Recently Walmart employees in Oklahoma City started a food drive for their coworkers at the store. The food drive has generated some controversy and made some people question Walmart as a company. Do Walmart employees make enough to put food on the table, to stay above the poverty line?
The poverty line for 2014 was set at $23,850 a year for a family of four. According to the CEO of the company, the majority of Walmart employees make less than 25,000 dollars a year. A large number of Walmart employees are on monetary aid programs, like food stamps and welfare because of the low wages. Public assistance costs for the companies employees last year added up to 6.2 billion dollars.
The wages are kept low to keep Walmart's prices lower than the competition's, but if the wage that an employee is being paid is not enough to get food on the table for Thanksgiving maybe the low prices--and wages--need to get a little higher.
Sunday, November 23, 2014
Do We Value Sleep Enough?
Last week William Deresiewicz gave a talk about the the disadvantages of elite universities and on the flaws in the current college admissions process. His essay titled, "The Disadvantages an Elite Education" despite many generalizations really spoke to me ut when he was speaking to my class his discussion of the flaws of the college admissons process seemed more reasonable and more connected to my life.
Deresiewicz talked about the lack of free time and the need to stack extra curriculars and extremely time consuming AP classes to get into the elite institutions of today's university system in the United States. He talked about this need for free time but what he never mentioned was the need for sleep. The National Sleep Foundation says that for a teenage mind to stay active and healthy many people need 9 hours and 15 minutes of sleep and some can properly function with 8 hours 30 minutes. I can't speak for my classmates but I don't remember the last time I got close to 8 hours on a school night while still completing my homework and going to extra-curriculars. Even on weekends I find myself loosing sleep because I have such a strict structured schedule.
Deresiewicz talks about mental health being sacrificed, about free time and fufillment of life being sacraficed, about social time being sacraficed, but does he spend enough time talking about the sacrifice of sleep and the dangerous conditions it can cause. In an article in Time Magazine titled "The Power of Sleep" the issue of sleep deprivation and the benefit of a good nights rest is explored. The article talk about what the brain is doing while asleep--things like maitaining hormone balance and cleaning the brain of toxins that can build up without rest. The question I ask is do we value these education programs that are supposed to make us better thinkers over the health of the brain itself?
Deresiewicz talked about the lack of free time and the need to stack extra curriculars and extremely time consuming AP classes to get into the elite institutions of today's university system in the United States. He talked about this need for free time but what he never mentioned was the need for sleep. The National Sleep Foundation says that for a teenage mind to stay active and healthy many people need 9 hours and 15 minutes of sleep and some can properly function with 8 hours 30 minutes. I can't speak for my classmates but I don't remember the last time I got close to 8 hours on a school night while still completing my homework and going to extra-curriculars. Even on weekends I find myself loosing sleep because I have such a strict structured schedule.
Deresiewicz talks about mental health being sacrificed, about free time and fufillment of life being sacraficed, about social time being sacraficed, but does he spend enough time talking about the sacrifice of sleep and the dangerous conditions it can cause. In an article in Time Magazine titled "The Power of Sleep" the issue of sleep deprivation and the benefit of a good nights rest is explored. The article talk about what the brain is doing while asleep--things like maitaining hormone balance and cleaning the brain of toxins that can build up without rest. The question I ask is do we value these education programs that are supposed to make us better thinkers over the health of the brain itself?
A Follow Up on Ello
Near the end of September I blogged about a then emerging new social media site called Ello. I was recently invited to join the beta of the new test. The former post was all about speculation and what other people were saying about the new network but my interpretations of the site are a little different.
One of the big moves Ello has made as a social media website is to go completely ad free, as much as I respect the decision and agree with the goal--to keep the users from becoming a product. My issue with the initiative is I really don't notice a large difference, in advertising at least, between facebook and Ello. In my experience there really aren't very many advertisments on facebook and other sites. Even if there are sometimes promotional posts suggested in my "newsfeed" they are easy to ignore. The reason Ello went ad free, the protest of the consuming culture is a great one, the execution however is not all that jarring. Whats the point of a protest if you have to tell everyone it is happening before they notice a difference.
The only other issues I have witht he site, like not having a mobile app or not having video will be remidided soon. Every month the company adds features that the current users ask for. By the time the Beta ends Ello will have everything facebook does in terms of features.
The one common perk most users will agree on is the beauty of the sites simplicity, there is no distraction from the content the users post, all attention is left to the pictures and text posted by the members that that you follow. The site uses simple black and white leaving absolutly nothing to draw attention away from the posts on someones account or in your feed.
Ello might not be for everyone and they may have some flaws in their protest of the world of advertisment and commercialism but I'm excited to see what they do next.
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