7 Minute Workout

Editor’s note:  So many procrastinate an exercise program due to excuses: “Can’t afford a gym membership”, “Don’t know what equipment to buy”,  “Not sure how to exercise” are common.  Read this article and start high intensity interval training today.  Do a search for bodyweight training to enhance and add variety to your time efficient home exercise program.

Now in my 6th year as an expat in Mexico, I notice that most of the expats fill their large blocks of free time with high intensity food and beverage programs.  Girth is a growing trend.

A seven-minute exercise regime devised by scientists has been shown to provide as many health benefits as going for a long run and doing  a session of weight training.

The workout requires no more than a wall, a chair and seven minutes of your time.

However the experts say that you must be in pain when performing the regime in order to benefit.

The article, entitled High-intensity circuit training using body Weight: Maximum Results With Minimal Investment, is published in the American College of Sports Medicine Health & Fitness.

It outlines 12 exercises that uses the body’s own weight to get the same amount of exercise as doing a long run and session of weight-training in just seven minutes.

‘There’s very good evidence that high-intensity interval training provides many of the fitness benefits of prolonged endurance training but in much less time,’ Chris Jordan, director of exercise physiology at the Human Performance Institute in Orlando, and co-author of the new article, told the New York Times.

Previous research has found that just a few minutes of training at an intensity approaching your maximum capacity produces molecular changes within muscles comparable to those of several hours of running or bike riding.

Interval training, though, requires intervals. The scientists who devised this new workout say that to get the maximum benefits the extremely intense activity must be intermingled with brief periods of recovery.

In the program outlined by Mr. Jordan and his colleagues, this recovery is provided in part by a 10-second rest between exercises. This rest is extended by alternating the muscles used in each  exercise.

During each set of exercises, the unexercised muscles have a moment to ‘catch their breath’, which makes the order of the exercises important.

The exercises should be performed in rapid succession, allowing 30 seconds for each.

But to get maximum benefits the intensity must hover at around and eight on what they term as the discomfort scale of 1 to 10.

Mr Jordan says that the seven minutes should be unpleasant.  The upside is, after seven minutes, you’re done.

Daily Mail article

New Water Heater

Harsh home water is a minor inconvenience of living in my area.

When your water heater dies after only 6 years on the job, hope that you know a plumber or have access to someone with pluming skills.  As the son of a commercial plumbing contractor, I’m up for this easy fix.    $300USD will tackle the Do IT YOURSELF job vs. approx $1,000 that it will cost a reliable plumbing contractor.

Prices for water heaters certainly have increased since my last replacement at my home in Denver.  My recollection is $170 for that one.  But, that was for a natural gas heater, no liquid propane, and add to import fees for the Mexican purchase this week.  Paid $260 for this Rheem “energy efficient” model at Ensenada Home Depot.

40 gallon(152L) water heaters are standard.  Take a photo if your old tank’s info label with capacity, energy, blah blah along with you to hardware store.

5 connections for you DIY water heater replacement weekend warriors.  All threaded joints require teflon taping to the thread fitting:

1 + 2: Hot(output) and Cold(input to tank)…that’s the two hoses you see on the top of the newly installed tank.  Gotta have the right fitting sized on each end of hose.  Check with installation instructions whether you need Dielectric fittings in addition to hoses.  Easiest thing is to take your water and gas(#3 below) connections with you to hardware store when buying your new heater.

3: Gas hose input:  Typically, need a brass fitting that fits between the gas hose and the tank.  TURN OFF the gas at house end BEFORE DE-INSTALL and INSTALL!!!

4. Vent for heat exhaust through top.  If your previous water heater was installed properly, that venting pipe can simply be affixed in the same position for your new heater.

5. Pressure relief valve.  That is the shiny brass thingy on top of the new heater(or the dull brass thingy on oldy).  Due to water pressure fluctuation or other, this allows the tank to breathe, or spill out water content when pressure overloads.  Without this pressure relief valve, your tank becomes an effective bomb.

mineral content buildup in my water heater hose

I noticed several water heater connections “kits” at Home Depot.  WARNING, as these kits may not have the right size connections and you likely won’t need ALL of the parts included which waste your money. I replaced both water hoses, as they were looking pretty ugly due to my high mineral content water.

As mentioned, if you are a first timer DIY water heater replacement student, simply take ALL of your connections to your hardware store and break our your best Mr. Magoo clueless look to the 19 year old plumbing clerk.

After install a tricky thing is to get the pilot lit.  Instruction manual will teach you where to find the pilot light igniter.  If you heater does NOT come with an auto ignition lighter, have a long stem candle lighter on hand.

Set the temperature on the temp control knob(may need to experiment setting next few days to get enough/nottoomuch heat) and your off to a refreshing shower to reward your good work.

 

New Border Crossing Cards

Editor’s note: The government agency that distributes passport books that have an RFID chip(since approx 2005) also distributes passport cards with RFID chips(since 2008).  BUT, the BOOK CHIPS are not the same as the CARD CHIPS and therefore are not useable/authorized for the READY LANE program at the border.  We get the government we deserve.

By: Jacob Goodwin , Government Security News

Passport Card

The U.S. State Department wants to gather technical and capabilities information from prospective vendors that can provide the hardware, equipment, maintenance and, possibly, the printing of many thousands of credit-card-sized Passport Cards and Border Crossing Cards that can be used as alternatives to traditional book-style U.S. passports.

These cards have been used at land and sea-ports of entry into the United States since 2009, according to a special notice published by the State Department’s office of consular systems and technology services on May 8.

The notice was for a “full and open” request for information (RFI), says the notice, and does not commit the State Department to any specific future procurement.

“The Passport Card is functional in the DHS ReadyLane system, an integrated, automated border-crossing identification system including programs such as NEXUS, Secure Electronic Network for Travelers’ Rapid Inspection (SENTRI), and Free and Secure Trade Program (FAST,” says the notice.

The State Department issues Border Crossing Cards to some qualified citizens of Mexico. “The BCC allows them to enter defined border zones in Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas for business and pleasure,” explains the notice. “When presented together with a valid Mexican passport, the BCC allows the holder to travel for business or pleasure anywhere in the United States.”

The State Department did not make clear how many of these cards it intends to print in the foreseeable future. However, it did include a few sentences that might tantalize prospective vendors looking for new markets.

“Additionally, the Department may use the existing support infrastructure, such as printers and readers, to create additional types of travel cards,” said the notice. “These travel cards would be functionally similar to the Passport Card but would be used to denote other travel privileges.” It is conceivable that the State Department is entertaining a new requirement for travel cards of one kind or another for some or all of the 11 million “illegal aliens” currently residing in the United States, though the recent notice made no specific reference to this possibility.

Interested vendors have until June 3 to submit their capabilities information. Further information is available from Adrienne Bell at 703-516-1667 or bellam@state.gov.

And in a related story today…The Dollar Vigilante…

The total state needs total information. How else can it track every dollar to snatch, every child to draft, every opinion to slap down? The monitoring of movement will always be done covertly or – if revealed – in the name of safety and fairness.

Obama assumed office with a vow to lead the most transparent White House in American history. Now another Godzilla Act has another massive gotcha that steps closer to the total state. The 800 plus page Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act of 2013 (S.744) was introduced in the Senate on April 17 by a powerful group of bipartisan senators known as the “Gang of Eight.” And, as the comedian George Carlin once said of bipartisanship, it “usually means that a larger-than-usual deception is being carried out.”

Section 3101 of S.744, “Unlawful Employment of Unauthorized Aliens, contains a mandatory “Identity Authentication Mechanism” that mandates a biometric ID database for almost every adult in America. The so-called “Photo Tool” database would be administered jointly by the Social Security Administration and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). It would include not only personal information but also photographs from state-issued ID such as a driver’s license. Every adult who drives or travels, who opens a bank account or intersects with a government agency requires a state-issued photo ID. This means almost every adult in America will be on record with the most powerful domestic surveillance and police force in the world.

The ostensible purpose of the database is to prevent the illegal employment of undocumented immigrants. Employers would be legally obligated to “E-Verify” every person they hired; that is, they would be required to “match the photo on a covered identity document provided to the employer [by the job applicant] to a photo maintained by a US Citizenship and Immigration Services database.”

The American state does not care about the financial cost E-Verify inflicts on business or taxpayers. The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) estimates the cost at “about $4.1 billion in initial setup costs and $8.5 billion in ongoing annual costs to government, businesses, and employees.” Additionally, if a specified 5,000 special agents are hired at an annual compensation that starts at “$45,416 per year, the new hires will likely cost taxpayers at least $2.27 billion over the next decade.”

Colorado River Slows

When the original total allocation of the river was set in the 1920s, it was far above regional consumption. But it was also more than the river could supply in the long term. The river was divided based on an estimated annual flow of roughly 21 billion cubic meters per year. More recent studies have indicated that the 20th century, and especially the 1920s, was a time of above-normal flows. These studies indicate that the long-term average of flow is closer to 18 billion cubic meters, with yearly flows ranging anywhere from roughly 6 billion cubic meters to nearly 25 billion cubic meters. As utilization has increased, the deficit between flow and allocation has become more apparent.

Total allocations of river resources for the Upper and Lower basins and Mexico plus water lost to evaporation adds up to more than 21 billion cubic meters per year. Currently, the Upper Basin does not use the full portion of its allocation, and large reservoirs along the river can help meet the demand of the Lower Basin. Populations in the region are expected to increase; in some states, the population could double by 2030. A study released at the end of 2012 by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation predicted a possible shortage of 3 billion cubic meters by 2035.

The Colorado River provides water for irrigation of roughly 15 percent of the crops in the United States, including vegetables, fruits, cotton, alfalfa and hay. It also provides municipal water supplies for large cities, such as Phoenix, Tucson, Los Angeles, San Diego and Las Vegas, accounting for more than half of the water supply in many of these areas. Minute 319, signed in November 2012, gives Mexico a small amount of additional water in an attempt to restore the delta region. However, the macroeconomic impact on Mexico is minimal, since agriculture accounts for the majority of the river’s use in Mexico but only about 3 percent of the gross domestic product of the Baja Norte province.

There is an imbalance of power along the international border. The United States controls the headwaters of the Colorado River and also has a greater macroeconomic interest in maintaining the supply of water from the river. This can make individual amendments of the 1944 Treaty somewhat misleading. Because of the erratic nature of the river, the treaty effectively promises more water than the river can provide each year. Cooperation in conservation efforts and in finding alternative water sources on the U.S. side of the border, not treaty amendments, will become increasingly important as regional water use increases over the coming decades.

Read more: U.S., Mexico: The Decline of the Colorado River | Stratfor

Tijuana Playmate

Raquel Pomplun from Chula Vista, California, was announced as Playboy’s new Playmate of the Year on Thursday.

In keeping with tradition, the 25-year-old, who was raised in Tijuana, Mexico, and studied biochemistry at Southwestern College, was awarded $100,000 in prize money as well as a one-year lease on a 2014 Jaguar F-TYPE.

What’s more, the model, who is also classically trained as a ballerina, proudly made history as the first-ever Mexican-American woman to be given the honor.

The model, Raquel Pomplun, 24, gave an interview published Wednesday to Diez4 magazine in Tijuana in which she described how she ended up on the cover with Bruno Mars.

“I don’t believe it! I have to pinch myself,” she told the magazine of appearing in Playboy.

She said she answered a casting call last May by submitting some file photos. Then she got a phone call from Playboy letting her know that they were interested in her. That was followed by tests, interviews and finally a test shoot.

“(Hugh) Heffner approves all Playmates that will be on the cover and he picked me,” she said.

Pomplun said she started modeling when she was 13 years old but that the Playboy assignment was the first time she posed nude.

Although she was born in San Diego, Pomplun considers herself a “tijuanense” because she always lived in Playas de Tijuana.

“I always boast that I’m from Tijuana wherever I go,” she said.

The model said she was the first model from Tijuana to appear in a Playboy cover.

She recently moved to Los Angeles but plans to return to San Diego after her two-year commitment with the magazine ends and go to college.

Pomplun plans to use funds from her stint at Playboy to attend UCSD, where she wants to study biochemical engineering.

In the meantime, she said she was going to take advantage of her exposure.

“I’m going to model until I’m too old to do it.”

daily mail article

Border Birthers

UT San Diego

San Diego Fire and Rescue crews were called to the San Ysidro border crossing for nearly 160 childbirth emergencies in 2012 — one almost every other day.

Such calls continued in 2013, with 15 childbirth emergency calls to the gateway into Tijuana in January, eight in February and 17 in March, according to city records obtained by U-T Watchdog.

There are no statistics on how many of the moms being rushed by emergency crews to local hospitals are U.S. citizens, as federal laws prohibit emergency crews and hospital teams from asking. Babies born under the circumstances are U.S. citizens as a birthright.

“Our crews view the situation as patients needing medical attention,” Fire and Rescue spokesman Maurice Luque said. “We leave enforcement of immigration laws to the appropriate authorities.”

Dr. Jim Dunford, the medical director of the city of San Diego, says that emergency crews and hospitals largely direct expecting moms to labor and delivery wings. It’s only the most urgent cases where babies are delivered in the emergency room.

The numbers concern some activists in the immigration debate.

“We have people who are coming here to give birth, who want to give birth in the United States,” said Ted Hilton with Taxpayer Revolution, who has been studying immigration issues for years and championing stricter border controls.

“Once someone gives birth in the United States, they’re eligible to apply for food stamps, medical care, public housing and other benefits for that child because that child is automatically guaranteed U.S. citizenship,” he said.

Pedro Rios, director of the American Friends Service Committee’s U.S.-Mexico Border Program, looked at the pregnancy/childbirth emergency numbers and thought they seemed quite minimal.

“At first glance it seems these numbers are really nothing to worry about,” Rios said. “They are an extremely low percentage compared to the number of people who cross on a daily basis, especially through San Ysidro, the world’s most-crossed port of entry.”

Indeed, more than 300,000 cross that port of entry each day.

Rios also said that when Mexican nationals cross illegally, it’s not for nefarious reasons.

“I think that the problem is that people need to survive,” Rios said. “And people need to find ways to make ends meet. And so migration into the U.S. from Mexico has been taking place for many years and for many different reasons, whether it’s for family reunification or because farmers are being displaced in Mexico or because there might be better care in the U.S.”

The federal Medicaid program has $2 billion per year set aside to help pay for the medical costs of unauthorized immigrants, most of which goes to pay for delivering babies in emergency rooms, Kaiser Health News reported this year. Half of that money is being spent in California.

A Pew Research Hispanic Center study released this year counted 4.5 million U.S.-born children whose parents were unauthorized.

Otay Mesa Crossing Map

The Otay Mesa border crossing has become very popular for several reasons.  It lacks the character of the San Ysidro/Tijuana crossing.  It does not have the congestion of Tijuana.  The Blvd 2000 highway access avoids most of TJ’s traffic.

Otay is also a great crossing for SENTRI pass holders hauling visitors back north.  Able bodies visitors can walk the 200 yds of the pedestrian crossing and meet their drivers at one of several restaurants just across the border.  The PED X-ing at Otay is usually a fraction of the wait as the PED X-ing at Tijuana/San Ysidro.  Map for PED and driver meetup is photo #6 below.  Friend suggests Erik’s Deli for meetup on USA side of Otay for good coffee, food, wifi.

When I Otay,  I  use the Free Road at North Rosarito(exit Hwy1 just after the Commercial Mexicana).  7 Miles after exiting Hwy 1 is a well-signed right turn to AEROPUERTO.  7 more miles and good signage to “GARITA OTAY/AEROPUERTO” and you reach the Otay Mesa crossing.

The only negative that I find with Otay Mesa is that the Ready Lane program has made this crossing  as congested as San Ysidro during rush hour.  There are many times during the week when the regular lanes are faster than the Ready Lanes.

That and maybe the food choices at Otay aren’t as much fun as TJ.

Click on photos below to enlarge.

         

Baja Border Map

San Ysidro Ready Lane Map

San Ysidro Ready Lane Map, or how to get lost in Tijuana!  If my map confuses you, please blame the clusterfluff of Tijuana and not my map-making skills.  Constructed this map for visitors and forgot to publicize earlier.

CBP Ready Lane ID Requirement  If you have a passport CARD, that works for Ready Lane.  Unfortunately, the newish RFID passport BOOKS do NOT qualify for READY LANE.

With all of the construction and changes at the San Ysidro Border Crossing(Tijuana), please beware that these instructions could change at the whim of Customs and Border Patrol(CBP) and/or the city of Tijuana.  That is why I’m including all of the options around the border.  Traffic, blocked off roads and some holiday celebrations can put you in for a long day if you don’t know how to navigate Tijuana.

If you really need to escape TJ from here, PASEO CENTENARIO or PADRE KINO SOUTH(RIGHT) will get you to the AIRPORT and/or the OTAY MESA BORDER CROSSING.

During my crossing this week, I decided to try the PADRE KINO entry to the San Ysidro Ready Lanes.  They were blocked off, so I did the Col Federal loop and U-turn at the bus station(photo #7).  This route spits you out onto PASEO CENTENARIO, MHG roundabout and on to VIA RAPIDA ORIENTE entry to READY LANES.  Thanks to Baja Bound Insurance for their video and photo tour of this routing.

My READY LANE preferences from the Calle Segunda border approach Decision Point are the VRP  and PASEO de LOS HEROES options.   Photo below(photo 1 on map) give you the choice of 4 lanes to do your thing.

San Ysidro Border Approach Lanes

For the Via Rapida Poniente(VRP) option, see the Photo #2 below.  It is the right turn after 1/2 mile from the 4 lane Decision Point that will take you to the Scissors U-turn.

For the Heroes option, take PASEO de LOS HEROES lane at Decision Point 1/2 mile to Scissors.

    

Photo #5 above shows the route to VRO(along the side of the bridge) 200 yds after the Miguel Hidalgo Glorieta(MHG).  Photo #6 puts you at the Nissan dealer right turn to VRO.  BE CERTAIN to merge left ASAP after the Nissan right turn to access the READY LANES.    Miss this merge left and you’ll have to circle back on PASEO CENTENARIO to MHG for a second attempt.  Click any of the 4 photos to enlarge them.  Photo #s in top left corner correspond to locations on San Ysidro Ready Lane Map.

My Thursday 10AM crossing wait was 35 minutes.  One surprise was that at about 200 yards from the guard shacks, the SENTRI LANES had open access to merge with a READY LANE.  Hmmm, that may tempt me on my next READY LANE crossing.

I have mucho experiencia at the sport known as struggling through traffic in TJ and am happy to share.

Mexico Pushes Away USA

This week’s visit to Mexico by President Obama disguises what is really happening between Mexico and the USA.  But, that is standard in politics and Mexico.  All is not what it seems.

President Obama is winning cheers in Mexico this week on the feel-good issues of trade and immigration. Unaddressed is a more urgent issue — Mexico’s lack of cooperation with the U.S. in its war on cartels.

This deserves far greater attention than it’s getting, given that Mexico, beneath the happy handshakes, is pretty much kicking critical U.S. forces out of the country.

According to a report in Sunday’s New York Times, Mexico has stopped sending its high-ranking officers to the U.S. to be polygraphed, a key way to weed out corrupted officials from high office.

It’s also thrown out U.S security officials from a major intelligence center in Monterrey, where they had worked side by side with Mexican officials to analyze tips on cartel activity. Now the data won’t be shared.

Drones flown over cartel-kingpin hideouts in the Mexican badlands have also been scrapped.

U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives investigators also were evicted from an investigation into a major gas explosion at the Pemex state oil company headquarters in Mexico City last January, after they asked to probe whether the inferno may have been caused by a bomb.

If Mexico’s war were won, it would be no problem, the U.S. would be as happy to leave as the Mexicans would be to see the U.S. go. But the war hasn’t been won not by a long shot. In fact, there is evidence it may be getting worse.

Killings average about 50 a day and the death toll is approaching 100,000. The private intelligence forecasting firm Stratfor reports that in the northern Chihuahua state, a surge in violence is afflicting its central region as the Los Zetas-linked La Linea gang shoots it out with the Sinaloa Cartel.

There have been new grotesque cartel killings in Veracruz and Acapulco, including one incident where several headless bodies were placed on plastic chairs in a public place.

Such problems won’t go away by ignoring them.

Yet Enrique Pena Nieto, who was elected by a war-weary Mexican public apparently to just make the cartel war go away — and whose party is widely known for appeasing rather than destroying drug cartels — seems to be prioritizing headline control instead of criminal control as his means of dealing with the issue.

All this calls for U.S. leadership. But the U.S. president is going right along with the ignore-it-and-it-will-go-away approach, leading again from behind.

source

Día del Trabajo

It wasn’t until 1913, when Labor Day was held for the first time in Mexico, as part of a “global day for eight hours of work”, just a few months after the coup d’état of Victoriano Huerta.  In 1923 Álvaro Obregón as President of Mexico agreed to officially establish May 1^st as the celebration day of the Mexican workers’ struggle, and in 1925, President Plutarco Elias Calles, decided to set it as the official date for “labor day”.  source

Most of the world marks Labor Day on May 1 with parades and rallies. Americans celebrate it in early September, by heading to the beach or firing up the grill. Why the discrepancy? Here’s a hint: The answer would have been a great disappointment to Frederick Engels.

Engels, the co-author of The Communist Manifesto, had high hopes for May Day, which originated in the United States. When the socialist-dominated organization known as the Second International jumped on the American bandwagon and adopted May 1 as International Labor Day, Engels confidently expected the proletariats of Europe and America to merge into one mighty labor movement and sweep capitalism into the dustbin of history.

Things didn’t work out that way, of course, and the divergent Labor Day celebrations are part of the story.

In Pictures: A History Of Labor Day

May Day’s origins can be traced to Chicago, where the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions, under its leader Samuel Gompers, mounted a general strike on May 1, 1886, as part of its push for an eight-hour work day. On May 4, during a related labor rally in Haymarket Square, someone threw a bomb, which killed a policeman and touched off a deadly mêlée. As a result, four radical labor leaders were eventually hanged on dubious charges.

In 1888, Gompers’s union reorganized itself as the American Federation of Labor, and revived its push for the eight-hour day. Gompers laid plans for a strike to begin on May 1, 1890–the fourth anniversary of the walkout that had led to the Haymarket affair. Meanwhile, in Paris, a group of labor leaders were meeting to establish the Second International. To these Europeans, the executed Chicago radicals were revered martyrs. In an act of solidarity, the Second International set May 1, 1890, as a day of protest.

Engels was thrilled. “As I write these lines, the proletariat of Europe and America is holding a review of its forces; it is organized for the first time as one army,” he wrote on the first May Day. “The spectacle we are now witnessing will make the capitalists and landowners of all lands realize that today the proletarians of all lands are, in very truth, united. If only Marx were with me to see it with his own eyes!”

The first May Day was deemed a success, so the Second International adopted it as an annual event. And for a few years, it seemed as though May 1 might be on the way to becoming a rallying point for socialists in America, as it was elsewhere. The Panic of 1893 touched off a national wave of bankruptcies that plunged the nation into a deep depression–and depressions generally push workers toward radical solutions. Things came to a boil with the Pullman Strike, which erupted in Chicago in May 1894. The striking Pullman Palace Car Co. workers quickly won the support of the American Railway Union, led by Gompers’s rival Eugene V. Debs. Railroad traffic in much of the country was paralyzed.

President Grover Cleveland, a conservative Democrat, was determined to squash the strike. But he did not want to alienate the American Federation of Labor, which was not yet involved in the Pullman dispute. Moreover, 1894 was a midterm election year, and the Democratic Party could ill afford to be seen as an enemy of labor. Cleveland and the Democrats hit upon a possible solution: They would proclaim a national Labor Day to honor the worker. But not on May 1–that date was tainted by its association with socialists and anarchists. Fortunately, an alternative was at hand.

Back in September 1882, certain unions had begun to celebrate a Labor Day in New York City. By 1894, this event was an annual late-summer tradition in New York and had been adopted by numerous states, but it was not a national holiday. Nor was it associated with the radicals who ran the Second International, and who liked to run riot on May Day.

On the contrary, the September date was closely associated with Gompers, who was campaigning to have it declared a national holiday. Gompers opposed the socialists and was guiding the AFL toward a narrower and less-radical agenda. Gratefully, Cleveland seized upon the relatively innocuous September holiday as a way to reward labor without endorsing radicalism. On June 28, 1894, he signed an act of Congress establishing Labor Day as a federal holiday on the first Monday of September. (He made a point of sending the signing pen to Gompers as a souvenir.) Less than a week later, the president sent federal troops to Chicago. Gompers refused to support the strike, which soon collapsed.

With his union in ruins, Debs went into politics, but his Socialist Party ultimately failed to catch on as America’s party of the left. Organized labor did not regain its momentum until the 1930s–and by that point, Gompers’s September holiday had been institutionalized as America’s Labor Day. May Day, meanwhile, had become the occasion for big annual parades in Moscow’s Red Square, which did not improve that holiday’s reputation in the United States.

 Forbes article