Cheap Camembert Cheese - Priced For Cooking

Overall, I like the ingredients I have affordable access to here.

But lately, I've been missing $2 camembert cheese.
That and $5 tasty camembert cheese.

I never thought to eat $2 camembert in France--it looked a little cheap, so if I was eating camembert, I bought the $5 wheels to ensure tastiness.

But then, I got to try grilled camembert (the rind becomes a fondue bowl for dipping bread). Holy gamole, was that fun and tasty! I'll bet $2 camembert is great for that.

Now I'm back in the States, home with friends and family who grill...and camembert is $10-$25 a wheel.


(Not to mention, many of my other favorite cheeses have now increased in price range beyond "affordable" for me. Boooooo.)

US military enforces attacks on Haitian unions

Repost of an April article by La Macha from VivirLatino:

What this is: video explaining how Haitian Unions are organizing for increased pay–and the US military is a part of the attacks against them.

A comment I like on that story from The Partisan:

Due to the weakness of the Haitian state, the US Marines are now enforcing the rules of the Haitian anti-union bosses. They are ensuring that the status-quo remains in Haiti, that unions posses little to no power. The US military is doing the dirty work of the Haitian capitalist class and its international allies that have set up shop on the island.

Earlier in April, La Macha had posted this on Vivirlatino:

This is a really important look at Haitian sweatshops post-earthquake (although it’s not explicitly stated in the video). Haitian workers are making on average, $2 a day at these shops.

Another thing to consider–the current president was a replacement for ousted president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Who helped to oust him? The US, of course. Isn’t it weird how all the presidents that we “support” think it’s best to keep worker wages just a tad above the ‘why even bother working’ line?

Please contact congresspeople, the White House, State/Defense department people, media, etc. and demand that we stop doing this.




And some other sad union stories I should've linked to a while ago but surely aren't irrelevant to the workers' lives yet:

Royal Mail:

• "Myths of the Royal Mail strike" by Lenin at Lenin's Tomb, from October.


• See also "Gone Postal" at the same site, from February.


• And this at the Socialist Worker is interesting:

  "Royal Mail and the government have been saying that the number of letters sent is down by 10 percent ... Figures were being manipulated to make it look like there was less mail than there actually was."



• So is this article (found via this, found via this.)

British Airways:

• "BA strike can and should win, and they deserve your support" by Lenin at Lenin's Tomb, from March

Rio Tinto:
See the links at "Rio Tinto Borax Trying To Hurt Working Conditions Of Workers Right Now".

"It Sounds Like You Feel That People Are, In General, Judgmental"

I realized, while trying to explain to a therapist why I feared negative consequences if I outed my mental disability at work, that:

In bad times (e.g. I'm feeling impatient or frustrated), I am not tolerant, patient, & understanding about other people's disabilities. Physical or mental.

Black Pople In Old Cartoons - I Never Realized That's What They Were Supposed To Be

I just figured out why I never interpreted a lot of old 40's/50's/etc. cartoons with black people depicted as having black people in them when I was a kid.

(Such as this one.) (Via this, via this.)

There's so often this weird pale area around the mouth that takes up half the face.

I associate that w/ animals. (i.e. fur stopping and skin showing)

I'm pretty sure that as a kid, I never realized those were supposed to be illustrations of people, rather than illustrations of animals w/ dark fur & light skin walking around on two feet. Badly-explained animals or something (i.e. not clear, and never indicated, just what kind they were supposed to be distortions of).

(At that age, I didn't recognize any of the geographically- or racially-"identifying" words they were speaking as such.)

Now, what I'm not sure of is whether I ever noticed that "unidentified nondescript animals" were generally in cotton-picking-and-dancing cartoons, and that activities like the ones I & my relatives did were generally performed by type-identifiable (and often light-furred/feathered) animals.

Huh.