The General ♥ Rob and Julia from MD...

...in a heterosexual and Ofjoshua-approved kind of way.

Thank you Julia for sending me An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore's companion book to the film of the same name. We love it.

And thank you Rob for the The Boss's We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions. My inner Frenchman will never forget seeing Pete Seeger perform a few years ago. It was the 75th anniversary of the murder of Joe Hill by the State of Utah at the behest of the copper barons. It was held at the place of his execution, the former site of the Utah State Penitentiary at Sugar House Park in Salt Lake City. There were about 100 or so people there, more leftists than this rural Utah boy had ever seen gathered at one place. It was like radical heaven. I even bought a copy of The Little Red Song Book from the Wobblies.

I rode the UTA bus back to Ogden sitting next to Utah Phillips, who also performed. Damned nice guy.

I put the Little Red Song Book to use a few weeks later, when I read Jack London's short essay on scabs to a strike-breaking UTA bus driver. He kicked me off the bus.

The Scab

After God had finished the rattlesnake, the toad, and the vampire, he had some awful substance left with which he made a scab.

A scab is a two-legged animal with a corkscrew soul, a water brain, a combination backbone of jelly and glue. Where others have hearts, he carries a tumor of rotten principles.

When a scab comes down the street, men turn their backs and angels weep in heaven, and the devil shuts the gates of hell to keep him out.

No man (or woman) has a right to scab so long as there is a pool of water to drown his carcass in, or a rope long enough to hang his body with. Judas was a gentleman compared with a scab. For betraying his master, he had character enough to hang himself." A scab has not.

Esau sold his birthright for a mess of pottage. Judas sold his Savior for thirty pieces of silver. Benedict Arnold sold his country for a promise of a commission in the British army." The scab sells his birthright, country, his wife, his children and his fellowmen for an unfulfilled promise from his employer.

Esau was a traitor to himself; Judas was a traitor to his God; Benedict Arnold was a traitor to his country; a scab is a traitor to his God, his country, his family and his class.

-- Jack London