Legions of New Yorkers are rolling up their sleeves and doing their best to help the victims of Hurricane Sandy. Some efforts are better received than others, owing in part to an astonishing lack of common sense by certain well meaning volunteers. Bethany Yarrow and her friends thought it would be appropriate to bring a lactation consultant proselytize to happily bottle feeding moms in the Rockaways who just wanted some diapers. Their problem wasn’t how they fed their babies, their problem was that their homes were damaged by a friggin’ hurricane:

As she gave out diapers and cases of infant formula to storm victims, Bethany Yarrow, 41, a folk singer from Williamsburg who has been volunteering with other parents from the private school her children attend, said she was shocked by the many poor mothers in the Arverne section of the Rockaways who did not breast feed. The group, she said, was working on bringing in a lactation consultant.

“So that it’s not just ‘Here are some diapers and then go back to your misery,’ ” she said. [NYC]     

These lactivists are worse than the Scientologists who pop up in disaster areas like mushrooms with their bright orange t-shirts and their “free massages.” (They aren’t really free…)

Nevertheless, some of the volunteers are winning over the locals with their willingness to pitch in and help residents do things they actually need help with, like demolishing damaged structures and hauling away the debris:

Jimmy Brady, 35, a New York firefighter who lived next door, was prying up carpet alongside the visitors. “If there is any way you want to get accepted to a family or a community, it is to help,” he said. “I’ve heard it from the hardest locals, that these guys are unbelievable. They get out with their little fedoras and they just start helping.” [NYT]

C’mon lactivists, if the guys in tiny fedoras can figure this out, you can too. 

[Photo credit: ma neeks, Creative Commons.]

• The charge that unions killed Hostess is as fake as the “creme” center of a Twinkie.
• Why haven’t any new mine safety regulations come out of the Upper Big Branch disaster?
• Marie Hald wins College Photographer of the Year for her photo essay on the daily life of Bonnie Cleo Anderson, a Danish sex worker who plies her trade legally to support her family. 
• Ashlyn Blocker is a 12-year-old girl with congenital insensitivity to pain, that might sound convenient, but as Justin Heckert reports, without pain as a guide, even the simplest task becomes a high-stakes obstacle course.

[Photo credit: Wander Mule, Creative Commons.]

Walmart workers and their allies are making history with their highly assymetrical fight for justice and dignity at work. A nationwide strike planned for Black Friday, the busiest shopping day of the year, may be their most audacious action yet. Kathleen Miles of Huffington Post reports on this highly unorthodox, totally 21st Century campaign:

Labor organizers are working with social action nonprofit Engage Network as well as corporate watchdog nonprofit Corporate Action Network to pull off what they are calling a “viral” – meaning national and spreading online – strike.

Walmart workers interested in joining the day of action are directed to this website, either to find a store near them with an organized strike or to “adopt an event” at a store near them.

Brian Young, cofounder of the Corporate Action Network, said on a conference call coordinated by the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union Thursday, that organizers cannot cover the roughly 4,000 Walmarts across the country, but enabling self-appointed leaders online has widened and decentralized the campaign. 

The organizers have even set up a web page where supporters can pledge to “sponsor” striking workers. They’ve already raised over $20,000 to offset the lost wages of Black Friday strikers with grocery gift cards. 

[Photo credit: Black Friday 2009 at Walmart; laurieofindy, Creative Commons.]

On election night, unions won key ballot measure battles, Matthew Cunningham-Cook reports for the Nation:

• California voters approved Prop 30, a measure to raise $6 billion for education. The passage of Prop 30 is a repudiation of Prop 13, the notorious 1978 ballot measure that starved the California school system for decades.
• Californians rejected Prop 32, which would have limited the ability of unions to participate in politics.
• Idaho voters rejected a series of ballot measures that would have eliminated teacher tenure, established “merit pay,” and required all Idaho secondary students to take two for-profit online courses in order to graduate.
• In Oregon, unions mobilized to help defeat a ballot measure that would have eliminated the inheritance tax.
• Alabamians defeated a proposed constitutional amendment that could have eliminated the state’s guarantee of a free public education for all students.

[Photo credit: quinn.anya, Creative Commons.