...is today, at last.
I leafleted Walmart windshields on Ted's behalf (or should I say, on behalf of the good people of the 4th district!) in this searing, blistering heat. (There have been perpetual "heat advisories" the last couple of days, which caused me and Mr Daisy to cancel a hike we had planned on, phooey.) We are all running around like crazy people, but I'll keep you posted.
The Greenville News did not endorse Ted, which he put on his website: NOT endorsed by the Greenville News.
See? Too much of a Yippie to get elected, with a sense of humor like that.
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In other news--South Carolina leads the nation in the number of Hispanic worker deaths on the job:
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During the time studied, 51 Hispanic workers died on the job in South Carolina, a rate of 22.8 per 100,000 workers, the CDC reported using Bureau of Labor Statistics data. The number was twice that of Oklahoma, which had the second-highest rate.
Falls were the leading cause of injury and 63 percent of the deaths were in the construction industry.
The high rate in South Carolina most likely can be attributed to the state’s relatively new immigrant population where workers would be less likely to speak English and would be unfamiliar with employee safety laws, said Sherry Brown of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health’s Occupational Health Disparities Program.
“A reasonable explanation is new immigrants are moving to work in construction, which has a higher risk,” Brown said.
The study found 88 percent of the Hispanics who died while at work in South Carolina were foreign-born.
Across the nation, on-the-job deaths of foreign-born workers have been increasing, and overall Hispanic deaths rates are consistently higher than those of white and black workers.
On-the-job deaths can include everything from car wrecks and murder to falls and explosions.
For the past five years, the state has recorded the fastest-growing Hispanic population in the nation.
Hispanics make up about 3 percent of the state’s labor force, according to the Census Bureau.
The most notorious work accident involving Hispanics in the Midlands happened in 2003, when teenage brothers, Moises and Rigoberto Xaca, died while digging a trench at the Blythewood High School construction site.
The brothers, ages 15 and 17, were illegal immigrants who showed fake documents to get hired. The company that hired them was fined for six safety violations.
Two years after the Xaca brothers were killed, the S.C. Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation created a Spanish job safety training program for the construction and landscaping industries, said Jim Knight, a department spokesman.
And Natalia reports on ArabComment that Leila Hussein, mother of honor-killing victim Rand Hussein, was shot and killed as she was walking with two women activists to meet a contact to take her to Amman, Jordan:
Leila Hussein drew her family’s ire when she refused to support her husband’s decision to murder their daughter for entertaining a crush on an American soldier. Leila Hussein’s sons had also participated in the brutal act, and did not support their mother in her escape.What can we do? The good women at Jezebel are collecting money to help.
Hussein’s husband had previously boasted to the media that the local police had fully supported him. And while Basra law enforcement officials have told the press that Leila Hussein’s defiance had nothing to do with her murder, that this was a routine spat of sectarian violence targeting the women activists, their own role in this story makes their statements suspect.
It wouldn’t be surprising if Leila Hussein was being made an example of. This wouldn’t be the first time, nor the last time, in today’s brutalized Iraq. The activists who were trying to help Hussein escape are receiving threats as well. Any woman who does not submit to her role as a passive piece of human garbage is a potential target in a patriarchal society scarred by years of violence.
Another thing we could do is BRING THEM HOME NOW, and let Iraq heal from its many wounds.
