The Weight of a Tomato

[aggienaut]

Letter to the Editor? -- see submitted version in comments
   Flyers and chalkings currently cover our campus, declaring "Tomato pickers carry the equivalent of two liberty bells (4000 lbs) a day for only $50 -- Boycott Taco Bell!!" While the image of a tired worker carrying two huge bells is one that certainly offends one's sense of what farm workers should be doing, I'd like to point out that the alarming propaganda is actually quite misleading. Obviously, the workers are not carrying two tons of tomatoes at one time as implied by the image. In fact, lets do some math: say they work for 12 hours per day, that works out to about 55 pounds of tomatoes, a large basket (a "bushel basket" to be precise), every ten minutes. Certainly they'd be very busy, and I'm sure their task isn't a pleasant one, but its not comparable to the shocking image of carting around two huge bicentinarian bells, and boycotting Taco Bell will certainly not help them.

###

   Incidently, the US Supreme Court in 1893 declared that tomatoes are vegetables, not fruit (Nix v Hedden). Personally, I find this case to be a shocking convolution of botanical fact.


   Justice Raff and I were sitting in the MU today, and Raff was ranting about his disagreement with a certain article in the opinion section of the Aggie. He resolved to write a letter to the editor, which hopefully will appear on Thursday, but then we were faced with the question of what his title would be (in signed in the letter), as he's currently the Court's second in command -- Alternate Presiding Justice? Alternate Chief Justice? Vice Chief Justice? Lieutenant Chief Justice? Would that make me Captain Justice?? We decided I'd need a cape if we went with that route.


   In other news, opinion columnist Russ Fagely thinks America should get over the groundhog day ritual. I think Fagely should stop hating on groundhogs.


   Also today, we actually had an AGASA meeting again.

Previously on EMOSNAIL
   Two Years Ago Today: Scarf Party - and my heater is broken
   One Year Ago Today: Amie's Dance Party - whereupon codetoad and pavelthegeek are "quite abundant."

Comments

actually

[emosnail.livejournal.com]

Actually I already thought of that, and figured that (A) if you account for these breaks it shouldn't significantly change the numbers, (B) they'd probably "work" 12 hours, though not continuously, so they might work four, break for 15, work four, break for half an hour to eat, and work four more. (C) keeping it mind that its probably not siginificant and may even be accounted for by point B, it would unnecessarily detract from the letter to the editor. (D) Originally I accounted for minimum wage, which would have them working exactly 7 hours, 41 minutes, 30 seconds, and certainly not working or being paid for breaks during that time. I then actually looked into labour laws (yes, yes I did), and turns out that min wage doesn't apply to "Local hand harvest laborers who: commute daily from their permanent residence; are paid on a piece rate basis in traditionally piece-rated occupations; and were engaged in agriculture less than thirteen weeks during the preceeding calendar year." (E) This last point I find very regrettable and I think min wage ought to apply to them, but the point of my argument remains: that tomato harvesters are NOT working in extraordinary inhumane conditions (F) and so with a thunderclap of comprehensive consideration and research I respectively declare your "fatal flaw" reduced to smoking craters, have a nice day.

Re: actually

[thiswallflower.livejournal.com]

Obviously I'm not as smart as you are. I retract my earlier statement.

letter

[emosnail.livejournal.com]

Here's the submitted version:

Recently, someone has gone to extensive effort to blanket our campus with chalkings and flyers declaring “Taco Bell tomato pickers are forced to carry the equivalent of two liberty bells (4000 lbs) of tomatos a day for only $50 – boycott Taco Bell!!!” While the image of an oppressed worker being crushed under the very symbol of our society is quite alarming, its actually rather misleading. If you bother to do the math, assuming the laborers work for about 12 hours a day, that works out to 55 lbs (one “bushel basket”) every ten minutes. Because tomatoes are fragile I doubt they even carry that many at once. This math portrays a very busy worker, but by no means one who is suffering under extraordinary and inhumane conditions as the misplaced chalking campaign implies. Moreover, they are not “forced” to do this, a boycott could not concievably help the laborers, and targetting a more tomato-intensive business, like Heinz Ketchup, would make more sense anyway. That someone would put so much effort into chalking on this after obviously little to no actual thought on the subject is disturbing, and I hate to see the student body being dragged into this intellectual bankruptcy.

I just regret I couldn't work "bicentinarian" in there.

[your-evenstar.livejournal.com]

bless you!

[emosnail.livejournal.com]

I hate how people just see things like these "boycott taco bell!" flyers and accept it at face value. When I first saw the flyer, someone next to me was like "you might as well shoot them!" in reference to teh deadly effects of carting around two liberty bells.

People piss me off. I can't believe whoever put all the effort into flyering / chalking like every room didn't think about it a little harder before doing so. All I can imagine is that they have a personal vendetta against Taco Bell (because seriously, why Taco Bell? They don't use THAT many tomatoes)

[your-evenstar.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean. It bugs me that people are easily deceived by so-called disenfranchisedment. In fact, your lj inspired me to write a rant of my own about my ludicrous book for my minorites and crime class.

It always helps to remember that people can manipulate numbers to say anything they want them to. Kudos to you for finding the facts.

[revchad.livejournal.com]

1) This is partly why I like making confussing stuff for Students for an Orwellian Society. I can always claim I ment something else.

2) Maybe we should discuss this in the propaganda class next quarter.

[emosnail.livejournal.com]

I seriously want to start a "office executives must handle the equivalent of 42,000 hedgehogs in paper every three years -- completely uncompensated for the countless papercuts!!" campaign to make fun of this.

[revchad.livejournal.com]

I support this plan, though I imagine there are cooler examples, such as "to earn just $X a day, a street juggler has to toss the equivalent of 14400 flaming torches, which would be as hot as the surface of mercury!" or some such.

boycott jugglers!

[emosnail.livejournal.com]

Yeah I'm completely open to what the analogy is. I like something about officer workers because its more ridiculous to portray them in inhumane conditions.

Also, I think the ridiculous analogy should come first, both to mirror the taco bell thing and because its more compelling:

"to earn just $X a day, a street juggler must expose himself to temperatures as hot as the surface of mercury (tossing 14,400 flaming torches)!! Boycott street jugglers!"

Incidently, thats also funny because the boycott would directly hurt the jugglers.

[kelleydoodle.livejournal.com]

kris, i love that letter. while the second one is probably better, the first one made me laugh loudly enough that i woke my roommate up.

how are you? i miss you, my darling.

hey!

[emosnail.livejournal.com]

*hug!!*

I've been busy. This week I had four midterms. This morning my four hour window to register for classes started at 7:30am, then I had a midterm at 9:00am and 12 noon. O=


How've you been?