Happy Birthday, Charlie Parker

Later,

As We Gear Up for Labor Day, a Reminder About Wages . . .

We all know that, for most people, they’ve been generally stagnant for nearly 40 years. This commentary, from Thomas Kochan, MIT management professor, from a couple of years ago, is a decent summary of the situation.

Later,

August 26, 1920

97 years ago today, the 19th Amendment was certified, and women won the right to vote, 131 years after the federal government began operating under the Constitution.

Of course, women of color still had some problems, and that continues today. And the ratification hinged on one vote by a Tennessee state legislator, 23-year-old Harry Burn. The Tennessee legislature was knotted at 48-48. Rep. Burn opposed the amendment, but his mother convinced him to approve it. Mrs. Burn reportedly wrote to her son: “Don’t forget to be a good boy and help Mrs. Catt put the ‘rat’ in ratification.” Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby certified the vote on August 26, 1920.

Ponder, particularly in light of the extensive voter suppression efforts going on now, including efforts sanctioned by the president of the United States: it took 131 years to extend the franchise to women, and the last state to ratify the Amendment, Mississippi, didn’t do that until 1984, nearly two centuries after the Constitution had taken full effect.

Later,