Frances Perkins (1880 - 1965)

Frances Perkins, pictured here in an undated photo, was born on this day in 1880. Perkins was the first woman to hold a cabinet level position in the United States government. She was Secretary of Labor under F.D.R; in that post she was instrumental in enacting in Social Security and the Fair Labor Standards Act which established the first federal minimum wage law as well as limits on the length of the working week.

In the midst of the ongoing onslaught by Republicans (and GOP-wannabe types like Andrew Cuomo) on labor unions it is important to remember that progressives have gained support from unions and that that support translated into bedrock social legislation. You can link to the Frances Perkins Center in Maine here.

Passings ~ Judy Bonds (1952-2011)

Environmental Activist Judy Bonds has died. Bonds (the picture here is from 2009) was a critic of mountaintop removal coal mining and was director of Coal River Mountain Watch. You can find an obituary here in The New York Times and another one from West Virginia Public Broadcasting here.

I've lifted this video remembrance from Appalachia Rising:

Our Heroines: Aung San Suu Kyi

Aung San Suu Kyi, Politician and Nobel Peace
Prize Laureate, 65. Photographs © Platon (2010).

Heroines: Arundhati Roy (24 Novemeber 1961 ~ )

Arundhati Roy (2010). Photograph: AFP.

I have commented here numerous times on Arundhati Roy and her courage in speaking out on matters and in ways that are politically unpopular. Yesterday was her birthday.

Linda Norgrove

Funeral: The coffin of Linda Norgrove, is carried from the Uig
(Scotland) community centre to the cemetery by mourners (Picture: PA).

I have to say that this image, and several others, of Linda Norgrove's funeral today, really hit me. I am not quite sure why. But Norgrove, an aid worker kidnapped by militants in Afghanistan and killed (apparently) by U.S. military personnel trying to rescue her, is a hero. We commonly honor "warriors" when we ought to be honoring those who clean up the mess the warriors make or who seek to prevent the mess-making in the first place.