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

[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.