Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Holiday Chaos


“Billy, Susie, Carolyn, you all come in from the cold.”
As six stomping feet shake leaves and dirt from boots.
And see what they have been smelling through closed windows.
Creating chaos regardless of the drill-sergeant’s commands.

At the table, sounds of glasses clinking and forks chunking
And 10 simultaneous conversations from five different people
Creates more chaos than that experienced during preparations.
But at least everyone is laughing – at least on the outside.

After the pies, and the dishes and the football games
The three leave to their schools or their jobs and friends.
And what seemed like children when entering, are now adults.
How did they grow up so fast that now we’re alone in our own chaos?

David Kimball



Monday, December 23, 2013

The Morning After the Night Before


I just came across this version of  “The Night Before Christmas” written as a parody and celebrating the Court decision of Kitzmiller v. Dover that established the unconstitutionality of teaching Intelligent Design (ID).  Josh Rosneau and Glenn Branch are with the National Center for Science Education.

’Twas the night before Kitzmas and all through the land,
No creationist was stirring, not even Ken Ham;
The briefs had been drafted and filed with great care,
In hopes that Judge Jones’s decision’d be fair;
The plaintiffs were nestled all snug in their beds,
While Bill of Rights visions ran round in their heads;
And Nick blogged for PT, and Vic played The Boss,
And fretted and fussed o’er the chance of a loss,
When over the wires there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter.
Away to NetNewsWire I flew like a flash,
I started my browser and cleared out the cache.
The ruling I found at the federal court
Was a verdict I knew I would love to report.
For what to my wondering eyes should appear
But a hundred-plus pages, all written so clear,
With lawyerly flourish like ten score trombones,
I knew in a moment it must be Judge Jones.
More sharper than razors the experts they came,
Whom he cited, and marshaled, and quoted by name:
“Now, Miller! now, Alters! now, Padian—why not—
On, Robert T. Pennock! on, Forrest and Haught!
The Establishment Clause says that Pandas must go,
ID isn’t science; heck, Fuller says so!”
The case had been brought in a federal court
When the Dover school board thought it wise to consort
With Disco. ’tute shysters who sold them a line:
“Don’t call it creation, but ID should be fine.”
As rats that behind the Pied Piper did flow,
The school board had taken the DI’s say-so;
The teachers they ordered to point to ID,
“Evolution’s a theory, with gaps, don’t you see!”
A book had been bought to be put on their shelves;
Who purchased the book? No one knew, maybe elves.
More likely, a church group had ponied the dough,
But when pressed on the point Buckingham had said “no.”
His lies how they winkled! His obstruction so crude!
In the face of such efforts, eleven folks sued.
Tammy and friends brought the ACLU,
Steve Harvey and Rothschild joined pro bono too,
The quartet was finished by Richard B. Katskee,
With sciencey backing from Nicholas Matzke.
(The opposite side was in sad disarray:
For Dembski and Meyer had scuttled away,
While Minnich and Fuller and Michael J. Behe
Gave tragicomedic performances, e.g.
Comparing ID to a view like astrology—
I think that Jeane Dixon is owed an apology.
The More Center’s Thompson was no Machiavelli;
His case was as firm as a bowl full of jelly.)
To the court came reporters, in need of news hooks,
And Lauri and Gordy and Edward wrote books.
And Matthew wrote also, of Darwin’s own breed,
Each one of their books is a cracking good read.
Jones heard the case fairly, not tipping his hand,
Though the case it moved slowly, and forty days spanned.
His ruling was thorough, at times it waxed furious,
That board members lied he considered perjurious.
By then an election had sorted their hash,
Still Jones fined the board around two million cash.
In reading the ruling I filled up with glee,
The flaws of ID for the whole world to see!
In schools ’cross the nation I knew folks would say—
“Happy Kitzmas to all, and to all a good day!”
By Josh Rosenau and Glenn Branch, with apologies to Clement Clark Moore.


Friday, December 20, 2013

Humanism, Humanities, and Humanity

 To me, Humanism uses the Humanities to help Humanity.  (That’s an original as far as I know.)  With that definition, I would like to present two quotes from the humanities, history and literature, and use them together to try to develop some compassion on the vulnerables in our present-day society.

George Santayana, a philosopher, essayist, poet and novelist is quoted as saying “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” 

John Steinbeck wrote The Grapes of Wrath which many of us read many years ago.  Howeverr we were probably too caught up in the story of the plight of the dust bowl migrants to have caught the significance of the title and how that significance applies to today and the vulnerables in our own present-day society.

“And the great owners with access to history, with eyes to read history and to know the great fact: when property accumulates in too few hands it is taken away. And that companion fact: when a majority of the people are hungry and cold they will take by force what they need. And the little screaming fact that sounds through all history: repression works only to strengthen and knit the repressed. The great owners ignored the three cries of history. The land fell into fewer hands, the number of the dispossessed increased, and every effort of the great owners was directed at repression. The money was spent for arms, for gas to protect the great holdings, and spies were sent to catch the murmuring of revolt so that it might be stamped out. The changing economy was ignored, plans for the change ignored; and only means to destroy revolt were considered, while the causes of revolt went on...and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.”

One possible deconstruction/reconstruction of this passage could be the following:  ( Perhaps in the vein of Derrida?)

1) The “Haves” have access to lessons learned throughout history.
1)  When property and money is owned by too few people, it is taken away
2)  When the “have-nots” become a majority and are hungry and cold, they will seize what they need
3)  Repression works only to strengthen and build the repressed

2)  Society is in a time of crisis
1)  Lessons of history are ignored
2)  The income gap between the “Haves” and the “Have-nots” is widening
3)  The numbers of the lower class are increasing
4)  The 1%, are doing everything they can to marginalize the 99%
5)  The efforts of the “Occupy” movement are forced down and/or ignored
6)  The taxes are spent on incarcerating mass numbers rather than alleviating the causes of unrest

7)  The National Debt, paid mostly by the 99%, is increasing because of increased wars
8)  Government spying is increasing
9)  The tanking of the economy is ignored
10)  Efforts to change the economy are obstructed
11)  Competition and control takes precedence over the paradigm of collaboration and cooperation
12)  The causes of dissent, unemployment, lack of education, and lack of hope are never addressed
13)  In the eyes of the people, there is failure and the lowest approval ratings in history
14)  In the growing ranks of the Working Poor, there is a growing wrath
15)  “In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.”


The last point did not need to be reconstructed.

Thursday, December 19, 2013

An Interview with Baruch Sponza on His Excommunication

(The following is a combination of storytelling and a new genre called creative non-fiction.  Although the facts in the story are true and based on research, the dialogues and scenes are made up.)

An interview with Baruch Spinoza on his excommunication:

INTERVIEWER:  Bento, or do you prefer to be called Baruch, could you tell us your first thoughts when you heard that you had been excommunication?

SPINOZA:  Sure.  I prefer Baruch for that was my name in the Hebrew community in Amsterdam.  Both names mean “blessed” and I thought of the irony of my name as I received this curse.  As you know, I wasn’t there at the time that the curse was laid on me.  My first thoughts were, “Excommunicated!!!  I’ve been excommunicated?  And I’m not even Catholic.”  I wanted to say “Oh my God, or OMG in today’s electronic vernacular, but since I didn’t believe in that kind of a god, I couldn’t even say that.”  (smile)  I thought I might get a rebuke but nothing this severe.

I was very familiar with the viciousness of religion as my family had been driven out of Portugal during the Catholic Inquisitions even after they had been forced to convert to Christianity.  But I never expected this harsh treatment from the Talmud Torah congregation as I and my family were upstanding members.

INTERVIEWER:  What was life like during the time you were excommunicated?

SPINOZA:  I was excommunicated in 1656 which was a very heady time politically for both Portugal and Amsterdam.  The Dutch had taken Columbo from Portugal and King John of Portugal had died and been replaced by his son.  So we Jews from Portugal who were now in Amsterdam were very wary of our precarious situation.  Jews had been expelled prior to this from England, however Oliver Cromwell was considering readmitting Jews into England.  In fact, my teacher and mentor, Manasseh ben Israel, also a Portuguese, was in England conferring with Cromwell about our readmission at the time of my excommunication.  I still wonder if I would have been excommunicated if he had been with me in Amsterdam instead of England.  But he died only a year later so he wasn’t able to help me.  He was the founder of the first Hebrew printing press which allowed our Jewish ideas to flourish and circulate as never before. 

It was a rich time artistically. Rembrandt, for all his great paintings, officially declared bankruptcy and the Dutch painter, Vermeer, was changing the world of art as he was painting the middle class rather than nobility.  

INTERVIEWER:  What did you see happening in your life leading up to the excommunication that might have given you pause for thought as you look back?

SPINOZA:  Well, there were a few things going all the way back to my birth which, if I were a believer in a god, I could consider it Providence.  But since I don’t, I’ll have to say it was just synchronicity.  I was born in 1632, one year before King James of England.  But the same year that Christopher Marlowe’s play, “The Jew of Malta” was published posthumously.  It described itself as “The Tragedy of a Jew” and was used by Shakespeare in “The Merchant of Venice”.  It actually is about the struggle of power between Spain and the Ottoman empire which could easily be used as a metaphor for the power between organized religion and infidels.  It espouses that power is amoral and a quote from it could describe my life:  “I count religion but a childish toy/And hold there is no sin but ignorance”.  This thought, birthed in the same year as my birth, could easily have become my epitaph. 

Another synchronicity was that the year I was born was also the year that the Leiden University Observatory was built.  This was momentous because it was the first time that observations rather than theoretical discourses were used to further knowledge at the university level about the heavens.  Telescopes and microscopes had been used by individuals but not universities before this.

My birth coincided with the Dutch colonialism as they settled in the New World in Connecticut, occupied Formosa, the English Virgin Islands, French Martinique and were expelling the Portuguese from the Gold Coast in Africa which provided a great deal of wealth through slave trade when it was so lucrative.  Religiously, this was the period of Jansenism, which was a Dutch movement in opposition to Catholicism espousing original sin, depravity, necessity of divine grace for salvation, and predestination – much like Calvinism.  But it was this crack in independent thinking and breaking away from religious authorities and traditions that helped me to start with a crack and then create a complete break.  This was also the time of the founding of Harvard College in 1639 which at that time was strictly a religious institution. 

But this was also the time of the beginning of what was later called the Period of Enlightenment.  I’ve heard some people even say that I was the “spark” that ignited the conflagration of this Period of Enlightenment.  I was fortunate to be able to witness the works of Galileo and Sir Isaac Newton.  Together we were able to forge a new paradigm of basing our thoughts on observations rather than traditions.  So in a way, my life was easy and natural to develop into a life of independent thinking.

INTERVIEWER:  What exactly did the excommunication include as they placed this curse on you?

SPINOZA:  As I look at this now, I find it humorous.  It was the worst curse the Jewish community in Amsterdam had ever placed on anyone.  Here is an English translation of it:

“By decree of the angels and by the command of the holy men, we excommunicate, expel, curse and damn Baruch de Espinoza, with the consent of God, Blessed be He, and with the consent of the entire holy congregation, and in front of these holy scrolls with the 613 precepts which are written therein; cursing him with the excommunication with which Joshua banned Jericho and with the curse which Elisha cursed the boys and with all the castigations which are written in the Book of the Law. Cursed be he by day and cursed be he by night; cursed be he when he lies down and cursed be he when he rises up. Cursed be he when he goes out and cursed be he when he comes in. The Lord will not spare him, but the anger of the Lord and his jealousy shall smoke against that man, and all the curses that are written in this book shall lie upon him, and the Lord shall blot out his name from under heaven. And the Lord shall separate him unto evil out of all the tribes of Israel, according to all the curses of the covenant that are written in this book of the law. But you that cleave unto the Lord your God are alive every one of you this day.”

This excommunication meant that no one could pass within six feet of me and no one was allowed to even read my work. 

INTERVIEWER:  This is a very extreme curse to put on a person.  What did you do to deserve such a curse?

SPINOZA:  The interesting thing was that I hadn’t done anything at that time except raise some questions.  I didn’t even write any books until 10 years later.  But I did question anyone and everyone – even my family.  I asked questions like the following:

“Why are anthropomorphic characteristics attributed to a god?”

“How can a god be a personal god with attributes of psychology and ethics?”

“How can a god have a will?  Understanding?  Emotions?  Preferences?  Plans?  Commands?  Expectations?  Judgments?  Morals?  Goodness?  Wisdom?  Just?  Deserving of prayers?  Or Worship?  Be comforting?  Perform miracles?  And how can a god have a ‘Chosen People”?”

“How can a god be anything other than what is found in the natural world?” 

“How can a god be a cause if everything that happens happens just because it is natural?”

“How could a god divinely create the world which is only a product of nature?”

“Why are believers in a god dominated by passions of hopes and fears?  Rather than knowledge?”

“Why are religious institutions so dominating of believers through ecclesiastical authority as this only leads to bondage through psychological, moral, religious, social, and political enslavement?  Especially when true knowledge is so liberating?”

“Why are the religious ceremonies of the Jews, and Catholics, and all religions so empty and devoid of reason?”

“How can the soul be immortal if it is a part of one’s natural body?”

“How can there be any kind of a life after death?  Other than one’s knowledge and ideas and thoughts?”

“How can the Scriptures be holy?  Or divinely inspired?  Especially since they were composed over a long period of time by several authors and changed continuously with each translation?”

As I look back now, I see these questions addressed in my books, but at the time of my excommunication, all they had to go on was my questions – not my teachings.  Today, these would all be considered Humanist thoughts.

INTERVIEWER:  How did this excommunication affect you personally?

SPINOZA:  Fortunately, although I was asking all these questions, by the time of the excommunication, they had become rhetorical questions and I was no longer really seeking the answers.  I knew by then that I was not one cut out for a life based on faith but rather a life based on the pursuit of knowledge of only that which is natural and observable. 

At the time, I was running the family business of importing dried fruit with my brother, Gabriel, but the business had run its course.  So I was fortunate that I could find work in a place with lenses making telescopes, microscopes, and spectacles.  Amsterdam had become a center for optics as I mentioned with the Leiden Observatory.  Also, Amsterdam had received international acclaim for its optics which is why Galileo had telescopes from Amsterdam imported to Italy and then perfected for his proving the Copernican heliocentric theory.  And we know what trouble he got into by basing his beliefs on his own observations in opposition to the Church hierarchy.  After my book was published, I was offered a chair of philosophy at the University of Heidelberg but I declined it.  I was having too much fun developing my own mind to stop and teach others.  My work with lenses may have been the death of me as it appears that I may have died from silicosis which is exacerbated by fine glass dust inhaled into my lungs similar to the fiberglass lung problems people experienced much later. 

INTERVIEWER:  And speaking of books, why did you publish only one book in your lifetime?  Were you afraid of being called a heretic even though you had already been excommunicated?

SPINOZA:  As a matter of fact, Yes.  The one book I published was “Principles of the Philosophy of Rene Descartes” in 1663.  I loved his way of thinking and philosophizing as if it were geometry.  Geometry is based on a minimum number of axioms and postulates and then everything is “proven” from there.  However there were a few areas where I disagreed with Descartes.  Descartes was a Dualist in that he believed in a god, or the supernatural, in addition to the natural world.  And he also believed in the duality of the mind, or soul as being distinct from the body.  I was a Monist in that I believed only in the natural world and that the mind was of the same substance, or mode, as the body.

I wrote two other books but they weren’t published until my friends published them after I had died.  Even though I had been excommunicated, I was still afraid of being branded a heretic by both Christians and Jews.  In my book “Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect”, I promote the development of the human mind through knowledge which can be verifiable by distinguishing that which is true from that which is false.  And in my second posthumous book, “Ethics”, I emphasize Reason and I wrote: “Without intelligence there is not rational life: and things are only good, in so far as they aid man in his enjoyment of the intellectual life, which is defined by intelligence. Contrariwise, whatsoever things hinder man's perfecting of his reason, and capability to enjoy the rational life, are alone called evil.”  Even today, I would consider that a pretty good ethic to live by. 

INTERVIEWER:  What advancements do you see today that you would have liked to have seen in your lifetime?

SPINOZA:  That’s an easy question to answer.  I love all the advancements that neuroscience has uncovered regarding the workings of the mind.  Through the use of fMRI’s, we have been able to observe that the mind is nothing more than the brain and all those functions of the mind are natural and observable. 

INTERVIEWER:  Thank you for this interview.  After this time with you, I feel I should be called “Baruch”. 





Behind the Kitchen Door - Book Review

“Behind the Kitchen Door “ by Saru Jayaraman

All of us are familiar with the “front” people at restaurants – those who take our orders, who serve us our meals, who pour our water for us, who serve us our wines and drinks, and tempt us with tasty tarts.  But do we really know them?  Even the waitstaff that know and recognize us as big tippers.  Do we really know them?  Probably not.

And how much do we know of the “back” people?  The salad makers?  And pastry chefs?  And grill chefs?  And line chefs?  And dish washers?  We hardly ever see them to say nothing about know them.  Yet many, if not most of them are among the “Working Poor” in a society where one is paid not according to the value which they add to a product, but whose pay is minimized the most when the surplus of people looking for work is greatest – like now. 

I remember years ago being challenged with the question, “What would a head of lettuce cost if our society paid fair wages to the migrant workers?”  And that same challenge could, and should be asked regarding restaurant workers.  And while this book doesn’t try to answer that question, it does raise the issue of why the working conditions of the restaurant workers should matter to all of us who eat out – not just for the sake of compassion, but also for our own safety and especially for our own enjoyment.

The objective of this book is to “ensure that dining out is a pleasurable experience for everyone – on both sides of the kitchen door”.  It describes the problems on several fronts such the fact that our society is often more concerned with the well-being of the animals used for meat for the meals than for the welfare of the workers.  Poverty wages, denying medical benefits and sick pay, tolerating racism and sexism create an environment of exploitation and lack of hope require our society to enforce existing labor laws and raise the minimum wage for these workers.

Employers have done a good job of creating an environment filling the workers with futility and inevitability so that those with only one job skill never get a chance to advance and never get a chance to change careers.  Each chapter of this revealing book presents an issue, case studies, and then presents what Restaurant Opportunities Center (ROC) has done to address these problems. 

When 9/11 happened, over 13,000 restaurant workers in New York City lost their jobs and needed help.  The author started to work with a handful of these workers and found that the environment for restaurant workers was deplorable, humiliating, and oppressive.  She and some of these unemployed workers formed ROC and ROC soon became a national movement addressing the sorry conditions of so many restaurant workers. 

Many restaurants operate under a paradigm that doing the minimum will maximize the profits.  The problem here is that this is an unsustainable approach as it is only a short-term approach looking at only the financial bottom line immediately.  To be sustainable, a restaurant, actually any business, needs to approach their business in a sustainable fashion by asking the question:  “What do I need to do today to be viable 20 years in the future?”  This means that the focus needs to be shifted from the shareholder to the stakeholders.  If the stakeholders, such as the workers, are not treated in a sustainable manner, the business will not be viable in the long term.  The current environment of many restaurants are unsustainable for the stakeholders due to poverty-level wages, wage theft by management, discrimination, and lack of benefits. 

Lack of benefits includes non-promotability and also no health benefits.  Many workers are forced to go to work even when sick because they need those few dollars.  This increases the odds of food-borne illnesses being passed to the consumers as well as often makes the sick worker even more sick.  The industry puts workers at high risk of injury (burns and cuts) without providing them the wages or health benefits to deal with them.  Restaurant workers are the third highest in total number of non-fatal occupational injuries and illnesses in the US. 

Restaurant workers hold 7 of the lowest paid occupations in the United States at an average of $8.90 an hour after tips.  They are the Working Poor as this amount does not allow them to pay rent for a modest apartment on their own.  And considering that many workers have dependents, either children, or parents, the problem is extreme.  In many States, they are paid a minimum of $2.13 an hour by their employer and then a meager share of the tips.  This minimum has been frozen for the past 20 years.  The restaurant owner must see that the minimum, plus their share of the tips equals the standard Federal minimum wage of $7.25.  However many managers will clock a worker out early, or skim money from the tips personally.  This is why many, if not most restaurant workers need food stamps for subsistence.  Which means that the government is subsidizing the restaurant industry.  Because of a lack of oversight of managers, some workers don’t receive the minimum pay, some don’t get proper overtime pay, some don’t get paid for all the hours they are required to work, and some get paid late or not at all.  Some are even required to pay for customers who walk out without paying. 

Racial discrimination is rampant in restaurants.  White workers get to wait on tables while people of color are relegated to more servile positions like bussing or dishwashing.  Workers are segregated in the workplace by position in the restaurant (server, busser, dishwasher), segment of the industry (fine-dining, family-style, and fast-food), and location (poor, middle-class, and upper-class neighborhoods).  Diversity of color within a restaurant does not mean that there is equality in position or advancement opportunities.  Managers can be very discriminating when it comes to position as well as advancement because they are seldom held accountable for their decisions or actions. 

Sexism is also rampant in restaurants.  The median weekly wage for women for servers is $387 while for men it is $423 – a difference of almost 10%.  Most women who get positions of chef, are relegated to the lower paying positions of pastry chef or salad chef with little or no hope for promotions.  Many female chefs from culinary schools or with hospitality training wind up as cake decorators in supermarkets.  And sexual harassment is ubiquitous.  Women experience this from the male consumers, from management, and from the other workers.  Since managers are considered “untouchable” in terms of recourse, they often try to get away with as much as possible.  And since the managers are the ones who determine positions, hours, and promotions, they often expect “favors” from the female workers. 

What can and should be done by the average consumer?  1)  Adopt a definition of “sustainable food” that includes sustainable labor practices; 2) Talk to the workers when you eat in a restaurant; 3) Engage restaurant managers in a conversation about labor practices; 4) Help raise the federal minimum wage for tipped workers!  Tell policymakers and restaurant managers that you think $2.13 is unacceptable; 5) Vote for paid sick days for restaurant workers.  And tell restaurant managers you consider workers’ health when choosing where to eat; 6) Picket with your wallet – don’t eat in restaurants segregated by race and gender; and 7) Join the ROC campaign to support workers all along the food chain. 

I found this book to be a wealth of resources for gaining empathy for these restaurant workers.  It was very similar to another book I read “Nickel and Dimed” by Barbara Ehrenreich.  In this book, the author travelled to five places in the US and attempted to live on the minimum wages of $7.00 an hour.  Her final point was that – it cannot be done without devising ways to beat the system or without safety nets.  Both books are revelations into the lives of the Working Poor.  The Working Poor are those people who work 40 hours a week (or as much as they can) and still cannot afford the necessities of life.  And this is a timely issue as there is much discussion about this as in the Huffington Post article about the Working Poor:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/17/working-poor_n_4463606.html.  Also, recently in the Huffington Post there is yet another article about raising the minimum wage

I was surprised that the author did not make a greater case for the irresponsibility of the managers because there is seldom any oversight or responsibility to a Human Resources Department like there are in many business offices.  And I would have liked more information on the training programs for hospitality students and also other groups dedicated to helping the restaurant workers such as unions.

But this eye-opener tells us a lot about this industry and how it operates from the inside on both sides of the kitchen door and what is required for a restaurant to be sustainable.  And the biggest factor in a restaurant being sustainable is for the consumers to be aware of what it takes.  Transformation will only come when consumers are knowledgeable and insistent that restaurants be managed in a sustainable fashion.

(Note:  While reading this book, I took extensive notes which were then culled to develop this review.  For anyone interested, they may view the 7 pages of notes at this address:  http://writemeister.blogspot.com/2013/12/behind-kitchen-door-book-details.html)









Behind the Kitchen Door - Book Details

The following are the notes I picked out while reading the book "Behind the Kitchen Door"

Objective of the book is “to ensure that dining out is a pleasant experience on both sides of the kitchen door.” 

Forward:

But the food movement thus far has shown a much greater interest in assuring animal welfare than in protecting human rights.

Paying them poverty wages, denying them medical benefits and sick pay, and tolerating racism and sexism on the job

While the dishwashers and bussers in their kitchens get a wage of $2.13 an hour, plus a meager share of the tips.  The typical restaurant worker makes about $15,000 a year – roughly one-third the annual income of the average American worker

Since the late 1960’s, the value of the minimum wage, adjusted for inflation, has declined by about 20 percent.  For the poorest workers in the United States, that has meant an hourly pay cut of about $1.50.

Enforce the nation’s labor laws and increase the minimum wage.

And tells stories about individual workers that convey, more powerfully than any statistics.

Chapter 1:  The Hands on Your Plate

13,000 other restaurant workers in New York City who had lost their jobs after the 9/11 tragedy

Restaurant industry employs more than 10 million people

It includes 7 of the 11 lowest paying occupations in America

Only 20 percent of restaurant jobs pay a livable wage

Approximately 40 percent of New York City restaurant workers are undocumented immigrants

Although the industry continues to grow, restaurant workers’ wages have been stagnant over the last 20 years.

The federal minimum wage for tipped workers has been frozen at $2.13 an hour.

17 years in the industry he had never seen a white dishwasher in New York City

That poverty-level wages, wage theft, discrimination, and lack of benefits were not sustainable for anyone

The restaurants that mistreated their workers were more likely to engage in unsafe food-handling practices that sicken customers.

For the first time, I saw every kitchen worker, every restaurant worker, as a human being with a unique story, family, dreams, and desires.

It’s the frequency with which Americans eat out, and the way we choose to mark so many of our major life events – birthdays, anniversaries, marriage proposals – in restaurants.

I’ve educated and organized responsible employers to promote sustainable business practices.

In the words of Lanston Hughes, that’s millions of “dreams deferred”

But I saw a very easy avenue for consumers to act and change the industry:  if multiple diners told that manager that they appreciated seeing diversity and responsible labor practices in the restaurant – and if there were accessible resources to explain to owners and managers how other employers have successfully created these opportunities for their workers – it would certainly encourage him to consider training and promoting more of his bussers

The tipped minimum wage was raised to $4.65 an hour (New York City)

 Americans are increasingly concerned about what they eat – where their food comes from, how it is grown and harvested, and how it is prepared.

Most Americans are totally unaware of the horribly exploitative working conditions in restaurants which affect the quality of our food and, ultimately, our health.

Restaurants that force employees to work while sick are also usually careless when it comes to food safety and customers’ health

What it means to be a responsible diner

Chapter 2:          Real Susainability, Please!

What’s a sustainable restaurant?  It’s one in which as the restaurant grows, the people grow with it

Slow Food Movement … promotes “ethical consumption”, a commitment to organic, sustainable, locally sourced food.

We have become so removed from this cycle of life [seeing real pigs as pets] and from the values associated with it

It’s almost impossible for any restaurant to source a majority of its menu items from local, organic famers

However, “sustainable food” also needs to embody fair and equitable labor practices.

“  How can I make it an affordable restaurant and still have living wages and organic food?” – Answer – Figure out which items can reasonably be organic on your budget, instead of having 100% of your menu items certified organic.

A definition of a sustainable restaurant is one where as the business grows, the people grow with it.

Sustainability is about contributing to a society that everybody benefits from, not just going organic because you don’t want to die from cancer or have a difficult pregnancy

ROC [Restaurant Opportunities Center] has also produced a National Diners’ Guide to help consumers identify which restaurants have sustainable labor practices.  This is online at www.rocunited.org/dinersguide

ROC’s National Diners’ Guide comes with “tip cards” that consumers can hand to an employer to say, “I noticed that you don’t pay a livable tipped minimum wage.  As a consyumer, that’s unacceptable to me and part of the criteria I use when considering where to eat.”

Chapter 3:          Serving While Sick

Chart showing percentages of:  Workers did not receive health and safety training from employer; Workers had to work when restaurant was understaffed; Workers had to do a job for which he/she was not rained; Worker had to perform several jobs at once; Worker had to cut corners, because of time pressure, that might have harmed the health or safety of customers; and Workers did something to put her/his own safety at risk.

The industry puts workers at high risk of injury and illness without providing them with the income or health benefits to deal with either

Third highest in total number of nonfatal occupational injuries and illnesses

Survey showed 49% of workers had suffered work-related cuts and 45.8% had been burned on the job

A median wage nationally of $9.02 an hour  [for 40 hours?  Or is the median of this survey less than 40 hours per week?]

Imagine this:  more than 1 in 10 times that you eat out, your server takes your order, goes to the bathroom to vomit like Kinni did, and then brings you your food.  [BAD statistic.  The 10% mentioned is annually]

“Typhoid Mary” likely infected 53 people, 3 of whom died, between 1900 and 1907.  May worked in seven different restaurant kitchens before authorities discovered that she was spreading typhoid to diners citywide.

CDC has cited restaurants as the third most frequent setting for outbreaks of foodborne illnesses

Restaurant workers without health benefits were three times as likely as those with health benefits to use the emergency room [at hospitals]

One simple path to getting there is to win paid sick days for every restaurant worker in the United States

[No description of sample “sick time” plan.  How much?  How often?  How determined?]

Chapter 4:          $2.13 – The Tipping Point

The federal government permits restaurants nationwide to pay tipped workers an hourly wage of only $2.13, as long as the workers’ tips make up the difference between $2.13 and the federal minimum hourly wage of $7.25. 

As long as these restaurants bring in less than $500,000 in revenue annually (and therefore don’t fall under the purview of federal law), they can force their workers to live entirely off their tips.

Some workers don’t receive the minimum wage, some don’t get proper overtime payments, some don’t receive pay for all the hours they’ve worked, and some get paid late or not at all.  Some are even charged for things that aren’t their fault, like a guest walking out of the restaurant.

Restaurant workers hold 7 of the lowest-paying occupations in the United States, earning less, on average, than farm workers and all other domestic workers.

“I had to eat less than $6.50 for the employee meal,” says Claudia.  “If I wanted an omelette, I went over $6.50. I could only afford pancakes.  If you were on the schedule for only five hours, you couldn’t get a meal.  There were days when I wouldn’t eat all day.”

Food service workers in the United States need food stamps!  In fact, servers in the restaurant industry use food stamps at almost double the rate of the rest of the U.S. workforce.  [This means the food industry is being subsidized by the government and taxes.]

The average restaurant worker, earning the national restaurant median wage of $8.90 an hour, would have to work approximately 107 hours per week to rent a two-bedroom unit at the fair market price. 

Some white men who are servers in fine-dining restaurants are the only restaurant workers in the US who eneratlly do earn a living wage; they hold the second-highest paying position the restaurant industry.

It is possible that the whole tipped minimum wage structure is just as confusing to employers as it is to workers and customers.

Chapter 5:          Race in the Kitchen

Today I believe that racial segregation is one of the restaurant industry’s most pressing deep-seated problems, and part and parcel of every other pattern of injustice in the industry.

Darden Group, which claims to be the world’s largest full-service restaurant company.  Besides the Capital Grille, Darden owns Olive Garden, Red Lobster, LongHorn Steakhouse, Bahama Breeze, Seasons 52, and other restaurant brands, employing almost 180,000 workers in 1,900 restaurants worldwide.

Although it raked in profits of over $7 Billion in 2011 and has a CEO who earns $8.5 Million annually and holds $22 Million in company stock, Darden pays its owrkers as little as $2.13 an hour (before tips) and does not provide paid sick days to any nonmanagement employee.

A server at an Olive Garden in Fayetteville, North Carolina, felt compelled to work with hepatitis A because she could not get paid sick days.  While Darden was proudly announcing a new partnership between the Olive Garden and First Lady Michelle Obama to provide healthy food for kids at the Olive Garden, 3,000 people in Fayetteville had to get tested for hepatitis after eating at the restaurant.

Restaurant workers are, of course, among the 99 percent who serve the 1 percent

People are segregated in the restaurant industry by position within the restaurant (server, busser, dishwasher), segment of the restaurant industry (fine-dining, family-style, or fast-food), and location (poor, middle-class, or upper-class neighborhoods).  

In our national survey of over 4,300 restaurant workers, white workers reported a median wage of $14.00 an hour, while people of color reported a median wage of $9.88 an hour.  Ninety-six percent of workers who reported that they earned less than the minimum wage were people of color

A black woman joked about needing a “tall white man’s suit” in order to get promoted

Segregation in the industry is not just a matter of employers having discriminatory hiring practices; it Is also about people of color not having access to more affluent neightborhoods, which are home to more affluent establishments

White workers living in the suburbs are twice as likely to earn a living wage as black workers living in the city of Detroit.  This is true even though the two populations are similar in terms of other demographic variables – gender, age, place of birth, and educational attainment

One of the main reasons discriminatory practices fly under the radar in restaurants is the lack of transparency with regard to job openings and what it takes to get a promotion.

We tend not to realize that diversity is not the same as equity – that simply seeing a lot of restaurant workers from different backgrounds doesn’t mean that restaurant workers have equal opportunities to advance to jobs that will allow them to support themselves and their families

As consumers, we should ask managers:  “Do you have promotion and training opportunities in your restaurant?  How diverse is your waitstaff?”

Chapter 6:          Women Waiting on Equality

Women get less than preferential treatment across the board… whether you’re management, whether you’re a hostess, whether you’re a waitress … whether you’re a bartender …  That less-than-preferential treatment is from the client, that’s from the management, that’s from the owners, that’s from the bussers, that’s from the porters who are cleaning … across the board, women get less.

Few women could survive in “a man’s kitchen” so get stuck, if chefs, in pastry positions where they get paid less

The median weekly wage for women servers in the restaurant industry is $387; the median weekly wage for men servers is $423.

Students at culinary schools often have to work as interns which mean that there are thousands of culinary students who work in America’s restaurant kitchens for free

[Several personal stories of people in restaurant business because they have to take care of one or more family members.]

Most of the black women with whom she’d gone to school had become cake makers in local supermarkets

The only other students who became chefs in nice restaurants were white men

Women in the restaurant industry earn less than men for four reasons:  1) they are the majority of tipped workers who only earn $2.13 plus tips; 2) women are concentrated in lower-level segments of the industry (few in fine-dining establishments); 3) they typically have lower-level positions; and 4) earn less even when they work in the same positions

Environments dominated by men that often encourage sexual harassment

37 percent of the sexual harassment complaints received by the EEOC were filed by women restaurant workers, even though only 7 percent of women in the US work in restaurants

A General Manager is generally considered to be “untouchable’ so he can get away with irresponsible behavior

Most of us can agree that reality TV cooking shows sensationalize events behind the kitchen door

Chapter 7:          Recipes for Change

Employers have really succeeded in making workers feel a sense of inevititability

I hope these stories can inspire you, as they’ve inspired me, to tak small steps to improve your dining experience and help extend opportunities and a living wage to workers on the second-largest private-sector industry in the United States.

Stakeholders – workers, employers, and consummers.  First, we fight against exploitation in high-profile restaurant companies to send a signal to the whole industry.  Second we promote the “high road” to profitability by partnering with responsible employers and running our own worker-owned restaurants, which put oru principles into practice.  Third, we conduct worker-led research and advocate for policy changes to llft standards industry-wide. 

We show the restaurant industry the negative consequences of irresponsible business practices and the benefits of responsible, sustainable practices.

What can be done by ordinary consumers?  1) Adopt a definition of “sustainable food” that includes sustainable labor practices; 2) Talk to the workers when you eat in a restaurant; 3) Engage restaurant managers in a conversation about labor practices; 4) Help raise the federal minimum wage for tipped workers!  Tell policymakers and restaurant manager that you think $2.13 is unacceptable; 5) Vote for paid sick days for restaurant workers.  And tell restaurant managers you consider workers’ health when choosing where to eat; 6) Picket with your wallet – don’t eat in restaurants segregated by race and gender; and 7) Join our campaign to support workers all along the food chain. 


Huffington Post article on raising minimum wage:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/18/minimum-wage-poll_n_4466009.html






Thursday, December 12, 2013

Harvard and Religious Courses
 


Back in 2010, Newsweek magazine had an article about Harvard University and Religious courses.  It seems that there are certain professors who believe that for a person to be “well-educated”, they should understand how religions play such an important role in much of many societies.  However there are others who feel that religion should not be taught on the same level as science and other courses of higher learning.  Here is a link to the article:  Harvard 

I found it interesting that they didn’t discuss the approach that seemed to be the most logical to me:  teach it like they used to teach (and hopefully still do) Greek and Roman mythology when people studied to receive “The Classical Education”.  It used to be that education included the Classics of Latin as a language, and Greek and Roman Mythology.  This provided a basis for studying the Classic Literature.  One cannot understand (to say nothing about appreciate) John Milton’s Paradise Lost without a good grounding in “the Classics”.  So why not present today’s religions in a secular university like Harvard, the same way that Edith Hamilton presented the Greek and Roman myths? 

I had a friend recently tell me that he was showing the movie Elmer Gantry to a group of Japanese young women engaged in an immersion program.  He stopped the film and asked if they understood what was going on in the movie and they confessed they did not.  He then found out that they did not understand the concepts of heaven and hell nor of a preacher.  When he asked them what religion they were, they didn’t know how to answer him.  Finally one student said she guessed she was Buddhist.  The teacher realized then that these students should be taught religion if they are going to understand what goes on in our society.

The various religions are better understood as stories rather than conflicting facts and we can (and should) understand not only Christianity but also other religions that are a major part of other societies.  Perhaps more of us should not only understand Christians and Jews through their myths, but also Muslims. 

What is the definition of a myth?  A Google search comes up with this as the prime definition:  “a traditional story, esp. one concerning the early history of a people or explaining some natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events.”  This definition seems to fit the myths of ancient Greece, Rome, Nordic lands, Hindu, Christian, and Muslim. 

In the article it mentions that Steven Pinker was against including a course on “Reason and Faith” as a core requirement.  His argument was that the goal should be to pursue “truth through rational inquiry, and … religion has no place for that.”  While I love Pinker’s books on how the mind works, I realize that Pinker is a scientist.  But the universities used to separate “science and the Humanities” for a reason.  They are different.  They involve different parts of the mind.  While science deals with what is true and not true, the intuitive part of the mind deals with truth – which is not dependent on a binary distinction of true or not true.  And so religion should be understood through the Humanities such as literature, history, art, poetry, etc.  And as Humanists, we should understand these stories in order to understand other people (humans) among us.  So Pinker is right to say that religion should not be taught as science, but wrong to say that it shouldn’t be taught as a part of the Humanities.

I have no problems talking about the myths of Christians, Hindus, Jews, or Muslims.  And as such, I have no problems with them being studied as myths in educational institutions like Harvard.  Perhaps if we studied the myths of religions and understood them, we could then study the psychology of those who insist on not only believing in them, but insist that others believe in them also.  And maybe we could study why certain people insist on believing in the myths of Christianity but not the myths of ancient Greece.

David Kimball


Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Idolatry and Blasphemy



This morning, while lying in bed, I was thinking of writing a blog on Idolatry and Blasphemy.  I then was later reading some of the blogs on the Concord Area Humanists site and discovered to my surprise a blog on blasphemy by Ellery.  http://concordareahumanists.org/blog/201209/address-blasphemy-day-sunday-september-30-2012  This was a copy of an address he gave on Blasphemy Day, September 30, in 2012 at Massachusetts Beirut Memorial.  If I weren’t a Humanist, I would have sworn that this was a sign from the realms of the supernatural to “Go forth and declare”.  (smile)

How do we define “idolatry”?  Webster defines it as “the worship of a physical object as a god”, and also “immoderate attachment or devotion to something”.  In the Ten Commandments, idolatry is treated as the making and creating of a “graven image” (carved, sculpted, engraved, etc.)  This emphasizes that it is a thing made by man and given god-like characteristics.  (And man made god in his own image?)  Many Protestants accuse the Catholics of “worshipping” the statues of Mary and thus committing idolatry.  And Catholics, in the “Catechism of the Catholic Church” says that idolatry is “Idolatry not only refers to false pagan worship. Man commits idolatry whenever he honours and reveres a creature in place of God, whether this be gods, or demons (for example satanism), power, pleasure, race, ancestors, the state, money etc.”  It is ironic that the Commandment against worshipping graven images was supposedly engraved in a stone tablet and carried by Moses down the mountain to the people of Israel as they were worshipping the golden calf idol that had just been made.  Just as it is ironic that the 10 Commandments which many religious people want put up in courts and schools contain the Commandment not to worship any graven image such as the 10 Commandments.  

I propose that the holy scriptures of any religion is really idolatry.  Whether it be the Bible for Christians, the Koran for Muslims, or the Old Testament or Pentateuch for the Jews, these are the idols of the religious.  While Christians say that they believe in a god, and worship a god, it is really the Bible they worship.  If you take away the Bible, there is no god for them to believe in and worship.  Without the Koran or the Old Testament, there is no god to worship.  It is the “Word” or revelation of a god that is the basis of their faith and belief and that is what describes how they are to worship.  The same may be said of the teaching of Mary Baker Eddy and other religious cults who revere a book as holy writ. 

And yet that these “revelations” are man-made is evidenced by any type of critical analysis.  And of course this also applies to all the “holy books” of Eastern religions as well.  One doesn’t have to disprove the existence of a god, all one has to do is disprove these holy books as possessing god-like characteristics from some supernatural world. 

When a religious group claims that a certain action is blasphemous, we see that the object of this blasphemy is really an object of their idolatry.  If one idolizes the Bible, then they will see blasphemy when someone speaks against the Bible, or the god as represented in the Bible.  The same with the Koran and Muhammad.  Muslims do not like the appellation of Muhammadism as that indicates they worship Muhammad, which they deny.  Yet the fact that they call certain acts blasphemous against the prophet Muhammad, shows that they deify this personage.  The fact that Christians will call certain acts “blasphemous” when done regarding Christ or the Bible or the teachings in the Bible also show that these are the objects of their worship and deification. 

And so blasphemy and idolatry go hand in hand.  One cannot have blasphemy without a man/woman or a man-made object being first deified and worshipped as an idol. 

As Humanists, we believe that nothing, no man-made object or even another man/woman, is higher than our own human nature.  Nothing is considered divine as all is considered secular.  So as a Humanist, I have no definition of blasphemy that is meaningful to me.  And as a Humanist, any man or man-made object which is placed as being higher than one’s human nature in order to command or proscribe my beliefs and actions is idolatry.  And I, for one, am not an idolater.  

Humanism and Sustainability



Back in 2009 I went for training at the United Nations Centre in Vienna, Austria.  This was to be certified in being a consultant for the United Nation’s Global Compact within the developing countries.  This was the only agency of the United Nations that is tasked with promoting businesses in the developing countries.  Developing Countries are those countries who are more economically stable than the Least Developed Countries, but are not at the level of the Most Developed Countries like the US.  Least Developed Countries is a preferred name to “Third World Countries” which sound like they are “Third Class Countries.  I had a mentor, a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize on year, who preferred calling them “Two-Thirds World Countries” as that was a better representation. 

Shortly after I returned, I wrote this blog but didn’t have a blogging site at that time.  So I am including it here and now.  This will be used as a basis for several blogs I plan to publish on the United Nations’ Sustainability Development Goals (SDGs) for the their 2015 and Beyond program scheduled to replace the Millenium Development Goals for the civil sector combined with their Global Compact for the business sector.

Humanism and Sustainability

I have just returned from one week of intensive training for Sustainability consulting and Sustainability reporting for Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs).  This was through the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) in Vienna, Austria.  UNIDO is the only United Nations agency tasked with developing jobs and work opportunities in the developing countries.  (The other agencies, like UNICEF, WHO, etc give aid and assistance to people in the least developed countries.)  Of the 20 attendees, 4 were from Croatia, 3 were from Bosnia, and one each from several countries including Ecuador, Moldova, Ukraine, Greece, Austria, Germany, etc.  I was the only representative from the United States and was also the only one there not involved in consulting in a developing country.  I was there not because of my job, but just because I have become very involved in many aspects of the United Nations as a personal interest and as a hobby – especially with their Global Compact.  As such, I have become quite involved with the United Nations Global Compact which is the UN’s work with the business sector in assuring that businesses are run in a Sustainable fashion.

As a quick explanation of business Sustainability, it is determining how a business should operate now so that it will be viable 50 years from now.  (Later, I will discuss how this can apply to us as individuals who are Humanists.)  This approach has evolved to be centered on what is called Triple Bottom Line Accountability (TBL)  Instead of just “the bottom line” of a business, which infers just the financial bottom line, TBL includes a bottom line accountability of Environmental and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).  (Triple Bottom Line accountability is also known as Profit/Planet/People accountability for those who like alliterations.)  A company is not considered a viable company if it is successful financially, but irresponsible environmentally.  At the same time, a company cannot do something for the environmental that is good if that means it will fail financially.  The same is true with Corporate Social Responsibility.  A company must operate responsibly in all three areas.

A company must perform environmentally in such a way that it will be viable in the future – that is, it cannot be depleting resources which will adversely impact the business later.  As an example, I work for a large Fortune 200 company.  They performed an energy audit and discovered that they could not continue to use their energy resources in the same trend and be viable later.  They discovered that within 25 years, between the increase in energy consumption and the increase in energy prices, they would not be viable.  They would not be able to afford the energy that would be consumed if they did not resort to energy conservation and/or energy alternatives.  And they can look at other environmental aspects and see that they need to change their whole approach to include issues such as recycling, etc.

The same was true with Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).  CSR involves both the external stakeholders (shareholders, supply chain companies, customers, etc.) as well as internal stakeholders (employees and middle management).  They discovered that projecting ahead 50 years, they would not be able to draw on the available workforce the people they would need unless they changed.  There will not be the demographics of white, male engineers available for them.  So they have instituted many changes to become an “Employer of Choice” to appeal to many of the minority groups, and women.  They have also seen that of the four generations of workers now in the work force, the youngest generation is motivated most by “making a difference”.  The younger generation wants to work in jobs where they can make a difference (in the environment or socially) and/or work for a company that is socially and environmentally responsible.  My company has also seen that to be the Employer of Choice, they must reach out and become a sustaining member of the community – not as PR efforts, but as sincere efforts to remain viable.

These assumptions of environmental and social responsibility are because of business sense and not because they are showing themselves to be “progressive” or a “tree-hugger”.  The shareholders are demanding that companies be more transparent so that the investors can see how a company is operating in a sustainable fashion.  Investors want to make sure a company is not operating in an unsustainable manner and so TBL has become a business imperative.  I have been told that the SEC is thinking of requiring companies to publish an annual Sustainability Report by the year 2015.

How does this apply to us as individuals who are Humanists?  As a Humanist, I have the ability and the responsibility to develop all that it means to be human both in myself and in others.  This definition includes the word “responsibility”.  Humanism is more than a belief system, it is also a value system and one of our values should be Responsibility. 

As a Humanist, I have a responsibility to my environment.  There is a Native American saying that says “We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.”  As Humanists, we need to insure that the environment will be just as viable for our future generations as it is now.  There is a movement in some of the religious circles (especially among the young) that mankind has a caretaker responsibility assigned by a god.  We don’t need to take this direction from a god to recognize our own responsibility for environmental sustainability.  We can be good without a god and we can and should do the right thing environmentally.

And as a Humanist, we should recognize our social responsibility.  We have the responsibility to do what we can to care for the vulnerables in our society, to narrow the gap between the haves and the have-nots, to care for those who are in our first degree of separation (family and friends) as well as those who are six degrees separated from us.  To sustain the global society, we need to recognize our responsibilities in all of our social milieus.  The continuation of the increase of the gap between the haves and the have-nots is not sustainable.

It is striking to see how Business Sustainability has become so prevalent in Europe while only beginning to be used here in the States.  (If I had not known beforehand how much more prevalent this is in Europe, it would have been embarrassing for me as a person from the United States at this training session.)  Although many of the top Fortune US companies are now publishing annual Sustainability Reports, it is a concept that has not become popular in the United States culture like it has in Europe – even in the European developing countries formerly of the Soviet Union.  The whole concept is part of the general vernacular in Europe and several European CEOs were meeting and discussing what they could do to attract the best talent.  They came to the decision that although most young people looking for a job do not read the company’s annual Financial Report, almost all of them (in Europe) will read the company’s annual Sustainability Report.  Over there, in order to broaden the scope of the approach beyond that of corporations, they are now using the term Responsibility Reporting.

Perhaps we as Humanists should include Responsibility Reporting as some of our Key Performance Indicators at the individual level.  Imagine the branding image if Humanists were known for their Environmental responsibilities and their Social responsibilities as so many more businesses are becoming known.

David Kimball