It is September 1st, 2025. Accordingly, in the USA, there is a 14.2857% chance that it is Labor Day. This is because the designation Labor Day in the US is on the first Monday in September as opposed to any fixed date, and therefore the designation Labor Day can occur on any of the first seven days which gives any day of that first week a 14.2857% chance of being Monday.

So why do we have this holiday anyway? After all, we are not a big fan of Labor here in the US. As unions grew regardless of the best efforts of businesses, private armies, the National Guard ,and federal troops to prevent their existence and growth and to break up their strikes and kill their members there became increasing pressure to designate some one day as a holiday for the celebration of Labor. This holiday celebrates the myth that it is labor that provides the goods and services that keep us all fed and housed and clothed and generally makes the world go round. The idea is that Labor builds and then mans the factories to produce Goods and they physically provide Services; they build the houses and the skyscrapers, the office buildings, banks and the hospitals, they drive the semi trucks the trains and lay the tracks and refine the oil and raise the crops and generally create our economy and well-being. So, in the face of strikes and boycotts and such we set aside this day to thank them even though we all know that is simply a myth and that Capital creates all growth, that Capital creates the goods and services and that's why all the profits except a pittance to keep the labor force alive and working is given to the Capitalists for providing the Capital that makes the country go round.

As noted above, we gave in to labor and created this holiday in 1894, but, of course, we only created it for federal employees not for the vast mass of the workforce; they had to constantly strike and threaten strikes in order to see to it that they too got to celebrate this holiday. but that's another story. Eventually every state and territory also made it a holiday. We need the laborers to show up so that's why they do get a pittance out of the profits from the provision of goods and services but we don't want them to get too much. This is where the United States' love-hate relationship with labor comes from, because labor formed these criminal conspiracies called unions where they would band together and conspire to try and get more pay or more benefits or things like the 8-hour work week. Just how did we get this particular date? It was suggested that it would be good to have a holiday that was roughly halfway between July 4th and Thanksgiving and this date more or less fit that need. It could really have been any day that was not already another holiday except May 1st and May 4th. May 1st was, at the time, already being celebrated by the forces of evil and May 4th was the anniversary of the Haymarket Affair, which we did not wish to call attention to. In essence, this date was picked in lieu of any of those on the grounds that it was a good time to have a holiday

Nonetheless we did not choose to just let the labor and the unions have their way with the matter we continued to persecute and harass unions and Union organizers up through the 20s and 30s with troops and and Pinkertons, hired goons, Palmer Raids, national guard attacks, and the like; we instituted the Taft-Hartley ACT in 1947, and placed the IWW on on the U.S. Attorney General's List of Subversive Organizations in 1949. Since then, over half of the states in the union have passed so-called "right-to-work" laws intended to cripple union recruitment and fundraising activities: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Michigan (applies only to the public sector), Nebraska, Nevada, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina. South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

Meanwhile one of the alternative dates that we rejected, May 1st, is celebrated, often as workers day, in roughly 150 countries but that's neither here nor there. Happy Labor Day

Much to my dismay, experience has taught me that I need to post a disclaimer here to the effect that there might be some snark embedded in the above writing. So be it, this is said disclaimer.

On this day in history:

1529 – The Spanish fort of Sancti Spiritu, the first one built in modern Argentina, was destroyed by indigenous people.

1610 – Claudio Monteverdi's musical work Vespro della Beata Vergine (Vespers for the Blessed Virgin) iwa first published, printed in Venice and dedicated to Pope Paul V.

1763 – Catherine II of Russia endorsed Ivan Betskoy's plans for a Foundling Home in Moscow.

1772 – The Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa was founded in San Luis Obispo, California.

1774 – Massachusetts Bay colonists rose up in the bloodless Powder Alarm.

1804 – 3 Juno, one of the largest asteroids in the Main Belt, was discovered by Karl Ludwig Harding.

1878 – Emma Nutt became the world's first female telephone operator

1894 – Over 400 people died in the Great Hinckley Fire, a forest fire in Hinckley, Minnesota.

1897 – The first underground rapid transit system in North America, the Tremont Street Subway in Boston, opened.

1923 – The Great Kantō earthquake devastated Tokyo and Yokohama, killing about 105,000 people.

1939 – J. Robert Oppenheimer and his student Hartland Snyder proved how black holes could develop.

1967 – The Khartoum Resolution was issued at the Arab Summit after the six day war

1969 – A coup in Libya brought Muammar Gaddafi to power.

1973 – A 76-hour multinational effort in the Celtic Sea resulted in the Rescue of Roger Mallinson and Roger Chapman.

1974 – The SR-71 Blackbird set the record for flying from New York to London in one hour, 54 minutes and 56.4 seconds

1982 – The United States Air Force Space Command was founded

1983 – Korean Air Lines Flight 007 was shot down by a Soviet jet fighter after it flew into Soviet airspace. **

2004 – The Beslan school siege began when armed terrorists took over a school in North Ossetia, Russia;

** Is this where we got the idea to shoot down Iran Air 655 even though it was still in Iranian airspace?

Some people who were born on this day:

Anybody against women, against the ERA, should never be voted into office again.

~~ Liz Carpenter

1145 – Ibn Jubayr, geographer and poet
1653 – Johann Pachelbel, organist, composer, and educator
1726 – Johann Becker, organist, composer, and educator
1795 – James Gordon Bennett Sr., publisher, founded the New York Herald
1848 – Auguste Forel, myrmecologist, neuroanatomist, and psychiatrist
1854 – Engelbert Humperdinck, playwright and composer
1875 – Edgar Rice Burroughs, author
1876 – Harriet Shaw Weaver, journalist and activist
1877 – Francis William Aston, chemist and physicist,
1878 – J. F. C. Fuller, general and historian
1878 – Tullio Serafin, conductor and director
1886 – Othmar Schoeck, composer and conductor
1895 – Engelbert Zaschka, engineer and designer, invented the Human-powered aircraft
1906 – Franz Biebl, composer and educator
1906 – Eleanor Hibbert, author
1907 – Walter Reuther, labor union leader and president of the United Auto Workers
1908 – Lou Kenton, social activist
1920 – Liz Carpenter, journalist, author and activist
1925 – Arvonne Fraser, activist
1925 – Art Pepper, saxophonist, clarinet player and composer
1930 – Dick Raaymakers, composer and theorist
1931 – Boxcar Willie, singer, songwriter, and guitarist
1933 – Marshall Lytle, bass player and songwriter
1933 – Ann Richards, educator and politician, 45th Governor of Texas
1933 – Conway Twitty, singer, songwriter, and guitarist
1935 – Seiji Ozawa, conductor and director
1940 – Annie Ernaux, author, Nobel Prize laureate
1944 – Archie Bell, soul singer, songwriter, and musician
1944 – Leonard Slatkin, conductor and composer
1946 – Barry Gibb, singer, songwriter, and producer
1948 – Greg Errico, drummer and producer
1948 – Russ Kunkel, drummer and producer
1955 – Bruce Foxton, singer, songwriter, and bass player
1957 – Gloria Estefan, singer, songwriter, and actress
1961 – Boney James, saxophonist, composer and producer
1963 – Grant-Lee Phillips, musician and actor
1964 – Charlie Robison, singer, songwriter, and guitarist
1971 – Yoshitaka Hirota, ,bass player and composer
1973 – J.D. Fortune, singer and songwriter
1975 – Natalie Bassingthwaighte, singer and songwriter
1976 – Babydaddy, singer, songwriter, and producer
1984 – Joe Trohman, isnger, songwriter, guitarist and producer
1986 – Stella Mwangi, singer and songwriter
1989 – Bill Kaulitz, singer and songwriter
1997 – Jeon Jungkook, singer, songwriter, and record producer
2003 – An Yu-jin, singer and actress

Some people who died on this day:

It's the job of a newspaperman to spur the lazy, watch the weak, expose the corrupt.

~~ Drew Pearson

1557 – Jacques Cartier, navigator and explorer
1599 – Cornelis de Houtman, explorer
1648 – Marin Mersenne, mathematician, theologian, and philosopher
1678 – Jan Brueghel the Younger, painter
1838 – William Clark, soldier, explorer, and politician,
1914 – Martha, last known passenger pigeon
1969 – Drew Pearson, journalist and author
1970 – François Mauriac, novelist, poet, and playwright
1977 – Ethel Waters, singer and actress
1982 – Haskell Curry, mathematician and academic
1988 – Luis Walter Alvarez, physicist and academic
1999 – W. Richard Stevens, computer scientist and author
2005 – R. L. Burnside, singer, songwriter, and guitarist
2008 – Jerry Reed, singer, songwriter, guitarist, and actor
2012 – Sean Bergin, saxophonist, flute player, and composer
2012 – Hal David, songwriter and composer
2014 – Joseph Shivers, chemist and academic, developed spandex
2018 – Randy Weston, jazz pianist and composer
2023 – Jimmy Buffett, singer, songwriter, musician, author and businessman

Some Holidays, Holy Days, Festivals, Feast Days, Days of Recognition, and such:

"Labor Day"
Emma M, Nutt Day
Ginger Cat Appreciation Day

Today's Tunes

Labor Day

Emma Nutt

Johann Pachelbel

Art Pepper

Boxcar Willie

Marshall Lytle

Conway Twitty

Seiji Ozawa

Archie Bell

Barry Gibb

Greg Errico

Russ Kunkel

Gloria Estefan

Boney James

Jeon Jungkook

Ethel Waters

R.L. Burnside

Jerry Reed

Sean Bergin

Hal David

Jimmy Buffet

Bonus worker tunes

Ok, it's an open thread, so it's up to you folks now. What's on your mind?

Cross posted from http://caucus99percent.com

open thread, Labor Day, Emma Nutt, Johann Pachelbel, Art Pepper, Conway Twitty, Seiji Ozawa, Archie Bell, Barry Gibb, Gloria Estefan, Ethel Waters, Jimmy Buffett