Erik Loomis

1 week ago | lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com | Erik Loomis

What is the point of our moral ideals in a world where people can endlessly express care and concern for others—those living in zones of everyday poverty or spaces of terror like Gaza and Tigray—but do nothing in practice? This question haunts Omar El Akkad’s new book, One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, a powerful account of our failures to stop the war in Gaza.

1 week ago | lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com | Erik Loomis

This is the grave of Ernie Johnson. Born in 1924 in Brattleboro, Vermont, Johnson grew up in a Swedish American household there. His father was a cabinetmaker who did not appreciate his young son’s love for the American game of baseball. But Johnson sure loved baseball and especially his hero Mel Ott. He was an excellent athlete, at least by the standards of Vermont in the early 40s, not exactly America’s athletic home. In fact, I believe Vermont remains the only state to never produce an NBA player.

1 week ago | lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com | Erik Loomis

A lot of pretty famous and pretty good people died this week. It’s Memorial Day so let’s remember them. First, Chuck Rangel. He was actually #8 on my obituary to-write list, but I’ve been slacking a bit on these and it didn’t happen. I didn’t quite know what I wanted to say yet. I figured it would be an interesting exploration both of the rise of Black politics in the post-60s Democratic Party and a window into a general discussion of the Party over the decades.

1 week ago | lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com | Erik Loomis

On May 26, 1913, actors unionized in Actors Equity Association. This necessary move to professionalize actors as workers fighting for decent conditions played an important role in bringing the field into the modern age and was perhaps the first important union of creative workers that make up some of the publicly known unions today. After all, when actors or writers go on strike, the world notices as their TV shows go away. Conditions for actors were really quite terrible.

1 week ago | lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com | Erik Loomis

On May 25, 1943, white workers rioted at Alabama Dry Dock after Fair Employment Practice Committee officials forced the company to promote 12 black workers to skilled positions. One of many hate strikes in World War II, this was an important moment in the struggle for Black workers to achieve some level of relative equality in the war and demonstrates the sharp limitations of white workers to accept that, even as the New Deal state provided them with unprecedented quality of work and benefits.