aggienaut: (WTF)
[personal profile] 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 [livejournal.com profile] codetoad and [livejournal.com profile] pavelthegeek are "quite abundant."

(deleted comment)

actually

Date: 2005-02-09 07:32 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] 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

Date: 2005-02-09 07:36 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] thiswallflower.livejournal.com
Obviously I'm not as smart as you are. I retract my earlier statement.

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