“ I hoped my explanation -- I could take college courses, etc. -- would protect him from the truth, that I preferred comfort and beauty to hardship and home.”
Mary’s posts are always fascinating to me. When I read that and her later anger about certain things about her father all I could think was “ weren’t you angry that your father would have been unhappy for you to choose comfort and beauty over hardship and home? What kind of parent wouldn’t want that for their child?” It didn’t seem to me that she was angry about that sort of generational-rise defeating thinking. Which even though she overcame just mystifies me as someone who was raised with parents who would have thought “ what do you mean you’d choose to come home instead of experiencing that sort of comfort and beauty. Don’t be stupid. Choose the better life for yourself.” I’m grateful for that.
I agree that the Sun Times is making a good decision. It is important that it is their choice though. The "right to be forgotten" gained traction with the Evanston City Coiuncil a few years ago. Evanston used to have a searchable database of police arrests and incidents. The desire to protect people who are named in those reports by some alders resulted in the City limiting online access to a short time (maybe a few weeks).
This move allows the city to make claims about trends in crime with no easy way to validate them. Ann example was some years back some residents who lived near a beach asserted frequent drug dealing and prostitution in the parking lot near the beach. The remedy recommended by the local alder was to make most of the parking spots by the beach zoned parking for local residents. This was absolute BS. A few minutes of pulling police incident reports from the City website revealed that there were zero reports of with the terms "drug", "narcotics", "marijuana", "cannabis", or "prostitution" in that neighborhood.
OTOH, the city council approved the change anyway. So I guess they did not care.
Wondering why you aren’t including the KC Royals in your MLB race to the bottom. They’re only doing a few percentage points better than the A’s. And what kind of name is “Royals” for an American baseball team anyway?
Certainly true, but "Kings" has a different affect for me than "Royals". King says "high card" to me. Elvis was The King, but The Royal was Princess Di.
Right to be forgotten: I wonder if adding a notation (e.g., “charges dropped”) to a story would serve the same purpose without erasing a portion of reality. Wouldn’t be any more trouble. Exception: if something is legally expunged, references to it should get removed.
I think we need to call out this NASCAR race mess. Road closures are already causing problems and it is only going to get worse. Hope we have few medical emergencies and fires in the area while this event clogs stuff up and slows emergency vehicles from doing their job.
The race pricing eliminates a lot of Chicago folks from watching. This event is for rich people. I think the race itself will be dangerous both to the drivers and audience. Can the temporary barriers really protect folks when two cars crash at 120 miles an hour and the debris flips over into the crowd?
I expect the noise pollution as well as the air pollution will be bad.
There may be some participation in the first year as something “new”; but will year 2 and 3 likely draw big crowds - I doubt it.
Finally once the event is completed, will the roads be damaged and will NASCAR make repairs or will taxpayer money be used?
This is a lose-lose deal for the people of Chicago. It may go down as another really bad deal in Chicago along with red light cameras, the Daley parking deal and Soldier Field renovation.
I think that the Mincing Rascals' (+ Neil Steinberg) discussion of Nascar missed those important points about the bringing of unnecessary noiseand pollution to a city with already an ample sufficiency of both. This NASCAR thing is an idiotic idea that I doubt the people of Chicago would have voted for, that is incredibly unlikely to recoup the money that is spent (not mention the costs of weeks of inconvenience to thousands of Chicagoans), and will enhance the image of Chicago not a jot or tittle.
I'll be *that* guy. The right to be forgotten is in *conflict* with the First Amendment: not "in tension with"--that does not make idiomatic sense. I know language changes, is flexible, yadda yadda yadda, but it usually changes through errors in usage. Let's not help it along, okay?
I don't understand how it is conflict or "tension". Freedom of the press implies freedom to not publish what the owners of some media don't want to publish. The issue came up a few years ago when A&E removed one of the people who was on the popular show Duck Dynasty because he said some things in an interview that was published that were disagreeable to many people. In the media a bunch of people, including some members of congress came to his defense and cited the first amendment. I assume most of the people making these statements knew that the first amendment does not grant anyone a right to be on a TV show. They just wanted to convey that A&E was acting in a way that went against the values of this country. It was a circus.
Of course anyone who wants to can save copies of the Sun Times and have their own publication where they cite articles from the Sun Times which have been been removed from their website.
Stock cars racing in the city is simply a ridiculous idea, but the photo accompanying the blurb is misleading. If the photographer had panned down just a bit (or maybe not have conveniently cropped the photo), you'd have seen that the near part of the track is not that far, really. Keep it honest.
I have not commented in quite some time, but feel the need to let Eric and Mary know I really appreciated her post today about her father. I miss writing letters. I have a number saved from my father he wrote me in college and just after. They have so much meaning today to me. I am going to write my kids today. Thank you.
Always wary of "rights" thrown around. (“right to be forgotten” policy) Is everything really a "right". Removal of articles may cut down mentions, but an unforgetting internet (The rise of our AI downfall) nothing is truly gone. Maybe Jesse Smollett will benefit from this down the road.
Wondering if we'll get response from E.Z. or Mincers regarding recent talk of a Chicago Serial Killer on the prowl.
I missed this show the first time around, so I thought I would catch up with it. Watched the first three episodes of season one and I don’t think I laughed more than a couple times. Mostly painful. I get what they’re trying to do, just not funny.
I don’t think I’m a grouch. Ricky Gervais, Kathleen Madigan, Maria Bamford, Louis CK (both before and after), Hannah Gadsby, hilarious. This show, not so much.
Regarding NASCAR prices - I am not wealthy by any measure, but I happened to get an annual bonus when the tickets went on sale in January, so I bought one. I thought it might be a once in a lifetime event in Chicago. (I didn't know it was a 3 year Chicago commitment). Even so, I don't regret spending the money. I live right in the area, too, so easy to walk everywhere. I spent even more money to get a reserved seat. I'm too old to walk around aimlessly for hours. I need to sit!!
But why Neil is shocked NOW amazes me. This information was available months ago.
So I look at this as a life experience, but one that I am highly unlikely to repeat next year. But I will likely take a weekend trip at that time!
Re upping the minimum wage for tipped servers to the standard minimum wage, I read the Sun-Times article, and I was struck by the fact that nobody addresses the apparent unfairness of the proposal. Why are servers entitled to higher minimum compensation than most everybody else? By the same token, why should employers in this sort of business (a notoriously challenging one) be required to guaranty a higher minimum than employers in other businesses? It seems to me that servers should be guaranteed the same minimum *total* compensation as, say, warehouse workers or nursing home caregivers, including whatever tips they take home.
Don't get me wrong. I think that every adult who is working full-time should take home -- at least -- enough to live on in their area and, I'd go further, live on with modest comfort and an ability to save. People will disagree about what that means, but we're probably not there. I look at the *median* wage in various places and think, gosh, I wouldn't want to make much below that.
Most economists will tell you that the minimum wage is a questionable way to achieve that end. Very simple supply and demand graphs -- the stuff of Econ 101 textbooks -- suggest that price floors of any type (including minimum wages) can be expected to produce surpluses (meaning greater supply than demand, meaning fewer employed servers, i.e. at least some unemployment). I'm aware of real-world studies that dispute traditional theory on this point and, if the minimum wage does not far outstrip market equilibrium, the overall effect is negligible anyway. Still, I think most economists prefer mechanisms like the earned income tax credit, the worthy but confusingly named program that puts money in recipients' pocket even above any tax liability -- a sort of government top-off for the working poor. My hunch, though I haven't studied it much, is that our EITC should probably be more generous than it is.
But I'm perfectly willing to concede that the pro-minimum-wage side of that argument is right. I still don't see why that minimum wage should be, in effect, higher for some workers than others. The basic rationale for a lower minimum wage for tipped servers makes sense to me. Because of customary practice in this particular area, they routinely get much of their compensation through tips rather than wages. To the extent they don't, the employer should be obliged to make up the difference, but I struggle to see the argument for requiring more than that.
The sentiments quoted in the Sun-Times article are a little scary in that they betray a startling lack of inclination to think systematically and make coherent arguments about policy. Government policy is all about thinking systematically about the big picture. The guiding principle on display here is, rather, the feels in the room. We hear about how young people need a living wage. But why do young servers have a greater need than other young workers? We hear specious appeals to racial equity, as though people of color don't work in warehouses or nursing homes or as security guards or cleaners or retail workers or grocery store workers, and so on.
Agree with you on wait staff, but I do think 'minimum' should cover off on different situations. There's a difference between an adult head of household, and a small town business wanting to give a kid a job sweeping the floors. That's why I tend to favor the Australian model, which has different tiers for adults vs. teenagers, trainees, casual workers (no benefits), and workers with disabilities.
Regarding racial equity, typically we hear about white vs. black only, with no mention of average age, # of household incomes, family size, spending data, etc. Your mention of people of different races having the same jobs is accurate, because the bulk of the gaps are among the top 10 percent, and among the upper class it's often about investment choices:
Good point -- I wonder if you could pop into the used bookstore on the second floor of the Fine Arts Building, with its giant park-facing windows in the thick of the action, and see some of this for free. (If so, buy a book or two!)
“ I hoped my explanation -- I could take college courses, etc. -- would protect him from the truth, that I preferred comfort and beauty to hardship and home.”
Mary’s posts are always fascinating to me. When I read that and her later anger about certain things about her father all I could think was “ weren’t you angry that your father would have been unhappy for you to choose comfort and beauty over hardship and home? What kind of parent wouldn’t want that for their child?” It didn’t seem to me that she was angry about that sort of generational-rise defeating thinking. Which even though she overcame just mystifies me as someone who was raised with parents who would have thought “ what do you mean you’d choose to come home instead of experiencing that sort of comfort and beauty. Don’t be stupid. Choose the better life for yourself.” I’m grateful for that.
RE: Right to be forgotten
I agree that the Sun Times is making a good decision. It is important that it is their choice though. The "right to be forgotten" gained traction with the Evanston City Coiuncil a few years ago. Evanston used to have a searchable database of police arrests and incidents. The desire to protect people who are named in those reports by some alders resulted in the City limiting online access to a short time (maybe a few weeks).
This move allows the city to make claims about trends in crime with no easy way to validate them. Ann example was some years back some residents who lived near a beach asserted frequent drug dealing and prostitution in the parking lot near the beach. The remedy recommended by the local alder was to make most of the parking spots by the beach zoned parking for local residents. This was absolute BS. A few minutes of pulling police incident reports from the City website revealed that there were zero reports of with the terms "drug", "narcotics", "marijuana", "cannabis", or "prostitution" in that neighborhood.
OTOH, the city council approved the change anyway. So I guess they did not care.
Wondering why you aren’t including the KC Royals in your MLB race to the bottom. They’re only doing a few percentage points better than the A’s. And what kind of name is “Royals” for an American baseball team anyway?
The same kind of name that “Kings” is for hockey teams in LA and basketball teams in Sacramento.
Certainly true, but "Kings" has a different affect for me than "Royals". King says "high card" to me. Elvis was The King, but The Royal was Princess Di.
One good tweet this week. I guess that’s progress.
Right to be forgotten: I wonder if adding a notation (e.g., “charges dropped”) to a story would serve the same purpose without erasing a portion of reality. Wouldn’t be any more trouble. Exception: if something is legally expunged, references to it should get removed.
I think we need to call out this NASCAR race mess. Road closures are already causing problems and it is only going to get worse. Hope we have few medical emergencies and fires in the area while this event clogs stuff up and slows emergency vehicles from doing their job.
The race pricing eliminates a lot of Chicago folks from watching. This event is for rich people. I think the race itself will be dangerous both to the drivers and audience. Can the temporary barriers really protect folks when two cars crash at 120 miles an hour and the debris flips over into the crowd?
I expect the noise pollution as well as the air pollution will be bad.
There may be some participation in the first year as something “new”; but will year 2 and 3 likely draw big crowds - I doubt it.
Finally once the event is completed, will the roads be damaged and will NASCAR make repairs or will taxpayer money be used?
This is a lose-lose deal for the people of Chicago. It may go down as another really bad deal in Chicago along with red light cameras, the Daley parking deal and Soldier Field renovation.
I think that the Mincing Rascals' (+ Neil Steinberg) discussion of Nascar missed those important points about the bringing of unnecessary noiseand pollution to a city with already an ample sufficiency of both. This NASCAR thing is an idiotic idea that I doubt the people of Chicago would have voted for, that is incredibly unlikely to recoup the money that is spent (not mention the costs of weeks of inconvenience to thousands of Chicagoans), and will enhance the image of Chicago not a jot or tittle.
Re: The right to be forgotten (sort of)
I'll be *that* guy. The right to be forgotten is in *conflict* with the First Amendment: not "in tension with"--that does not make idiomatic sense. I know language changes, is flexible, yadda yadda yadda, but it usually changes through errors in usage. Let's not help it along, okay?
I don't understand how it is conflict or "tension". Freedom of the press implies freedom to not publish what the owners of some media don't want to publish. The issue came up a few years ago when A&E removed one of the people who was on the popular show Duck Dynasty because he said some things in an interview that was published that were disagreeable to many people. In the media a bunch of people, including some members of congress came to his defense and cited the first amendment. I assume most of the people making these statements knew that the first amendment does not grant anyone a right to be on a TV show. They just wanted to convey that A&E was acting in a way that went against the values of this country. It was a circus.
Of course anyone who wants to can save copies of the Sun Times and have their own publication where they cite articles from the Sun Times which have been been removed from their website.
Re: NASCAR
Stock cars racing in the city is simply a ridiculous idea, but the photo accompanying the blurb is misleading. If the photographer had panned down just a bit (or maybe not have conveniently cropped the photo), you'd have seen that the near part of the track is not that far, really. Keep it honest.
I have not commented in quite some time, but feel the need to let Eric and Mary know I really appreciated her post today about her father. I miss writing letters. I have a number saved from my father he wrote me in college and just after. They have so much meaning today to me. I am going to write my kids today. Thank you.
Always wary of "rights" thrown around. (“right to be forgotten” policy) Is everything really a "right". Removal of articles may cut down mentions, but an unforgetting internet (The rise of our AI downfall) nothing is truly gone. Maybe Jesse Smollett will benefit from this down the road.
Wondering if we'll get response from E.Z. or Mincers regarding recent talk of a Chicago Serial Killer on the prowl.
Wow, thanks for turning me on to The Lowlies. Some beautiful tuneage!
...and I always enjoy a Picayune Kass shot!
Re: I Think You Should Leave
I missed this show the first time around, so I thought I would catch up with it. Watched the first three episodes of season one and I don’t think I laughed more than a couple times. Mostly painful. I get what they’re trying to do, just not funny.
I don’t think I’m a grouch. Ricky Gervais, Kathleen Madigan, Maria Bamford, Louis CK (both before and after), Hannah Gadsby, hilarious. This show, not so much.
Regarding NASCAR prices - I am not wealthy by any measure, but I happened to get an annual bonus when the tickets went on sale in January, so I bought one. I thought it might be a once in a lifetime event in Chicago. (I didn't know it was a 3 year Chicago commitment). Even so, I don't regret spending the money. I live right in the area, too, so easy to walk everywhere. I spent even more money to get a reserved seat. I'm too old to walk around aimlessly for hours. I need to sit!!
But why Neil is shocked NOW amazes me. This information was available months ago.
So I look at this as a life experience, but one that I am highly unlikely to repeat next year. But I will likely take a weekend trip at that time!
Re upping the minimum wage for tipped servers to the standard minimum wage, I read the Sun-Times article, and I was struck by the fact that nobody addresses the apparent unfairness of the proposal. Why are servers entitled to higher minimum compensation than most everybody else? By the same token, why should employers in this sort of business (a notoriously challenging one) be required to guaranty a higher minimum than employers in other businesses? It seems to me that servers should be guaranteed the same minimum *total* compensation as, say, warehouse workers or nursing home caregivers, including whatever tips they take home.
Don't get me wrong. I think that every adult who is working full-time should take home -- at least -- enough to live on in their area and, I'd go further, live on with modest comfort and an ability to save. People will disagree about what that means, but we're probably not there. I look at the *median* wage in various places and think, gosh, I wouldn't want to make much below that.
Most economists will tell you that the minimum wage is a questionable way to achieve that end. Very simple supply and demand graphs -- the stuff of Econ 101 textbooks -- suggest that price floors of any type (including minimum wages) can be expected to produce surpluses (meaning greater supply than demand, meaning fewer employed servers, i.e. at least some unemployment). I'm aware of real-world studies that dispute traditional theory on this point and, if the minimum wage does not far outstrip market equilibrium, the overall effect is negligible anyway. Still, I think most economists prefer mechanisms like the earned income tax credit, the worthy but confusingly named program that puts money in recipients' pocket even above any tax liability -- a sort of government top-off for the working poor. My hunch, though I haven't studied it much, is that our EITC should probably be more generous than it is.
But I'm perfectly willing to concede that the pro-minimum-wage side of that argument is right. I still don't see why that minimum wage should be, in effect, higher for some workers than others. The basic rationale for a lower minimum wage for tipped servers makes sense to me. Because of customary practice in this particular area, they routinely get much of their compensation through tips rather than wages. To the extent they don't, the employer should be obliged to make up the difference, but I struggle to see the argument for requiring more than that.
The sentiments quoted in the Sun-Times article are a little scary in that they betray a startling lack of inclination to think systematically and make coherent arguments about policy. Government policy is all about thinking systematically about the big picture. The guiding principle on display here is, rather, the feels in the room. We hear about how young people need a living wage. But why do young servers have a greater need than other young workers? We hear specious appeals to racial equity, as though people of color don't work in warehouses or nursing homes or as security guards or cleaners or retail workers or grocery store workers, and so on.
What am I missing?
Agree with you on wait staff, but I do think 'minimum' should cover off on different situations. There's a difference between an adult head of household, and a small town business wanting to give a kid a job sweeping the floors. That's why I tend to favor the Australian model, which has different tiers for adults vs. teenagers, trainees, casual workers (no benefits), and workers with disabilities.
Regarding racial equity, typically we hear about white vs. black only, with no mention of average age, # of household incomes, family size, spending data, etc. Your mention of people of different races having the same jobs is accurate, because the bulk of the gaps are among the top 10 percent, and among the upper class it's often about investment choices:
https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/2020/06/29/the-racial-wealth-gap-is-about-the-upper-classes/
Thanks for steering me to the Lowlies. Their music is...nice.
Just curious, I wonder how many local entrepreneurs will be selling rooftop seats for ready-to-spend NASCAR fans.
Good point -- I wonder if you could pop into the used bookstore on the second floor of the Fine Arts Building, with its giant park-facing windows in the thick of the action, and see some of this for free. (If so, buy a book or two!)