• Thanksgiving week is tricky for those of us who work the overnight shift in retail.
Monday’s a normal day and a normal shift. You go in, unload your truck, work your nine-to-five (the other one), and go home. Then Tuesday seems like a normal shift, except that Wednesday isn’t. On Wednesday night, at midnight, our store does a hard close — everybody out, lights off, doors locked, alarms set — not re-opening until 6 am on Black Friday. The night crew gets eight hours of holiday pay for Thanksgiving day (night), which is cool, but not for Wednesday, so to get the full eight hours in Wednesday, we’ve got to come in at 3:30.
Sleep-schedule-wise, this is pretty much just like anybody else whose job normally starts at 9 am having the next day’s shift start, instead, at 3:30 am. It’s do-able, but not pleasant.
It’s also just a strange day for the night crew because we’ll be there for hours while the store is open. There will be all these people in the building — strangers who have wandered in off the street, milling around, taking stuff off the shelves and asking questions. These people don’t even work here.
(Joking aside, our freight team is actually helpful and very good at customer service. Most customer questions are “Where is …?” and we always know the answer because we’re the ones who put it there. Also, we really like it when people find what they need and buy things because the more that happens the more room we have for all the stuff that’s coming on the next truck. So pro-tip: If you ever need help finding something at the Big Box, look for the associates who aren’t wearing aprons.)
On the plus side, though, our early shift on Wednesday means that by midnight we’re all so tired that we’re able to go home and crash, meaning that our usually nocturnal selves will have a full night’s rest before the morning of the holiday itself and will thus be mostly awake for the day’s feasts, football, and family drama.
• This news item is from another country, and it’s more than 80 years old, but it still seems timely, “Twelve Boys Rout Fascist.”
Twelve boys, some of them less than 10 years old, went to Weymouth beach and barracked Mr Robert Saunders, a Fascist speaker.
He ignored them, so they went away and returned with toffee tins half filled with stones.
Using the tins as rattles, they made so much noise that Mr Arthur England, a 63-year-old Weymouth magistrate and superintendent of the beach, approached to stop them.
A crowd of holiday-makers, sympathising with the children, booed Mr England and a sock filled with sand caught him behind the ear.
In the sand battle that followed, the Fascists were pelted off the beach.
About 5,000 people followed them to their car, overturned the trailer attached it, and filled the loud speaker equipment with sand.
Rattles and sand, whatever’s at hand. (via)
• “Wall Street’s Most Famous Evangelical Sentenced in Unprecedented Fraud Case.”
Christian philanthropist and one-time billionaire Bill Hwang was sentenced to 18 years on Wednesday for Wall Street fraud that amounted to $10 billion in losses. …
Hwang, 60, was at one time one of the wealthiest evangelicals in the United States, with about $30 billion to his name through his investment firm Archegos Capital Management, named to refer to Jesus. …
Archegos collapsed in March 2021, leaving banks with billions in losses because of Hwang’s misrepresentations to his lenders, a jury found. Hwang was convicted in July of racketeering, securities fraud, market manipulation, and wire fraud.
In a way it’s almost refreshing to see a leading evangelical figure disgraced for simple financial crimes. Yes, Hwang’s greed has real victims — real people who lost real savings and suffered real harm.
But usually when you’re reading about evangelical Christian institutions facing legal trouble, it’s something more stomach-churning and gross — something like this: “Former Daystar Executive & Wife Accuse Joni Lamb of Covering Up Daughter’s Sexual Abuse.”
The “former Daystar executive” there is Joni Lamb’s son. The victim of the alleged abuse being covered up is her granddaughter.
The more I read about the extended Lamb family and their “ministry” at Daystar the more I feel I should apologize for having previously criticized The Righteous Gemstones as being “over-the-top.”
• Speaking of old-fashioned financial fraud, here’s David Corn reporting for Mother Jones: “Tulsi Gabbard Keeps Starting Up PACs. Where Is the Money Going?”
The answer is it’s not. Gabbard’s “Defend Freedom” PAC (political action committee) raised $1.9 million and spent a grand total of $20,000 helping a handful of right-wing candidates in the election. The rest of that money went to “overhead and expenses,” which is to say it went into the pockets of those organizing and working for the PAC.
And Gabbard has at least four PACs.
So if the donors contributing millions of dollars to these PACs aren’t actually helping candidates in elections, what do they get in return for their donations?
• For sheer, naked, pay-to-play, quid pro quo political corruption, though, it’s hard to beat former Florida attorney general and U.S. attorney general nominee Pam Bondi.
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