Hard hats and tie tacs.....

I guess there are occasions where a hard hat is seen with a tie tac...an architect visiting a work site perhaps...but they usually don't have much in common.

However, on a visit through Drudge's site, I saw this story on some hard hats distributed by the AFL-CIO on Capital Hill to make some pro-union point. The problem being: the hard hats are made in China. The union tried to excuse this with....

"Obviously our policy is to only use union vendors and it was a mistake by a new staffer who ordered them and unfortunately wasn't caught before they went out."

[Hmmmm. "New staffer". That has a familiar ring.]

So how the connection to tie tacs?

As you can see from the upper left, I am an airline pilot. With that, I am also a union member....in my case, the Air Line Pilots Association.

And for an airline pilot union member, wearing a union tie tac is important to many of us. For those who don't know, in the build up to a contract, a great deal is made of solidarity among the union, and getting everyone to wear the tie tac is one of the favored methods of measuring and demonstrating that solidarity.

The ALPA tie tac comes with numbers denoting the number of years you have been a member. 5, 10, 15, 20, etc.

I may have written about this long ago....if I did, I didn't tag it, so its back in the archives somewhere. Anyway, when I went through 20 years, the union sent me a nice note with my new 20 year pin.

And here it is.....


Click the image for a larger view.

I wrote the union making the same "You've-got-to-be-kidding-me...sending-me-a-union-pin-made-in-China" complaint and got pretty much the same response--Mistakes are made.

I hope you can see why I don't--and won't--wear my union pin any longer.

Some Random Thoughts on September 11, 2007

I am writing this a couple days after the Anniversary. For what I think is the first time, I was working this year on 9/11, and this year it was intentional. As I was bidding for my September schedule for the first couple of years after 9/11, I bid to stay home. Being here with my family just seemed so important. September is a busy month around our house...WifeofAzlib has a birthday this month, and while the kids were generally well into their school routines by September, there always seemed to be extra-curricular things that were just beginning. September is also beginning to be the end of our oppressive heat--meaning that I can begin to catch up on things outside.

But as I said, this year, I chose to be at work. I guess because this anniversary fell on a Tuesday, I got caught up in wanting to stand up and say: "Al Qaeda...We're still here. You can't knock us down." So, this year, for me, 9/11 fell on the last day of a three-day trip.

Anyway here, in no particular order, are more Random Thoughts...

• The Democrat-led Congress had scheduled themselves to receive their report from General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker over 9/11. This seemed to me to be an intentional poke at President Bush.
• While at this point it should not come as a surprise to rational person, Move-on.org found a way to plumb new depths.
• The Democrats, and especially the Democrats running for President, cannot find it in themselves to distance themselves from these nutcases.
• Some of the Democrats are nutcases themselves. How they continue to be re-elected is beyond me.
  
• Despite this, Petraeus and Crocker absolutely slayed the nay-sayers.
• Gerard, in his always-wonderful essays, offers some remembrances and observations. A wonderful picture. Our wounds. And finally, questions whether we remember that we're at war.

Gerard, I know you won't read this. But I do remember. Every day, I remember. It will be in my bones until the day I die, and after that it will be in the bones of my children. I cannot begin to describe my regret on seeing that the lives of my children are being defined by war, but it is the plain truth.

Here is the tie tac that I wear every day while I am at work.


(Click to enlarge)