So, where were we? I've been reading several books at once, which I tend to do, because I have a short attention span. Fire in the Hearth, edited by Mike Davis, which is kind of a late '80's overview of the state of "the left," The Many and the Few, by Henry Kraus, a former UAW organizer/editor's account of the GM sit-down, and Teamster Rebellion, by Farrell Dobbs, recounting the Minneapolis General Strike of 1934, led by Dobbs and Teamsters Local 574. I'm a nerd, sorry.
I have been paying no particular attention to the NBA Draft this year, because the Pistons had no first-round pick, and because, well, it's kind of a silly thing to get excited about. But I've always been curious why in the NBA and NHL, international players are draft-eligible, while MLB's draft covers only US, Canadian, and Puerto Rican players, leaving teams able to buy the services of 16 year old kids from Latin America for pennies on the dollar. The new rules in basketball's draft (you can't be drafted until a year after your high school class graduates), while stupid and unfair, don't bother me nearly as much as the fact that a top five pick in the MLB draft generally gets a signing bonus that is triple or quadruple what a kid from Venezuela can possibly hope to get. And while we're at it, why can a (usually white) college baseball player get drafted, hire an agent, negotiate, decide that instead of getting $1 million this year he could maybe get $3 million next year, yet keep his NCAA eligibility, but a (usually black) college basketball player surrenders his scholarship as soon as an agent buys him a cup of coffee?
Notes:
- Dave Zirin on the NBA Draft. Overblown, yes, but interesting.
- Labor leaders endorse marriage equality. And on a related note, LGBT groups support new initiative for fair treatment of hotel workers.
And, of course, the Detroit Tigers still have the best record in the league.
Minutemen - Cohesion
King Britt f. Bahamadia - Transcend
Mirah - Recommendation
