I come from good people (reposted)

This is a post from November 21, 2012. Went to the beach today and could not write, so I leave you with it. Hope you enjoy it.

There’s an old saying—a wise man knows his father, but no man knows his mother.

Is it true?

Can’t say. I’ve spent a lot of time on Franny, lately—in fact, I can claim I wrote the book on her. Did I get it right?

Highly sanitized, is Eric’s take, and he’s right of course. There are significant omissions, a couple of slants not explored, and one chapter—I now come clean—entirely made up. I needed something funny, so I imagined a silly conversation between Franny and me about John Cage’s 4’33” (of silence).

Here’s the scary thing—now it feels that it actually happened.

Well, Jack wouldn’t have approved. Like Eric, he would have written the story straight and got the facts right and spelled people’s names right (I flubbed on Franzmann) and made the deadline and done it all over again the next day.

Or would he?

‘Cause he got pretty wrapped up in some causes. The police chief—Weatherly—who got embroiled in some issue, had to resign, moved to Texas and became a drunk. His wife shot him, one day, and was tried and given parole. Came back to town only once, sat in the green sofa, talked.

Hard woman.

“You’re the only person I’m gonna see in this town,” she said to Jack on leaving.

He was a big guy, and big on fairness. He hated the bastards getting away with things. Made him crazy when good people got stepped on.

Which is why he pushed for the equal right housing amendment in the early 60’s. And never saw a contradiction with the State Journal’s strong Republican stance and its support of the amendment.

Couldn’t understand why the Cap Times was silent on the issue.

So by chance, Eric came across a Taliaferro, and I wrote about it. Sent it up to Hesselberg—an old colleague of Jack’s, and fine writer. He came back immediately with this—a letter written by Odell Taliaferro after Jack’s death.

NEWHOUSE FOUGHT FOR RACIAL EQUALITY

   Now is the time when friends are moved to extol the virtues of John Newhouse and to soft-pedal any shortcomings of which they are aware, but we assure you this is not the case with us. We have been singing the praises of John for about 40 years - and we are aware of no shortcomings.

    He wrote profusely of the modern dance abilities of our daughter, Joan Taliaferro Hartshorne and we feel that his news stories and pictures were very influential in enabling her to acquire a position with the Jose Limon Dance Troupe. We offer this fact, not as a virtue, but as an example of effective reporting (though, to us, it was a virtue).

    Once we moved into a segregated neighborhood (it was all white - until we arrived) and the prospective neighbors divided themselves into three groups:

    1. A small number gave a party to welcome us.

    2. A large group paid no attention.

    3. A small group threatened to burn our house down the first night!

    When John heard of this, he came in person to the neighborhood and we visited all the nearby houses. In a calm manner he explained, there was nothing to fear. We have lived there for 30 years - and no one has ever been treated better by their neighbors.

    John was a great man to have on your side.

Well, Jack was a good guy to have on your side. And when he wasn’t?

That same Norwegian-Lutheran backbone that led a black guy into a racist’s home and stared him down could get a little twisted—usually on sexual issues.

“I’m not voting for the Equal Rights Amendment (remember that!?) because it’s for homosexuals and ALL OF MY KIDS ARE NORMAL!”

Words converted to a slap.

In the end, he came around. Many people did. And many people made that change because of a phenomenon occurring in the plague years of the AIDS crisis.

The gay and lesbian choruses.

Virtually every major city had one. San Francisco, of course, had or has a famous one. Toured nationally, recorded. And once, did a heart-breaking rendition of the last act of Poulenc’s opera “Dialogs of the Carmelites.” The opera ends as the nuns, singing their prayers, are taken off to the guillotine, heard offstage. The sight of gay men, many of them HIV positive, reenacting the scene?

And I—not knowing whether the virus was flowing in my own blood?

Catharsis, in a way.

Yes, I will face it. Yes, it may come. Yes, I won’t back down.

Which is why I said to him, today, at the beach, “well, how did I do? Turn out OK? You proud of me?”

We plunged, the water was warm, and surprisingly clear for this time of year. Did the retrot back home. Then he reminded me of this….   

Shooting Jack into the cybersphere

Between the hours of 4 and 5 PM, you didn’t want to be on the second floor of this building.

Why?

I had finally been forced to buy a printer / scanner / fax.

And I completely disapprove of them. When I worked at Wal-Mart, I would beg students not to print vocabulary lists. They did, so I went to the computer guys and asked, could they disable the printing option on my emails?

The guys just shrugged.

I was ardently, passionately green. I tried to organize car pools, but getting people to share rides was as easy as getting them to donate a kidney—without anesthesia.

“What if there’s an emergency?” they asked.

“When was the last emergency?” I’d counter.

“I need it for my kids,” they’d say.

Of course, of course, this sent me off.

“It is exactly FOR your kids that you need to start being responsible and start thinking about what kind of world you’re gonna be leaving them!” I’d diatribe.

With just a few exceptions, the love between Puerto Ricans for their cars is only matched by adolescent boys in gringolandia. It’s now common, by the way, to have TWO cars—‘cause what happens if one breaks?

You’d be stranded.

Well, it was curb my environmentalism or lose my friends. I chose friends. But I didn’t, I reasoned, have to give in to the whole nonsense. I took the bus, and smiled evilly if inwardly when gas soared to four dollars a gallon. I vowed—no printer.

Then the box came that I’d been dreading.

Readers of the blook know that Eric and I tore through the house, the day after Franny died. He took on the photos; I did the poetry.

Franny, I’m sorry to say, had the terrible habit of printing out multiple versions of her poems—all slightly different. Worse, she didn’t put any date on them. Right—she knew what version was the final. But the rest of us?

So I jammed as much as I could find into a box, which Eric drove away to West Virginia. I hoped—I knew uselessly—never to see that box again.

I justify this by citing Franny, herself. Because Lorraine, Gunnar’s widow, had tried to keep the memory of the great pianist and composer alive for years after his death.

“You know, at a certain point, you just have to let go. History will remember him or it won’t. Or maybe it will forget him and rediscover him—he wouldn’t be the first to have that happen to him….”

Practical advice from a sensible woman.

Well, Eric shipped the box a few weeks ago. I retrieved it, lifted it, and decided to spend the ten bucks to take a three-block taxi ride home. How much is my dorsal spine worth?

And the box sat there, a challenge each morning, a reproof each night.

“Screw it,” I said, “the essence of neurosis is the avoidance of pain.” A nod of thanks here to my friend Sonia, whose wisdom this is. “I’m gonna open that box!”

Well I prepared myself—I got a scissors and a big hunk of Kleenex.

There’s no sense in not crying if you have to. You’re better off to get it out, vent it, and then go on. Walk into the pain, live it, let it go. That’s what grief, or suffering, teaches you.

So I knew the tears would come. What I didn’t know was the source. Because the first documents to spring out of the box were a series of letters from Don Anderson, publisher of the Wisconsin State Journal, to Jack, my father.

Here’s one…. 

Well, I became Lorraine. I knew Jack had fought for the open housing drive, but I didn’t know how hard, or that his boss had thought so highly of him.

Wait—his former boss. Anderson, I realized later, had retired years earlier. I knew because Jack had written the story, and Anderson had replied.

Well, the guy knows how to turn a phrase, doesn’t he? I like the somewhat false but still funny self deprecation of the “hung for horse stealing….”

And yes, that “pretty and talented” wife does smack of smugness—it explains why women were burning their bras a decade later.

And the pretty and talented wife had—it must be said—some mixed feelings about Anderson.

It wasn’t much spoken off—but it was there. She watched Jack’s colleagues rise to editor, managing editor, administrative jobs that—guess what?—paid better. And there Anderson was, “sidetracking” her husband.

And she had a three-year-old (me), a seven-year-old (John), and a 12-year-old (Eric). And hadn’t “worked” in over a decade.

How did she feel, reading this letter? A letter that praises at the same time that it announces—your husband’s going nowhere. You’ll never be the publisher’s wife, you pretty, talented thing.

I think it was easy enough for Jack. He loved to write, he loved his work, and the respect and admiration of the community were pay dirt for him.

For Franny? Washing little Marc’s diapers?

There are three more pages—a typescript of a talk Anderson gave at a company meeting….

No, there never was a great fortune in that wallet—or any other wallet that a journalist has. About all he got were enough money to buy food and clothes and shoes, and six pieces of paper.

Now in my hands.

And time will go on, and people will die, and no one will know—perhaps—that there was a time when the Ku Klux Klan marched in Madison, or that neighbors could threaten to burn the first black family’s house in the neighborhood.

Or that a guy named John Newhouse had fought the bastards.

But maybe they will.

Went out, bought the scanner, sighed deeply, invoked doña Taí—patron saint of technological idiots—and prepared for the hell it would be.

I don’t want another device in my life.

But how much had he done for me?

World—remember. There was a reporter, John Newhouse.

And he did it better than anyone else I have ever known.

I come from good people

There’s an old saying—a wise man knows his father, but no man knows his mother.

Is it true?

Can’t say. I’ve spent a lot of time on Franny, lately—in fact, I can claim I wrote the book on her. Did I get it right?

Highly sanitized, is Eric’s take, and he’s right of course. There are significant omissions, a couple of slants not explored, and one chapter—I now come clean—entirely made up. I needed something funny, so I imagined a silly conversation between Franny and me about John Cage’s 4’33” (of silence).

Here’s the scary thing—now it feels that it actually happened.

Well, Jack wouldn’t have approved. Like Eric, he would have written the story straight and got the facts right and spelled people’s names right (I flubbed on Franzmann) and made the deadline and done it all over again the next day.

Or would he?

‘Cause he got pretty wrapped up in some causes. The police chief—Weatherly—who got embroiled in some issue, had to resign, moved to Texas and became a drunk. His wife shot him, one day, and was tried and given parole. Came back to town only once, sat in the green sofa, talked.

Hard woman.

“You’re the only person I’m gonna see in this town,” she said to Jack on leaving.

He was a big guy, and big on fairness. He hated the bastards getting away with things. Made him crazy when good people got stepped on.

Which is why he pushed for the equal right housing amendment in the early 60’s. And never saw a contradiction with the State Journal’s strong Republican stance and its support of the amendment.

Couldn’t understand why the Cap Times was silent on the issue.

So by chance, Eric came across a Taliaferro, and I wrote about it. Sent it up to Hesselberg—an old colleague of Jack’s, and fine writer. He came back immediately with this—a letter written by Odell Taliaferro after Jack’s death.

NEWHOUSE FOUGHT FOR RACIAL EQUALITY

   Now is the time when friends are moved to extol the virtues of John Newhouse and to soft-pedal any shortcomings of which they are aware, but we assure you this is not the case with us. We have been singing the praises of John for about 40 years - and we are aware of no shortcomings.

    He wrote profusely of the modern dance abilities of our daughter, Joan Taliaferro Hartshorne and we feel that his news stories and pictures were very influential in enabling her to acquire a position with the Jose Limon Dance Troupe. We offer this fact, not as a virtue, but as an example of effective reporting (though, to us, it was a virtue).

    Once we moved into a segregated neighborhood (it was all white - until we arrived) and the prospective neighbors divided themselves into three groups:

    1. A small number gave a party to welcome us.

    2. A large group paid no attention.

    3. A small group threatened to burn our house down the first night!

    When John heard of this, he came in person to the neighborhood and we visited all the nearby houses. In a calm manner he explained, there was nothing to fear. We have lived there for 30 years - and no one has ever been treated better by their neighbors.

    John was a great man to have on your side.

Well, Jack was a good guy to have on your side. And when he wasn’t?

That same Norwegian-Lutheran backbone that led a black guy into a racist’s home and stared him down could get a little twisted—usually on sexual issues.

“I’m not voting for the Equal Rights Amendment (remember that!?) because it’s for homosexuals and ALL OF MY KIDS ARE NORMAL!”

Words converted to a slap.

In the end, he came around. Many people did. And many people made that change because of a phenomenon occurring in the plague years of the AIDS crisis.

The gay and lesbian choruses.

Virtually every major city had one. San Francisco, of course, had or has a famous one. Toured nationally, recorded. And once, did a heart-breaking rendition of the last act of Poulenc’s opera “Dialogs of the Carmelites.” The opera ends as the nuns, singing their prayers, are taken off to the guillotine, heard offstage. The sight of gay men, many of them HIV positive, reenacting the scene?

And I—not knowing whether the virus was flowing in my own blood?

Catharsis, in a way.

Yes, I will face it. Yes, it may come. Yes, I won’t back down.

Which is why I said to him, today, at the beach, “well, how did I do? Turn out OK? You proud of me?”

We plunged, the water was warm, and surprisingly clear for this time of year. Did the retrot back home. Then he reminded me of this….   

Chasing Down Taliaferros

Well, it’s a day that obviously wasn’t going to conform. To anyone fearing joblessness, I can tell you—it’s not hard. (As long as you have someone—thanks, Mr. Fernández!—who does have a job…) But there are rules.

Readers will know that the day begins with the trot. Actually, it’s now a modified trot-plunge-retrot. (Go the Escambrón beach, swim for five minutes, return home….) Right—did that. Then went to see Charisse’s brother’s wife’s mother (I think) in the hospital.

This, of course, only makes sense when seen through Puerto Rican / Caribbean eyes. Seen through gringo eyes, it would almost be an affront to visit someone on the strength of so—well—weak a connection. But Puerto Rico is blessed with excellent doctors.

The problem?

It’s also cursed with horrible hospitals.

And Cbwm’s (come on—I can’t be writing Charisse’s brother’s et cetera forever) is elderly and in frail health and—more importantly—doesn’t speak Spanish.

Well—I know about that. So I went off to the hospital, on the assumption that visiting hours would start at ten. (I can hear you—that maternal exasperation rising in your voice—“well, did you ASK???” Nooooooo!)

Good news—the hospital has a Starbucks—very nice doppio espresso….

A child of corporate America, I bring you the solution, not the problem.

I’ll go back at 1PM….

Right. So the post has not been written, and that’s major. That’s a sin. As you know, my international readership (curiously, the blog got 66 hits from Russia last week—don’t know what that’s about) is both famously discerning and way exigent. A day that goes by without a post provokes howls. Or at least nasty emails…..

Well, it’s now 12:30—and what have I done?

Worried my head about the Taliaferros.

Eric knows someone who knows a Taliaferro who considers Madison her home.

Well, Jack knew the Taliaferros, and talked about them, and deemed them a good, upright family—and no, that’s not condescension. You had to work hard to get those words outta the old man’s lips.

And I thought—couldn’t be sure—that the family was one of the oldest black families in town. Which would make them damn interesting—Madison being not known then for excessive racial heterogeneity. (Marc? Could you just talk straight? Town was lily white!)

Well, google Taliaferro and what do you get?

One of the fascinating things about Wikipedia is its variability. Sometimes it has a lacuna of information, other times it’s almost embarrassingly rich.

Well, I’d bet that the Taliaferro family has an ardent genealogist, and he / she certainly gets right down to business! Starts off with a bang!

Taliaferro (/ˈtɒlɪvər/ tol-i-vər), also spelled Talifero,Tellifero Tolliver, or Toliver,[1] is a prominent family in the United States Commonwealth of Virginia. The Taliaferros (originally Tagliaferro, Italian pronunciation:  [ˌtaʎʎaˈfɛrro], which means "ironcutter" in Italian) are one of the early families who settled in Virginia in the 17th century. They migrated from London, where an ancestor had served as a musician in the court of Queen Elizabeth I. The surname in that line is believed to trace back to Bartholomew Taliaferro, a native of Venice who settled in London and was made a denizen in 1562.[2]

Right—notice how quickly we take an Italian name, make it Venetian, and then throw in the reference to Queen Elizabeth I! A nice way of saying—we’re no pizzeria owners here!

Nor does he relax his grip….

A legend exists about the name having originated in Roman times in what was called Cisalpine Gaul, which leads many bearers of the name to believe that their ancestors were actually French, not Italian, since Gaul is generally known to be the ancient name for today's France; however, Gaul was a term applied to a very wide region that also comprised the whole of northern Italy. Tagliaferro is indeed a common surname in northeastern Italy, especially in the area around Venice.

Arms of Tagliaferro family of Tuscany. Sketch sent from Thomas Jefferson to George Wythe, 1786

The origins of the Taliaferro name were of interest to George Wythe, Virginia colonial lawyer and classical scholar, who had married a Taliaferro. Wythe urged his former student and friend Thomas Jefferson to investigate the name when Jefferson traveled to Italy. Jefferson later reported to Wythe that he had found two families of the name in Tuscany, and that the family was of Italian origin.[3] Jefferson enclosed his sketch of the coat-of-arms of the Tagliaferro family as reported to him by a friend in Florence, Italy.[4]

Well—having Tom Jefferson poking into the family heritage is something of a feat! Then follows a list of some twenty prominent people, all bearing the name of Taliaferro.

Curiously, clicking on any one of the links brings the same vast quantity of information—could it be?

The plot thickens into something the consistency of oatmeal when the author of the article (why do I think it might be a Taliaferro?) throws in info on people whose middle name was Taliaferro. He starts with Dr. John Taliaferro Close—who has a daughter named “Glenn.”

Ends with Booker T. Washington.

Say whahhhh?

Yup, that “T” you’ve been saying for years is actually a Taliaferro. And guess what! Here’s a couple of lines from Wikipedia’s article on Booker….

Washington was born into slavery to Jane, an enslaved African-American woman on the Burroughs Plantation in southwest Virginia. She never identified his white father, said to be a nearby planter; he played no significant role in Washington's life. His family gained freedom in 1865 as the Civil War ended, and his mother took them to West Virginia to join her husband.

Well, mother may never have said who the father was, but ask me, and I’ll tell you.

She wrote it, and on the birth certificate!

Well, Booker, it seems, was a little more than just that nice verging-on-Oreo educator from Alabama. Here’s what one historian has to say….

Historians note that Washington, "advised, networked, cut deals, made threats, pressured, punished enemies, rewarded friends, greased palms, manipulated the media, signed autographs, read minds with the skill of a master psychologist, strategized, raised money, always knew where the camera was pointing, traveled with an entourage, waved the flag with patriotic speeches, and claimed to have no interest in partisan politics. In other words, he was an artful politician."[1]

Oh ho! Damn, that’s good! Why can’t I write like that? Here’s the citation, by the way….

Michael Scott Bieze and Marybeth Gasman, eds. (26 March 2012). Booker T. Washington Rediscovered. Johns Hopkins UP. p. 209.

Well, we’re a long way from Madison, Wisconsin and the Taliaferro. Except not. Actually, Booker T. Washington was invited to Madison, and spoke before 4000 people at—I’m guessing here—the Stock Pavilion.

OK—it’s clear. This day is wasted. I have produced nothing of worth today—barring having cleared up the mystery of Booker T. Washington’s biological father (send the check, historians, to POB 902…oh forget it!) So I might just as well call up Gary—who can clear up the mystery if anyone can.

He’s on it like a sailor in a whorehouse after a six-month stretch at sea. Takes him just an hour.

Odell Taliaferro—head of the Madison chapter of the NAACP.

Oh, and the Taliaferro whom friends of Eric know?

Here she is!

Slack Times

Well, we live in slack times. Readers of this blog will know that I barely achieved yesterday half of what Trollope did daily over a writing career of half a century: write 2500 words.

Wait—it wasn’t a career. Just a pastime, a hobby that he did before breakfast, before he went off and invented the post box.

Well, I can’t say the effort exhausted me. But today I’m tired. It’s Sunday. Surely even a blogger is allowed a day of rest?

(81 words—2419 to go! Got your answer?)

Damn—it seems to have gotten into me. Besides, shouldn’t I be calling Eric? He sent me all those photos, plus the question—what to do about Franny’s poems, or rather the box full of ‘em that we compiled the day after she died, when we were ransacking—ooops, that’s clearing out—the house.

Well, well—Trollope would know what to do about that! Get up at 1:30 and spend three hours a day compiling them and publish them and shoot her into posterity—the Midwest’s Emily Dickenson! The moving story of a youngest son’s championing his late mother’s poetic oeuvre—damn, that word is getting to be a habit—in the years following her death!

OK—I’m not Trollope. The flesh and the spirit are weak. (Though I’m now at 220—hey, coming up to 10%!)

And speaking of Eric—did you know that he too is a blogger? Yeah, and a real one, that writing star of the family. Publishes for Psychology Today. And guess what? All his posts were snorefully ignored. Until the day he wrote about soldiers’ wives taking off their blouses and writing inspirational messages on their backs. (Though how they did that I don’t know….) Well, somehow the word “breast” got into the post and guess what!

It’s called SEO—search engine optimization. Post virtually went viral.

Hey, I could do that, you know!

Gentle Reader, do not read the following paragraph! (Note to editor—print in red.)

Breasts breasts breasts, cocks hard cocks—more breasts!—hey, and babes hot babes hot Latin babes, BOYS BOYS BOYS, hot Latin boys (oooh!), triple XXX action (redundancy there—oh, who cares!), oh, and duh, SEX SEX SEX, steamy Latin sex, steamy steamroom sex, panties panties panties, hot nipple action (don’t know where that  came from) and…

STOP!

Guess what! I’m now at 390—well over 10%, and all without having said a damn thing! This post is as meaningless as a Trollopian digression!

Hey, could I do that? Write a digression? Anyone doing that, nowadays? They teach it in the Master’s of Writing programs? Brian would know—he just got an MFA in creative writing.

Ahh, his was an idyllic childhood, with long, cow-pie flinging summer afternoons spent lazy in the cornfields of northern Illinois. The hours would pass slowly, as the gentle clouds wafted slowly (as opposed to all that fast wafting you see so much of) across the azure (nice, Marc!) sky. His mother, an indomitable pie-maker (shoot, will the reader think Mina is making cow pies? Oh forget it—it’s just a digression…) labored in her kitchen; his father ministered to the turkeys, always alert to the possibility of a sudden rain, and thus imminent death, as the turkeys, their mouths agape, scanned the sky in wonder at the atmospheric disturbance. (Not true, but who cares!) He wondered, this gentle and gentled son of the plains, of his life to come. Would he till the earth, as did his ancestors, bringing forth the fruit (err, soy beans?) of the land, the richness of the earth? Would he bask in the humid August nights, hearing the cicada destroy his evening rest? (Anyone still around?) Little did he know that breast breasts breasts—just checking to see, as well as doing a little optimization—that he would travel far, far (just love that repetition, as well as adding to the word count...) across the chilly Atlantic, the churning (oh, like my stomach?) Atlantic, reversing the journey his ancestors had made!  

646!

OK—so that was the trick. Happy to report that the stuff just writes itself. Really nothing to it.

Well, now I’m feeling bad. I really have delivered nothing of value, today. I’ve wasted your time. You deserved better. Take a look at these. Relax.

It’s Sunday.

Bet it’s the black guy….

The New Day versus The Spokesman

There are times he gets after me, that father of mine. Remember when he felt I had slighted Haydn, and I had to do a whole post on him? Remember the rant I did on the federal judge, and then I had to abase myself on my knees, the next day, and write a post balancing the previous one?

Well, he had a quiet voice, big feet and little steps—that father of mine. The rest of us shout and lope. But he knew how to make himself heard.

OK—the truth. I tuned him out as an adolescent, but look—that’s hardly a jaw-dropper. Find me the kid who doesn’t tune out his old man. 

Besides, he went on and on and ON about it—or so I felt at the time.

The liberal bias of the press. The blurring of the lines between commentary and strictly-the-news. Journalistic ethics.

‘Let’s see if I take the third movement a little slower will I get that damn passage right or will it keep messing me up and why can’t I figure out what to do….’

“When I was a cub reporter the first thing the managing editor said….”

Dear Reader, you have just lived five years of breakfast table at the Newhouse family.

Well, he’s gone, dammit, so I can now quietly say it.

He was right.

“He’d be spinning in his grave,” said Eric, when I told him about the latest allegations on the island.   

In his honor, I’ll try to give you a balanced report.

In the left corner we have El Nuevo Día, or The New Day. The newspaper was founded 42 years ago by Luis A. Ferré, an ardent Republican, art collector, skilled pianist, and statehooder. Ferré had serious money—the family had a little cement factory and Puerto Rico was booming at the time. The New Day, however, has over the years been less and less pro-statehood, and most people who favor statehood believe that The Day is in bed with the other party, known as The Popular Democratic Party.

(Time out for a rant—the computer, not content to censure or tsktsk my generous act of creating new words to enrich the language, is now suggesting that I not use the passive voice. It suggests, instead,  “Luis A. Ferré founded…..” NOOOOOO! The focus of my sentence is the newspaper, not the founder, dammit! Somebody out there in the blogosphere—can you tell me how to deactivate spell check???)

Returning calmly to the ring, we have in the RIGHT corner El Vocero. It started in the 1970’s, was for years the yellowest of tabloids, and then got respectable in the early part of the aught’s. Parent company is Caribbean International News Corporation. This summer, the paper took the step of distributing for free. Politically, most people believe it is aligned with the statehood party, or The New Progressive Party.

(JESUS, this kind of writing is boring. I can’t believe Jack and Eric between them put in half of a century in this salt mine. I’d rather clean bathrooms. And, by the way, Jack edited out the “unusual” that I had placed before the word “step.” Damn!)

Right. So what happened? Well, on the 17^th of October—that would be 6 days ago—the New Day made several allegations against The Spokesman (El Vocero). It claimed that the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) had found that El Vocero had received over 24 million bucks (come off it, Jack—that’s just informal, not pejorative! OK, DAMMIT—that’s dollars!) in a scheme of creating companies in order to receive incentives. Additionally, the paper alleges that El Vocero has a contract with the municipal government, exchanging advertising in lieu of payment for the municipal fee.

(Just had my third cup of coffee, and my eyelids are still virtually GLUED together. JESUS, what did they PAY these guys to do this! Surgery was more fun….)

A further allegation—hey, was that a snore I heard—is that El Vocero has an outstanding debt of 17,422,239.89 (notice that attention to detail—just love that 89 cents there…) with the state government. However, the parent company of El Vocero signed a contract with the government. This is illegal under Puerto Rico law.

(You know, there’s absolutely no reason I can’t take just a little nap. What about those hours after surgery, when I was busy writing instead of sleeping? Aren’t I owed?)

Right—any backup for these allegations.

Well, I tried, I really did to read the NLRB’s findings. Maybe you can do better…. (Here's a fragment of the document):

On  September  24,  2010,  Administrative  Law  Judge Michael A. Rosas issued the attached decision.  The Respondents  El  Vocero  and  News  Distributor  each  filed exceptions(1) and a supporting brief, and the Acting General Counsel and Charging Party filed answering briefs.

The  National  Labor  Relations  Board  has  considered the decision and the record in light of the exceptions and briefs and has decided to affirm the judge’s rulings, findings(2) and  conclusions,(3) to  amend  the  remedy,(4) and  to adopt the recommended Order as modified and set forth in full below.(5)

We  reject  Respondent  News  Distributor’s  contention that the complaint should be dismissed on the basis that the Union filed the  unfair labor practice  charges in this case for purposes contrary to the Act.  News Distributor alleges, in substance, that the Union has a financial interest  in  The  Daily  Sun,  an  English  language  newspaper published in Puerto Rico, and filed the charges as part of an overall  campaign to support that paper  at News Distributor’s expense.(6)  Even assuming [arguendo] that these allegations  are  true,  the  Union’s  motive  for  filing  the charges is irrelevant to the disposition of the allegations in the complaint, which was issued by the General Counsel in the exercise of his authority under Section 3(d) of the Act.  There is no contention, and no evidence whatsoever, of any improper motive on the General Counsel’s part.

(1)There are no exceptions to the judge’s findings that Caribbean International News Corp. (El Vocero) violated Sec. 8(a)(1) and (5) of the Act by breaching its December 26, 2008 agreement with the Union, and by making unlawful unilateral  changes to  employee pay dates, severance pay, vacation, medical insurance benefits, and bumping rights.

(2)The Respondents have implicitly excepted to some of the judge’s credibility findings.  The Board’s established policy is not to overrule an  administrative  law  judge’s  credibility  resolutions  unless  the  clear preponderance of  all the relevant  evidence  convinces us that they  are incorrect.  Standard Dry Wall Products,  91 NLRB  544 (1950),  enfd. 188 F.2d 362 (3d Cir. 1951).  We have carefully examined the record and find no basis for reversing the findings.

(3)In adopting the judge’s finding that the Respondents are alter egos, we agree that El Vocero and its alter ego News Distributor had “substantially  identical”  management,  business  purposes,  operations,  customers,  and  supervision.   Further,  as  the  judge  found,  during  News Distributor’s first year of existence, it was “almost entirely dependent on the  continuous transfer of funds and in-kind  contributions from El Vocero,” as well as for its cost-free office space, supplies, and equipment.  However,  we  do  not  rely  on  the  judge’s  finding  of  common ownership between the Respondents.  Nonetheless, common ownership is not a prerequisite for an alter ego finding.  The Board has found an alter ego relationship in the absence of common ownership where both companies were either wholly owned by members of the same family or  nearly  entirely owned  by  the same  individual, or where the  older company maintained substantial  control over the new  company.  See, e.g., Summit Express, Inc., 350 NLRB 592, 594–595 (2007).  We adopt the judge’s finding that El Vocero maintained and exercised substantial control over News Distributor.

We  also find that El Vocero formed News Distributor for the purpose  of  evading  its  collective-bargaining  obligations.  As  the  judge found, El Vocero’s President Miguel Roca formed News Distributor in March 2009, while the collective-bargaining agreement with the Union was still in force, but waited until it expired to announce the decision to subcontract the  circulation work to News Distributor.  Roca  admitted that he  did  not want to  deal with the Union  and,  as the judge found, unlawfully invited employees to deal directly with him while predicting that  any  dispute  over  the  plan  to  close  the  circulation  department “would [result in]  an impasse.”  These facts support  our finding  that News Distributor was formed with the unlawful motive of avoiding El Vocero’s responsibilities under the Act.  Diverse Steel, Inc., 349 NLRB 946, 947 (2007); see also Midwest Precision Heating & Cooling, Inc., 341 NLRB 435, 439 (2004), affd. 408 F.3d 450 (8th Cir. 2005) (“only reasonable explanation” for decision to “go through the legal hoops of creating a new corporation. . . .” was unlawful motive of reducing labor costs by repudiating  collective-bargaining  agreement).  Together with the  other  evidence  discussed  above,  this  factor strongly supports  our finding that the two entities are alter egos.

(4)Payments to employees arising from their unlawful discharges shall be made in the manner set forth in F. W. Woolworth Co., 90 NLRB 289 (1950), with interest  as prescribed in New Horizons for the Retarded, 283 NLRB 1173 (1987), compounded daily as prescribed in Kentucky River Medical Center, 356 NLRB No. 8 (2010),  enf. denied on other grounds sub  nom.,  Jackson  Hospital  Corp.  v.  NLRB,  647  F.3d  1137 (D.C. Cir. 2011).

Payments  owing  to  employees  as  a  result  of  the  Respondents’ unlawful unilateral changes in contractual benefits shall be computed in accordance with Ogle Protection Service, 183 NLRB 682 (1970), enfd. 444 F.2d 502 (6th Cir. 1971), with interest as prescribed in New Horizons for the Retarded, supra, and Kentucky River Medical Center, supra.

Payments owing to  contractual benefit funds as a result of the Respondents’  unlawful  unilateral  changes  shall  be  made  in  accordance with Merryweather Optical Co., 240 NLRB 1213, 1216 fn. 7 (1979).  To the  extent that  an  employee  has made  personal  contributions to  a benefit or other fund that have been accepted by the fund in lieu of the Respondent’s delinquent  contributions  during the  period  of the  delinquency, the Respondent will reimburse the employee, but the amount of such reimbursement will constitute a setoff to the amount that the Respondent otherwise owes the fund.  The  Respondents shall  also  reimburse  unit  employees  for  any  expenses ensuing from their failure to make the required health insurance premiums and pension fund contributions, as set forth in Kraft Plumbing & Heating, 252 NLRB 891, 891 fn. 2 (1980), enfd. 661 F.2d 940 (9th Cir. 1981), such amounts to be computed in the manner set forth in Ogle Protection Service, supra, with interest as prescribed in New Horizons for the Retarded, supra, compounded daily as prescribed in Kentucky River Medical Center, supra.

(5)Finally, we shall modify the judge’s recommended Order to comport with the Board’s usual remedial provisions and to provide for the posting of the notice in accord with J. Picini Flooring, 356 NLRB No. 9 (2010), enfd. 656 F.3d 860 (9th Cir. 2011).  For the reasons stated in his dissenting opinion in J. Picini Flooring, Member Hayes would not require electronic distribution of the notice.

(6)The judge found, and we agree, that News Distributor has failed to establish that the Union’s relationship to The Daily Sun was detrimental to El Vocero. 

Member  Becker  notes  that  News  Distributor’s  argument  that  the judge should have made a finding that the Union filed the charge for an unlawful  purpose  is  also  untimely,  because  News  Distributor  neither raised this defense in its pleading nor litigated it at the hearing before the judge.  It is well established that the failure to raise  an issue in  a timely fashion before the judge operates as a waiver of that argument.  See, e.g., Ang Newspapers, 350 NLRB 1175, 1181 (2007).

(What!!! You mean they had to wade through that morass for six decades—my father and brother between them. Look, no wonder we’ve all descended to the gutter of ogling Kate Middleton’s boobies.)

Here are the links to the documents: 
http://especiales.elnuevodia.com/documentos/vocero/home.html
http://especiales.elnuevodia.com/documentos/vocero/JuntaNacionaldeRelacionesdelTrabajo/DecisionJuntaNacional-Pleno.pdf

Right—and what does The Vocero say? Mentiras--LIES that would be and yes, that’s the word they used. They deny having a debt with the government. They claim that El Nuevo Día is hurting financially due to, and cannot compete against, a free newspaper. They allege that the Ferré family….

Know what? I can’t, I just can’t go on. The brain is tired. 

I tried, my good father, and I have failed. I didn’t make it to the end of ONE piece of investigative reporting. I can feel your disgust radiating down from the cold, windswept hilltop of the Jefferson Prairie Cemetery. 

Confession—I even descended to La Comay.

Gentle Readers, stay tuned!

NOTE: This post published at the express order of Marc Newhouse over the just objections of his editor, who winces at his formatting of the material cited from the NLRB....