Civilization, Whither Art ThouCommentary on Society and Civilizationhttp://checkconnect.net/SocietyBlog/feed/2015-03-03T16:46:57-07:00ChyrpManifest and Latent Functions of Higher Education Todaytag:checkconnect.net,2016-03-26:/SocietyBlog/id/15/2016-03-26T13:11:10-06:002015-03-03T16:46:57-07:00Thomas Checkleyhttp://checkconnect.net/SocietyBlog<p>Throughout history education was seen as a gateway to a career and entrance into society. Education, however, was not and still is not considered the same as an apprenticeship or on-the-job training. Higher education became at some point synonymous with education. In fact, in high schools and even elementary schools, when the word education is bantered about it is in reference to going to college. Very few individuals discuss education in the same breath as discussing vocation. But even vocation is changing today.</p><p>In the early 1900s, in the classified section of the newspaper, a man could find opportunities in barber shops, advertising, sales, or countless other fields if all he had was a high school diploma (often this wasn't even a prerequisite). Today, to be a barber or work in sales or advertising requires certifications or a degree. The <em>good </em>jobs in sales require bachelor's degrees (BA); and jobs in sales that do not require a BA are limited with no hope of advancement. But why? What changed in the past 100 years that requires a minimum of 4 additional years of education? </p><p>It could be argued that changes in technology have been drastic; but what classes really focus on those changes? For a BA a student need not take any computer science courses; they need not take a database course; they need not take a course in really anything computer related. In fact, the BA student really only needs to know how to use a word processor (something he probably learned in high school) and the internet (something probably learned at a very early age for millennials). So why have students take so much coursework that has nothing to do with the job?</p><p>A classic argument is that an education teaches individuals to think. The history class gives students perspective on human life across time; English teaches students to analyze; and all the courses are supposed to teach students to think critically. Students leave with multiple paradigms with which to attack problems in the world and at their jobs. But this manifest function of higher education does not fit with reality in the workplace.</p><p>Employers do not want smart savvy employees. They want employees who will do what they are told. Only a small fraction of the workforce needs to have multiple paradigms to attack complex problems with. Why would a sales representative need to utilize critical literary theory or calculus while selling life insurance? The math and language of the contract were predetermined by the few who run the company. The sales representatives merely have to understand <em>how to sell</em> the product -- not how to design it. So again, why require this extra education?</p><p>Sociology textbooks, the occasional blogger, and people trying to impress their dates talk about the latent function of higher education as a mating ground for individuals of the same social standing. For example, it is exceptionally unlikely that you will find a rich young man or woman attending a community college. They will likely be at an Ivy League or at the very least a well known state school with a great sports program -- or perhaps at a top liberal arts college. Sifting through the higher education campuses we find that each school has a unique culture. You will not find the same category of student at Yale as you will at the University of Miami (just to make one comparison). But this is just a cute observation that ultimately leads us away from the darker latent functions of higher education -- such as student loans.</p><p>Anyone who reads or watches the news from time to time will have seen something about rising cost of tuition. A devastating inadvertent function of higher education is that all but the rich end up in debt. Debt that will likely take them decades to pay-off. Consider the following: someone goes to college and gets a BA. They have $30,000 of student loans (pretty typical). They then try to find a job so they can start paying off the student loans. But there really aren't any good jobs available. So they take what they can get. They can't leave the job, since they are in-debt; but staying at the job is a dead end. It is a catch-22. </p><p>This student loan debt idea is old hat; and lots of conservatives and head-in-the-sand-Republicans like to act like its not a big deal. But here's the kicker that no one can argue, not even some dipshit from Forbes. More and more jobs are requiring specialized degrees or certificates. Consider this: to get a job as a medical laboratory technician you need to take an exam to receive a certificate saying you are a certified MLT. Fine you say, that sounds reasonable. We wouldn't want just anybody running medical labs. But what if a PhD or even an M.S. with a strong science background wanted to take the test? Turns out they can't. The only way to become an MLT today is to enroll in a 2 year accredited program. </p><p>Now, there are 1-year accelerated programs to an MLT associates degree; but you have to have all their prerequisites completed. It is very rare that a PhD in the biological sciences would have every prereq. For instance, most programs require medical terminology. This course is never taken by BS, MS, or PhD level candidates. The course would be a joke for a PhD, but regardless, they would need to take it to eventually work as an MLT. At this point you may wonder, why in the world would a PhD want to work as an MLT? Well, the truth is that there are roughly 20 PhD level candidates for every 1 PhD level job today. This means that 95% of PhDs in the biological sciences <em><strong>must</strong></em> work at something else.</p><p>Many jobs require some clinical experience to get a foot in the door. MLT would seem to many to be a good place to start, since every PhD I know has worked in a lab, published research, and knows their way around a laboratory. But they cannot work. In fact, it turns out that they can't do much at all. Society today has come to dictate that if you don't have the <strong>specific</strong> certificate or degree you can't work in the field. Society does not care about ability, potential, or intelligence -- only what's on a single piece of paper. This goes for the medical field, the business world, and much more (the list would be painful).</p><p>The end result of this reality is that each person who gets a degree either finds a job or is forced to start over. So how did it come to this and why is it this way?</p><p>I can only speculate as to how it came to be this way (although it would be a very interesting journalistic enterprise), but the why seems very straight forward. Training employees can be expensive. If, however, you can have the applicants train themselves you wouldn't have to spend any money on training. This is what has happened -- mostly at the community college level. When I taught I saw the colleges trying vigorously to create new certificate programs and degree programs for the big corporations in the community. In fact, the colleges have positions dedicated to working with big corporations to come up with certificate or degree programs that would directly lead students to working at their company. They would need virtually no training, because the program would have been designed by the company. They would brag that if you come to their program that they train you with the same software or instruments that are used at the big companies out there! And it does make some sense at a very basic level.</p><p>For example, why teach nursing students or accounting students on software or instruments that are outdated or no longer used? That doesn't make sense. But, why aren't the companies paying for this -- at least at some level? The program manifestly appears to be an independent program that helps students prepare for a career in a specific field. However, on a latent level there is a company that designed the program to circumvent training employees. They are passing that cost on to the would be applicants</p><p>If you combine this with the issue of student loan debt and wealth inequality, you can start to see how there is a growing frustration in this country with opportunity. Exceptionally educated individuals cannot work in certain fields, because the companies themselves aren't willing to provide training on their specific protocols. It is important for the country to start to examine what the function of higher education is (post-secondary). Are we educating individuals or are we providing on-the-job training for companies on the tax payers dime? Is education providing opportunity or providing a ball-and-chain in the form of student loan debt in an effort to create subservience to corporate America? You decide.</p>To Eat, or Not to Eat; That is the Questiontag:checkconnect.net,2015-02-15:/SocietyBlog/id/14/2015-02-15T14:31:37-07:002015-02-15T14:20:31-07:00Thomas Checkleyhttp://checkconnect.net/SocietyBlog<p>I took a look at the last two posts and noticed I was getting a bit scienc-y. This blog is intended to focus on societal issues and not scientific issues; however, as we all know, science and society often intersect. I have given the Rosie Heart Attack entry a bit of thought and decided to follow it up with one last post in the series (for now) with a focus on health and science. The issue is what and how much to eat.</p><p>Let's start with butter. In the 1800s margarine was invented. It's history began in France, and it was supposed to be a substitute for real butter intended for the military and lower classes. Eventually, it was found you could mix plant oils with animal fats and get a similar product to margaric acid (the first margarine). However, it was still expensive to make, since it still relied on beef fat as the principal ingredient. However, an advance in chemistry called hydrogenation came along in the early 20th century and allowed production of margarine that was almost all plant fats. It might be clear to some readers that at this point no one is sure what margarine is; and in fact there was a clouding of the term margarine. Many laws in various states tried to restrict names and other factors involved in the selling of butter substitutes.</p><p>Margarine reached a peak popularity probably in the 50s. Many people thought that since it was based from plants it must be better for you; eat your vegetables, right? But in fact the hydrogenation of the plant oils made the fats not only more similar to animal fats than plant oils, it also made the hydrogenated fats worse for you. It wasn't for a while, though, until researchers figured out that hydrogenated oils lower your HDL, raise your LDL, promote inflammation, damage the epithelial cells that line your arteries, promote insulin resistance, which can lead to diabetes, and also promote obesity. Everything I just said is backed up by years and years of <a href="http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/transfats/" target="_blank">research</a>. Thus, eating these fats is a multifaceted attack on your health. </p><p>But many people just said that the researchers didn't know what they were talking about. They would say, "Everyone said they were fine before, now they say they're bad. I don't think they know anything." And they go on eating hydrogenated oils. The same can be said of salt, alcohol, chocolate, sugar/carbs, protein, fat, and many other dietary substances. Society feels like they are being told one day that salt is bad, and then the next day that salt is good. The same with all the others on the list. One day grains on the base of the pyramid, the next the food pyramid is gone (which it is) and grains seem to be reduced and lean protein increased. </p><p>Today I'm here to make it worse and better at the same time. So after that somewhat lengthy introduction, humor me for a few more paragraphs and lets see if I can wrap up the gist of what I believe is going on below.</p><p>Well over a decade ago <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12402506" target="_blank">researchers </a>realized that some individuals do not produce <em>CCR5</em>, a receptor mainly found on <em>CD4</em>+ cells. Now, that may not sound like much, but what it did was more or less make the person with that mutation immune to HIV infection. This was because HIV needs to bind to the <em>CD4 </em>receptor, and then it needs to use the <em>CCR5 </em>receptor to get into the cell. If either are missing, then HIV doesn't get in. Now if a person is missing <em>CD4</em>, then they are in bigger trouble than an HIV infection; but it turns out we as humans don't necessarily need <em>CCR5 </em>to function normally due to a redundancy built into our genetic makeup. So there are people who are immune to HIV walking around (probably less than 1% to 2% of the population, give or take). This sort of thing is called genetic variation -- in other words, we are all different.</p><p>Now let's take that information and apply it to food. Perhaps the reason we are seeing such contradictory information regarding food and disease is at least partly due to genetic variability. I think it is, and there is <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2965355/" target="_blank">research </a>to back that claim up. For instance, there is a variant allele for <em>NOS1</em> called rs7298903. NOS1 is nitric oxide synthase 1, it is a gene that codes for an enzyme that makes <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitric_oxide" target="_blank">nitric oxide</a>. If you have that variant allele, and you have a low fruit and vegetable intake, then you are at a 3-fold increased risk for chronic lymphocytic leukemia and/or small lymphocytic lymphoma (CLL/SLL); while if you eat a lot of fruits and vegetables then you have a 60% reduced risk of CLL/SLL. But what about another variant of <em>NOS1</em>, say rs545654?</p><p>It turns out that with the variant rs545654 of <em>NOS1 </em>there is an interesting effect with just red vegetables. In the low red vegetable intake group there is a 60% reduced risk of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL); but in the high red vegetable intake group there was a 1.7-2.4-fold increased risk for DLBCL. In fact, there were many cases of variants of <em>NOS1 </em>that showed a similar pattern of increased risk with high red vegetable intake. So in the one case, you should eat lots of vegetables; but with another variant you shouldn't. What to do?</p><p>At this point in time none of us will likely be able to find out our true genetic makeup. That is, it is too expensive and time consuming to go through and identify each persons unique genetic variations for each gene. If you had that information you could start to make more informed decisions about gene-diet interactions; but the truth is, this is a nascent field and there is much yet to discover. For instance, it has been suggested by researchers that eating tomatoes with garlic may interact with how the sulfur compounds in garlic work in our bodies. Thus, a society like Japan, which eats garlic, but not as much tomatoes will exhibit a different epidemiological pattern than say in Italy, where they eat lots of garlic and tomatoes.</p><p>Once again, talk to your doctor. Talk to a trusted nutritionist. Listen to your body. Keep a food journal. If you like certain food and feel good eating certain food, then your body probably needs them (and no this doesn't apply in the same way to deserts and alcohol). We live in an exciting time where scientific information can tell us so much about the world. But we are just beginning to discover the interactions of food with our genes. Give it some time, and perhaps one day we will have personalized diets for each individuals genetic makeup.</p><p>What all of this doesn't mean, however, is that when doctors and researchers say something is just plain bad, that you can use this as an excuse to ignore it. Hydrogenated oils aren't good for anyone. Cigarettes aren't good for anyone. Excessive alcohol isn't good for anyone. Eating an unbalanced diet of mainly animal products and starch isn't good for anyone. We all need certain things. While we each do have variations, and these variations do play a role in disease, at our core we are all very similar and our needs are likewise very similar. I hope this entry was both informative and helpful in its own way. </p>Rosie O'Donnell and Heart Attack Symptomstag:checkconnect.net,2015-02-06:/SocietyBlog/id/13/2015-02-06T12:47:54-07:002015-02-06T12:45:51-07:00Thomas Checkleyhttp://checkconnect.net/SocietyBlog<p>Rosie came out recently about her <a href="https://www.goredforwomen.org/about-heart-disease/heart-disease-news/rosie-odonnells-heart-attack-what-she-learned/" target="_blank">heart attack</a> and how she missed the symptoms. Everyone knows it seems that when the heart feels pain it can be felt in your left arm, cheat, neck, and jaw; but what people don't seem to know is that there are a variety of symptoms that people experience. The problem I have with Rosie's special concerning acute myocardial infarctions (AMIs for short and the technical term for a heart attack, I'll just use MI here) is that she makes it sound like women have their own set of symptoms and that she knows exactly what they are. The truth is that there are multiple types of MIs and they each can have their own set of symptoms; further, not everyone experiences all of those symptoms associated with that specific MI or even any of them sometimes (a silent heart attack).</p><p>To aggravate the problem, even organizations like <a href="https://www.goredforwomen.org/" target="_blank">Go Red For Women</a> seems to not have many of their facts straight. In the first link of this post you can find an article where GoRed editors post that an "EKG revealed that she had 99 percent artery blockage, a situation called “the widow maker.” The truth is, "the widow maker" is a term that comes from a specific coronary artery, the left anterior descending coronary artery (LAD for short). The LAD supplies around 50% of the blood to the left ventricle and also most of the blood to the septum of the heart. If it goes, then the left ventricle is in big trouble. Clearly, it's very important, hence it's name as the "widow maker." Also, you can't tell the percentage of occlusion from an EKG. You can get a really good idea of where it is and even possibly how bad it is, but not a percentage. Further, all these numbers are estimates. You can read about estimating percent occlusion <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2709495/" target="_blank">here</a> -- if you'd like.</p><p>But I want to move onto talking about symptomatology of MIs. Let's start with the scariest one there is...having no symptoms at all, called a silent MI. Whose at risk? The truth is, we could all experience this. It is estimated that up to 25% of all MIs are silent. However, those with diabetes and the elderly are at the most risk for silent MI. So what in the world can you do to mitigate this? Well, first of all, manage your lifestyle so you minimize the risk for diabetes; second, exercise and try and live a healthy lifestyle (including managing stress). You can't do anything about getting old, it is simply a privilege that only some of us have. Lastly, you can visit your doctor if you think you are at any risk, and they can visualize your coronary arteries or run tests to see the health of your heart (preventative medicine!).</p><p>Alright, so what about the classic symptoms. These would include chest pain that radiates down the left arm and/or up into the neck and jaw and maybe just not feeling well. The truth is, that when angina hits, it often really hurts. Nitroglycerin is a drug that treats angina, but it often doesn't manage the pain during an MI. In fact, very often stronger drugs are given to manage the pain. It is usually the case that these people are diaphoretic as well (sweating a lot). Sometimes they are also pale, from either a lack of peripheral circulation or intense vasoconstriction in response to the sympathetic nervous system. What to do if this happens to you: don't wait, call 911. The longer the heart goes without getting oxygen and nutrients, the more tissue will die. Barring advancements in science and medicine, that heart tissue will never come back, it will only scar over.</p><p>Well those two are relatively easy, but what about these other symptoms? Alright, so the other major symptoms I haven't already mentioned include nausea, vomiting, shortness of breath, JVD, rales in the lungs, pain in the upper back, and fatigue; and of course, there are also symptoms I'm sure people who had MIs experienced and are thinking why don't I see that on the list. Well, these are just the most common non-chest pain associated symptoms. It does seem to be true that women experience these non-typical MI symptoms more than men, but it needs to be pointed out that the typical symptoms are still the most common symptoms in women as well as men! Rosie states in her show that "we [women] don't even know our own symptoms." The truth is that men can have these non-typical symptoms as well, not just women. It just turns out that women have them more often than men, statistically speaking.</p><p>Each one of these non-typical symptoms is usually associated with a certain type of MI. For example, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTN<span class="emoji">😲</span>vhcv8&index=5&list=PLDF989DA794DC983F" target="_blank">rales</a> are a certain type of lung sound heard on auscultation; they are associated with congestive heart failure (CHF for short) and are usually caused by fluid buildup in the lungs (pulmonary edema). The failure of the heart is on the <strong>left side,</strong> and since the left side of the heart receives blood from the lungs, if it can't receive then the fluid backs up in the lungs. Many people, including women, end up with <a href="http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/45/5/1125.full.pdf" target="_blank">CHF after a left sided MI</a>. Following this logic, <a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jugular_Venous_Distention_(JVD).JPG" target="_blank">JVD </a>(jugular venous distension) can occur due to backup in the jugular veins due to <strong>right sided MI</strong>. The right side of the heart receives blood from the superior and inferior vena cava, and the superior vena cava receives blood directly from the jugular vein. Thus, when the right side backs up we can see it as JVD due to the convenient anatomy of the jugular vein to the surface of the neck.</p><p>It is important to note, however, that rales and JVD are signs of other disorders, and not just MI. You can get fluid in your lungs, have fatigue, and probably some mild chest discomfort from a cold. Clearly you can have nausea and vomiting from many things other than an MI. So how do you know when to make that call to the emergency room? It's a great question, and one that researchers are trying to figure out. I can only tell you how we in a hospital or ambulance determine if it is very likely an MI (medical jargon: "have a very high degree of suspicion"). </p><p>First, we usually take a history. This clearly involves why we are seeing you today. Then, if you have any of the following it raises our suspicion that you might be having an MI: hypertension, diabetes, previous MIs or heart disease, smoker, or if you're over 50. In fact, if someone comes in with abdominal pain and is over 50 the hospital will almost always do an EKG (truth be told, MIs are so variable that many people get hooked up to at least some rudimentary EKG). If why we're seeing you today is for chest pain, and you have one of those risk factors, we're worried about MI and are going to run an EKG. While the EKG is getting set up we can listen (auscultate) the heart and lung sounds as well (this is where we'd listen for rales). We look for certain features on EKGs that are indicative of MIs, and if we see them we can (with a 12 lead) get a good idea of which artery is affected. But even if the EKG is clean, the hospital will still probably run blood work and look for a certain protein that is highly specific for MIs. If any of those tests turn up positive you get sent to the cath-lab and are treated for acute myocardial infarction by balloon angioplasty, maybe some drugs, and possibly a stent. If you get into the cath-lab quickly enough, then the chances of survival are actually pretty good.</p><p>What of this can you do at your house? Probably not much besides the history taking. You can't interpret an EKG because you aren't trained to and also due to the fact you don't have the machine! You don't have the equipment to check blood work. You also probably don't have a great stethoscope or even if you do you probably don't have the experience to definitively say, oh yeah, those are rales or, oh yeah, my lungs sound fine (plus it's damn hard to listen to your own lung sounds, trust me). And you definitely don't have a cath-lab in your house. Thus, the best defense you have for MIs is, again, good diet, exercise, and regular check ups with your doctor. If you know you're at risk for an MI, you have a huge advantage over someone who doesn't. </p><p>To conclude, if you know you are at risk and you are unsure if you're experiencing an MI, then get to the ER and consider calling 911. If you have no idea if you're at risk, get evaluated. Hopefully, this little post helps to elucidate the variability of the symptomatology of acute myocardial infarctions, and we didn't even really get into comorbidities or confounding factors. So yes, Rosie is right, and she is also a bit misleading. Her songs, which are really fun, suggest that women feel hot, exhausted, are pale, puking, and pain (she calls it HEPPP). It's a really good list. The problem is that not everyone is going to have all those symptoms, and that men have those symptoms as well. Her show and her interviews make it seem so clear cut. Women are like this, men are like this; but that isn't the case. <strong>In most cases women will experience a heart attack the same as a man; and in some cases men and women will experience non-typical symptoms with heart attacks, and women will experience those non-typical symptoms more than men on average. </strong></p><p><strong></strong>If you don't like men as the reference point, then just flip it all around! In most cases men will experience heart attacks the same way as most women; and in some cases men and women will experience non-typical symptoms, with women more likely to experience those non-typical symptoms. But again, here are the big risk factors that need to be managed! Hypertension, high cholesterol, diabetes, and smoking. If you don't smoke, then don't start, if you do, then quit. If you don't have hypertension or diabetes, then make sure to try and keep it that way by eating right and exercising. If you don't have high cholesterol then great, keep it up; if you do then get it under control. Heart attacks almost always happen because a coronary artery becoming blocked with fatty stuff (atherosclerosis). All of those risk factors increase the chance of the arteries from getting that type of blockage. In the end, for most people, you have the most control over your heart's health. </p><p><em>Note: I think it was good that Rosie came out with her story. And I like her HEPPP song. It is getting people out there looking into heart attacks and their own health. That's a good thing. The reason I wrote this was to point out that it is much more complicated than what Rosie is saying. I don't want someone to watch Rosie in an interview or on her special and think: "Oh, well, I'm a woman and I'm not hot, exhausted, puking, or in pain. I'm a little pale and there are these veins sticking out of my neck, but that's probably something else. I guess I'm not having a heart attack." If you watch the </em><a href="http://www.today.com/video/today/49549808#49549808" target="_blank">Dr. Oz interview</a><em> with the Today Show, you'll see that his list of symptoms is different from Rosie's HEPPP list. Again, I like that Rosie is out there, and I like that people are talking about this, but people need to go to their health care providers, get evaluated, and learn about their risks and talk to a professional. We cannot be a society that gets its information from comedy specials. </em> </p><p> </p>Do We Only Use 10% of Our Brain?tag:checkconnect.net,2015-02-04:/SocietyBlog/id/12/2015-02-04T21:44:49-07:002015-02-04T21:44:49-07:00Thomas Checkleyhttp://checkconnect.net/SocietyBlog<p>A new movie, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2872732/" target="_blank">Lucy</a>, has taken some immense liberties with a common misconception about the brain. The "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_percent_of_brain_myth" target="_blank">10% of brain myth</a>," as many call it, has murky origins. There are many claims to the origins, some blatantly incorrect such as the attribution to Einstein, but regardless there is no actual scientific evidence of this claim whatsoever. I have my own take on how it may have taken some form today with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_magnetic_resonance_imaging" target="_blank">fMRI</a> studies and maybe <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positron_emission_tomography" target="_blank">PET</a>. These commonly seen images of the brain with some colors interpolated over it are told to people to represent areas of activity in the brain. Now in the most clear examples, which are the ones you want to post in articles to the lay person, there are very few areas lit up. This makes sense. Instead of having to say, the such and such area in the superior frontal gyrus is lit up which demonstrates blah blah blah, you can just say, the areas that are lit up appear to represent such and such function. Easy.</p><p>Now you can go and read the Wikipedia article on the 10% myth, and I think it's pretty good. But here I want to give an analogy of the brain and brain activity to help show how the entire notion of the 10% brain thing is more or less idiotic. Here it is.</p><p>Imagine you want to build a house, the whole thing. What would you need? Aside from the raw materials and a design you would need tools and people to use those tools. So, what's the first thing you need to do to build a house? Build a foundation, yes? You need specific tools to build a good foundation. Not included in those tools would be things like electrical wiring, lights, paint brushes, paint, siding, roofing, ect. ect. ect. After the foundation you start to build the frame. You need certain tools for that job. Eventually you'll need the plumbing, the electrical wiring, the siding, the roofing, the flooring, the windows, the woodwork, and everything else.</p><p>Clearly, you aren't using every person and every tool simultaneously. And even if you tried, it would result in a huge mess. That is how your brain works. Each part of your brain, which has a quite complex architecture (pun intended), has a unique function (as far as we neurobiologists can tell). In fact, you can just think about this and it makes some sense, given you have some very elementary knowledge of the brain.</p><p>You have memories I assume. How those memories are actually stored is extremely complicated and yet to be fully understood; but, it would be impossible for all those memories to be stored in a single cell. In fact, it seems that memory isn't really even stored in one location in the brain, but that's getting away from the point. The crux being that if those memories are in multiple cells and/or locations, then if you used all of them at the same time you'd experience every memory all at once (this is a simplification of course). That would be crazy. </p><p>What about another example? There are famous gyri in the brain called the<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cortical_homunculus" target="_blank"> primary motor and primary somatosensory cortex</a>. In those areas you experience all superficial sensations of touch, pain, temperature, vibration as well as control all voluntary motion. Imagine that each little portion of those two gyri was firing off all at the same time. You would simultaneously feel pain, cold, hot, light touch, deep touch, vibration, ect. ect. ect. on every part of your body and at the same time every muscle in your body would try to be moving. This would of course result in catastrophe. Disregarding mechanics, you'd die shortly from this experience.</p><p>I hope it is very clear that just like building a house, performing a task requires certain parts of the brain and yet not others. If you want to play the piano from memory, you must remember the piece you want to play, feel the keys, use certain muscles and not others. And such is it so with all things in life. </p><p>Thus, not only is the 10% of the brain myth incorrect, it is not even thinking about the brain in a way that makes any sense. We clearly aren't "using" 100% of our brain at any given time because just as it makes no sense to beginning roofing the foundation of a house it makes no sense to use a part of our brain responsible for a memory of our father when we really want to remember the phone number of the girl we met last night. There may be a time when we figure out how to enhance the brain; and in some ways we already have (see <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=memory+and+caffeine" target="_blank">memory and caffeine</a>) by finding and creating drugs. But until we truly understand the how the brain is wired, it will be almost impossible to figure out how to drastically rewire it to give the superhuman abilities seen in Hollywood films today. </p>Inconsistencies in Arguments Concerning Minimum Wagetag:checkconnect.net,2014-11-28:/SocietyBlog/id/11/2014-11-28T17:07:56-07:002014-10-02T22:11:01-06:00Thomas Checkleyhttp://checkconnect.net/SocietyBlog<p>Minimum wage has been in the news quite a bit and also has been discussed here on CWAT. I saw an article talking about minimum wage again and because of that I began looking around today for some numbers on how many low-wage hourly employees there are working in the US today. I never found the answer, but the number must be something big; more importantly, however, the search took me down a different road (as the internet often does to us). I kept finding articles from all sorts of sites from blogs to Forbes about the issues with raising minimum wage. But there were always odd inconsistencies. Let's look at a few.</p><p>In <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconnor/2013/07/30/how-much-would-a-big-mac-cost-if-mcdonalds-workers-were-paid-15-per-hour/">this </a>article from Forbes inconsistencies abound. For one thing, Forbes first just cited this guy Arnobio Morelix who they claim is a business student at KU. Who cites a student? Forbes is supposed to be this huge giant in finance and they cite a student? I thought that big guys like Forbes, CNN, and the like cite experts. Well then they retract the part of the article where they use Morelix's data and add to it some "feedback" they received from professors. So what did Morelix say? He claimed that to make up for the 8 billion dollar increase in payroll that the BigMac would have to go from $3.99 to $4.67. But wait, was this assuming that the only thing that changed was the price of the food? It appears to be that way. Well that's just asinine, I'm sure those professors straightened it all out...</p><p>It turns out that all those other guys said some pretty wacky stuff as well. Forbes cites Tim Worstall in claiming that the price of the BigMac wouldn't change. But they then completely miss the point of Worstall's article. They (and let's be clear here "they" is Clare O'Connor who works for Forbes) say that the way the price wouldn't change is by reducing labor costs by increasing automation or decreasing hours and cutting jobs. But this just can't be the case and in fact it isn't what Worstall says! In fact, the point is that it costs pennies for McDonald's to produce that soda for you. They charge you, as Worstall says, as much as they can get away with. Wendy's, Taco Bell, Burger King, etc. all keep the price down by providing competition. So why would the BigMac price go up if they were still in the black? It wouldn't.</p><p>Then there's this crazy comment by Dr. Bittlingmayer about how the fact that all these employees are protesting their low wages is just a sign of a failure of our education system. Now this one is the craziest. I mean what Bittlingmayer says is probably the most absurd thing I've ever heard. There are roughly 246 million working adults in this country, according the the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics. Now, if you go into Walmart, Target, King Soopers, HEB, McDonald's, Taco Bell, or any other low-wage hourly employer you will find mostly adults working there. According to Bittlingmayer if education was working, somehow, miraculously all these adults would be wearing suits working at amazing jobs. You should have your PhD taken away Bittlingmayer. The education system in this country sucks, but that's not why millions of Americans are working low-wage hourly jobs. They are working low-wage hourly jobs because that's all there is. </p><p>Now you may say wait a minute, that was a little harsh, maybe Bittlingmayer has a point. Perhaps if education was improved in the country then there would be less adults working low-wage hourly jobs. Well I just don't see that. For instance, let's look at jobs in the biological sciences. The model today for universities is to hire as few full-time faculty as possible while hiring as many adjunct and part-time professors as they can. The fastest growing sector of academia is in fact part-time professors and adjuncts. These non-full-time faculty make at least a third less than full-time faculty for the same amount of work and are not given any benefits. In Colorado around 65-70% of all classes are taught by part-time or adjunct faculty. What about research? It used to be that a PhD in the biological sciences did a year or two as a post-doctoral fellow and then found a tenure track position at a university. Today, post-docs work for on average 7 years before finding another job. These post-docs are considered in many aspects "students" or "contract labor" and are denied many of the benefits of full-time workers. What about in industry? Well the model there is to hire one PhD who manages a bunch of workers with a Bachelor's degree. This is the same model that is seen today in health care where one MD is hired to manage many nurse practitioners or physician assistants. In truth, there are only enough jobs in the biological sciences for 1 in every 20 PhD's to have a job in the biological sciences. The other 19 need to find something else to do. All this data comes from government agencies.</p><p>So what Bittlingmayer? If we could get all those McDonald's employees educated we would solve the problem? We already don't have enough jobs for the educated people we have!!! How would his proposal work? It doesn't. His comments are so out of touch with reality as to make someone wonder if he is senile or just an idiot. Someone has to work at McDonald's if McDonald's is to stay in business. They employ around 800,000 Americans and Walmart employs over a million Americans. If we add up all the other low-wage hourly jobs we get a huge number. Millions and millions and millions of jobs. Sears, Macy's, Dillard's, Penny's, The Foot Locker, and in fact all those stores in the mall; McDonald's, Taco Bell, Burger King, Wendy's, Arby's, and all the other fast food chains; Walmart, Target, KMart, Sams Club, Costco, and all the other warehouse discount stores; and the list goes on. All those jobs are low-wage hourly jobs. As an ex-Barnes and Noble employee I can tell you that when I left in 2007 an employee working on the floor was given a 25 cent raise every year. They started their employees right at minimum wage when I was hired. So it would take you 14 years to be able to reasonable be expected to make a salary over $20,000 a year.</p><p>Here's the math. You start at $8/hour here in Colorado (which is above the federal minimum wage). That year you make around $14,000 a year working full-time (35 hours a week for 50 weeks a year). After 5 years you are making $9.25/hour; and that year you make about $16,000. After 14 years you are making $11.50/hour; and you make just above $20,000 that year. Now, if you meet a woman and have a kid at some point in that 14 years then you are almost certainly living in poverty unless mom works, too. Again, someone has to work the floor at Barnes and Noble for these types of stores to exist. Barnes and Noble didn't have many teenage workers. It felt to me as if the average age of the worker was around 30 years old. Most employees had been there for 5 years or more. This idea that all these low-wage hourly jobs are supposed to be for teenagers is ludicrous. It sounds like some sort of lie that some intrepid political propagandist came up with years ago. Pay attention the next time you go into one of these stores and look around. Count the number of teenagers (high school or college age kids) working at the store and compare that to the adults. And remember, the managers, the ones who in the propaganda model make good money and manage the kids, are only making a dollar or two more an hour than the teenagers. </p><p>It seems we are asking all the wrong questions. The question we should be asking is how are these companies doing and where is the money going? The truth is, it's going to the CEOs, the shareholders, and the other individuals at the top. The Walmart CEO made 20 million dollars last year. I haven't worked at Walmart, but I am guessing that it's pay and raise model is similar to that of B&N. So I did a tiny bit of math using Excel. Let's start by taking a new hire at B&N and giving him the Colorado minimum wage of $8/hour. Then let's say he works there for 30 years at the standard 25 cent raise per year. Well if we add up all the money he made in that 30 years (all of it, prior to taxes, so gross earnings) that individual makes a lifetime gross earnings of $610,312.50. Now, if that employee had a kid, and that kid started at B&N at $8/hour and worked for 30 years and then made a lifetime gross earnings of $610,312.50 then together they would have made 1.2 million dollars. Woohoo. <strong>So this means that it would take 33 generations for this family to make the annual salary of the boss</strong>. Think that's high, think my math is off? Check it yourself. And if you think that you would even be allowed to work 40 hours a week for 52 weeks a year you're out of your mind. I never got 40 hours a week even if I was scheduled for 40 hours. The managers sent people home if it was slow and hours were cut.</p><p>That's where the money is going. The model is simple. Charge the consumer as much as possible and pay the employees as little as possible. It makes sense from a capitalistic standpoint; but not from an ethical standpoint. This point that I just made about the discrepancy between boss and worker is out there in the news and blogosphere; but it wasn't made anywhere in the Forbes article. If Worstall is right, and McDonald's wants to stay competitive with its competitors then perhaps the McDonald's CEO will just have to make less money. Frankly, the CEO isn't the one degreasing the equipment, serving customers, cleaning the bathroom, or anything else that makes a McDonald's run (at least at the local level). The CEO needs the hourly worker or else there isn't a McDonald's. But the manner in which the pay works you'd think that the CEO is some sort of magical fairy that somehow unlocks the doors to all the McDonald's, cleans every store, and personally hand delivers each burger to every customer. The only reason that this model isn't a complete failure is that somehow all these corporations keep getting away with it. We, the common American people, keep making less and less money, and then we, the common American people, keep shopping at the same corporations who keep giving us less and less money. And the cycle continues. </p><p> </p>Follow-up on Hobby Lobby Posttag:checkconnect.net,2014-07-17:/SocietyBlog/id/10/2014-07-17T22:32:51-06:002014-07-17T16:02:25-06:00Thomas Checkleyhttp://checkconnect.net/SocietyBlog<p>
My father sent me a letter about the last post discussing
<em>Burwell v. Hobby Lobby</em>. With his 30+ years in law he helped elucidate the landscape of law surrounding the U.S. Supreme Court's opinion and also weighed in on a few issues. The most crucial fact he gave to me concerned the U.S. Supreme Court's opinion on <em>Heart of Atlanta Motel Inc. v. United States </em>379 U.S. 241 (1964). The American Bar Association does a great job explaining the central arguments and the outcome of the case <a href="https://www.americanbar.org/groups/public_education/initiatives_awards/students_in_action/atlanta.html" target="_blank">here</a>. As the ABA states, the question is "under the Constitution, can Congress pass a law preventing private businesses from discriminating against people because of their race or color?" The court's opinion was unanimous in saying, yes, Congress can prevent private businesses from discriminating against people, especially private businesses that participate in interstate commerce. The opinion of the court went on to say that Congress has the power to regulate and prevent discrimination not just with interstate commerce but within a state as well. </p><p>
It would seem, as my father points out, and I agree, that
<em>Atlanta</em> has been at least partially overturned. In <em>Atlanta</em> the issue was whether or not Congress could force a private business, in this case a motel, to serve African Americans. The owner of the motel said that the Congress had overstepped its authority by telling him who he could and could not serve. The outcome of the case was unanimous, as mentioned above, and the opinion served to justify regulation prohibiting discriminatory practices by private business. This was part of a trend in law going back to the Civil War or further. The Fourteenth Amendment, passed in 1868, made it so that states could not discriminate against citizens. But in the 1880s the courts refused to restrict private businesses. Thus, early in American history slavery was legal and states had the authority to discriminate. As time went on, they were limited in that capacity. Then the private business question was raised, and so on. Reading through some of the explanations and looking at the case itself I feel the following paragraph from the ABA discussing the case is critical to its understanding:</p><blockquote cite="https://www.americanbar.org/groups/public_education/initiatives_awards/students_in_action/atlanta.html">
"The Fourteenth Amendment prohibited discrimination by
<em style="background-color: initial;">states</em>, thus limiting their power, but what about discrimination by private businesses like restaurants and hotels? Congress passed a law in 1875 that outlawed such discrimination. The Civil Rights Act of 1875 made it a crime to deny to anyone the "full and equal enjoyment" of railways and other transportation. It also required equal treatment in hotels, theaters and other places of public amusement."
</blockquote><p>Therefore, it should be understood that throughout American history the laws have been moving ever closer to trying to create a society where discrimination does not exist, while balancing the power of Congress. Today, however, in
<em>Burwell v. Hobby Lobby</em> the court has slid backwards by taking power away from Congress. They have said that an private business participating in interstate commerce cannot be regulated when it violates the religious beliefs of that corporation, as long as the corporation isn't <em>hurting anyone</em>. (If they were hurting someone by violating the law Congress would have a compelling reason to burden them.) With this in mind, the question becomes, can an owner of a corporation participating in interstate commerce not hire a potential employee because they are African American, if they feel it violates their religious beliefs? Historically, the Christian Bible was used to justify slavery and the inferiority of other "races." I fail to see how that isn't religious in nature. How does <em>Burwell v. Hobby Lobby</em> and the <em>Restoration of Religious Freedom Act</em> reconcile this?</p><p>
But I want to change the focus of this post and examine something else my father said that is of particular interest to me. Below is the paragraph I wish to discuss:</p><blockquote>
"Also, many women use the hormones for things other than birth control. [Many women]...for example...[take] so called birth control pills as a way to control harsh and debilitating periods...There are other medical uses for these hormones than just birth control is the point. These items should be referred to generically as "hormone therapy" not birth control. So because of one medical effect, prevention of pregnancy, versus other medical effects, these people get to opt out. Furthermore, if the reason they are offended is because they think using birth control increases promiscuity, then they are trying to control behavior of individuals that is absolutely protected by the right of privacy. They don't get to tell me what to do because of their "religious" sensibilities. That is also part of "religious freedom", the right to practice any religion or none at all."
</blockquote><p>
My father makes some great points here, but I want to explore the argument at the very beginning of the paragraph, that some women use birth control for reasons other than control pregnancy. The argument is very logical. And arguments like it have been applied to legalization of marijuana, gay rights, and even civil rights. The argumentation is the same in all cases, a logical appeal to what is natural or an alternative use are used to try and sway the opponent. For example, with marijuana proponents argue that cannabis has medicinal properties and thus should be legalized. For gay rights proponents argue that "being gay" isn't a choice, you're born that way, so that population should have equal protection under the law. With civil rights proponents argue that African Americans are scientifically (read here IQ, genetics, etc.) the same as Caucasians and thus should have equal protection under the law. And here with <em>Hobby a</em>n argument again for alternative use.</p><p>
The problem I have with this line of reasoning is that it shouldn't matter whether or not there are alternative uses for something, or whether or not someone is "born that way" or not, citizens should simply have equal protection under the law to live out their lives as they choose without interference from outside parties including Congress and private business -- with the caveat that they cannot break laws already set in place to protect others. For example, if someone wants to drink alcohol they should be able to; however, if they choose to drive and drink alcohol they have endangered the lives of others and there should real consequences. A private business should not be able to tell certain classes of people, say Jewish or African American individuals, that they cannot buy alcohol simply because they are Jewish or African American. Further, an employer should not be able to tell a Jewish individual that they will be fired for having a glass of wine at Sabbath dinner in their own home, simply because in their religion they view alcohol as a sin. What they do in their private life should be their private life.</p><p>
What <em>Hobby </em>says, though, to me, is that employers can discriminate against their employees. If Hobby Lobby can opt out of following a federal regulation because it, a corporation, has moral reservations about the federal regulation, then why can't they opt out of the Civil Rights Act of 1875? Further, why couldn't a state, another fictional entity, opt out of the Fourteenth Amendment due to religious concerns? This is scary. And what's more it calls back ideology of legalized slavery, child labor, and refusing to let women vote. No amount of arguing that women are equally intelligent as men will change an individual's mind that women should have the right to vote if they in fact believe that a divine being doesn't want women to vote. Furthermore, we shouldn't need a logical scientific argument to do the right thing. In the multicultural framework of which today's society squarely resides, arguing that one culture or even worse a subset of one culture be given dominion in law is evil.</p><p>
As a biologist I am reminded of the concept of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence" target="_blank">emergent properties</a>. The concept of emergence, in biology, states that if we put some components together we get a bigger thing with new properties. Those new properties 'emerged' out of the smaller components. A classic example is of a bicycle. If you throw all the parts of a bicycle on the floor you do not in fact have a bicycle and those individual parts do not hold the properties of a bicycle, such as having the ability to carry you around town. However, if we put the parts together in the right way (and in fact there aren't a lot of ways they can fit together) we get a bicycle and the properties we associate with a bicycle emerge. A more complex example is the emergent theory of consciousness. The idea states, in simple terms, that if you put all the parts of the human brain together, consciousness emerges. Yet, consciousness is then, by definition, more than the sum of its parts. Therefore, we can't point to any part of the brain where consciousness resides. This idea has been around for some time, a good place to start if you are interested is <a href="http://www.imprint.co.uk/books/emergence.html" target="_blank">here</a>. </p><p>
I want to take this last paragraph, elaborate on it, and apply that to <em>Hobby</em>. I argue here that our (and other mammal) brains are wired for morality. We can watch on MRI's as people try and make morality based decisions and we see patterns. Further, I argue that when you place a human in a multicultural society where they interact on a personal level with individuals who come from a different background that a new sort of morality emerges. One that is unique to the modern age. Even just a hundred years ago there was nothing even remotely close to the confluence of culture that we see today. The internet, flight, phones, and suburbia have forced us to meet others who are not like us. There are at least two reactions to this: fear and acceptance. For if you accept others as your equal then you accept that your way of life is not the only correct way to live. Many then feel paralyzed by thoughts such as: what if I'm wrong or what if there is no point? This existential crisis leads to segregation of ideas and a sort of closed off consciousness to others who don't fit in that paradigm. </p><p>
This is how I define evil. Evil begins by fearing others who are different than you. It is the cause of much suffering in the world. Many have tried to argue that their actions are not out of fear, but instead they are out of love. For example, in 1927 the landmark case <em>Buck v. Bell</em> was decided and Ms. Buck was forcibly sterilized against her will (redundancy intended). In that decision, 274 U.S. 200 (1927), Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., states infamously that, "Three generations of imbeciles are enough." Justice Holmes argues that if we don't rid society of the "feeble-minded" then society will face danger. Others followed his lead and argued that if we didn't sterilize now, we would have to euthanize later. You may see where this is going. In 1936 the Nazi party posted this flier around Germany.</p><center>
<img src="http://checkconnect.net/SocietyBlog/uploads/Wirstehennichtallein.jpg" alt=""></center><p>
It says, "We do not stand alone," along the top. On the shield it says, "Law for the Prevention of Diseased Offspring," otherwise known as the "Sterilization Law." It allowed Germany to forcibly sterilize individuals who were deemed unfit to reproduce. Around the sides of the poster are flags of other major countries. Below each flag is a date, that date tells the year that country enacted compulsory sterilization laws -- the flag of the USA has the date 1907 underneath it which is by far the earliest. Fear of others who are different from the majority led to this. This led to the holocaust. Now, I am in no way saying that the United States of American is responsible for the holocaust, but I cannot see how we, historically speaking at least, can shirk all moral responsibility in the matter.</p><p>
I want to now return to <em>Hobby</em> and an emergent theory of morality. There is another option to fear in the new emergent morality and that is acceptance. Had the U.S. Supreme Court in the years 1924-1927 sincerely looked at what was going on they would have seen that the words that were being used, such as "feeble-minded," "defective," and "imbecile" had very little meaning to them. Further that those who were found to be "different" and thus "defective" could function perfectly well in society. Justice Holmes even remarks that these individuals could be released into society, and further that they could benefit society, but that he and others fear they will have children who are equally different. That fear led the USA to sterilize tens of thousands of its citizens, many of whom were likely just not well educated and poor. </p><p>
Today there is a fear that in accepting other's religious beliefs that Christianity will be eroded to the point of being obsolete. A push from the religious right has come in the form of attacks on laws that specifically protect individuals rights to free exercise of religion and reverse them in a way that allows the powerful to control the behavior of the weak. In this case, a powerful corporation is given the right to in essence tell their employees it does not agree with them having the choice to family planning. Further, it tells the country that corporations have the right to tell workers what they can and can't do. Any argument against this court's decision must be made, in my opinion, along the lines of a <strong>unified multicultural morality</strong> rather than an argument stemming from alternative use or science. </p><p>To close, we as a society need to begin to understand that there exists much more gray area than we previously thought. Just as skin tone is gradated from albino the near black between individuals so is sexuality, belief in a divine being, or any number of other facets of being human. Going further, just as skin tone is gradated in a single individual over a given lifetime, so are feelings on sexuality, religious beliefs, and everything else that makes us who we are. To make the world black and white, as the court has done with <em>Hobby</em>, is to put us on a path towards fear and hatred. For if we allow one corporation to dictate a behavior, then we can allow another; and if we go down that slippery slope, then whose to say what behavior will be next. </p>Hobby Lobby US Supreme Court Decisiontag:checkconnect.net,2014-07-15:/SocietyBlog/id/9/2014-07-15T18:18:08-06:002014-07-15T15:38:47-06:00Thomas Checkleyhttp://checkconnect.net/SocietyBlog<p>In light of the recent decision of the US Supreme Court I am going to put a hold on the wage and benefits theme and take a look at what the decision means. First, let's frame the issue. Hobby Lobby sued the US government over requirements to provide insurance that provided access to contraceptives. The case syllabus and opinions can be found <a href="http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/13-354_olp1.pdf" target="_blank">here</a>. It seems at first to be a narrow case about corporate profits in the guise of religious freedom, but in the end it seems to be much more. There is definitely a monetary aspect to the case. All corporations do in fact stand to lose money if they either refuse to provide access to contraceptives or if they provide the insurance. The only way to not lose money based on the Affordable (health) Care Act is to argue that they have the right now to provide the coverage. Enter the Restoration of Religious Freedom Act of 1993, which you can read <a href="http://www.justice.gov/jmd/ls/legislative_histories/pl103-141/act-pl103-141.pdf" target="_blank">here</a>, it's only 3 pages long.</p><p>The plaintiffs argue that as a<em> closely held</em> for-profit corporation they have the religious freedom to not be burdened by the government's laws unless there is a compelling reason for the burden. A clause in the act also claims that even if there is a compelling reason to burden an individual or individuals the government shall not do so if there is a less restrictive "means to further that compelling government interest." This translates to: if the government passes a law an individual is not required to follow it if interferes with their religious beliefs, unless there is a really good reason why they should be forced to comply <strong>and </strong>there isn't another less religiously restrictive way around the issue. So in this case, Hobby Lobby is claiming that they are a family owned business, and that the Affordable Care Act burdens them by forcing them to do something they feel goes against their religious beliefs, which is to provide insurance to their employees which covers contraception.</p><p>What is interesting is that no one at Hobby Lobby is required by the law to actually use contraception, and furthermore Hobby Lobby can continue to speak out against contraception if they so choose. Furthermore, the family that owns Hobby Lobby isn't forced to buy contraception. The government is merely requiring the corporation to provide their employees with access to contraception (or access to it through insurance). Furthermore, the claim by Hobby Lobby is that Hobby Lobby is a person. In other words, even though the corporation is a for-profit business that operates in numerous states with over 500 locations nationwide and 13,000 employees they are claiming that Hobby Lobby is the family who owns the business; or even more drastic, they are claiming that a fictitious entity (Hobby Lobby) is a real person whose rights are being trampled upon.</p><p>This frames the case pretty well. The US Supreme Court ruled in a split decision that Hobby Lobby was being burdened needlessly by the Affordable Care Act and their religious freedom was infringed upon. The majority opinion, written by Justice Alito, stated that according to the Restoration of Religious Freedom Act the government did not have the authority to require a closely-held for-profit business such as Hobby Lobby to break with their religious beliefs, and that as such they did not have to comply with the Affordable Care Acts mandate that all for-profit businesses provide health-care that included access to contraception. Alito also stated that there were other less restrictive means to reach the same goal, such as the government providing the contraceptives directly to the Hobby Lobby employees. This is an interesting take on the Affordable Care Act and the Restoration of Religious Freedom Act. Justice Ginsburg wrote the dissenting opinion and took Alito and Kenney (who wrote a concurring opinion) to bat on every issue.</p><p>What is interesting about this case is that the majority opinion and concurring opinions argue that individuals have the right to create their business in the image of their religious beliefs, unimpeded by the government. What if the individuals who own Hobby Lobby become Christian Scientists? They may claim that they do not believe in medicine at all and that providing any medical insurance to their employees violates their religious beliefs. According to Justice Alito, the government could just provide health insurance directly the the Hobby Lobby employees and that would alleviate the restriction and burden placed on Hobby Lobby. But that's the major issue at stake here. In a society where one corporation such as Wal-Mart, owned by the a family, the Waltons, employs over 1% of working Americans, it is scary to think that the Walton family could dictate the healthcare benefits and who knows what else of those 3.3 million employees based on their religious beliefs. </p><p>It is worth noting that Hobby Lobby was not the only company suing the U.S. government, Conestoga and Mardel were both also included in this case. Now that the Supreme Court has released their opinion I wager that many corporations will sue the U.S. government saying that their religious liberty has been violated by forcing them to provide certain benefits to their employees. In other words, a Pandora's box has been opened with this decision and anyone who owns a close-held for-profit business can now try and argue that based on their religious beliefs they shouldn't have to follow a law, even if that law doesn't directly affect their actions (i.e. it only affects their businesses profits). Let me clarify that last clause of the last sentence. Going back to the beginning of this blog post I said that the owners of Hobby Lobby didn't have to use contraception or even endorse contraception, they just had to provide insurance that covered contraception to their employees. The government isn't forcing Hobby Lobby to do anything other than provide insurance, Hobby Lobby is saying they are being violated for, as Erwin Chemerinsky put it, "facilitating others" in acquiring contraceptives.</p><p>So where does it end. In the Supreme Court Review of 2014 Mr. Chemerinsky asks this question: why couldn't a Jewish or Muslim corporation argue based on this decision that none of their wages can be used to buy pork? It is a reasonable question in my eyes. Hobby Lobby is claiming that the fact that they are facilitating others in acquiring contraceptives, and that contraceptives are against their religious beliefs, that their religious rights are infringed upon. How is that different from providing wages that are then used for pornography, pork, shellfish, books by Richard Dawkins, or any other thing that may violate their beliefs. They are still facilitating their employees by giving them monies in the form of wages, wages that are mandated by the U.S. Government. </p><p>You may say, wait a minute, but there is a specific mandate in the Affordable Care Act requiring corporations to provide insurance that covers contraceptives, there is no mandate to require wages for pork or cheese-burgers. That's true. But while that is the case there is no mandate that employees purchase contraceptives, just as there is no mandate that requires employees to purchase bacon. The simple fact is that the government said you have to provide the opportunity for your employees to acquire contraceptives, just as the employees have the opportunity to buy bacon; but again they don't have to. If this all seems ridiculous, then good, it is. This decision is ridiculous. A corporation is a fictional entity. Hobby Lobby is a made up thing that only exists on paper. You can't have a conversation with Hobby Lobby, you can't have Hobby Lobby over for dinner, you can't ask Hobby Lobby out on a date. But according to the new Supreme Court decision, Hobby Lobby can have its religious freedom infringed upon. Again, just who in the hell is Hobby Lobby? </p><p>But if you'll humor me, I want to explore the Cheeseburger Dilemma a bit more. Here is my argument. Hobby Lobby's major claim is that it is required by law to spend money in a manner which it finds violates its free exercise of religion. So how could the government, after agreeing with Hobby Lobby, reprimand them if they fired an employee for buying alcohol, which it deems irreligious. Hobby Lobby's money was spent on something it finds morally unconscionable, alcohol, and they removed the spender, the employee. What if the employee was Jewish and the alcohol they bought was for a religious event of their own, say Sabbath dinner? Who wins? The corporation, according to Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, has the right not to facilitate activities which it religiously objects to. In this case, the drinking of alcohol. But isn't that discrimination if they fire a Jewish individual for being Jewish? Herein lies the Cheeseburger Dilemma. </p><p>The US Government has laws set up to protect employees and individuals from discrimination. But Hobby Lobby and now other corporations are saying they shouldn't have to facilitate behavior with their money (wages, profits, etc.) that violates their religious beliefs. The question will become what happens when a corporation fires or hires individuals based on a religious basis? In my opinion, in light of Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, the corporations should have the right to discriminate against individuals on the basis of religion. This is arguably a slippery slope scenario, but in my eyes it is entirely plausible.</p><p>Due to these facts, I see no reason why every corporation in the country couldn't argue tomorrow that the Affordable Care Act violates its religious beliefs and they will no longer provide any health insurance to any of their employees, and they shouldn't be penalized for that. They could all claim to be Christian Scientists, or at least they could all be striving to be Christian Scientists. For as Justice Kennedy remarks, we all have the right to believe or "strive" to believe in a divine law. Even if the Walton Family doesn't actually believe in Christian Science, whose to say they don't "strive" to believe in the divine law of Christian Science, and further that the Affordable Care Act infringes on their religious beliefs by requiring them to provide healthcare to their 3.3 million employees. Food for thought.</p>Wages and Benefits: Part 2tag:checkconnect.net,2014-07-15:/SocietyBlog/id/8/2014-07-15T17:58:45-06:002014-07-08T21:56:28-06:00Thomas Checkleyhttp://checkconnect.net/SocietyBlog<p>
It seems to me that part of the problem of my generation is student loans. The Chronicle of Higher Education released a
<a href="http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/student-loan-debt-surpasses-credit-card-debt-figures-show/26106" target="_blank">blurb</a> stating that student loan debt has now surpassed credit card debt in the country. According to the Chronicle the Federal Reserve calculates that student loans surpassed credit card debt by $3.2 billion. That's quite a bit (in a few years it will likely be great than 1% higher than credit card debt). In fact, many economists say that there has been a "tuition bubble" that was caused by the ease at which students were receiving student loans (see <a href="https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=tuition+bubble" target="_blank">this</a> Google search). There are the naysayers; but what we do know is that tuition has inflated by over 400% in the last 10 years (since 1993). We also know that student loan debt has neared $1 trillion with $864 billion in federal student loan debt. </p><p>
So let's take a trip down memory lane. In the year of my birth, 1982, if I wanted to go to a public 4-year institution I could expect to pay $2,236 in tuition and fees (this is in 2012-2013 constant dollars<sup>1</sup>). Tuition went up a little in 1983 and 1984, but stayed pretty constant in 1985. So after I finished my fourth year I owed about $9,800 in student loans (in today's dollars). But what about today? Well in the 2012-2013 academic year the tuition at a 4-year public institution was right around $8,000. In other words, one year at that school costs close to as much as 4 years in the early 80's. Over any given 4 year interval for the past 10 years the tuition has jumped by at least $600 and sometimes close to a $1,000. So if we assume that it stays this way we can estimate that someone starting college in 2012-2013 at a public 4-year would owe $33,200 in tuition and fees.</p><p>Let's recap. The individual who started college in 1982 owes $9.800 in<strong> today's dollars</strong> while the student who started in 2012 owes $33,200 in <strong>today's dollars</strong>. Just to make a point about constant dollars, in the dollars of 1982 the 80's graduate owed $4,316. But let's get back to the recap. This means that relative to each other the graduate today has over three times as much debt to deal with. According to a number of sources we aren't too far off with our estimate, the average student loan debt is close to $29,000 for 2012. For more stats and even more information on student loans go <a href="http://www.asa.org/policy/resources/stats/" target="_blank">here</a>.</p><p>Alright. So there are some of the statistics. But what does this mean? Well, let's take the last article into consideration. Say you get a bachelor's degree in something like art or music or worse you don't complete your degree. Now you're in the real world and you don't have student loans to pay for your life. You need to get a job. So you start looking around. You quickly notice that there aren't any jobs you qualify for. You either need to go back to school to complete some certificate program, or take prereq's for some program, or just plain start over. Your other option is work an hourly job for one of the many corporations of the country (all of which pay near minimum wage, even to holders of Bachelor's degrees). We saw in the last article that the money you earn is less than what it was before and now you have three to four times the debt to pay off. Where does this leave you?</p><p>Up a creek without a paddle is where. How do you pay off your excessive student loans with less money than other generations? You can't. And that's one of the reasons why enrollment is down. Potential students are realizing that if they go to a community college and then enter an accelerated program at a for-profit single-focus institution they can save time and money compared to the traditional four-year approach. They have also learned to bargain. Here is a quote from the ex-President of Guilford College, North Carolina, as reported by the Chronicle:</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"I have never seen savvier kids or savvier parents than the ones we are getting now," Mr. Chabotar said. "They are bargaining all over the place. It’s like going to the used-car dealership."</p><p>This bargaining has been steadily creeping up at private institutions. Today over 44% of tuition is discounted at private institutions to meet enrollment demands according to the <a href="http://chronicle.com/article/Rising-Tuition-Discounts-and/147465/" target="_blank">Chronicle</a>. So what is happening? Why are these schools allowing this to happen? Clearly students, and parents, are frustrated with tuition rates and are fighting back. But does this benefit the students? That is the question we need to answer as a society. What is needed, monetarily, for a solid education. I personally learned chemistry just fine in lecture with a chalk board, that's it. Once we can answer that question we desperately need to find out how to fund colleges in an efficient manner that allows citizens to afford a college education in the same manner that others have in the past (say 1982).</p><p>In the end, though, the picture is clear. We today have more student debt with lower pay. That may be frustrating citizens and pushing them away from institutions of learning. To draw students back in, institutions seem to be catering to the whims of the masses and destroying what education is all about. We'll continue this in the next post. </p><p><em>1. Constant dollars means that the money is constant across time. So if we went back in time and still used dollars as if they were worth the same thing today how much would we spend. For example, if an apple today costs a dollar, then it might cost thirteen cents in today's dollars back in 1980. For a more thorough discussion see <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constant_dollars" target="_blank">this article</a> on Wikipedia.</em></p>Minimum Wage and Benefits: Post 1tag:checkconnect.net,2014-06-27:/SocietyBlog/id/7/2014-06-27T17:52:17-06:002014-06-25T19:29:38-06:00Thomas Checkleyhttp://checkconnect.net/SocietyBlog<p>In 1997 when I started working for McDonald's I was making $5.15 per hour, which was minimum wage back then. So what could I buy with that money compared to today?</p><p>Well according to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics back in 1997 a pound of ground chuck was about $1.80. So let's buy a pound of ground chuck. Now I can make four quarter pound burger patties. I like lettuce on my burgers so if I buy a pound of lettuce I can spend another 60 cents and get some lettuce. We're up to $2.20. I need some bread for those burgers, too, so I'll get a pound of bread for 85 cents. Okay so now we're at $3.05. But wait, I need to get home and I'm almost out of gas. So I stop and get a gallon of gas for $1.20. I've now spent $4.25 and have 90 cents to spare (I could almost buy another gallon of gas!). So let's see how that same trip works today.</p><p>Minimum wage currently is $7.25. So I go to the grocery store and buy my pound of ground chuck ($3.85), lettuce ($1.60), and bread ($1.40). I spend $6.85. I have to get home so I buy a gallon of gas ($3.69). So now I've spent $10.54 and I had to put some of that on my credit card...so now I'm in debt by $3.29. Huh...</p><p>Minimum wage has not gone up enough to match rising prices of basic goods like food, energy, and rent. I am going to explore this topic for the next few weeks and post on other topics related to how it has become much more difficult to live in this new era of American poverty. </p>NFL Play 60tag:checkconnect.net,2013-12-02:/SocietyBlog/id/6/2013-12-02T20:09:45-07:002013-12-02T20:09:05-07:00Thomas Checkleyhttp://checkconnect.net/SocietyBlogNFL Play 60 has a mission of "to make the next generation of youth the most active and healthy." They claim that they are tackling childhood obesity and perhaps they are; but how much of the cause of childhood obesity is the responsibility of the NFL and other sports organizations? Let's be clear, I am in no way saying that the NFL is solely responsible for childhood obesity or obesity in general, but I have a sneaking suspicion that they do have a role in it.
I recently heard a comedian who was joking about the new generation. He compared his childhood to theirs and made a joke about how his nephew can beat him at Wii Bowling just by sitting on the couch and flicking his wrist; while he is getting gutter balls with his "perfect form." But what about EA Sports' line of wildly successful NFL games? Wii Bowling is funny, but is it any less odd compared to a kid making a 60 yard TD pass sitting on the couch? Not really, it's just that we accept EA Sports football games with traditional controllers, while Wii games use the newfangled motion controller (it doesn't help that Wii hints in their advertising that kids are active while they play the Wii games).
The question becomes, would the kids play the NFL themed video games if we didn't idolize the football stars -- the same stars who make NFL Play 60 possible? I don't think so. The follow up question is, would they just play other video games if America didn't have a fascination with the NFL? Probably. Thus, the NFL football players and the NFL itself are not directly responsible for childhood obesity, but only part of a larger problem. So is there a solution? Not a clear one.
Many factors contribute to childhood obesity ranging from easy access to high calorie foods like chips and soda all the way to reduction in funding for PE and time allocated to recess. But how much time is spent in front of the television watching football? Years ago football was on Sunday night. Then there was Monday night football (prime time). Then there was Thursday night football. Recently we added more preseason games and training camps are a huge deal for not only fans but fantasy football fans. In fact, fantasy football is now a multi-billion dollar industry -- see http://www.fsta.org/industry_demographics.
So how much time is spent on fantasy -- either in the form of video games, online fantasy teams, online games, or otherwise -- versus time that could be spent on being active? Probably a lot of time. A recent survey showed that about two-thirds of Americans watch the NFL. An NFL game takes around 3 hours. If you watch Sunday and Monday night football (just one game per day) that's 6 hours of free time for that week. If you take into account eating, showering and the like, homework, chores, and talking to family that's somewhere between 1 and 3 days of free time gone for a kid depending on who that kid is. That's huge for watching 2 football games.
So now you've got a kid who watches 2 games a week and then starts to play football based football games. It could be the case that they spend much of their time sitting on the couch engaged in football. That's major. Play 60 tries to encourage kids to play for 60 minutes a day, but the fact is that it is more likely that their entertainment business consumes over 60 minutes of time per day of a kid -- especially during the football season. For example, even without football video games if a kid watches two 3 1/2 hour games in a week (either Thursday, Saturday (NCAA -- the minors of the NFL), Sunday, or Monday) they have just put in their 60 minutes each day of watching football. Add in some video games, fantasy games, or something else and they easily have spent over 60 minutes per day of sitting on the couch.
This article does not claim that if football went away tomorrow childhood obesity would end. It does not even mean to make the claim that football is the major reason we have childhood obesity. It merely points out the interesting phenomenon of pretending to be active from the couch via video games and other means of fantasy. If we truly want to be active we need to begin to value programs like physical education, to see the value of recess, and for parents to step up and not let their kids spend so much time on the couch. Because You Love Ittag:checkconnect.net,2013-10-14:/SocietyBlog/id/5/2013-10-14T11:01:09-06:002013-10-14T10:54:37-06:00Thomas Checkleyhttp://checkconnect.net/SocietyBlogI was told the other day by a student, after he found out how much we adjuncts make, "Oh, well, but you love your job." Does this make it okay that we are payed below the poverty line and not given health benefits? Apparently so.
Now, teachers have been getting this for years. I don't know one single profession that is viewed as more altruistic than education. You could argue that non-profits are right there with educators, but at least they are either full-timers or volunteers. Adjuncts are the worst of the worst. When I was a student in graduate school I was given health insurance (great health insurance), life insurance, I paid something like 10 dollars a month for dental and vision, my own desk, and my salary was on par with what I make as an adjunct professor. On top of all that I was getting an education and a degree. What does the adjunct position get me? No office, no desk, no health insurance, low pay.
Why be an adjunct? Well, we all hope that one day we'll find a full-time position that actually gives us those things we used to have as graduate students. Plus, this economy is rough. There aren't many jobs out there for highly educated people. There seem to be plenty of low wage menial labor jobs, but not good jobs. And now the second question. What do adjuncts do?
In short they keep higher education going. If adjuncts didn't exist, let's say tomorrow they all quit, community colleges would bust, big universities would break their budget, and higher education would collapse under the weight of itself. You see, adjuncts and lecturers are paid about a third less (or more) than their full-time equivalents. The difference in work? Nothing. They tell us that the full-timers are going to meetings that we don't have to attend, or that they have some extra duties; but the truth is we both teach the same courses. It's not like adjuncts don't have to grade or something. In fact, full-timers are usually the ones who get teaching assistants if they exist at that institution.
So if you are an administrator then why don't you just hire all adjuncts? Because you will lose your accreditation. So what do you do? You hire the max adjuncts while keeping the ratio on par with standards for the accrediting agencies. This keeps the budget low and everyone above you is happy. All the while the people at the bottom suffer. It has been called the biggest crime an institution can do to not give its adjuncts and lecturers health insurance, but for being the biggest crime it is also the most common practice. This also keeps the budget low.
You tell the adjuncts they can pay for health insurance if they want to. But 500 dollars for health insurance would put an adjunct on the street, seeing as how a paycheck could be 1600 a month. How are you going to pay those student loans, rent, and utilities and then somehow buy food if you're paying a third of your check to health insurance? I've known adjuncts who worked for 10 years and just never went to the dentist because they couldn't afford it. That's sad. These are our professors of students who want to become doctors, nurses, pathology assistants, and physical therapists and they can't afford to go to the dentist.
Teachers on the lower levels aren't faring much better than we are. Even though teachers have seen a dramatic rise in salary over the past 20 years, it has started to decline. Further, teachers are being asked to pay more and more for their health insurance. In fact, in some districts the administration has been giving itself raises and at the same time asking the teachers to forgo their raise for the year. In fact, they don't ask the teachers to not take a raise, they mandate it. So teachers are now being paid less and asked to pay more for the same or worse benefits. If this continues, teachers will have lost what they gained in trying to have decent salaries.
What do we do about it? I'm not sure. The government would need to step in and say that institutions have to treat adjuncts more like full-time employees for something to happen. Currently, adjuncts are all paid on semester-by-semester contracts. Because of this they are treated as seasonal or temporary. But they are far from it. Some adjuncts have worked at an institution for over 10 years (as I said earlier). They keep applying for that rare full-time position, and then don't get it. Very few adjuncts work for less than a few years at an institution, so why then treat them as temporary? Because it helps with the bottom line -- its always about the money.
In fact do we just do this because we love it? Not really. We do it because we ended up here, just like you. I ended up with the training to teach biology at a community college. They offered me a job and I liked it better than working a cash register, which isn't saying much. Now I do enjoy my job, don't get me wrong. And I've been told by people making 100k a year that they envy me, because they hate their job. But I'll tell you what, it makes no sense to me that people should have to hate their job to make a good living. This is a huge problem in this country. I have no idea how to fix it, but beginning to recognize that the two concepts of loving your job and making good money aren't mutually exclusive is a start. Movie Identity Crisistag:checkconnect.net,2013-07-15:/SocietyBlog/id/4/2013-07-15T21:52:10-06:002013-07-15T16:32:47-06:00Thomas Checkleyhttp://checkconnect.net/SocietyBlogAt least a few times recently I have been talking to some young person (i.e. a teenager) and they have asked me if I saw such and such movie. I tell them yeah, I saw that a long time ago. That’s when a confused look appears on their face and I have to ask them, “What’s up?” They tell me that the movie just came out and look at me like perhaps at 31 I’m getting Alzheimer’s disease. I figure out what’s going on and inform them the movie they just saw was a remake.
This has become so common today that I almost assume that a movie coming out is a remake. But I don’t want to discuss my issues with remakes or how I think Hollywood is daft like "(pretty)these guys(title Kansas)":http://www.kansas.com/2013/04/07/2750926/when-it-comes-to-hollywood-remakes.html claim or how excited I am like <a href="http://www.nextmovie.com/blog/upcoming-movie-remakes/">these other guys</a> out there. No, I want to discuss what this means for the younger generation in terms of how they define themselves.
When I was born in 1982 <a href=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blade_Runner>Blade Runner</a> came out. It was one of my father’s favorite movies and has become one of mine as well. Other movies that came out in 1982 include _E.T. the Extraterrestrial_, Pink Floyd’s _The Wall_, _The Last Unicorn_, _Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan_, and _Tron_. Of these films the last two have been remade or adapted and many of the others are in the works of being remade. So what happens when the new _Blade Runner_ comes out? It is reportedly going to be a sequel, which would imply that it is for my parents’ generation and perhaps mine as well; but certainly not these kids born in the year 2000.
Now where I was raised in Austin, Texas, we all loved _The Beatles_. I’m not sure why, but we coopted them and made them our own. No one really seemed to mind and for all appearances they seem to be timeless. Go in to a music store today and _The Beatles_ will be everywhere. But we had our own music as well. _Nirvana_, _Sublime_, _Tupac_, _The Notorious BIG_, _Barenaked Ladies_, _The Spice Girls_, _No Doubt_, and _Madonna_ to name just a few. Those beatniks from Liverpool were just an addition to our repertoire. So what does this generation have? Not much.
Currently there are over 50 remakes or adaptations in the works or already made. Here’s a quick table to lay it out for you:
|_. Name |_. Original Year |_. Name |_. Original Year|
| Arthur | 1982 | They Live | 1988 |
| The Crazies | 1973 | Romancing the Stone | 1984 |
| The Incredible Shrinking Man | 1957 | The Illustrated Man | 1969 |
| When Worlds Collide | 1951 | Fantastic Voyage | 1977 |
| Back to School | 1986 | Meatballs | 1979 |
| Metropolis | 1927 | The Dirty Dozen | 1967 |
| 13 | 2005 | Conan | 1982 |
| Clash of the Titans | 1981 | Akira | 1988 |
| The Karate Kid | 1984 | Death Wish | 1974 |
| Footloose | 1984 | The Taking of Pelham 123 | 1974 |
| State of Play | 2003 | The Last House on the Left | 1972 |
| Fame | 1980 | Red Dawn | 1984 |
| Short Circuit | 1986 | The Thing | 1982 |
| The Birds | 1963 | Hellraiser | 1987 |
| Poltergeist | 1982 | Old Boy | 2003 |
| WestWorld |1973 | 36 | 2004 |
| Logan’s Run | 1976 | Child’s Play | 1988 |
| The Rocky Horror Picture Show | 1975 | Flash Gordon | 1980 |
| Rosemary’s Baby | 1968 | Starfighter | 1984 |
| Forbidden Planet | 1956 | Sympathy for Lady Vengeance | 2005 |
| Near Dark | 1987 | Barbarella | 1968 |
| Red Sonja | 1985 | Last Tango in Paris | 1972 |
| Angel Heart | 1987 | The Host | 2006 |
| High and Low | 1963 | My Fair Lady | 1964 |
| Rashomon | 1950 | All of Me | 1984 |
| 10 | 1979 | Captain Blood | 1935 |
| Highlander | 1986 | Brighton Rock | 1947 |
| Dredd | 1995 | Evil Dead | 1981 |
| Robocop | 1987 | Annie | 1982 |
| Point Break | 1991 | The Crow | 1994 |
| The NeverEnding Story | 1984 | American Psycho | 2000 |
| Porky’s | 1982 | Little Shop of Horros | 1986 |
| The Lone Ranger | 1956 | Dark Shadows | 1966 -1971 |
| Man of Steel | 1978 | Spiderman | 2002 |
<P>Wow. I’m going to stop there with the table; and it is quite a table. There are two things that really struck me when I was making this table. One was that many of these movies have sequels and the other is that it is horribly incomplete. Will we have a _Neverending Story: Part II_? Will there be an _Evil Dead 3_? I’m not sure. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
But after we filter out the remakes what are we left with? Not a whole heck of a lot in the mainstream world. There are definitely some indie films out there with original plots, but even the indie world is getting into the remake business. It seems that before long we will only be able to see remakes and the new generations will have nothing of their own. Imagine the teenager who thinks that _Evil Dead_ is an awesome film and that it is part of his generation, only to learn that a huge cult following around the original already exists. How does he feel?</P>
<p>I feel that much of my identity came from the movies I saw. They are a large part of who I am and my memories as a child and teenager. Is there an identity crisis brewing in this younger generation where they have no solid identify of their own besides movies like _The Fast and the Furious_, _The Hangover_, and _Hostel_? Where is or perhaps what is their _E.T._ or _Star Wars_? What is their _Neverending Story_ or _Karate Kid_? Surely not the remakes.</p>
<p>Perhaps in time we will see what becomes of this generations memory of film. I wish them the best and good luck; because they don’t have a lot to work with.</p> Thrift Shoptag:checkconnect.net,2013-06-30:/SocietyBlog/id/1/2013-06-30T11:23:59-06:002013-05-07T13:32:30-06:00Thomas Checkleyhttp://checkconnect.net/SocietyBlogWhen "(h2)Macklemore and Ryan Lewis":http://macklemore.com/ released their new hit "Thrift Shop":http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QK8mJJJvaes I'm not sure if he knew just how much press they would get. It is clear from other tracks such as "Same Love" that the group do see music as a method for protesting society. Because of this I feel I am not too crazy for analyzing "Thrift Shop" on a critical level.
What makes "Thrift Shop" a unique song is that it promotes buying used clothes from real thrift stores like Goodwill and not trendy and consequently expensive thrift stores where many "(classname)contemporary hipsters(title tooltip)":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hipster_(contemporary_subculture play. It's clear from his line about his jacket smelling like "piss" that he isn't buying clothing that is an eighty-dollar 'very good' condition jacket; these are 'poor' condition very cheap items. It's clear that when he goes into his riff on people spending fifty-dollars on a T-shirt that "6 other people" in the club are wearing that he feels he can buy cheap clothing, wash it, and then look "incredible."
But what are the implications of the message? Initially it could be seen as just another hipster meme in the world of 'I know something the rest of the world doesn't." It seems though to go deeper than that. For instance, the song is clearly playing on the fact that the contemporary hipsters are bringing back styles from previous generations, while claiming screaming their frustration of how they just can't stand how original they are. Macklemore seems to be mocking them as ironic icons of our generation by saying he'll take your granddad's clothes and make them cool again.
In this analysis there are two very important themes at work here. First, that people are being "swindled" by corporations into buying "fifty-dollar t-shirts" that are in all likelihood made in a sweat-shop by a child. For instance, the infinitely trendy Apple products have been implicated in having "(classname)child labor(title tooltip)":http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/jan/25/apple-child-labour-supply in their supply chain. This isn't surprising when one considers that 250 million children between the ages of 5 and 14 are said be laboring across the globe, the bulk of them (50%) in Asia. For more information on this, see the "(classname)International Labour Organization's(title tooltip)":http://www.ilo.org/global/lang--en/index.htm website.
The second theme, which is by no means less important than the first, is that trends, which hipsters try and create, are just revisions or even simple reclamations of past generations trends. This is important for society in that it minimizes the grandeur of the supposed invention of a trend. For instance, today the bow-tie has come back into fashion in the hipster community and has worked its way into stores across the nation, even in stores such as J.C. Penney's and naturally stores such as Nordstrom. But Macklemore seems to be claiming that these trends are nothing special and you don't need to spend all your money on new hip trends when they already exist in the thrift store "down the road."
My question is response to this message is this: if we start to shop at thrift stores instead of department stores, what will happen to prices and the supply chain? It seems clear to me that demand has dictated price even at the thrift store level. As someone who has shopped at thrift stores I have seen stores add carousels with "brand name" items. These carousels of clothing are two to three times as expensive as the no-name jeans on the other rack. Even if everyone began to only buy the cheaper jeans, shirts, pants, etc. the supply chain would eventually run out. Clothes rip, get holes, and are eventually worn down -- even high quality clothing with wear out eventually. This means that at some point thrift stores would run out of product.
The buying of used clothing would initially hurt the larger new clothing businesses, but individuals would need to start shopping there again once the supply of used clothing ran out or became more expensive than the new clothing. We have seen this already in the music world. Vinyl records have become so trendy that they are more expensive now than CDs in many cases -- in both the used and new category. Whereas 10 years ago I could buy an old Beatles album for a quarter, they are now selling in the double digits when the CD is being sold somewhere for $4.99.
My conclusion is that while Macklemore makes great points in his song they are untenable as solutions to the larger global problem. To fix the issues at hand we would need to stop child labor, pay living wages to workers, and as a society support businesses who have good moral business practices. The major issue at hand is price. To do this prices on clothing would go way up. We as a society would not be able to just go out and buy a new outfit whenever we pleased for extremely cheap prices. Perhaps we'd have a different perspective if articles like "(classname)this(title tooltip)":http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/02/opinion/akter-bangladesh one on the costs of cheap clothing made the news or papers more often.
In the end, thrift shops and reuse stores may help in the transition to a world with more ethical business practices, but it is by no means a solution.