La Justa Pulp

From human rights to the environment to politics to daily news that´s just downright bizarre. Everything outrageous that´s fit to print is printed on La Justa Pulp.

Thursday, October 27, 2005

Time To Take On Another Winery

We can now add the Giumarra Vineyards Corp., the world’s largest table grape grower with 4,000 peak season workers in Kern and Tulare counties, to our list of bad bad bad companies that we should not support.

The company has no respect for its workers, and two farm workers who died from extreme heat since last year labored at Giumarra.

But Giumarra workers have many other long-standing grievances. They are now engaged in the largest farm worker organizing drive since the 1970s.

Here are just some grievances Giumarra workers have voiced:


Workers packing grapes into lugs, or boxes, being forced to labor eight hours a day on their knees with no umbrellas to protect them against the sun. Nearly all other table grape growers supply tables and umbrellas so packers can work standing up in the shade.

Illegally requiring that newly-hired pickers labor without pay for several days, a week or sometimes as long as a month during a "probationary period."

Workers disciplined by being made to "take a seat" or endure a "time out" for hours or even a day because supervisors are displeased with how they pack or pick grapes.

Strict enforcement of quotas—picking a minimum number of boxes per hour or day regardless of the crop quality. Workers say carrillas, or speed-ups, constantly make them work faster and harder, even in extreme heat. Many don’t take legally guaranteed work or lunch breaks—or even time to drink water—out of fear they will be given time outs, suspended or fired for not making quotas.

Low pay. Workers now earn $7 an hour, up 25¢ in July because of UFW pressure. The last wage hike was in 1992 except for increases in the state minimum wage.

Workers complain about being illegally required to provide their own work tools.
During winter pruning, piece rates are set so low that workers sometimes don’t make the minimum wage.

Some workers say they must pay bribes to supervisors to keep jobs or work overtime.

Tell Giumarra Vineyards Corp. to let its grape workers vote in a free and fair election, without threats or intimidation. And if workers vote to become part of the United Farm Worker´s Union, tell Giumarra to quickly bargain in good faith for a union contract protecting workers from abuse.

Wednesday, October 26, 2005

Truer Words

Speak the truth Edward M. Kennedy:
The reckless abuses of power undertaken by George Bush and his right-wing allies are a clear and present danger to the nation and must be stopped. The arrogance and incompetence of the Administration have made our country weaker, undermined our reputation in the world, made the war on terrorism harder to win, and divided our country like few other times in our history.

Every day I see fresh evidence of the Bush Administration's misguided leadership, deviousness, and incompetence:
  • George Bush led us into war under false pretenses. Now, our courageous men and women in uniform continue to pay the ultimate price for his "shoot first" foreign policy.
  • The Administration refuses to come clean on Iraq. Their claims of progress bear no relation to reality and are a disservice to our troops and our country.
  • They're packing the federal courts with right-wing judges. And now they're refusing to supply key background information on their most important nominees.
  • Tragically, their response to the massive human disaster caused by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita has been incredibly inept. It only serves to underscore the extreme poverty that grips our inner cities and our rural heartland.

Enough already!


(From a letter in which Senator Kennedy invites one and all to join the

Monday, October 24, 2005

How Much TV is Really Must See?

Lifetime Television has been the butt of countless jokes, but maybe we shouldn´t be so quick to judge the station´s tear-jerking films. Sometimes they may just put out some good stuff. One such example is the two-day miniseries they have scheduled to start tonight, Human Trafficking, about the forced sex trade of women and girls in the United States.

Amnesty International is backing the film and writes:

Human trade, slave markets, the buying and selling of people – these are words and phrases that, to many people, echo a brutal and distant time in our past. But to the countless women, men, and children trafficked every year, these words coldly define the horror of their lives. Trafficking is a global phenomenon where victims are sexually exploited, forced into labor and subjected to abuse. Trafficking is a crime under international law that requires international cooperation to address.

The film´s got some heavy hitters in key roles, such as Mira Sorvino, Donald Sutherland and Robert Carlyle. I don´t think this is your average made for TV movie. So remember, watch Lifetime tonight Monday, October 24th (9pm eastern and 8pm central) for the firt part of the series.

Watch the Trailer and Take Action with Amnesty

Friday, October 21, 2005

An Exercise in Irony

Today´s Entertainment section of Yahoo.com reported that "Bill Clinton is teaming with SpongeBob SquarePants and Dora the Explorer in a campaign to nudge kids to eat healthy foods and to get up off the couch and move."

This is surreal at best and completely disingenuous at worst. That´s not to say that I don´t think Bill Clinton isn´t genuinely concerned with the health of America´s youth, but is a guy that´s had quadruple coronary bypass surgery and a devout love of McDonalds the best spokesman for healthy living?

And who really believes that Nickelodian, a television station completely dedicated to round the clock children´s programing, really wants kids to get off that couch? They are one of the reasons so many children are glued to the TV in the first place. If all the little kids in America went outside and played after school instead of watching SpongeBob and Dora the Explorer, Nickelodian would be out of business.

Ah yes, I can imagine the public service announcements now: Hyperactive little SpongeBob Square Pants, who works at a fast food joint flipping burgers (does the irony ever end?), telling his five year old fans that they have to exercise and eat right...but only when he´s not on TV.

ExxonMobile, BP, Shell, take your oil and go to h***


Just in time for Halloween here´s a really scary topic: Global Warming.
Click on this frightening subject matter to watch an animated short making fun of Bush and his administration and their thirst for oil.

Thursday, October 13, 2005

Sloppy Kisses

This was forwarded to me in an email, which just goes to show that not all forwards are junk.

He had just saved her from a fire in her house, rescuing her by carrying her out into the front yard, while he continued to fight the fire. She was pregnant. The firefighter was afraid of her at first, because he had never been around a Doberman before. When he finally got done putting the fire out, he sat down to catch his breath and rest. A photographer from the Charlotte, North Carolina newspaper, "The Observer," noticed this red Doberman in the distance looking at the fireman. He saw her walking straight toward the fireman and wondered what she was going to do. As he raised his camera, she came up to the tired man who had saved her life and the lives of her babies, and kissed him, just as the photographer snapped this photograph.


Anyone who says animals are dumb obviously isn´t the sharpest tool in the shed.

Thursday, October 06, 2005

Gonna Nail Those Crooks and Liars to Their Own Cross


I never thought I´d see the day Tom "The Hammer" DeLay, House Majority Leader and GOP Goon, would be indicted by the Texas grand jury. WooWee! Praise the Lord! Hallelujah!

DeLay and two "political associates" are being accused of conspiracy to funnel $155,000 in corporate campaign contributions into Texas legislative races, a big fat felony in the state of Texas, where DeLay is a representative. "If convicted, DeLay faces up to two years in prison and a maximum fine of $100,000."

While I am sure that DeLay could be charged with a wide assortment of illegal dirty dealings, I shan´t ask for more than this. Al Capone was put away for life for tax evasion, and it looks like a mere $155,000 will dethrone DeLay.

And the dethronement has already begun! "GOP rules require that DeLay, 58, majority leader since 2003, relinquish his post while he fights the conspiracy charge," and according to a fellow Republican interviewed by Time Magazine, "You leave a job like this, there is no coming back." So in the end, DeLay may not have to dress in prison stipes, but he will have to say goodbye to the House Majority position forever.


DeLay hasn´t handled being indicted with much elegance, but I guess he´s just not that kind of guy. Three hours after learning of his indictment he was on TV, making the rounds on the cable news shows, such as CNN, claiming that prosecutor Ronnie Earle is a "partisan fanatic" and that Earle was launching a Democratic conspiracy against him. Well, as it turns out, Earle did in fact speak at a fund-raiser for a Democratic political action committe in May, but is that illegal? Probably not, since DeLay hasn´t produced a single scrap of evidence that Earle is conspiring with Washington Democrats.

For all of his attacks on Earle, DeLay seems to forget, as grand jury foreman William Gibson pointed out, that "Ronnie Earle did not indict Mr. DeLay. Twelve people on that grand jury voted to indict." In other words, DeLay dug himself this hole all by himself.

And how deep is his hole? Here, I´ll let Time Magazine explain:

During the 2002 elections, a committee DeLay founded to support conservative politicians--Texans for a Republican Majority, or TRMPAC--allegedly accepted $155,000 in corporate donations and then included that in a check for $190,000 to the Republican National Committee, which then routed a similar amount to seven Texas legislative candidates. DeLay's lawyers say the transactions were separate and that the PAC accepted money from both individuals and corporations. The contribution helped produce six wins that were crucial to DeLay's political ambitions in Washington because they resulted in a Republican majority in the state legislature, which redrew congressional district lines and helped add five more Republicans to the state's congressional delegation.

How Maniacal! But those aren´t the only illegal things DeLay has been up to. Grass roots organizations have been after DeLay for accepting lavish gifts from lobbyist Jack Abramoff. And as luck would have it, a federal investigation has been launched into a scandal surrounding Jack Abramoff and Michael Scanlon, a former DeLay press secretary, involving "bilking their Indian-tribe clients out of $66 million."

A former Abramoff associate just happened to mention to the FBI that a lot of emails passed between DeLay´s office and Abramoff´s office. Unfortunately, the source says he saw nothing "that hit DeLay personally, but there was a lot of questionable stuff that was going on with his staff. ´Tom wants this. Tom wants that.` Was it really him or just the staff that was being aggressive?"

Oh give me a break, it wasn´t DeLay´s staff that was going on those plush golf trips. It´s obvious that Tom DeLay is a crook who has surrounded himself with other crooks. He´s just one more stain on the GOP´s record. Bush´s approval ratings are the lowest they´ve ever been thanks to the war in Iraq, Hurricane Katrina and skyrocketing gas prices. Bill Frist, the Senate Majority Leader, "faces an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission into the circumstances surrounding his decision to sell all of his stock in the hospital chain founded by his family, Hospital Corporation of America, in June, just before the share price dropped following a bad earnings report." And let´s not forget Karl Rove´s involvement in outing Valerie Plame. Tsk, tsk, tsk.

A bunch of liars and crooks have highjacked the U.S. government. One can only hope they all end up disgraced and facing prison time like Tom DeLay.




Monday, October 03, 2005

Laughing at Our Woes

Upon hearing that gas prices have surpassed $3.00 in some parts of the United States, I figured these two comic were very time appropriate.






The first cartoon is Time Magazine and the second is from In These Times.

Be sure check in with La Justa Pulp tomorrow, I am cookin´up a real good story for yall.

P.S. My co-worker was fired on Friday, which means I now have to do her job too, so don´t get too upset if I can´t post every day.