Recently I posted a two part article concerning the manufacturer of Apple products by Foxcomm, a Chinese company employing hundreds of thousands of semi-skilled workers putting together your phone. You can read the posts here:

http://open.salon.com/blog/toritto/2012/02/14/as_american_as… Read full post »

Yes my children.

Though some of you might not believe it. We had sex in the ‘50s.

Yes we did. Even the Cleavers. On black and white TV however no one ever had sex. Or went to a toilet.

Now sex in the ‘50s had rules.

First there were church… Read full post »

via Scarangella - Toritto 

I have an unusual last name.

Scarangello

Actually it was Scarangella.  It was changed by the bureaucrats at Ellis Island who mistook the cursive "a" for an "o".  So that became our name.  In Italy it is not found with an "o" at the end.

And… Read full post »

"You get away cheap on Valentine’s Day!" she would quip with a smile.

Carnations were her favorite flower. Not roses. Carnations.

Long stem reds and whites wrapped in that paper that goes inside flower boxes with a bow, a card and delivered by the flower shop.  Some years, wh… Read full post »

Working at Foxconn 

This is part II of a post on the manufacture of Apple products.

http://open.salon.com/blog/toritto/2012/02/12/as_american_as_apple_1

Who makes your iphone? Apple?

No.

Who actually makes your iphone - puts it together, packs it in a box and ships it off to Apple Stores… Read full post »

What do you say

when she asks

"how do I know

you love me?"

Don’t say

"I don’t.

I only love

your ass."

Don’t say

"You have to ask?"

She does.

She just did.

"You should know by now"

doesn’t work

simply because

she doesn’t.… Read full post »

Last February President Obama had dinner with Silicon Valley top execs, including Steve Jobs. When the President asked Jobs what it would take to manufacture the iphone here in America, Jobs pointedly answered - "Those jobs aren’t coming back".

Almost all of the 79 million iphones… Read full post »

"You get away cheap on Valentine’s Day!" she would quip with a smile.

Carnations were her favorite flower. Not roses. Carnations.

Long stem reds and whites wrapped in that paper that goes inside flower boxes with a bow, a card and delivered by the flower shop.  Some years, wh… Read full post »

Grand Cross of the Order of the German Eagle

Awarded to Henry Ford by Adolph Hitler - 1938

So it’s the 1930s and Hitler and Mussolini, not to mention Franco have established nazism / fascism in Europe. Hitler has already opened the first concentration camp at Dachau and Mussolini… Read full post »

Our Fair City 

Well the Republican primary election here in Florida is over and now we get to look forward to the RNC Convention here in Tampa!

Yes! The city will be swamped with Republicans in high summer from August 27 through August 30^th.

Yippee!

I hope they know… Read full post »

It  has been reported by the progressive Firedog Lake that

"Bradley Manning, the US soldier accused of passing secret materials to Wikileaks, has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

­The nomination was proposed by The Movement of Icelandic Parliament, which asserts that… Read full post »

Core Members of the White Rose - Munich 1942 - (l to r) Hans Scholl, Sophie Scholl and Christoph Probst.  Arrested by the Gestapo on February 18 and guillotined  on February 23, 1943.

Would you follow your conscience and actively resist evil if yo… Read full post »

Labor Day Demonstration against child labor - 1909 

So if "class warfare" actually breaks out (we’re not talking about beheading rich folks .... yet! Just suggesting raising their taxes to the level paid under Clinton’s administration) with what "class" do you identify?… Read full post »

Danny and Mary in front of our little house - circa late 1950s

The ghost in the doorway is me.

My father was a union man; a member in good standing of the International Hod Carriers, Building and Common Laborers Union of America. In the 1960s the name was shortened… Read full post »

The kitchen witch

still hangs

in the window

Dangling from a string

along with spirits and distant echos

she moves ever so slightly

as if a ghost had passed

a little too close

The sun shines on her

and on the button

the witch always wears

I heart Rhode Island

 … Read full post »

Vigo County Poor Farm - Terre Haute, Indiana 

Those Socialists were wrong

Poverty is not a social condition. People do not become criminals as a product of social and economic conditions.

They are born that way.

People are poor and/or criminal because they are genetically inferior.… Read full post »

Carlo Tresca                                         Luigi Galleani  &… Read full post »

Well the Florida primary is over and I’m sure most Floridians, especially Democrats, are glad to see it go.

Captain Romney carpet-bombed the Newt with some $15 million worth of ads, 97% of which were judged to be "negative"’ Negative ain’t the word. The Romney folks di… Read full post »

Mother and Son 

She sits beneath a massive oak

in the Garden of Noble Women.

Garden of the Promise for those who have borne the burden

yet never  heard the Word.

He never walked.

He never fed himself.

He never saw the light or heard the sound.… Read full post »