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THIS PICTURE, READERS, COULD PERHAPS RELATE TO THE FIRST ITEM OF BUSINESS TODAY FROM YOUR CORRESPONDENT THIS MILD, YET BREEZY, MORNING here in the Minnwissippi--videlicet, an apology:

For a time last evening, Blogdrive's host server was swamped with so many requests from across the Information Stuporbahn for this weblog, it reached a point where it practically went offline, prompting some of you to see instead on screen a message to that effect explained above.

The problem, thankfully, has been rectified, and Your Correspondent regrets any inconvenience suffered.

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ANOTHER DESTRUCTIVE SWARM OF TORNADOES HIT KANSAS ON THE OVERNIGHT, bringing destruction to Goodland and parts of the Kansas State University campus in Manhattan.

In the latter instance, expect certain "academic freedom" Zealots and True Believers pushing the meme that such was a show of Divine Judgement on the "liberal academic tendencies" of land-grant universities like Kansas State--all the while, as per usual, lacking credible evidence.

But, on the other hand, how would you expect the Rev. Fred "Westboro Baptist Church" Phelps to respond to the tornadic destruction which Kansas has seen so far this year, what with his Zealotry and True Belief in explaining where such specimens of disaster are signs of Divine Judgement upon the targeted for excusing homosexuals and homosexuality (and Kansas, historically, not very tolerant about "sexual aberrations and perversions" to the point of attracting religious nut cases like the Phelps family)?

(Let alone flooding on Iowa's Cedar River as has devastated Waterloo/Cedar Falls and is now doing its work upon Cedar Rapids, with Iowa City/Coralville the next likely targets. Come to think of it, virtually all of Iowa's prominent rivers flowing into the Mississippi--the Cedar, Winnebago, Upper Iowa, Iowa, Wapsipinicon and Des Moines--are seeing substantial flooding risk.)

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AND STILL, THE GOP'S DICK DASTARDLY SQUADRON IS AS BUSY AS EVER WITH THEIR CAUTIOUS AND CAREFUL STUDY AND ANALYSIS of the "dirty tricks" campaigns by Zimbabwe's ruling ZANU-PF party ahead of the Presidential runoff to guarantee victory by one Robert Mugabe--unless it should happen that he suddenly snuffs it beforehand, throwing Zimbabwe into disarray.

Especially such involving the so-called "war veterans" brigands as never fought in the Zimbabwean War of Independence; come to think of it, Zimbabwe's "war veterans" are nothing short of a goon squad of the highest order, who can be counted upon to perform the most loathsome and "dethpickable" acts, deeds and exploits for Mugabe.

Especially so the kind as can be used to harrass or silence opposition supporters "by whatever means necessary," including "accidents" as were really "night-and-fog" disappearing acts.

Come to think of it, could the GOP be on to something in recruiting such exposed previously as sham "war veterans" of especially Vietnam and the First Gulf War in "redemption for value" scams involving The Old Ultraviolence against National Minorities to discourage their electoral participation based on flimsy pretexts of "identification documents not in proper form"?

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SINCE THE KUOMINTANG FLED MAINLAND CHINA IN THE WAKE OF THE COMMUNISTS' COMINGTO POWER IN 1949, SETTING UP SHOP ON TAIWAN, Beijing has long seen Taiwan as nothing less than a "renegade province" whose soverignty rightly belongs to the Chinese mainland.

And to back this up, has stopped @ nothing to threaten military action against Taiwan "just in case."

But could things be starting to cool for once?

I say this because of Beijing and Taipei having reached accords on greater access to trade and tourism, including establishment of direct flights between Taiwan and the People's Republic every weekend rather than on the likes of the Lunar New Year and the Fall Harvest Festival, among major holidays.

TT4N....  

THERE ARE SUCH AMONG THE ZEALOTS AND TRUE BELIEVERS OF NEOCONSERVATISM WHO ARE FOREVER SEEING IN SAN FRANCISCO the seeds of Clear and Present Moral Harm and Danger as could, under the right circumstances, "undermine our antient and pecuilar soverignty and soverign identity."

(As if suggesting that religiopolitical backwaters of poverty, fecundity and stupidity across the Bible Belt held the answer to its salvation and reclamation--never mind such adherents tending to be poor whites with little or no real prospects for anything beyond unskilled work, beer, DIY projects, NASCAR, Fox Prolefeed and "elegant poornoo."

On the other hand, Your Correspondent understands where, down South Africa way, a popular brand of instant coffee and chicory is Frisco Coffee Powder, made by the South African affiliate of Nestlé and described as having "rich and creamy coffee taste."

Also from Nestlé South Africa is Nescafé Ricoffy (for those liking a "fresh percolated taste" of blended coffee and chicory, howbeit in a granular form as opposed to Frisco's powdered approach).

Another South African company (I know not their name) markets Koffiehuis instant coffee and chicory, available in medium roast powder (yellow can) and full roast granules (salmon red can), depending on your taste.

In any case, I have to wonder whether there is much of a South African expatriate community in San Francisco as would be interested in having Frisco Coffee Powder available for purchase, never mind where the affectations for coffee in Baghdad-on-the-Bay (as the late Herb Caen was fond of referring to his adopted city) are seen by the Neoconservatives as "clear and present" danger of "elitist tendencies" among what they expect to be a Producerist base of support.

(IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: The links for the several instant coffee-and-chicory products from South Africa mentioned in this item are to respective pages on the website of The African Hut, a Southern California-based online grocer as caters to homesick South Africans across the United States. Absent an affiliate programme on their part, please understand that if you choose to so order, I will not receive commission on said purchases. On the other hand, I present them for your information and interest, if you feel up to it. Whether or not you eventually order is up to you.)   

THE FOLLOWING VIRTUAL OP-ED FROM THE CAPITAL TIMES (MADISON, WI--AND, BY EXTENSION, CYBERSPACE) BY BILL BERRY may want to be considered "food for thought" about the possibility of having these same displaced workers consider the benefits of mutual self-help initiatives as an agency of empowering themselves in the face of, and against future, uncertainty:

The message is clear to American workers: You're on your own, suckers.

As General Motors announced last week it was closing the Janesville assembly plant and three others in North America, the workers in those plants didn't even merit a nod from the Bush administration, which hailed the job-cutting announcement as a demonstration of the virtues of the free market. White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said, "It's a sign that Detroit continues to adapt and evolve and address the change in consumer tastes and attitudes."

In this case, the "free market" means that thousands of workers at GM and related industries in south-central Wisconsin will be free to fend for themselves. Oh, there will be worker retraining and some rather generous termination benefits, at least for United Auto Workers union employees, but after that, see you later.

The free-market spin will blame union wages and benefits for the downfall of the auto industry. It's true that huge pension payrolls are a burden for the old-guard automakers, but then they furiously fought off union proposals in the 1960s to pool company pensions.

The modern-day history of UAW and many other unions can be summed up in one word: concessions. That has been the standard response to corporate power. Speaking to The Associated Press last week, UAW President Ron Gettelfinger said there was little the union could do about the latest changes at GM and Ford. So much for the big, bad unions.

Canadian Auto Workers President Buzz Hargrove, meanwhile, expressed shock and outrage over the closing of the Oshawa, Ontario, plant, which came only weeks after his union pushed through a concessions contract. Hargrove then went off on a nationalist tirade, saying, "This is an American company, controlled by Americans, and they are making decisions in tough times to protect American jobs." He denounced Mexican workers because GM had decided to build hybrid pickups there instead of in Canada.

The Canadian spin doesn't ring particularly well here in central Wisconsin, where a major sector in the area economy has been dismantled piece by piece. The Canadian-owned Soo Line Railroad was sold to a newly formed company called Wisconsin Central in the 1980s, and workers were immediately informed that their unions had no say in the matter. They were offered new jobs at lower pay and benefits, take it or leave it. Many took it. For a while, Wisconsin Central thrived. But a few years ago, it was sold to--surprise--the Canadian National railroad. Hundreds of Wisconsin jobs have been moved elsewhere in the wake of that change.

We have another example of the powerlessness of workers here in central Wisconsin. Locally owned Consolidated Papers was sold to the Finnish company Stora Enso less than a decade ago. In no time at all, Stora had pared about 2,000 jobs, and communities like Wisconsin Rapids and Biron were reeling. Their unions could do little to protect them.

Canadian union boss Hargrove's anger might have been misplaced, but you have to give it to him and his charges for showing some spunk. They picketed GM headquarters in Ontario and threatened to block the entrances to the Oshawa plant should GM seek to dismantle and move equipment.

It used to be that corporations would just send in some thugs and pound some heads at times like that. It's more sophisticated these days. The systematic dismantling of worker rights has been engineered in the bowels of government, the courts and the marketplace. The thugs do their work from behind radio microphones and on TV at night, in the employ of corporations that enjoy all of the legal rights of individuals but few of the responsibilities.

Unions have been an inconvenient impediment in this new age, but they're slipping off the radar one plant closing and one buyout at a time.

Meanwhile, workers in non-union settings pretty much fend for themselves. Layoffs, buyouts and terminations are at the will of the company and are borne in loneliness and despair by those who are cast off.

It would be dishonest and unfair to paint every corporation as a bad guy. Many, perhaps most, of them treat their workers with respect and offer excellent wages, benefits and workplace amenities. They play stellar roles in communities and support many charitable causes.

But when times get tough, in a country that fails to provide its citizens with affordable and accessible health care, that has stepped away from its responsibilities to protect worker health and safety because it was seen as anti-business, and where we now hear strident calls for dismantling Social Security and other safety nets for the average Joe and Jane, the message is quite clear: You're on your own, suckers.

(Actually, a bit of clarification: The lines which Soo Line, now Canadian Pacific, sold to Wisconsin Central, and subsequently sold to Canadian National, were actually duplicate routings, for the most part, of the former Milwaukee Road between Chicago, Milwaukee and the Twin Cities, and onward to the Twin Ports and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan; Soo Line was awarded The Milwaukee Road by the Federal bankruptcy court in 1985 to settle an outright bidding war between Chicago and North Western, since merged into Union Pacific, and Canadian National as threatened to get nasty.)

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IN ANY CASE, MIGHT I BE THE FIRST TO SUGGEST WHERE THE DISPLACED AMERICAN WORKER CONSIDER MODELS OF MUTUAL SELF-HELP based on the English friendly society, which was itself seen as social welfare before the welfare state came along, towards their empowerment against future economic insecurity.

With that in mind, might I recommend having representatives of the British Council and The Association of Friendly Societies (which represents the industry in Great Britain) come over to the United States and promote the concept, even establishing a few model such based on the Holloway Tables rather than the Fibonacci Sequences, with an eye towards such as a tool of empowering the working classes based on mutual self-help models. (Unless, however, the Zealots and True Believers in Neoconservatism can show valid cause that mutual self-help of this sort "tends to Communism" or otherwise "perpetuates dependency***incompatible with American economic models and experience.")

So what otherwise prevents? 

Need I say more?

WHICH MUST NO DOUBT BE THE REACTION ON BOTH SIDES OF THE WINONA INTERSTATE BRIDGE on the news just announced that said bridge will be reopen to passenger cars, vans and light trucks from about 08h Saturday.

And will remain closed to pedestrians, bicycles and heavy trucks until repairs on the bridge deck can be completed, which should begin sometime later in the summer; during said repair period, traffic will be reduced to one lane with flagger.

Which will also mean the discontinuance of an interim shuttle van and ferry service to accomodate Wisconsin employees in Winona businesses from Friday evening's last run.

In any case, Winona should no doubt breathe a little easier.

Now, if only someone were to launch a viable campaign to have Governor Pawlenty recalled from office on the grounds of mental incapacity....