Matt:

…although I doubt most people really mislead themselves about liking specific songs or ideas, maybe our large-scale conceptualizations of our tastes tend to be based less on individual likes and dislikes and more on trying to produce a coherent statement of self.

I’d be more willing to say that most people really mislead themselves about liking specific songs or ideas. There are, taking myself as an example, several songs – guilty pleasures, perhaps – that I like much more than my image of myself suggests that I should. And others that I try to make myself like more than I do. Maybe I’m unusual that way, but it’s reassuring to know that at least I’m not the only one. Then there’s the music that you play for yourself versus the music that you put on for others. And the task of making a mix, which I was totally unable to do well for most of high school because I was paralyzed by the idea of it as a comprehensive self-defining statement. And there are mixes you make for yourself, and mixes you make for others…which at least in my experience, are not exactly the same. And apparently, with the advent of iTunes (with which I claim no personal experience given my lack of functioning computer for the past semester), every iTun-ers in, for example, my dorm can peruse and listen to every other one’s music. And I’ve been privy to several surprised/ bemused/ impressed/ critical discussions of other people’s lists…Oh the tangled webs we weave…

Boycott Boston Market:

Boston Market purchases its mashed potatoes from a manufacturer called Chef Solutions. Chef Solutions has more than a dozen plants across the country. At one of them, located in North Haven, Connecticut, employees have endured years of severe abuse of their labor and civil rights. The national Chef Solutions corporation has funded and directed the anti-union efforts against these employees. Because the national corporation has refused to admit guilt or take meaningful corrective action to remedy these abuses, it is the national headquarters that is the target of the consumer boycott. After the union provided documentation to many of Chef Solutions’ customers, a number of them agreed to meet with the UAW to learn more about the situation, and some have even decided not to renew contracts with Chef Solutions. Boston Market, however, has refused to even meet to learn more. To know about these violations, to be in a position to support these employees, but to take no action makes Boston Market as immoral and unethical as the management committing the acts.

From the Times:

It was always evident that these cases would invite the justices to re-examine the balance between individual liberty and national security, and perhaps to recalibrate that always delicate balance for the modern age of terrorism. But the full extent to which the arguments turn on competing visions of presidential authority became clear only after the dozens of briefs filed in the three cases began to arrive at the court after the first of the year.

In each of its three main briefs, the administration’s lawyers argue for a muscular view of executive authority that leaves no room for “second-guessing” or “micromanaging” by the federal courts.

That’s right – you thought holding the United States government responsible for its treatment of detainees at Camp X-Ray was oversight – turns out it’s micromanaging…

From the Houston Chronicle:

Like dozens of work sites across greater Houston, construction at the Gulfgate site was nearly brought to a standstill because the immigrant workers had fled, likely after hearing rumors of government immigration raids.

“The crews have just scattered, sometimes leaving their tools at the site,” said Allen Griffiths, a plumbing contractor who busied himself talking on a two-way radio Thursday. “It’s just brought construction to a halt.”

Now imagine that you’re one of those employees and you were thinking of talking to your boss about, say, complying with labor law, and you know that all it takes him to bring the government in is a phone call…

American Policy: Bad for immigrants, bad for security:

The commission investigating the 9/11 attacks has concluded that immigration policies promoted as essential to keeping the country safe from future attacks have been largely ineffective, producing little, if any, information leading to the identification or apprehension of terrorists. The commission said one program had proved so fruitless that it was discontinued after less than a year.

The critical assessment was released this week as part of a preliminary finding to a final report due in July. It returned a spotlight to programs that have been controversial from the start, aimed mostly at people, like the 9/11 hijackers, from Muslim or Arab countries. Critics have said the government engaged in a wholesale roundup of these people, kept them in jail for months, in some cases without access to lawyers, and conducted closed-door legal hearings on their status.

Wal-Mart Watch: It’s got the whole world in its hands:

Indeed, with $256 billion in annual sales and 20 million shoppers visiting its stores each day, Wal-Mart has greater reach and influence than any retailer in history. “In each historical epoch a prototypical enterprise seems to embody a new and innovative set of economic structures and social relationships,” said Nelson Lichtenstein, a history professor at the University of California here and the organizer of the conference. “These template businesses are emulated because they have put in place, indeed perfected for their era, the most efficient and profitable relationship between the technology of production, the organization of work and the new shape of the market.”

The company’s pay scale and hard-nosed labor practices, said Simon Head, a fellow at the Century Foundation and author of “The New Ruthless Economy: Work and Power in the Digital Age” (Oxford University Press, 2003) mean that “Wal-Mart is certainly a template of 21st-century capitalism, but a capitalism that increasingly resembles a capitalism of 100 years ago.” He added, “It combines the extremely dynamic use of technology with a very authoritarian and ruthless managerial culture.”

We need to build a vision and a world that are better than Wal-Mart’s.

Nathan Newman:

Of all sports stars, boxers are probably the most exploited, since there is no formal sports league, so promoters exploit boxers at will, even as the need for protection and long term benefits, especially after injury, is nowhere more needed. So J.A.B. will end up being more than just a negotiating arm of boxers– it may restructure the whole sport to end the rule of opportunists and the real corporate thugs who control the game today.

Don’t drink the water and don’t breathe the air:

Thirty-one governors were told today by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that areas of their states do not meet new health standards for ground-level ozone. Part or all of 474 counties nationwide are in nonattainment for either failing to meet the 8-hour ozone standard or for causing a downwind county to fail.

Teachers at NYU and Columbia prepare to strike:

At Columbia University, graduate students are set to walk away from their teaching- and research-assistant duties on Monday. More than two years ago, graduate students there voted on whether they wanted to be represented by the UAW. Those ballots have never been counted, however, because the university is fighting against the unionization effort by appealing to the full National Labor Relations Board. The ballots have been impounded pending that action…Unlike an earlier one-day walkout, this strike is planned to last indefinitely. “People are prepared to do what they have to do,” said Maurice Leutenegger, a research assistant in the physics department. “Victory is when the administration agrees to respect our democratic rights.”

At New York University, part-time professors won the right to bargain collectively in 2002, becoming the nation’s largest such adjunct union at a private institution. But despite more than 20 bargaining sessions, the two sides have yet to agree on a first contract. Earlier this week, the UAW announced that more than 91 percent of the union members who voted had agreed to authorize a strike, which would begin on Wednesday…Bargaining sessions are scheduled for today and Saturday, but the sides remain divided on several issues, including job security and wages.

Check out the NYU Adjunct Fan Club here.

The EUMC reports that antisemitism is on the rise in Europe, but the new perpetrators aren’t Muslims – they’re right-wing whites.