Sunday, August 31, 2008

Storm Watcher

If you want to keep up with Hurricane Gustav, click on over to the journal of Dr. Jeff Masters. He knows of what he blogs.

• Posted at 9:30 PM · LINK

Hollywood Labor News

A lot of folks seem to have forgotten that the Screen Actors Guild is still operating without a new contract. If one scans the Hollywood trade papers, one doesn't even find much information about what's happening. This is mainly because nothing is happening. The two sides have not even met since July 16. The Producers basically said, way back on June 30, "We'll give you the same thing AFTRA got and not a penny more." SAG basically said, "That deal sucks and we won't take it." And that's where it's been ever since. I still can't envision a scenario where SAG wrings any sort of victory out of this situation. I'd like to see that happen but I just can't imagine how.

The next event that may trigger some kind of movement will occur September 19. That's when the results will be announced in the current election for SAG leadership. There are essentially two factions — a group called Membership First is attempting to stay in power. An "upstart" party that calls itself Unite for Strength is seeking to take over control. If you have an interest in the issues, check out their respective websites. If you have the interest and a couple of hours to spare, you can watch interviews with reps from both groups on this page.

There are also a number of unaffiliated candidates. I have friends on all sides of this and do not feel qualified to say who will be better for SAG or who'll prevail. Whoever it is, they're going to have to either mend a lot of fences with AFTRA or figure out a way to do a hostile takeover.

As one might expect, the election is getting nastier than it should and that's not the end of the disharmony. The current leadership of SAG Hollywood is currently exchanging angry words with the heads of the New York division. On 9/19, something will change...one hopes for the better. In the meantime, since it's in no shape to negotiate a new version of the soon-to-expire commercials contract (which is separate from the film/TV contract), SAG has extended the current one for six months.

In other news: Various factions within IATSE are making noise about their union's deal with HBO. It was lowballed long ago as a means of getting union representation established there. Now that HBO is healthy and thriving, a lot of folks feel it's time they stopped paying discount rates for their labor. That's sure starting to sound like a strike waiting to happen. It may even happen for many of the same reasons that the former head of IATSE was condemning other unions' strikes.

Lastly: There's also an election ongoing in the Writers Guild and that's led to a round of post-mortem discussions of our long and recent strike. The topic's being debated both by those seeking office and by industry reporters. I'm endorsing no candidates and am not even sure who I'm voting for...but I sure don't agree with anyone who claims we could have attained the same contract without a strike. It's easy to say that and hard to disprove but I don't think that's true. I don't even think it's true that the DGA and AFTRA could have achieved their contracts — even the lousy one AFTRA accepted — if not for our strike. It's a sad fact of business that every so often, someone tries to screw you and you have to say no. If you say yes, they just screw you more next time. If you don't believe that, just look at the offer AFTRA gets when their current contract expires.

• Posted at 12:18 PM · LINK

Sunday Morning

Wolf Blitzer on CNN is currently interviewing politicians about Hurricane Gustav. Apparently, the most significant concern about the storm is how it might impact the presidential contest.

The people in the path of Gustav may wind up getting attention and help that they wouldn't get if this thing hit on November 5. Maybe we can figure out some way to make sure natural disasters only occur in election years.

• Posted at 9:33 AM · LINK

Today's Video Link

Watching New Orleans evacuate has made me angry all over again about what happened during Hurricane Katrina a few years ago. Even if Gustav doesn't do anywhere near the same kind of damage, that will not mean the man-made errors of the past have been corrected.

This video runs about eleven minutes. If you don't have the eleven minutes, just know this: Most of the destruction that occurred there was not because a hurricane hit the city. It was because a hurricane hit the city and many of the levees that should have protected the city proved to be structurally unsound. To add injury to injury, the post-storm response was simply inept and made a bad situation worse.

I don't know why people aren't more upset about this. We blamed all sorts of people for not being better prepared for 9/11 but the folks who dropped the ball in and around New Orleans were barely faulted. Worse, even though everyone knew another hurricane would be along soon (with more to follow), they've taken their own sweet time about prepping for it. Here's the video. Everything in here has been affirmed by official reports and as far as I can tell, there is little dissent to those reports.

• Posted at 3:59 AM · LINK

Some Happy News

Our nation's population has increased by one baby panda. And he or she (they don't know yet) may still turn out to be one of a pair of twins.

• Posted at 3:57 AM · LINK