Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is mobilizing its store managers and department supervisors around the country to warn that if Democrats win power in November, they'll likely change federal law to make it easier for workers to unionize companies -- including Wal-Mart. In recent weeks, thousands of Wal-Mart store managers and department heads have been summoned to mandatory meetings at which the retailer stresses the downside for workers if stores were to be unionized. The Wal-Mart human-resources managers who run the meetings don't specifically tell attendees how to vote in November's election, but make it clear that voting for Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama would be tantamount to inviting unions in, according to Wal-Mart employees who attended gatherings in Maryland, Missouri and other states.

This month marks the 75th anniversary of the Catholic Worker. Resolutely, it has been a lay pacifist and social justice movement, one as independent of the Catholic hierarchy as it is spiritually tied to Christ's call to serve the poor and combat Caesar with the moral force of nonviolence. Like Day, Washington's Catholic Workers are pacifists. Like her, they live in voluntary poverty and are loyal sacramental Catholics. And when the United States goes to war, they are often jailed on nonviolent protest, civil disobedience charges.

Amid a tottering economy, rising inflation, increasing unemployment and a housing market meltdown, waiters, beauticians and pet groomers report that customers are growing tightfisted. It is hard to determine just how much people are cutting back on tipping. But the stakes are huge. The slowdown in tips is another blow for increasingly squeezed service workers who often don't have much of a cushion to fall back on when times get tough.