Mother’s Day Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Sunday, May 9, 2021
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63 comments
About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor of Political Science and a College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored
A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog).
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The remains of the Chinese rocket fell into the Indian Ocean north of the Maldives a little after midnight.
‘Craziest thing’: Police use Taser on escaped zebra in Tennessee
Yeah, that will calm it down.
(shakes head in disbelief at the utter stupidity of people)
Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers who stop by this quirky comments section.
Elizabeth Warren says she will run for reelection to the Senate in 2024.
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/05/08/warren-will-run-for-reelection-2024-486024
They’re even lying to themselves
This story makes no mention of Qanon but has its classic fingerprints: a wellness “influencer” suddenly starts believing everyone around him are pedophiles and traffickers. And it shows the danger of such beliefs, as he proceeds to make accusations against his neighbors, doxxing them to his followers, and making life such a sheer terror for them that many of them have to move. Yet local police don’t take it seriously. Link
Historian John Meacham Also:
NFLTG.
@Monala:
This is horrific, but I took the part about the cops to mean that the police aren’t taking the accusations Cabello makes against his neighbors seriously. IANAL, but I don’t know if there’s much the police can do about libel. It’s a civil matter.
Nothing new about that.
Oh, you mean lying to themselves about their polling numbers. How else can they convince themselves that dear leader had his landslide victory stolen from him?
@OzarkHillbilly: Walk down memory lane….
Am I the only one who sees a weird coincidence in the fact that Tawny Kitaen and Bo the Dog both died on the same day?
@wr:
Well, if you pronounce “Kitaen” as “kitten,” I suppose there is.
The Confederacy was a con job on whites. And still is.
Conservatives are Not Getting Vaccinated, to Own the Libs
@CSK: I was referring to this:
@Monala:
Well, that’s the problem, which Moss identifies in the last line of his statement. The identity and location of these loons is unknown to the police. How do you arrest someone whose identity is unknown to you? That’s the issue with anonymous threats: Where are they coming from and who’s making them?
I love these FB posts like “my husband can’t get anyone to work at his restaurant. People just don’t want to work!” I just started a new job on Monday. Would I do this job for $2.13/hr plus tips? Fuck no I wouldn’t. This place pays well and is fully staffed. Maybe if you can’t get any employees to do your job, the problem is your shit job.
@Teve:
Back in 1998 when Boston banned smoking in restaurants, the Boston Globe interviewed a group of waitresses who complained that the ban would cut into their $75,000 a year incomes from waiting tables. That was a substantial sum 24 years ago. I remembered thinking that tipping must be as lucrative as hell.
@Teve: 😀 😀 😀
@CSK: according to zip recruiter, wait staff in Florida make 15-43k per year. I’m guessing more like 15k at Golden Corral, and more like 43k at a restaurant with a number in it’s name.
@Teve: Montana and South Carolina are somehow dropping the extra unemployment insurance. Not sure that was possible, actually.
That extra $300 a week is being blamed for keeping people from getting so desperate that they will take a minimum wage job with random hours dealing with maskless idiots while struggling to find childcare now that the kid’s grandma is dead.
And if I were looking for a job, I would just avoid the places where the owner has put up a sign saying they are understaffed because people don’t want to work. But, it’s nice some employers are making it obvious from the application process that the employers are awful.
@CSK: It certainly isn’t the base salary that’s lucrative. I worked in a roadside diner one summer as a dishwasher. Not only did I make more on an hourly basis (by roughly 100% IIRC) but I also worked more hours. Still, some of the waitresses claimed to make as much as 2 or 3 hundred dollars in a dinner shift if it was a busy night. (With a base salary of ~$15.00/shift.)
@Gustopher: yeah if a business put up a sign like that I would not even think about applying there.
Somewhat off-topic, rich conservatives are very good at telling poor whites that they have to be poor in order for the system to work. I’ve literally had four relatives tell me things like supply side economics are good because rich people need more money in order to hire people because “when’s the last time a poor person gave you a job???” And of course every time somebody thinks about raising the minimum wage, you hear hysterical nonsense about how every restaurant is going to go out of business and America will lose eleventy million jobs. But a McDonald’s worker in Germany starts at USD 12 to 13 an hour and McDonald’s has 1000 locations in Germany. None of these numbnuts bats an eye when the CEO of McDonald’s literally gives himself a 100% raise from 10 million to 20 million.
@Teve:
Yeah; I found those Boston figures a little hard to believe. But the Globe quoted multiple waitresses as claiming that’s what they made. And it wasn’t at upscale places, either.
According to Investopedia, the hourly mean wage for Florida waitstaff is $12.66, which makes Florida servers the third highest-paid nationally. California and NY top it.
@Teve: my edit function no longer exists but “I’ve literally had four relatives tell me” should be “I’ve literally had poor relatives tell me”.
There are many great things about Apple products, but their voice to text is absolute shit. I’ve tried to put the Google keyboard on this thing, but Apple has surreptitiously disabled voice functions on it.
That article about the confederacy being a con job on white people is very good. Rich white people in the south kept poor white people in the south significantly poorer than poor white people in the north, by assuring them that poor Black people were much poorer than them. There’s an LBJ quote about that.
@Teve:
As I forget which left blogger observed a few days ago – It’s a shame we have no mechanism that might bring supply and demand into line.
The other bit I love is that if you observe they could pay more, someone will always say – But then they’d have to raise prices – as though that is obviously unthinkable.
When I worked at home depot, a coworker who was not a dumb guy, he had been an engineer for 35 years, thought that you automatically got a check from the government if you were black. I really don’t know if America is going to survive conservative media. It makes people fucking insane. in my neighborhood there is a pharmacy that just posted on Facebook that they will vaccinate anybody who walks in the door, and 95% of the replies are, “you evil fucks you’re not going to inject me with Bill Gate’s poison.”
@gVOR08: One day, years ago, in about 10 seconds I decided I would never eat Papa John’s pizza again. Because the founder, John Schnatter, at the time worth over $500 million, said that he spent millions of dollars opposing Obamacare because if they gave all their employees healthcare they’d have to raise the price of a large pizza by ten cents.
In a decent world he’d have immediately been placed on an ice floe and given a hearty push.
@gVOR08: there are fast-food bidnesses around me which are fully staffed. And others with desperate signs saying “HIRING ALL POSITIONS APPLY INSIDE”. guess which ones pay $13/hr and which ones pay $9/hr.
@Teve: I quit eating it because it’s shitty pizza that upsets my stomach, but your reason is better.
@Mikey: googling it now, he’s the same guy who said if Papa Johns made excess profits, why would he share that with employees???
Shitty employers abound.
@Teve: My new employers are Trumpers, but you know what? They’re also not business idiots. If you can sell a five-piece sectional set for $4,000, they’re going to pay you money. Maybe that’s why they’ve been in business and fully employed for 40 years…
I was thinking about one of the complaints about “cancel culture,” that it does leave room for people to grow and change.
However, one of the things I’ve noticed is that the complainers about cancel culture aren’t usually trying to grow and change,
When JK Rowling made her anti-trans comments last year, I recall a letter written to her by a trans rights group in the UK. The letter was very respectful, expressing their appreciation for the Harry Potter books and how they champion those who are outsiders, and how much the books helped them as children.
The letter went on to express—again very respectfully—why her comments were hurtful, and shared more about their lived experiences.
Did this letter result in JK Rowling to grow and change, or at least apologize for being hurtful? Nope, she doubled down and claimed she was the victim of their intolerance.
I’ve seen that all too often. It may be why many folks have grown skeptical of the possibility.
@Monala: that should be “doesn’t leave room” in the first paragraph.
@Monala: found the letter:
https://mermaidsuk.org.uk/news/dear-jk-Rowling/
@Teve:
Went to our first eat-in restaurant in 15 months, there were more servers than patrons.
(family owned Mexican resturant).
@Monala:
That is a very nice letter.
Nit: I think this is the wrong metric. We can’t assume that everyone will be swayed.
Did the letter cause an equally considered response, where she at least acknowledged that the other side wasn’t crazy, even if she came to different results? Did it leave her with a more open mind?
That, of course, still works…
@Monala: In what sense has JK Rowling been “canceled” for her anti-trans comments?
@Teve:
Of course they don’t. He earned his raise. It wasn’t just given to him by government order.
@Kylopod: that’s just it—she hasn’t been. Very often cancel culture complainers have just been criticized, or perhaps denied one platform but not others.
@Gustopher: you make a good point. In my earlier comment I almost shared about a contrasting example, but decided against it because it’s about 25 years old. Back during the time of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” a group of LGBT activists requested a meeting with Colin Powell to tell him why they opposed the policy. At the end of the meeting he told them that he still thought openly gay troops would be disruptive, but he would consider what they said, and he appreciated them speaking up because he had long believed that what he was doing in the military was fighting for the rights of all Americans like them to express their beliefs. The activists likewise expressed that they appreciated being heard.
@Monala:
I notice that Martin Cabello is looking for $25,000,000 at GoFundMe to self-publish his book, of which he has raised a little over $6000.
Twenty-five million? Does that not tip anyone off to the fact that he’s a psycho?
@Bob@Youngstown:
That it was half-full certainly a reason restaurants are having a hard time finding staff that depend on tips. Not many diners, not many tips.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
I can say that a large chunk of waitstaff who claim they make x amount of money are full of shit. They likely make good money, but not what they claim to others. The other chunk really do make a lot of money, because they are really good. There are others who are good at scamming the restaurant.
I would also caution against extrapolating nightly take from a handful of waitstaff at a restaurant. With the exception of the ultra high end joints, there is a huge difference between the most established servers and the rest. The difference between one section and another in dollar terms can be huge.
And of course, like any other place, “most established” doesn’t necessarily imply “best.” It can mean longest-tenured, it can mean PITA so give them what they want, it can mean tight with the GM or FOH manager, or it can mean machiavellian.
@gVOR08:
@Teve:
Supply and demand curves show a theoretical relationship that is real, but may imply too much precision once we move from general p-q graphs to pricing graphs of specific products.
I’m skeptical many people who want Papa John’s at any given moment are going to say, “Well, shit. I would order if it was $10.99. But $11.14? HELL NO.”
Source
If this doesn’t illustrate the ethical and moral bankruptcy of our financial and political systems, I don’t know what does. I just failed at a personal goal.* But after the last week of long posts on complex subjects, I just don’t have the energy today. I’m tapped out.
*I recently made a personal goal to avoid using moral and ethics based arguments as much as possible, in part because of points made in Joyner’s recent post on the topic. After that and some thought after @Mimai mentioned Huemer and moral intuitionism, I decided that it’s best to eschew those frames for more concrete arguments.
@Kurtz:
I find it charmingly naive that anyone expects businesses to act in a moral or ethical manner. Morals and ethics are poorly understood words in their lexicon, unlike profit.
Yet another reason why post revolution, I’ll be hung from a scaffold, or crumpled at the base of the wall (depending on which side wins)
@Flat Earth Luddite:
That’s the mental trick, right? Rather than use a moral framework to evaluate the actions of an individual, they assign a moral value to a system.
I suspect this is why I come away with the impression of someone like Huemer working backward from his ideal for a system to arrive at a moral framework that aligns with it. It’s a way to avoid having to fight with the disconnect between theory and reality. Making property rights a moral issue avoids the debate about the results.
I have EXCITING NEWS!!! I’ve been incubating chicken eggs for 20 days now (first timer), and this evening MY EGGS STARTED PEEPING AT ME!!! OMG!!! I’m so excited I can hardly stand it, I succeeded in hatching birds!! It remains to be seen how many come out of the shell, but I love that I can hear them from inside the shell. 🙂
I’m in a hotel. My laptop won’t mirror. So basically all that’s on is Baywatch. See, there’s this woman who keeps showering naked to distract people from her partner with the shitty fake mustache who steals stuff? And Hobie has to find her so he keeps seeing women who may be topless because trompe l’oeils? But then, surprise, they aren’t topless as we can clearly see again and again and again and again. Nope, those tits are covered. Are those tits covered? Yep, those tits are covered. How about those tits?
It’s not my fault. My laptop won’t mirror with this TV.
@Teve: I resemble that remark…hold the anchovies please
@Kurtz:
Goooooaaaaaaalllllllll!
Or as we used to say Jesus saves Gretzky gets the puck he shoots he scores
@Flat Earth Luddite: What would Jesus do?
He would beat the moneylenders, that’s what.
@Kurtz:
Not only does it show their ethical and moral bankruptcy, it shows they’re effing stupid and don’t understand capitalism.
Yes, Papa John would have to raise his prices. And so would Dominoes, Little Caesars, Godfathers, and all the rest, including the family owned shop down the road. Papa John’s competitive position would be unaffected, and the change in pizza consumption would be barely detectable. We’ve been around this loop before, like every time we impose any regulation on the car companies.
@CSK: Maybe he simply wants to make sure that he is compensated to the level that the book’s value would dictate. Are any of the Go Fund Me donors getting copies of the book?
@Jax: that’s great news 😀
@Teve: This is why we need 90% top tax rates. People that build business empires like this are often sociopaths who think of making money as a zero sum game. The business is their identity. That’s not a problem with Jethro’s Pool Service–it is a problem when the business gets big enough to start throwing around political donations for State and Federal campaigns.
Its amazes me the cognitive dissonance between the terror of the government having too much power–but GaZillionairs can have all the power they want. Then again–no it doesn’t
Ole Jim Brown was fortunate enough to be selected for a once in a career opportunity recently–the good news. The even better news is that I get to stay in Florida–the less than better news is that I’ll have to relocate the family to the Coastal Panhandle from Central Florida. I am from the Panhandle so I know what I’ve signed up for.
Went house hunting up there a few weeks ago–not a mask in sight. Not only that–there were multiple neighborhoods where we were going to look at a house and I turned around because of the number of Trump/Confederate flags and signs. Im not into the damn political flags–fly the American Flag, Christian flag, Service Flag…something, anything that stand for values of a higher calling. Im shocked that people would think I would buy their house with them or their neighbors flying these ghat damn flags in the yard. I would have the common sense to take my BLM flag down if I were selling my place–so as not to offend the buyer.
At any rate, its going to be no problem because I know how to handle these people. They’ll love me like they love Ben Carson after Im done with them. Its just that age is lowering my tolerance for foolishness and it gets harder every Birthday to stay filtered. You have to go where opportunities lie however, so I’ll have to bite the bullet for several years before I can get back to Central Florida where I belong
@Jim Brown 32:
I was raised part of my childhood in Niceville, back in 1965, Jim Crow days. Lovely place. The local Klan sent us the gift of a small cross and a suggestion that we stop having Black people over at the house. So I gather nothing’s changed.