Improve Ur Speling Skilz And Ur Garanteed a Job

In the process of writing another post, I ran across this article in which a change to Major League Baseball's Hall of Fame was suggested. The article dates from February.

Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) should be ousted from the Baseball Hall of Fame because of his block on extending unemployment benefits, according to a group that advocates for the unemployed.

Now while I believe that any organization can set up their own criteria for "hall of fame" selection, and that any competing organization can set up different criteria, I personally fail to see the relevance of Bunning's vote to his baseball career.

So which advocacy group wanted to can Bunning?

“The most obscene thing he can do is prevent jobless Americans from getting their $350 a week unemployment check,” Rick Sloan, acting executive director of Ur Union of Unemployed, a grass roots organization for unemployed Americans, told The Hill.

Yep, that's Ur Union of Unemployed. With a "ur." This allows them to refer to themselves as U Cubed, but a misspelled group name doesn't necessarily help the image of the unemployed.

So who is this grass-roots organization?

Ur Union of Unemployed, nicknamed UCubed, is a community service project of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM).

Calling this professionally-sponsored group "a grass roots organization" is like calling the Pacific Gas & Electric-sponsored Taxpayers Right to Vote a grass roots group of average taxpayers - taxpayers like Greg Pruett.

Back to Ur Union of Unemployed. There does appear to be a grass root element of the organization - they have set up various cubes, including this cube in the Inland Empire - but like any political organization, there is a question as to whether power flows from the top down to the locals, or from the locals up to the top. Actually, there's no question on this - even so-called "local grass roots" groups take their marching orders from national headquarters.