The Fight for Fifteen (and Fish)
This week we go in on raising the minimum wage and reminisce about a war fought over fish. Delicious fish.
Welcome to another edition of Moronitude! This week we’re going to be talking about minimum wage, an update from last week’s newsletter and the Cod Wars. If you like what you’ve been reading, mash that button down below.
I’ve been watching a lot of Ancient Aliens lately. I’ll pause to let you cast judgement upon me.
I honestly love hearing those crackpots go on about how the only explanation for every single accomplishment made by the human race is “aliens did it.” To ancient astronaut theorists, it couldn’t be any other way.
While the show hasn’t yet convinced me that the Pyramids were actually built as an interstellar power plant to create fuel for the starships that brought the “star people” to Earth, it does make me wonder what an alien would think if they showed up today. Like, for example, what would an alien make of the arcane rules of the United States Senate.
As far as I can tell, the only real good the filibuster has ever done was indirectly leading to one of the better Simpsons episodes (Lisa Goes to Washington). There is pretty much zero chance that any sort of legislation is going to pass with 60 votes given how polarized the government is currently, so this leads to politicians trying to jam whatever they can in to budget bills since those don’t require a vote of 60 to pass.
In some instances this leads to senators doing ridiculous shit, like failed football coach and clubhouse leader for Worst Rookie Senator Tommy Tuberville adding an amendment to ban trans kids from playing sports. This kind of stuff is the reason that people hate the government and I can’t help but agree with them, so there’s little need to further hammer home that point.
What I want to talk about was the amendment Bernie Sanders tried to attach that would raise the minimum wage to $15/hour. Democrats were working to make this originally a part of the relief bill, but that was shot down when the Senate Parliamentarian, a job I’m willing to bet most of us didn’t know even existed, ruled that it would go against the rules of reconciliation bills, but all of this is a whole different rant for another day.
Sanders’ attempt to raise the minimum wage was thwarted when every Repbulican and 8 Democrats voted against it. Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona caused a flurry of outrage after she seemed to take particular glee in voting no.
It only takes a little bit of internet sleuthing to find evidence of Sinema supporting a minimum wage increase. The same holds true for almost all of the other Democrats who voted against the amendment, as raising the minimum wage has been a cornerstone of the Democratic platform for a while.
The thing that made Sinema’s vote so outrageous to many people was the apparent glee she had in casting it. People have connected her thumbs down motion to the way a different senator from Arizona, John McCain, voted against the repeal of Obamacare. The most obvious difference being that McCain, a man I’ve almost universally disagreed with, was making his vote so millions of Americans could maintain their health insurance. Sinema was voting to help keep millions of Americans in poverty.
Over the last couple of weeks I’ve seen so many people in the government and in my personal life arguing against raising the minimum wage and it makes my blood boil. The first minimum wage laws in the United States came about to combat the use of sweated labor (sweatshops) that sprung up during industrialization. When the first federal minimum wage was instituted in 1938 the idea was for workers to be able to have a living wage.
In 1968 the minimum wage was at $1.60/hour, the equivalent of $11/hour in 2021. But since 1968 the purchasing power of the rate (which takes inflation into account) has dropped by a third. The wage has been stuck at $7.25 since 2009 despite the cost of living going up every single year. A person who manages to work 40 hours a week for the entire year—which means no time off and an employer who will schedule you consistently, which anyone who has worked in retail or the service industry knows is far from a guarantee—is rewarded with a salary of slightly more than $15,000. This is just barely over the poverty line.
If you work full-time you should be able to live comfortably. Full stop. This has become a radical belief in this country and it enrages me. It’s particularly galling during a pandemic. Senators who spent the entire last year praising essential workers are joyfully guaranteeing that those essential workers remain in poverty. We’ll call them heroes but we won’t let them make enough money to afford housing or healthy meals or the ability to take a day off of work.
Plenty of people make the argument that minimum wage jobs aren’t intended for people looking to support a family or live on their own. They’ll say that flipping burgers isn’t important enough labor to earn a living wage. For a while, I’ve attempted to reason with these folks, make them see the logic in providing workers with a living wage. But those days are done. My only retort these days involves a four-letter word.
Work is work. If you’re working a job you deserve to make a living with that income. If anything, my hardest jobs have been my lowest paying ones. I’m a very lucky man who gets to make a living from typing. It’s a cushy gig. But it’s not work in the same way that standing on my feet for a 14-hour double shift at Jewel-Osco was. A double I would work because picking up shifts from others was the only way I could hope to get enough hours to make rent thanks to incredibly inconsistent scheduling.
Flipping burgers is an incredibly stressful job on both the mind and the body—good luck trying to find anybody who worked more than a couple hours in a kitchen without a couple of burns on their body. It shouldn’t be used over and over as an example of a job not worthy of a living wage.
There’s a belief among the most privileged people in this country that the only people who work minimum wage jobs are teenagers trying to get a little pocket change, which couldn’t be farther from the reality. Parents work minimum wage jobs. Immigrants work minimum wage jobs. People saving up for college work minimum wage jobs. Seniors work minimum wage jobs. Any sort of argument that these jobs are supposed to merely be placeholders for people as they move their way up the corporate ladder is covered in classism and sexism, not to mention a complete misunderstanding of the realities of work. Actual work.
So this brings us all back to the aliens. How could you possibly explain why a senator making $174,000 per year (about $83/hour if they worked 52 weeks in the year, but they don’t even come close to that) would celebrate denying a liveable minimum wage to their constituents during a global pandemic? How could you explain why it makes sense for a state with 700,000 people to have the same number of senators as a state with 40 million people? It’s all so dumb.
Abolish the filibuster. Get rid of the Senate while we’re at it. Let’s just put in simple majority rules for every damn vote. I’m sick and tired of arcane rules preventing the few people in government who actually want to help people from getting it done. The relief bill is going to help a lot of people, but it’s a band-aid. We could have really changed things for a lot of people, but instead we got more of the same.
Weekly Song to Rock Out To
The 4th of July by The Blue Meanies
No band polarized my group of friends more than the Blue Meanies. They were the loudest band I’ve ever seen and their brand of ska/punk/klezmer/metal/chaos was definitely an acquired taste. I understand why people hate them.
But I do not hate them. To me, the Blue Meanies are one of the most interesting bands to ever come out of the ska/punk genre. Their sound was unlike any other band on Earth and their live shows were absolute mayhem. I’d pay a large sum of money to be smashed into the barrier at the front of the Metro to see these gents play again.
Vaccine Update!
Last week I talked about how hard it’s been to get a vaccine, going in depth about how I’ve been feeling hopeless and bitter seeing people around me get their turn while I struggle to get an appointment. This week I did what lots of people do, gave up on the state of New Jersey and tried my luck in New York City. I had an appointment within a couple of hours of hunting and on Wednesday I made the trek to Queens to get the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine.
I was so nervous going in and very afraid that they would end up denying me the shot since I live in New Jersey, even though I am eligible for the New York vaccine because I work in the state. But everything went so smoothly. And as always seems to happen when I get a shot, the nurse made fun of me for being afraid to look at the needle. “But you have all these tattoos…” It was funny that he let me know he put the shot in the “W” of my Vonnegut “Everything Was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt” tattoo. And I’ll be honest, the vaccine was pretty beautiful and it didn’t hurt.
I cannot begin to explain the relief this has been on my psyche. A huge weight has been lifted. For those still waiting for the shot, keep on being persistent trying to get that appointment. And, uh, maybe write about it for a newsletter so the Gods will be on your side in the coming week.
Things to Read
OK, this isn’t something to read really. I didn’t bother reading the article. But look at those snails! The gifs in here brought me untold joy so I wanted to share it with y’all. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/02/arts/mini-brands-supermarket-sweep.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
The Eyes of Texas is a song traditionally sung by the Texas Longhorns alumni and athletes at football games. It’s essentially a rip-off of I’ve Been Working on the Railroad and its title is a reference to something Robert E. Lee said. Its history can also be traced back to minstrel shows. Black athletes and students aren’t so enthused about the song and have been lobbying the university to get rid of the song. I included this article because of the various vile and racist quotes from alumni defending the tradition. Anytime you hear people bitch about cancel culture or defending their right to heritage, look at the language they use. If they say something like “the blacks are free and it’s time for them to move to another state where everything is in their favor” it’s a pretty big tell that the heritage they’re defending is white supremacy. https://www.texastribune.org/2021/03/01/ut-eyes-of-texas-donors-emails/
Cuttlefish are horrifying and smarter than children. They shall replace our octopi overlords. https://www.sciencealert.com/cuttlefish-can-pass-a-cognitive-test-designed-for-children?fbclid=IwAR04JbiRgBv7VrEvYeKabDMEpZxy1kRq_nXPlpVJu_iuEsW5DmHAruoVuiU
Charlie’s History Corner
Wars have been fought over many things. Usually it boils down to some competition for land and resources. When that’s not the case religion is often the culprit. But sometimes, like in the case of the wars we’re about to discuss, the reason for the war seems pretty laughable on the surface. Like in the case of the Three Cod Wars between Iceland and the United Kingdom.
In Iceland, Cod is more than just a fish to batter up and fry. It’s a way of life. The waters around Iceland have been teeming with one of the world’s most coveted fish for generations, with fisherman traveling great distances to score some cod. As fishing became more commercial in the 20th century, nations would get into tussles over who had the right to fish in certain locations.
The First Cod War began in 1958 when Iceland decided to expand the Icelandic Fishery Zone (waters in which only domestic fishermen could operate) from 4 nautical miles to 12 nautical miles. The change was opposed by the entirety of NATO, but it was the United Kingdom that decided to continue fishing in the same waters, but this time with the protection of warships.
Naturally, folks in Iceland weren’t particularly pleased with the British Navy hanging out off their coast and protests took place outside the British Embassy. The British ambassador responded in the most British way possible: putting his speakers out the window and cranking up bagpipe music.
Nobody was really happy with this “war” after a while. The British were sick of spending an insane amount of money to defend fishing boats and Iceland was getting pretty annoyed by having the British navy chase them away every time they tried to enforce their territorial claims. So in 1961 they settled their differences, Iceland kept their new borders and the First Cod War was over without a single casualty besides poor protestors being forced to listen to shitty bagpipe music.
In 1972, Iceland expanded their territory once again, this time expanding it to 50 nautical miles. And once again the British were pissed. Once again, all the Western powers were on the side of the British, but as Iceland argued they were fighting colonialism, they received support from many African nations.
For the next couple of months the Icelandic coast guard went out and cut the fishing lines of any British trawler they could catch. A lot of boats ran into each other. Some shots were fired. The Icelandic people once again got very steamed and broke all the windows of the British embassy in Reykjavik. Iceland even considered pulling out of NATO since they had received zero assistance from the organization.
Unlike the First Cod War, there would be a casualty this time, an Icelandic engineer was killed after a British ship struck the vessel he was in. Water filled the compartment where he had been welding and the equipment electrocuted him.
An agreement was signed in October of 1973 bringing the Second Cod War to an end. The peace would last until 1975 when, guess what? Iceland expanded their territorial claims once again! This time to 200 nautical miles.
This was the most hard-fought of the three conflicts, as the Icelandic coast guard routinely cut the nets of British trawlers and all manner of different ships collided with each other. Just a whole bunch of ramming going on. There weren’t any ships actually destroyed in the war, but a ton of damage was done leading to millions of dollars in repairs.
The conflict was resolved after Iceland threatened to close the NATO base at Keflavik. Without the base it would be almost impossible for NATO to monitor the Soviet Union’s naval activity in the Atlantic. So the British agreed to the new territorial claims and stopped fishing in Iceland’s waters. The Third Cod War was over and a victory for Iceland.
The inability to fish in Iceland’s waters ravaged the economy of British cities whose industry was built around cod. It also led to a shortage of cod in the UK, which led to an innovation in sausage technology. Yep. In order to replace fish and chips as a popular food at pubs and from trucks, there was a need for a food that could be thrown into the fryers in lieu of cod. Traditional sausages would split and nobody wants a split sausage. So sausage makers developed a collagen skin that could take the heat.
I’m hungry. I’m gonna go make a sausage and some fish and chips. And while I dine I shall ponder three of the stupidest “wars” I’ve ever heard of.
That’s this week’s Moronitude. If you like what you read, go ahead and share it with your friends. See ya next week!