Thanks teacher! And please know that there are thousands of us across the city who support the CTU and its fight. You are fighting for the schools our kids deserve and we have your backs! (Also, if Rahmbo can find $60 million for the NATO summit, he can damn well find the money for the teachers!)

If you do away with seniority, and allow teachers to be fired at the whims of principals (who are NOT "bosses" in the traditional sense since the product of teachers' labor is actual HUMAN BEINGS, btw, but that's a different issue), then you might as well get rid of the union. Because guess who gets fired? The union…

I think they would LOVE It. Also, the Chicago Teachers Solidarity Campaign has made arrangements with Primo’s pizza, a locally owned and teacher-friendly restaurant near the strike HQ, to deliver pizza, pasta, and salads. You can call Primo’s and ask them to take a donation with your credit card. (At the conclusion of…

Actually, the city refused to honor the last contractual raise the teachers were supposed to get—so they've been working without a raise for the past several years (despite the city having agreed to it in their last contract.) The city also just instituted a 20 percent longer school day. Would you work 20 percent…

I'm sorry, but this is a very one-sided and inaccurate report. As someone who was out on the picket lines this morning in support of teachers, I can assure you that the overwhelming majority of parents I spoke to are in support of the teachers. The idea that this is about compensation is just wrong. The CTU is…

http://boldprogressives.org/chicagos-teachers-just-went-on-strike-heres-everything-you-need-to-know-about-why/?akid=9243.1102688._6Z2bZ&rd=1&source=e1-chicago&t=5

Can you provide any reference for this? Because, no, it's really not in the original novel, sorry—though I'm totally open to the film have no complaints about the casting. He's referred to as "black" "dark" and "gypsy" throughout as slurs by Cathy's brother in particular, but there's no reference to it being the color…

It's increasingly common—a cheap way for stores to get rid of food near expiration that they would otherwise discard, and a way for people to get it below cost. Here's a recent NPR story about it: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2012/08/23/159601015/willing-to-play-the-dating-game-with-your-food-try-a-grocery-auction

It would be in order if it actually worked. But there's no EVIDENCE that shaming people actually makes them lose weight long term or betters their health long term (or that just losing weight in the short term=better health in the long term). I don't know why you anti-fatties can't get that through your thick skulls.…

What sexual hangups would those be Eddie? Please, sir, do enlighten us about why you think people who object to unnecessary cosmetic procedures on women's sexual anatomy are "hung up."

Also, for a magazine that, in earlier decades, regularly peddled "aliens/demons raping white women" with racist/"miscegenation fear" subtexts, can the Weird Tales folks not understand why they actually have more of an onus to get this one right? (And I'm not saying everything needs to be kittens and roses. We can all…

FYI, Jeff VanderMeer announced on the Weird Tales FB page that Ann has resigned as contributing editor and asked to be removed from the page. I applaud her for that.

For a very interesting rebuttal to the idea that separation of conjoined twins is always the best thing for them, see bioethicist Alice Dreger's book "One of Us: Conjoined Twins and the Future of Normal." [www.goodreads.com]

Actually, Alice Dreger, a professor of bioethics, has questioned the idea that separating conjoined twins is the best thing for them. [www.goodreads.com]

This strikes me as an incredibly lazy critique of Mieville (I haven't read the Stross, so I can't comment on that.) To say he lacks a sense of place—I feel like we must not have been reading the same book. Part of the way he conceives of the various settings and places in this book and how the characters navigate…

What, no Vitaly Chernobyl and the Meltdowns? Roman from Party Down would mock you for that...

It's also a serious slap to postmodernism...which I'm sure postmodernists like to ignore.

Wasn't this a plot point in the Orison episode of the X-Files? Orison had engaged in self-trepanation and the increased blood flow allowed him to hypnotize people and bust Donny Pfaster out of prison?