Worcester Chamber of Commerce seeks delay on paid sick day law

Although the Worcester Chamber of Commerce is adamant that businesses contact their representatives to delay implementation of the paid sick-leave law, they don’t post a link to the proposed regulations that must be reviewed or the public comment sessions.

Here’s what the Chamber has to say: Paid Sick Day Law Goes Into Effect July 1 – Chamber Seeks Member Assistance to Delay

It is extremely the important that we seek a delay in implementation. Please contact your legislators and ask them to support a delay.

The Chamber provides plenty of information about each representative, including email, phone, and mailing address.

Here’s the link to the Attorney General’s proposed regulations for Earned Sick Time and schedule for hearings.

A sense of place

Americans are an unsettled people. Census records  (PDF) show that a third to nearly half of us moved at least once in the previous five years. The period 2005-2010 showed the lowest rate,  35.4 percent, in the past 40 years.

Geographical Mobility: 2005 to 2010

Even though the unemployed have a higher mobility rate than the general population, the  collapse of home prices seems to have kept people in place. Most moves, when they do take place, occur within the same county.
We still like to keep in touch. A study of our phone call patterns shows how frequently we call people within certain regions.

The Connected States of America

Worcester makes a lot of calls within the Northeast, but has surprisingly strong phone connections to Florida and southern California and Arizona.
Americans aren’t the only ones to move, to shake off our past and plot our futures. A hundred years ago, we had a time of singular convergence. Although there’s no record that they ever met, we learn from a BBC story that Hitler, Trotsky, Tito, Freud and Stalin lived in Vienna.

BBC — 1913: When Hitler, Trotsky, Tito, Freud and Stalin all lived in the same place

None of them was born in Vienna and all changed their names before making the 20th century.

Chasing shadows on Groundhog’s Day

It’s almost that day again, when something means something in our dreams.

Click to enbiggen and to see the full Pogo strip

Globe columnist Yvonne Abraham has taken up the cause that Massachusetts needs an official groundhog.

Do you know that Massachusetts has been without an official groundhog for centuries? Outrageous!

Abraham’s column includes a conversation with meteorologist Mish Michaels about Woodchuck B, whom Michaels believes should be our official mascot. Woodchuck B would be the featured attraction in educational presentations about weather science.

Good idea. We shouldn’t forget local gal Laurel and Worcester’s Brewster:

Sunday in the Park with Laurel – “The shadow knows . . .”