Mass Firings On Broadway Lead Diner Singers To Unionize, Push Back

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A group of servers who serenade patrons at Time Square’s Ellen Stardust have now, formed a union with — wait for it — the Wobblies (a nickname for the Industrial Workers of the World).

After they unionized earlier this year as Stardust Family United, the owner, Ken Strum, said, Dream on — and wrecked the lives of over 30 staffers by firing them. Now they are picketing outside the venue weekly while singing old union and railroad songs. The waitstaff, consisting of aspiring Broadway actors, decided to organize when new policies prohibited them from easily switching shifts to attend auditions.

“We want to be clear that all of our terminations have been for valid reasons,” said Mr. Strum. “They have been perfectly appropriate under federal and labor laws.”

Prophets Promise To ‘Make America Rage Again’

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The anti-heroes of rock and rap, Prophets of Rage, are set to roll into a supersized arena near you. Comprised of members of Rage Against the Machine, Public Enemy and Cypress Hill, their nationwide “Make America Rage Again” tour touches directly on the complex topic of politics and how it is used to push people around.

Some writers have derided this super group as simplistic in their message, but the musicians are clearly serious: they were banned at the last minute by correction officers from playing inside the California Rehabilitation Center for 800 prisoners. Meanwhile, they’ve designated a portion of their un-cost-prohibitive ticket sales to provide rehabilitation for the homeless.

And speaking of politics, the band recently played live for free in Cleveland, Ohio, to call out the Republican National Convention, and yet their whole anti-politics shtick isn’t just anti-GOP. Cypress Hill’s B-Real has called for voters to write in Prophets of Rage for president come November.

Occupy Wall Street Political Prisoner Cecily McMillan Pens Memoir

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Reading about the dehumanizing conditions that female inmates endure at the Rikers Island Prison Complex in “The Emancipation of Cecily McMillan” (Nation Books, 2016) could be clinically used as an emetic.

Alas, a fellow 17-year-old inmate of McMillan’s regurgitates what appear to be chunks of her liver, is denied proper medical care, and shortly thereafter dies. This heartbreakingly sad and quite frightening memoir also keeps the Occupy saga going on the eve of its five-year September 17th anniversary.

Throughout the book, McMillan, 27, tells the story, not so much of an activist who takes a stand against the financial oligarchy that has overtaken this country, but of a young woman who is outfoxed by the American way, railing on about the abusive parenting she experienced growing up in a trailer park in the South, the parties she attended in high school with all the busts, the backbiting from wealthier students at a liberal arts college in Wisconsin, Scott Walker’s shtick against organized labor, etc.