Alt-right violence doesn’t all come under the color of law:

Mississippi officials on Saturday arrested a suspect and charged them with arson in a fire that charred a prominent Jackson synagogue, the city’s only Jewish house of worship and the target of a Ku Klux Klan bombing decades ago when the congregation was pushing for racial integration.

The blaze at Beth Israel Congregation began around 3 a.m. Saturday, destroying Torah scrolls and burning significant parts of the building, before firefighters extinguished it, according to Jackson Fire Department Chief Charles Felton. The synagogue was closed at the time, and no one was injured in the fire. In a later news release, the fire department said the suspect sustained non-life-threatening burns and was arrested at the hospital.

Officials have not identified the suspect or disclosed a motive. Felton said authorities are certain it was an act of arson because fire investigators found that the fire could not have been started “without human involvement.”

The suspect is facing an arson charge in Mississippi, and the FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which are also probing the incident, are considering opening a federal case, Felton told The Washington Post.

Given the damage to the synagogue, the congregation will not be able to hold services there “for an extended time period,” Felton said.

I hope this doesn’t get completely lost in admittedly deranged news cycle — this kind of antisemitic violence is an important part of the story.

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On January 12, 1942, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9017, creating the National War Labor Board. The goal of this board was to mediate all labor issues until the end of the war, ensuring a smoothly running American economy for wartime purposes. It was always hard to keep that going, but the NWLB overall did a remarkable job of staving off major labor disputes. The reason was its makeup, which placed organized labor on an equal playing field with business. It was hardly a paradise for labor unions, but the NWLB both solidified organized labor’s role in American policymaking and forestalled most of the major strikes that might get in way of defeating the fascists.

The U.S. moved toward entering World War II with significant upheaval in its workplaces. The late 30s were the great era of American labor organizing, with the big CIO unions forming, often through mass strikes. The Roosevelt administration had already done more for workers than any administration in history, but it was often a slog to get the government to do the right thing for unions and workers. Even FDR himself was maddeningly inconsistent in his approach to unions. But with the nation moving toward war, it could not afford Ford and Little Steel and Montgomery Ward and other recalcitrant corporations and industries to engage in violence to stop unions. Anything that led to a strike meant less material heading to the front lines. It was simply unacceptable.

The Roosevelt administration had a lot of tools in its box. First, it had defense contracts. It was only when Ford and the Little Steel companies were told they were not going to get war contracts that they very reluctantly acquiesced to unionized workforces. A lot of that happened in 1941. But what would happen in the war itself? The potential for strikes that would cripple industry and thus war production was very real. But the workers themselves were right about many of their demands and Roosevelt knew this.

So FDR issued Executive Order 9017 on January 12, 1942. It created a binding tripartite commission to solve labor disputes in the war, with four members each representing labor, business, and the government. Now, in most administrations those government appointees would probably be pro-business hacks, but Roosevelt wanted to keep things very even. William Hammatt Davis was named by FDR as the head and he had helped write the National Labor Relations Act. So if the NWLB was not exactly pro-union, it was very certainly not pro-business. That was a hard job to run this. Workers and business were both still pissed at each other, very willing to continue the labor wars of the 30s.

So the NWLB had special powers. It basically superseded the National Labor Relations Board for the duration of the war. It was in charge of collective bargaining now. It could intervene in any labor dispute seen as impacting the ability to fight the war, which was effectively every labor dispute in an economy producing almost entirely for military consumption. It created twelve regional labor boards to do much of the work on the local level. It also would decided that women would get equal pay for equal work, which many industrialists had hoped to avoid when they were forced to hire women. Then, in 1943, it created equal pay for equal work based on race as well, which was even more controversial than doing it on the basis of gender. Few workers really protested about women on the job, but lots protested about Blacks on the job and there were racist hate strikes throughout the war when the government forced the integration of workplaces.

The NWLB had to get both labor and business on board. Labor was someone easier, but it was a big ask–no strikes during the war. A lot of rank and file members had no interest in this. But in return, it received a maintenance of membership clause. That meant that existing union members had to remain union members, the automatic dues checkoff would become automatic, and while it left the issue of the closed or open shop unresolved, it effectively weighed it all to the closed shop since once a worker signed a card, they could not renege on that membership and thus the dues. This solidified union finances. That was highly needed since the CIO was in bad shape financially, with John L. Lewis having pulled his United Mine Workers and all the funding it provided out after the rest of the labor movement did not follow him in opposing FDR’s third term in 1940.

But business got its wins too. Of course it was happy to not have to deal with major strikes during the war. The NWLB adopted the so-called Little Steel formula to cap wage gains and they didn’t quite keep up with inflation, frustrating workers a whole lot. Moreover, the NWLB was not interested in really working out the endless fights on the ground between labor and business. Wildcat strikes were endemic during the war. Foremen were still assholes and resented unions getting in the way of their little fiefdoms. Their bosses certainly encouraged that behavior. Union members had won a lot striking and wanted to strike some more. So there were thousands of strikes. One of them was even about cigarette smoking on the job. Workers were pissed. They wanted to win the war, but they wanted rights on the job too and they wanted power and they didn’t really like the government getting in the way. Of course, most of these strikes ended in a matter of hours, or a couple of days at the most. Union leaders forced the workers to stop it.

There were a few situations out of the NWLB’s control. But the government was willing to act. On the labor side, John L. Lewis refused to accept NWLB authority and led his mineworkers out on strike in 1943 and the govenrment responded by seizing the coal mines and running them. On the business side, Montgomery Ward chief Sewell Avery refused to accept NWLB authority and the government occupied the corporation.

In the end, the NWLB was pretty great for workers because it solidified unions as a legitimate part of government. Some would bemoan the connections it created between unions and the Democratic Party, for unions never would be any more than a junior member of the coalition and as we got farther from the war, Democrats’ indifference and even hostility to organized labor would grow (unless they needed GOTV operations or money of course). But if you look at the state of organized labor in 1941 versus the last day of 1945, when the NWLB closed its doors, unions were much stronger, more powerful, and able to do more for their members.

This is the 587th post in this series. Previous posts are archived here.

The post This Day in Labor History: January 12, 1942 appeared first on Lawyers, Guns & Money.

A reader writes:

I’m currently 12 weeks pregnant with my first baby, and my husband and I received some devastating news that the pregnancy may not be viable. We will get testing to confirm either way, but if it’s definitely not viable we would make the very difficult and heartbreaking decision to terminate this very wanted baby. We won’t find out until 17-18 weeks, which will make it physically and emotionally quite difficult and necessitate some time off.

This week I reached out to the head of employee entitlements in HR and asked about leave options in the event I have to terminate a non-viable pregnancy. Pregnancy loss leave and stillbirth leave are fortunately available to me, but one is only a couple of days and the other is a couple of months so I wanted to get correct info to help me plan for the worst.

The lady (let’s call her Mary) said it was hard for her to give impartial advice as I was “butting up against her values.” I asked her to clarify and she said her advice would always be to carry the pregnancy to term. I reiterated that this would be in the event of a non-viable pregnancy (although in my opinion my reasons are none of her business), and Mary said sometimes doctors don’t know what they’re talking about, and she has friends who delivered healthy babies after doctors said they weren’t viable. Mary confirmed that I would get plenty of additional leave to recover if I carried the baby to term and that if didn’t I could use my own accrued sick and vacation leave if I wanted to recover. Mary said following the pregnancy to the end would always be her recommendation.

I don’t like giving HR a bad name, as I’m in HR and in my team we really care and try our best to help, but this is so unbelievably unacceptable to me that I don’t know how to proceed. I’ve told her boss (my grandboss, wonderful and on my side about this) and there is likely to be a bit of fallout there, but:

1. My team works closely with her team. How on earth can I work with her going forward as I try to navigate this difficult pregnancy?
2. What do I say if she keeps trying to convince me to carry the baby even if they’re not viable?
3. Is this a big deal or am I just upset right now? How far should I demand this be taken, noting we still have to work together?

I’m stunned because I wouldn’t give that advice to my worst enemy. And I was only asking about leave entitlements, not seeking her input into this very personal matter.

I’m so sorry, this is awful! The last thing you need when you’re dealing with devastating personal news like this is someone inserting their opinion without invitation and trying to influence you about something that’s (a) deeply personal and (b) unquestionably none of their business.

That would be true of any colleague, but Mary’s remarks are particularly egregious because she’s in HR, where part of her job is to handle personal situations with respect, good judgment, and discretion. She’s done the opposite of that.

So first, I’m very glad you told her boss — because not only was was Mary’s unsolicited advice outrageously inappropriate, but her decision to share it was squarely at odds with what should be expected of her in her role. Moreover, her declaration that she wouldn’t be able to give you impartial advice about your benefits because of her own values … is basically a declaration that she’s not willing to do an essential part of her job, and her boss is really going to need to explore exactly what that means going forward.

So yes, this is a big deal, and you are right to be shocked and upset by it.

As for what to say if she starts in again: it’s worth preemptively taking steps to ensure that doesn’t happen. Go back to Mary’s boss and say you appreciate her handling the situation, and you’d also like her help in ensuring Mary never raises this topic with you again — and better yet, if there’s someone else who can handle your benefits usage from here, you’d like them to be your contact so that you don’t ever need to discuss this with Mary again. That’s a reasonable request, and she would be foolish not to jump at the opportunity to set that up for you. But if Mary ever does raise it with you again, you should (a) icily and immediately shut it down with “I’m not looking for opinions about my private medical choices” and (b) report it to her boss again immediately.

As for working with her going forward (on things other than your use of benefits surrounding this situation because, again, you should be offered a non-Mary path for that): you are entitled to minimize interaction with her as much as you can, and to stick solely to topics necessitated by your work. Frankly, Mary should be the one who has to worry about repairing the relationship, not you, and that’s a point her boss should make to her as well.

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Herewith, selections from a "comprehensive guide to the terms gen Z is using to talk about romance, sex and the pursuit of both."  These are the ones I found most interesting:

Bird theory – A TikTok trend loosely based on a test developed by couples researchers Julie and John Gottman, in which you point out something trivial – for example, “I saw a bird today” – and note whether your partner’s response is inquisitive or dismissive. If they do not want to hear more about the bird, you two are doomed.

Choremance – A date where two people bond while running errands, such as walking the dog or grocery shopping. In other words, how broke twentysomethings do affordable dating in a post-“$5 beer and shot combo” world.

Freak matching – When you find someone who’s just as obsessive about documentaries about the second world war or DVD collecting or collaging or whatever it may be, as you. Or, conversely, finding someone who hates the same things or people that you do (nothing builds intimacy faster than sharing a nemesis).

Kittenfishing – Catfishing-lite. Or, not exactly lying about who you are, but maybe using older (better) photos of yourself on a dating app profile, or making your job sound more important than it is. Also known as putting your best foot forward.

Monkey branching – A subgenre of microcheating, this means having someone ready in the wings to swing on over to, making a breakup easier. A rebound you tee up before things are officially over.

Orbiting – When a partner ceases communication, à la ghosting, but stays around like a phantom by keeping tabs on your digital footprint. As in, they’ll suddenly like an Instagram post after years of no contact, retraumatizing you all over again.

This is the grave of Alexander Fleming.

Born in 1881 in Darvel, Ayrshire, Scotland, Fleming came from an upwardly mobile family. He barely knew his father, who was 59 when his son was born and who died in 1888. Fleming was a really smart kid, gaining scholarships to get an education far beyond most people of his rank. At first, he was just working like any other young man. He labored in a shipping office. But in 1901, his uncle died and left him some money. His older brother had managed to become a doctor and suggested to his younger brother than he do the same and put himself through medical school with that money. He agreed and, well, it was a good idea for humanity. In all the myths around Fleming, it’s worth debunking one. There’s one that says Fleming’s father had saved young Winston Churchill from death and that Churchill Sr. paid for young Alexander’s education. A complete fabrication, in part because Fleming’s father was a farmer.

Fleming graduated from medical school in 1906. Now, how he became interested in vaccines is one of those stupid quirks of fate that is very, very British. In short, Fleming was an expert marksman due to service in the London Scottish Regiment of the Volunteer Force. The medical school had a rifle team. Fleming allowed them to win. So the team’s captain wanted to keep the chap and got the bacteriologist to take Fleming under his win as an assistant. So Fleming became an expert in the field and stayed at St. Mary’s, his school, until 1914. At that point, he joined the British military forces for World War I and worked as a doctor for the rest of the war. During the war, Fleming was critical in researching wounds, discovering that antiseptics killed more wounded soldiers than the wounds they were supposed to treat due to removing bacteria that protected patients from deeper infection.

Fleming continued this research after the war. Now, the thing about Fleming is that he was sloppy. He was bad at cleaning things. This normally was not good for a doctor. However, in his case, it would turn out to be pretty fortunate. This meant that weird things started happening to his samples. But he didn’t see them as mistakes. He saw them as new research opportunities. Interested in bacteria anyway, he wanted to check out what was going on. This is how he discovered lysozyme in 1922, one of the first discovered antimicrobial enzymes, which significantly expanded understanding of the immune system.

It would not be the last discovery Fleming would stumble upon. Fleming was working on staph in 1928. He went on vacation with his family. He left some samples around to see what would happen. One got contaminated with a fungus. That fungus killed the staphylococci around it, but left the staph farther away alone. This is basically how he discovered lysozyme and now he had discovered penicillin, arguably the most important medical advance in history. Of course, it wasn’t total accident. Fleming already had the reputation of a great researcher because he was always trying things out and searching for answers and hoping for things to happen and then recognizing what was happening when they happened. So it takes no credit away from Fleming to note that this was a complete accident because it was accidents he hoped for. Might not be a research method that works for everyone, but it sure worked for him.

Interestingly, it wasn’t until during World War II that the scientific community really took the penicillin discovery that seriously. As late as 1941, scientific journals were largely dismissing it, despite Fleming’s best efforts. It wasn’t until 1943, when Fleming published a follow-up paper after curing a guy using it that its revolutionary potential was fully realized. He also quickly realized that penicillin resistance would be a problem and immediately started publishing about this. Of course, it was all too easy for doctors to overprescribe and the predicted antibiotic resistance has resulted, but it’s also hard to blame doctors at the time for doing what they thought best. I am sure many commenters are more knowledgable about this situation than I am though, so I look forward to reading what people have to say on the issue.

Of course, the realization of what penicillin could do was a genuine medical revolution, among the greatest of all time. This was the first major antibiotic and of course would not be the last, but it does remain the most important. Incidentally, about 10% of Americans claim to have penicillin allergies, but it seems that the actual real negative reaction to it is about 1% and the other 9% are mostly slightly sensitive.

In 1945, Fleming received the Nobel Prize in Medicine for his discovery. No one is retroactively questioning that one. But lest we think that scientists are singular heroes, as it is for most scientific discoveries, there were multiple people involved and in fact that 45 Nobel was shared by three people. The second was Howard Florey, who did the work to make penicillin an effective medicine. Fleming hadn’t fully followed up on it and done the work. It was Florey and his team who did the clinical trials and figured out the manufacturing side of it. The third was Ernst Chain, a German Jewish refugee who was alongside Florey in this work.

For the record, Fleming was very cool with giving Fleming and Chain most of the credit. He actively pushed back against the idea that he was the only one involved. It’s worth noting as well that Norman Heatley was another figure who played a critical role here, who did a lot of the clinical work, even though he didn’t get the Nobel. Each of these four people were absolutely necessary to the development of penicillin. I guess it’s fine that Fleming gets the bulk of the public credit–the public loves a simplified myth, which is how we focus so much of the civil rights movement on Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, mythologizing while also simplifying and misunderstanding both for often pat, depoliticized narratives that serve whatever we think our interests are in the present at any given time. I guess such is the way of the world, as much as it makes a historian grind their teeth.

Fleming was more or less retired after World War II, though also a big celebrity. He died in 1955 of a heart attack, at the age of 73.

Alexander Fleming is buried in St. Paul’s Cathedral, London, England.

If you would like this series to visit American winners of the Nobel Prize for Medicine, you can donate to cover the required expenses here. Philip Hench and Edward Kendall, who both won in 1950, are both in Rochester, Minnesota. Herman Gasser, who won in 1944, is in Platteville, Wisconsin. Previous posts in this series are archived here and here.

The post Erik Visits a (Non) American Grave, Part 2,054 appeared first on Lawyers, Guns & Money.

Located in a wooded gorge between Mounts Kibune and Kurama, the ancient Kifune Shrine is one of the most revered shrines in Kyoto, dedicated to the water god Taka-okami-no-kami and deeply associated with wish-making.

Though it is most famed for its photogenic stairway lined with lanterns and autumn foliage, the shrine is steeped in history and folklore, both auspicious and dark.

For one, Kifune Shrine is widely considered the birthplace of ema prayer boards, which are found at almost every Shinto shrine across Japan today. Ema, literally meaning “picture-horse,” was once an actual, live horse offered by the Emperor to pray for the rain here, but was eventually replaced by a wooden horse, and then by a wooden board with a picture of a horse.

In the medieval play titled Kanawa, the shrine is featured as the location where the protagonist, a vengeful cuckquean, is advised by the gods to “dress in red, paint her face with cinnabar, wear an iron crown and light a candle” to become a demoness.

This story was later fused with the custom of the Ushi-no-toki-mairi, a well-known curse ritual performed at the Hour of the Ox (around 2:30 AM). Due to this, Kifune Shrine grew into a popular spot for those seeking to put a curse upon someone else.

Originally, however, the Hour of the Ox ritual was not necessarily a curse, but wish-making in general, inspired by the myth that the God of Kifune manifested himself at the Hour of the Ox on the Day of the Ox in the Year of the Ox.

Interestingly, there is also a small sub-shrine in a corner of the shrine grounds dedicated to the Ushioni (“ox demon”), who accompanied the God of Kifune. This demon was so talkative that the God cut off his tongue, exiled him and wouldn’t forgive him for three years. It is said that his descendants took monstrous forms up to the fourth generation, but became humans from then on. This Zetsu (“tongue”) family has survived to this day, serving Kifune Shrine as priests.