"Women had to burn first": Lessons from the Triangle Fire

The American Dream was a myth to the women who worked in the New York City shirtwaist factories in the early 20th century.

Most of them immigrants, they were subjected to long hours, poor pay and unsafe working conditions. All in the name of progress. The women were forced to work at the impossibly rapid pace of the factories' new electrical sewing machines.

Despite barely being able to put food on the table, living in cramped quarters and sending what little money they could of their pathetic earnings to their families back in their native countries, these women went on strike and rallied for unions. Some changes were made, but not many.

It took a fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory that killed 146 people, mostly women, sparked by the greed, inhumanity and ignorance of the industrial age, to motivate legislation to improve the lives of women who worked in shirtwaist factories.

This is their story. Thank you PBS.

Watch Triangle Fire on PBS. See more from American Experience.

I'm going to be a guest on Book Guys!

Did you know that iconic Canadian artist Emily Carr was also a great writer?

I am very excited to be a guest on the Book Guys Show podcast live this Sunday from 9 pm to 10 pm to talk about Emily Carr's impressive catalogue of life writing.

In her later years, she wrote a memoir, autobiography, diary and more. I don't want to appear too biased, but Emily Carr is my favourite author and I love her visual art too.

This Book Guys episode will be archived on iTunes. I encourage you to check out the other ones too!

Employers Ask For Facebook Login. I Blow a Gasket.

I recently read in the news that it has become trendy in the U.S. for employers to ask for your Facebook username and password when they hire you.

I'm sorry. I have no polite words.

This is fucked up.

Insensitive Comments. Side Effects.

I was thinking about writing a post about my continuing asthma, specifically the chest pain. But then I realized at least some of the responses to that would probably upset me. These are the some of the types of comments I have received on my posts about my health problems:

Kony 2012 Youtube Comments

I keep seeing "KONY 2012" written as a comment on Youtube videos.

It's part of a huge social media campaign that is supposed to stop Joseph Kony who, with his army, has been abducting children in Uganda and making them child soldiers.

So what exactly does writing and reading the lone text "KONY 2012" accomplish?

Asthma Halts. Hilarity Ensues.

I'm back! I was out of blogging commission -- well, personal blogging commission -- for a while because of a nasty three week-long asthma flare. I wasn't so unwell that I couldn't write. I was actually pretty active, but decided to save my energy for other things. As most bloggers probably experience, I seldom get significant traffic unless I optimize my posts for search engines before publishing and promote the heck out of them. That, and writing itself, is a lot of work. It just wasn't on my priority list.