Whats the point of Finals..?

So as a junior in high school, like previous years, with the end of a semester brings another set of final exams. Its often debated if around a quarter of a student's grade should be measured on 90 minutes of tricky multiple choice questions and rushed essays, testing time management rather than knowledge.

The fact of the matter is that in the real world, you are nearly never given an hour to complete a task and no longer do you have to crank out an essay that you end up regretting what you wrote right after leaving the testing room. If you cant
 
A semester grade, in my mind should reflect overall performance. This means that if you have one bad test or assignment, it shouldn't affect your overall grade. Who knows, you could have forgotten to study, or just been having a bad day which leads to you not performing at your best during a test.

It seems as if teachers don't like to give out finals also. More often than not, teachers that I have had in the past seem to dread grading finals and would rather just give a multiple choice test to make their job easy and so that they don't spend a bunch of days grading exams.

No one likes taking finals. It is very stressful for the students, and sometimes annoying for the teachers. I think that final grades should rather be taken into account of a semester of the student. Participation seems to directly undermine assignments and final grades tend to only reflect the work on tests, which accounts for maybe one day every two weeks of class work.

Using the Media for some good

In 2007, Dutch television station BNN hosted a fantastic hoax of a TV show that reached almost all of Holland. The premise of the show was to take one terminally ill person and have 25 other kidney needing candidates to plead their case as to why they should get the kidney.  Hundreds of thousands of Hollanders (is that a word?) watched the show and it created a huge buzz.

The Show took a turn for the best when it was announced that everyone involved was actor and the show attempted to persuade watchers to, "that people need to take action now and fill in a donor card." (source). Too often are kidneys and other vital organs not available and Holland isn't the only country that seems to be suffering from lack of donors.

A pretty big medical problem in America is a lack of donors for vital organs. Kidney Link, a website to match donors with people in need of kidneys proved that, "people wait several years for a good match" (source). Several years is an incredible amount of time to suffer from either pain or go through more years of dialysis and all the struggles provided with that.

In this instance, the media/television was used to educate. It drew in viewers with an incredibly clever ploy and BNN (the tv company) was able to educate a substantial amount of people and do a good thing for the community.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ttri_GOSMcY--- ***Here is the link to the final 8 mins of the show and the announcment that goes along with it, English subtitles can be turned on***

Social Class Sends You to Jail?

Social class can determine many different things. The current prison makeup, with over 50% of prisoners being African American doesn't seem to show how only 6% of the population is African American (source). There seems to be a big connection on socioeconomic status (SES) and the criminal justice system. So why is it that people of lower SES tend to go to prison more often?

One reason, and the most well known reasons is due to money. People with more money can pay for the best lawyers that can negotiate the best deals. It also would not be a stretch to say that people with more money live in neighborhoods with people of similar wealth and thus, people in trouble with the law could use connections from their community and neighborhood to get them out of trouble.

The graph above accurately describes the divide of how many black individuals go to prison compared to other races. From the stat mentioned above, black individuals are only 6% of the population and it seems crazy to see that they almost triple the numbers of other races as seen in the graph above.

In your mind, Is social class a means for sending more people to jail?

Lupe, Chance and the media we all hate

If you follow my blog, I tend to write and cover a wide variety of topics but two things that have peaked my interest since September have been the media and music. They both tend to tie into one another with constant clash between artists and reporters and vice versa. In the eyes of some rappers, reporters don't tend to cover the issues that are really plaguing our country in terms of national security, murder and incarceration rates.

Lupe Fiasco and Chance the Rapper, both Chicago natives released songs entitled, "Words I never said" and "Paranoia" respectively. Both songs referenced the media and what they felt was wrong with it. 

Chance the Rapper (left) and Lupe Fiasco (right)

Where the f*** is Matt Lauer at? Somebody get Katie Couric in here

Probably scared of all the refugees; look like we had a f****** hurricane here----Chance the Rapper

If you turn on TV all you see’s a bunch of “what the f***s”

Dude is dating so and so blabbering bout such and such

And that ain't Jersey Shore, homie that's the news

And these the same people that supposed to be telling us the truth

Limbaugh is a racist, Glenn Beck is a racist----Lupe Fiasco 

Both songs seems to have some similar connections. Chance the Rapper aka "Chance" calls out Lauer and Couric, both journalists, for their lack of coverage to places in his neighborhood. Lupe Fiasco does the same by calling out Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, both openly Republican journalists, and he goes on to call them racist. Beck and Limbaugh both have been heard saying some incredibly vulgar words to describe African American people.

The truth of the matter is, too often the Media tends to focus on a new celebrity problem rather than focusing on murders. In Chicago, the hometown of both the rappers mentioned, four people were murdered just this past weekend (http://homicides.redeyechicago.com/) of April 11-13.  This lack of attention to serious issues is a real problem including issues in foreign problems, education and death rates. Dailysource.org cites the fact that, "Americans give low ratings to the media for school coverage." This limits the way in which we can make crucial decision to inform our government an its citizens about important issues. Without an increase in coverage of issues of all sizes, the public is then less informed about important issues that need voter recognition. This leads to a downwards spiral in which the public doesn't know about issues and legislation that can affect them on a daily basis. 

Michael Sam leads by example

Michael Sam was drafted by the St. Louis Rams as the first openly gay man to play in the National Football league. His face is now all over web and media; even the White House said on behalf of Obama that,  "you should be judged by what you do and not who you are.” (Source)

With regards to the quote above, it is interesting to think about if Americans really do not judge people because of who they are. Within the past week, Donald Sterling, owner of the Los Angeles Clippers openly admitted to saying some incredibly racist remarks in private. Was Sterling living by the "judge by what you do motto"? He was not. I feel that too often in the news and throughout real life that many dont treat others with the respect that they want to be treated with. It seems childish to say but I think that in the examples of Sam and Sterling, that people can really learn a lot of how to treat others.

Sterling was racists in his remarks and still has failed to apologize to the people that he offended. Sam has gained tons of praise for coming out, and now for being the first openly gay man to be drafted to the NFL. Both of these situations are directly contrasting in terms of the responses given by the public.

This quote made me instantly think about the words of MLK jr. when he said, "I look to the day where people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

The people(s) behind the media

"[Rupert Murdoch] publishes 175 newspapers, including the New York Post and The Times of London. In the U.S., he owns the Twentieth Century Fox Studio, Fox Network, and 35 TV stations that reach more than 40% of the country" (American Progress). Many Americans are unfamiliar with who Murdoch even is or what his role in the media is. Judd Legdum, American Progress writer shows readers he is one of the biggest media holders in the country and this has a lot of impacts. Murdoch has been known to control the right side of politics, taking extra time to cover issues that benefit Republicans through his station Fox News. 



John Malone seemingly controls the left or the more liberal side of politics. He owns the media holding of Liberty Media which in 2013 was revealed to have been funding a PBS news cast for over 20 years. Both men are splitting the media down the seam, pulling it in a direction in which only issues are shown that support one specific political party and then seemingly trash the other side.

In the comic above, we see a fairly apparent bias in terms of the 2012 presidential election. The first thing most readers would see and read would be the adjacent headline next to both of the candidates heads, which seems to support Obama by criticizing his critics and making fun of Romney by calling him a wimp. The editor of this magazine also added a picture of Romney where he looks to be fooling around while Obama looks tremendously more serious. This is an example of media polarization and it can affect the way American citizens vote and make decisions in voting, which eventually hurts democracy. (Continued Blog post on media democracy HERE)

No more JT

So I recently finished a very large research paper for my combined history and english classes and it feels incredibly relieving. For any one reading this and for anyone who has to write a lengthy research paper in the future here are a few tips to help you do well.

1. Do as much research as you can right from the get go. It's important to get a grasp on your topic quickly so that you don't fall behind the allotted time given to you by your teachers. Therefore, read a lot of summary articles rather than looking at in-depth articles right from the beginning.
2. Read Books: It might seem outdated but books are often published by writers with an incredibly high knowledge on the subject. Books also provide great quotes for a paper and allow the reader to get a good summary on their topic while also eliminating a requirement for writing the paper too.
3. Stay on schedule: For a couple days while I was still researching many of my classmates had already written chunks of their paper while I still had nothing written down. It is important to stay up to pace with the class or else you will find yourself having to write a large amount of your paper at once rather than splitting it up along the way. 
4. Talk to your teachers: I think this is the most important step to writing and researching for any paper. Consulting with your teacher(s) is such a crucial step because they can recommend tons of resources and materials that can benefit you in your writing process. Also, it is a good idea for them to look over some of your paragraphs to change any parts of your paper that isn't useful or is just too repetitive. 

Democracy in our Media?

At first, hearing the words democracy and media, I would assume many people would think there is little to no connection between the two words. In recent years, the media has seen a loss of democratic values. No longer is there a structure to showing issues and there is a constant lack of democratic debate in which newscasts watchers can think critically for themselves rather than absorb the thoughts of the news anchors and their distorted facts.

Michael Sandel, expert in democracy and politics believes that, "we too rarely articulate and defend and argue many political questions in politics." The current problem with the media is that it is incredibly polarized in the status quo. A major reason for this is due to the downfall of democratic practices throughout the media. With a lack of democratic practices, Americans don't get to think for themselves. If all the TV that Americans watch is polarized with left or right wing bias, then they too will become polarized in their political bias. This leads to not only increased political polarization but it will create a downward spiral affect with American politics and media both becoming more and more split and a lack of bipartisanship.

In 2013, the United States was voted as the thirty-second out of one hundred seventy-nine most democratic medias according to a Reporters Without Borders index study (“Freedom Index” 2014). The study took into account issues, “ranging from legislation to violence against journalists, democratic countries occupy the top of the index while dictatorial countries occupy the last three positions”. It is fairly easy to see that the United States’ media isn’t the most democratic in the world, and it isn’t even close to the top.

Media Research

So I recently gathered all my notes together and was able to compile a list of all the reasons why the media has become politically polarized. I also found many scholars that argued there were other causes to political polarization but I do not agree with them.

First off, many would say that social media hurts media polarization but I don't think that is true because social media is so huge and has so many factors that it would be hard to directly prove a connection between the two. In addition, social media has little to no political bias now. There are very few if any political advertisements on social media websites and thus, its hard to tell if people are being affected by it.

Another thing people would say about media polarization is that it is caused by past political polarization in congress. It is often debated in the media world to see if media polarization drives political polarization or vice versa. Lindsay Hoffman, political science professor at the University of Delaware believes that the media is to cause for political polarization adding, “polarization in the media are only leading to increased ideological distance”. Therefore, using her words, the media isn’t affected by a lack of current political partisanship but rather a gap on issues in the media now, is causing a wider gap in the world of politics between Democrats and Republicans.

There are a lot of reasons why the American media is currently biased in its reporting but social media and political polarization are not two of those factors.

Should we blame accidents?

BP had another oil spill this week in Lake Michigan from an Indiana refinery.The spill was significantly less than the gulf spill but the fact is that it still happened. People all over my personal social media sites were outraged at the fact that this happened in the first place and that BP should be basically exiled as a company due to their history of spilling in the past. I think what really surprised me after hearing this was the fact that people are outraged due to an accident and also due to the fact that this isnt the only spill going on since the gulfs.




Blame is defined as; "to hold responsible" but I don't think BP should be held responsible. Accidents happen all the time but I feel in America we tend to exemplify mistakes. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the spill was a complete accident. So why should this even be in the news in the first place? It was an accident. It confuses me why people seem to blame without reason and i think that BP shouldn't be in the first place. Like any company they have a bunch of security measures that are taken to help stop spills but sometimes that just doesn't work but, everyone makes mistakes including companies.

On another note, the recent Lake Michigan isnt the only spill in the past year. Many spills across the country have put more oil into the gulf the the current BP spill but that gets no media attention at all. I think this is due to BP being the the culprit in this past event. Since the most well known spill in the past has been the BP gulf oil spill, many are quick to hate BP for its destruction to environments and destruction to specific animals.

Is it right to celebrate a death?

Long story short: A man named Fred Phelps recently died. You may be asking so what? If so, you might want to know that Phelps was a anti-gay preacher also known for protesting at funerals of soldiers and that of gay men and women. My views on the event arent totally supportive of the typical American response. According to Jessica Ravitz from CNN, Phelps "believed gay and lesbians should be put to death". The internet was buzzing with constant hatred towards this man and people seemed to be incredibly content with his death while also proposing the idea to protest Phelps' funeral . Therefore, throughout this blog I intend to answer two questions. First if it is right to protest this mans funeral and second, if we should be happy/celebrate his death. 

 

Again, Jessica Ravitz from CNN wrote an article titled, Should we celebrate Fred Phelps' death" where she compiled quotes from various people to let the audience of her article decide what the right thing to do is. In my opinion, regardless of this mans actions, it is not morally right to celebrate someones death even in the case of Phelps, who has really done some terrible things in his lifetime (just glance at his Wikipedia page and the list of his appalling actions and ideals goes on and on). It might seem like a stretch but  I think that celebrating this man death is something that he would have wanted. His name and message is on the front page of newspapers across the country and pictures like the one below are everywhere. I think the best thing to do is try and forgot this man ever existed and take the high road and not celebrate his death at all. Sadly a large amount of people seem to disagree with me, especially Americans. According to popular social media sites like Facebook, twitter and Reddit, many users across America thought that picketing this mans funeral and provoking his family was the most viable option to get him back for the suffering he had provided to other families. On a side note; a Facebook page titled "Protest Fred Phelps' funeral had thousand of people in support of the page.  

picture of a child from the Westboro church 

Phelps' is also pretty well known for protesting funerals of both soldiers and gays. The Westboro church, where Phelps is a pastor, said that, "we ask that the public have a little decency and respect by allowing us to mourn a great man who... protected[ed] American from the threat of fags and perverts". In my opinion, I think that since people have the right to picket and protest funerals that they should protest at Phelps'. If one of my family members had died and the church with Phelps had protested their funeral with, “GOD HATES FAGS” signs I would be beyond mad at these people. I would hate them. And that is how many people across the country feel in regards to his death and justify protesting at his funeral. I think a pretty consistent American theme is to take the high road and be the bigger man but in this situation there is a exception. I'm certainly not advocating for an eye for an eye type scenario but this man has some crazy beliefs and ideals that really are doing more harm then good and only if I was affected personally would i feel it is necessary to protest his funeral.

Climate Change in Chiberia

Weather you believe in climate change or not, the real question comes out to be what does it matter? For decades politicians have debated whether or not it exists but for what? So they get to say they win the argument? It really does not make sense to me.

Carol Costello, an opinion writer for CNN writes that their are, "six different specific categories that respond to the issue in different ways. (Link to article). The six groups have different ideas on climate changes including, "the alarmed, the concerned, the cautious, the disengaged, the doubtful, and the dismissive."All these groups derive from a report from a Yale professor, Anthony Leiseworitz who is an expert in climate change.

Climate change, or more commonly called global warming often times makes the news with different congressmen and women speaking out about the issue but why? There are rarely any proposals for laws in relation to climate change or new issues revealed to climate change in general.

Their are tons of different viewpoints to climate change and many different reactions. The question that rarely gets answered is why? If people continue to debate this issue, no one side seems like they are going to win the debate.

SAT is changing STAT

The SAT, well known for be the main reason kids get in to college is becoming totally changed. And that is fantastic. For too long, the SAT has been based on timing rather than knowledge; finding the right answer rather than explaining why. Thus, some kids have really struggled on standardized tests but change is coming now.

Starting in 2016 the test will change. College board president, David Coleman agreed that the tests didn't accurately test knowledge by saying that, "It is our time to admit that the SAT and ACT have become to disconnected from the works of high school students". (USA Today). Coleman carries a lot of truth to these words. If you are in high school or have ever been (which is a huge majority of people) you'll know that standardized tests reflect none of the work that goes on in the classroom. Classroom learning tends to put a larger emphasis on why things work and happen etc. rather than filling in a bubble on a test and then moving on.

(David Coleman)

People against test changes argue that we need to continue to be able to measure the success of students on a grand scale through one test. But should one test be the main reason you get into school? No! Colleges obviously look at other things but test scores are weighted heavily. Colleges dont look into who the person is who is applying and that is wrong. You cant tell if a person is compassionate by a test score, or if they have a great idea for an invention to better the world. These tests scores are holding students back and this change to the SAT is a great step forward to more progressive college admission steps.

College is BAD?

Mark Cuban thinks college is a waste of time for athletes. In my opinion, he is right. Cuban, who is the owner of the American basketball team the Dallas Maveriks thinks that, "there is no reason for a kid to go to college because they are not going to class anyway." If you are unframiliar with the sport, to go to the professional leagues, high school students must play either one year in college or wait until they are 19 years old.

Cuban proposes a new path for athletes to take instead of going to one year of college, with classes that are often missed and grades that are often forged. The NBA-D league is Cuban's plan in which 18 year old athletes will play in a sort of NBA "minor leagues" for up and coming players that are still young.

To me this is a fantastic idea. Most college athletes for revenue generating sports, (typically basketball and football) tend to take classes that are easier just so they can focus on their specific sports. Sending players to the "D-league" instead of college gives them money for playing during the year and also possible better competition to prepare them for the professional leagues. This is a really hot topic up for debate as of late and I believe that going to college for athletes is not the right decision.

The National Spyign Agency

The current US spying tactics are absurd. This week it was revealed that the NSA is not listening to the phones of Anglea Merkel, but listening in on the calls of her closests associates. A statement from the White House said, "The United States values its cooperation with Germany on a broad range of security challenges."(Business Insider)



Personally, this constant wiretapping from the Government seems to be doing more harm then good. The Obama administration has gone through various loopholes to continue it wiretapping operation and it has showed no respect for the privacy of foreign leaders with large amounts of power. The NSA needs to be dialed down until it releases information on how successful it is being or provides a reasons why, but in the status quo, the agency should be severely limited.

Football is anything but progressive

Michael Sam (picture below), a college student and one of the best defensive players in college football came out as gay this week which has sparked tremendous debate. In my opinion, this issue shouldn't be up for debate or conversation at all; a woman or mans sexual orientation shouldn't determine their outcome in a work place, no matter the job. If you don't follow sports, all you need to know is that Michael Sam is a very talented football expected to be one of the top picks in the NFL draft.

A recent survey by ESPN showed that 86% of players would be OK with a gay player on their team. Seems ok right? No. Of the 51 anonymous players surveyed, 44 said they would be ok with a gay player, 7 didn't. The problem I see with this is that 7 players are still not okay with allowing a gay player on their team.

I really don't understand how one persons sexual orientation would affect someone else on the playing field to get another touchdown, hit another home run or score a goal. It really perplexes me because people all over the country work with men and women of different sexual orientations and you never hear about them in the news or that a coworker came out as gay, lesbian etc. The NFL isn't the only sport that seems to still be amazed that gay men and women play sports. the NBA, MLB and various other sports affiliates all have been extremely gradual in talking about gay rights and publicly allowing gay players to participate in their sport. I think that the NFL should be more open to gay players and this sort of debate throughout the media and NFL should not even exist in the first place.

"Student-athletes" reading at a 3rd grade level??

A few days ago, Mary Willingham, an academic counselor for UNC- Chapel Hill came out and provided detailed evidence on the lack of knowledge of athletes from revenue generating sports (ex: mens basketball and football). She went on to provide stats on how some athletes could not read at all and over 50% were reading at an eight grade level or lower. Wow! More stats here and overview article: here

And guess what they university did? They said that her measurements for reading levels are wrong with out providing any warrants why. Willingham was followed by another "education whistleblower", Madeline Levine, who backs up what Willingham was saying by also providing information on how many of her student athletes couldn't keep up with the college grade work level at all and often struggled to pass

In addition, UNC came out and said that they had a department at their school, the African American Studies department which was holding fake classes and giving grades for those fake classes.

Willingham had been seeing to much of an unfair treatment to regular students who wanted to get a good education and said, "I don't believe until we tell the truth that we can move forward." She's right. Its not fair at all to just drop the situation as a whole until all the facts are known and the truth comes out.

The bigger issue is that kids aren't able to read in COLLEGE. It seems as if these kids are just floating by school with only a mindset of getting to the next level in athletics, whether it be college or a pro sports league.

Why do you think these kids are able to get all the way to college without being able to read?

Civil Liberty(less)

If you have been paying any attention to the news lately you would have either seen the current distress in Ukraine or Justin Bieber's DUI but ill be talking about the former.

Within the past week, a drastic change has taken over in Kiev, Ukraine, the capital of the Eastern European country. The truth about what is going on in Kiev spawns from a  choice the Ukrainian government made not to long ago. Instead of declaring its trade allegiance with the EU (European Union), they have decided to strengthen ties with Russia, upsetting the general population immensely. (Here is an article for a more in depth overview if you are interested.) 

In the foreground of the picture embedded (source: google images), you can see two soldiers. One is lighting a Molotov cocktail (make shift explosive) for the other in preparations to ward off protestors in the city of Kiev. In the background, a line of soldiers blend into one wall of metal, all wielding riot shields and black protective gear. The reason the photographer took this photo? Most likely to show the world whats going on, and to show the extent to which the government employed soldiers are using vicious tactics to hurt and potentially kill protestors.  

At first glances, Im happy to say that i'm able to sit in a safe home where none of this type of apocalyptic/war type protesting is going on but then again there might be. There is a lingering thought in my head regarding what would really happen if something like this would develop in the United States. In terms of Civil liberties at stake, the Ukrainian government has put in specific laws to make protesting, marching, being openly anti-government and some internet privacy laws in place. Another controversy related to the laws passing is that that specific votes went uncounted and machine were "broken" when legislation was up for vote. Although this chaos isn't occurring in the United States, in past wars and times of conflict the US has suspended civil liberties in order to “win the war”, or that’s at least what they say.

According to Ariel Cohen, a Ph.D holder with an expertise in Eurasian studies, "the law bluntly violates the basic human rights of the Ukrainian citizens, such as freedom of speech and freedom of association, turning Ukraine into one of the most authoritarian regimes in the post-Soviet space". Protestors aren't getting to say what they really want. They are being oppressed and rightfully fighting for their rights. Laws put in place are unconstitutional in regards to the Ukrainian constitution and I believe that the protestors are doing the right thing. If you don't think something is right, stick up for yourself and your people until you believe that it is right. Mr. Cohen is absolutely correct. This new legislation is wrong and oppressive. I think this Ukrainian government should be replaced and become more of a democratic state, instead of turning authoritarian, like Cohen says. 

 In our current state in the US, civil liberties are being put at stake in a war most Americans are unaware we are still fighting; the War on Terror. The War on Terror has opened up phone records of civilians, allowed for warrantless wiretapping, and other still unknown violations of constitutional rights, right here in America. People in Ukraine are in the early stages of a possible country wide revolt due to compromised civil liberties but in the US, we seem to not even know that our OWN civil liberties are being taken right under our noses. With that in mind, why do you think that is? Why are Americans so much less eager to flood the streets and stand up for what they believe is right and for rights that they deserve.

Side note: here are some really fascinating pictures from the current situation in Ukraine. Here

Isn't it called minimum wage for a reason?

This week, Republican Governor candidate, Bruce Rauner (of Winnetka) spoke out on the topic of minimum wage in Illinois. Currently the national minimun wage is $7.25/per hour but Illinois has a $8.25/per hour, a dollar increase. Rauner stated that Illinois should shed off a dollar to its hourly wage in order to, "be competitive here in Illinois". Rauner adds that this decrease in wage salary would create jobs and improve the economy, while minimum wage increase advocates believe this would end up with too many people in poverty from such a significant decrease in their pay.

The problem I see with Rauner is that he seems to view the whole situation as a game for Illinois to meet some type of criteria to be a more successful state. He states that Illinois needs to be, "competitive" but what does that actually mean? I understand he is talking in context of salaries but competitive could mean both working harder, working more efficiency, or what ever interpretation of "competitive" you can think of. The way I saw what Rauner was saying was the fact that he doesn't seem to care about what these families really have to deal with this proposed decrease and only seems to care about what Illinois looks like to both voters and other state leaders. This is an election year (2014) for Governor and Rauner definitely wants to sway voters to his side by saying that he wants to make Illinois a better State because, to the ear, that does sound like an  appealing argument. The reasons using a word like competitive is so BAD is because it shows that he is looking at the state as a whole rather than the specific group of people to be affected; people working minimum wage jobs. What are the odds minimum wage will drastically increase the economy, job market and happiness? Its possible but its not the key to the US getting back on its feet and saving the day.

Living with less money is a huge problem for these families at risk of losing money via a minimum wage decrease. He neglects that these families of workers are losing around $2000 per year which is HUGE for people who live pay check to pay check supporting themselves or families . In the end, Is the competitive approach to minimum wage good or bad for Illinois?




*** A few years ago, a report at an Oregon Walmart showed that panhandlers outside of the store were making more money that the workers inside. This isn't really relevant but I found it fascinating in terms of minimum wage throughout the country in modern times.