic adoration in response against the Harvard Black Mass
People slowly started showing up slowly. Joe spoke to me
I noticed some local (to me) folk who protest regularly at the Fitchburg Planned Parenthood. When they arrived, shortly before reporters from the Globe. They would leave for a moment with plans to come back & sit down later.
That would prove to be a bad move as the people started coming in waves
We had gotten word from the Crimson (ht Lisa Graas) that the Black Mass was being moved to a restaurant off campus called the Middle East.
However even before the Eucharist procession began the word came that they had no intention of hosting the event.
as the MIT crowd continued to grow I moved my setup out of the chapel proper to a table in the corridor but soon there was no room to be there so I moved it to the back wall by the door on a trash receptacle, but a few minutes later there was no room there either. I sent out twitter updates as space allowed
By the time the Adoration actually began there was no room in the building and two batches of lines extending outside of the building extended from the chapel doors on both sides of it
it is no accident that this turned the odd oblong shape of the building if viewed from above into the shape of the cross.
After the prayers the procession began the sacrament under the canopy. I was on the opposite side of the building and ran around the chapel, set up my camera after the front passed and simply recorded the people, it took nearly five minutes for all the people involved to pass.
I talked to both the MIT police and while both knew there was supposed to be a procession neither anticipated the sheer volume of people. Cambridge police rushed ahead to close down streets to allow the procession to pass.
You could not see the front of the procession from the back
As we passed and the folks at the end were constantly being stopped and asked what was happening. People were waving from apartments or staring from shop windows.
When we passed the Middle east there was a distinctly noticeable group gathered at the entrance staring at us taking photos.
Eventually after our long walk we reached St. Pauls. The sun had already set and the crowd overwhelmed the area.
and it soon became apparent that there was simply no room to get everybody in the building.
At this time word had gone around that the club not having found a place to celebrate the black mass had cancelled it.
The overflow filled the area outside of the church proper and was all over the steps and the area across the street, at this point I caught a break, reporters & cameramen looking for a shot were ushered to a side door in the choir loft in front of the pipe organ.
it looked even more packed from the inside than it did from outside.
I shed my coat and laptop bag as we were sweltering in the heat and set up my camera just as Fr. Drea began his sermon
I was very tired and hot, and even with the monopod it was hard to keep he camera steady particularly as I tried to take still shots with a 2nd camera at the same time.
His Homily was very gracious, particularly to the Harvard president sitting in the front row.
after the homily I took a pan of the crowd as a choir located to the right of the altar sang
And took a few shots
after a period of reverence and prayer
The blessed sacrament was moved removed from the altar. I stayed to sing the first hymn but as a second hymn was being sung I made my way outside where I set up to video people leaving.
I ran into two very Irish sounding ladies from Plymouth who declined to be interviewed on camera who had been at the location where the Catholic League was saying their Rosary of reparation at the original planned location of the Black Mass They told me that groups of Satanists cursed them & shouted at them but was unable to phase them.
At this point the altar servers & choir started to process out
followed by the people.
I hand counted 1200 people inside from my upper perch I’m estimating 1500-1600 people overall not counting those doing the Rosary of Reparation. I congratulated the chaplain from MIT who had organized the procession, he wanted to do something proactive and had succeeded. I then spotted the auxiliary bishop of Boston who I met at the DC airport the day Francis was elected, he agreed to an interview.
Former Boston Mayor & US Ambassador to the Holy See Ray Flynn greeted him.
and then gave me an interview
I spoke to local police there, they said the crowd of believers had been very polite and were really taken by the thanks offered by the crowd, it was an unusual but pleasant experience for them.
They informed me during the service there was a single protester who was shouting at the ceremony from outside to no effect. As the crowd started to disperse he returned and continued to shout at the crowd calling them cannibals and decrying the church and the people there.
I can understand his anger, not only was the black mass not on campus but any black mass that was to be held (later reports say it was held at a Chinese restaurant in town it was not sponsored by any Harvard Club. The importance against the mass of the faithful must have been a great frustration.
I said a loud prayer for him in response and then caught a ride with Mary Ann Harold who had arrived at St. Paul first and wondered if there would be much of crowd but not long afterwards the mass of faithful catholics answered that question for her.
A postscript: As we drove to my car at Alewife Station she related that as she sat down in the then empty church she saw an apparition of the head of Satan appear over and to the left of the altar over the church. The head was disfigured and was screaming in pain and anger.
Given the results of the night, that was completely understandable.
Update: Apparently that planned Black Mass has backfired even worsethat I thought
Merrimack, N.H.,
Thomas More College is holding three days of penance and prayer, from May 12 to 14, in response to the black mass.
In Denver
Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, a parish of the Archdiocese of Denver located in Littleton, Colo., will hold a Mass of Reparation said at 5:30 p.m. The Mass will be said by Fr. Joseph Hearty, FSSP, and will be followed by a rosary and Benediction.
In Texas Illinois & Pennsylvania
In Alice, Texas, outside of Corpus Christi, Our Lady of Guadalupe parish will hold a Holy Hour at 6 p.m. In the Diocese of Orange, Blessed Sacrament in Westminster will hold a Holy Hour of reparation. Holy hours will also be held at Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish in Bath, Pa., and at St. Mary’s in Alton, outside of Springfield, Ill.
on Facebook
A Facebook group organized in response to the event at Harvard has garnered more than 2,200 members who have pledged to go to Adoration on May 12 in reparation.
and Around the world
Catholics from around the world, including the Philippines, have also pledged to pray in reparation for the black mass. The monks of Norcia at the Monastery of San Benedetto, Italy, announced a Chaplet of Divine Mercy in reparation as well.
So: No Black Mass on Harvard Campus, No Official Harvard group involved in a Black Mass and massive amounts of b No Black Mass sponsored by a Harvard Group, Massive amounts of prayer.
and against that a private party at the Chinese Restaurant.
And all of this came because Catholics didn’t meekly accept Harvard’s plans.
Update 2: One video out of place, fixed plus via Father Z & flicker some photos from the front.
Since the spiritual battle between good and evil has never been more visible, Saint Michael, Captain of the Angelic Hosts, was invoked repeatedly over the bullhorn. As we prayed, a group of individuals dressed mostly in black with satanic insignia gathered in little groups to jeer and mock the prayers. One even muttered “Hail Satan!” as he passed by the statue of Our Lady of Fatima. But this did not in the least deter those on the sidewalk who continued praying the Rosary at the intersection of Cambridge and Kirkland streets until 8:35 PM.
Apparently they bore the burnt of the Satanist ire while the rest of us were processing and praying with the blessed sacrament
To conclude the protest, Saint Louis de Montfort’s Consecration to Mary was recited. This last prayer seemed to especially unnerve the satanists nearby. Two of them came up and aggressively yelled insults against Christianity in our faces. Then others, also dressed in black, were overheard saying, “smash the statue,” referring to the beautiful replica of the International Pilgrim Virgin Statue of Our Lady of Fatima that wept repeatedly in New Orleans in July 1972. Their hatred was explicitly directed against Our Lady. With this, TFP volunteers formed a protective perimeter around Our Lady, escorting her safely to the van, while being trailed by those who wished to smash her.
I see the TFP people regularly at CPAC they are fearless warriors for the faith, while fewer in number than the procession by far they did some heavy lifting for us and should be commended for it.
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