#Idaho minimum wage

[fully-ace]

If greater Idaho becomes an actual thing, catch me in the grave.

[37q]

a few updates. we have reproductive rights in arizona, colorado (including public funds), maryland, missouri, montana (with limits), nevada (with limits), and expanded equal rights protection in new york including pregnancy status and outcome, but none in florida, nebraska, and south dakota.

increasing wages in alaska and missouri to $15, and those two + nebraska are mandating sick leave, but massachusets isnt ending tipped minimum wage and california didnt increase their minimum wage or allow for more rent control.

(medical) marijuana was decriminalized in nebraska but not (medically or rectreationally) florida, north dakota or south dakota. massachusets didnt legalize psychedelics.

arizona is requiring life with no parole for sex trafficking and tightening their criminal penal system for immigrants (and fentanyl), californias reclassifying misdemeanor theft and trafficking as felonies and elevating rehab, and colorado is taking away the right to bail in first degree murder cases and increasing the sentence-served requirements for parole in violent crimes.

all-party primaries and ranked-choice voting lost in every state they ran in: alaska, arizona, colorado, idaho, missouri (just ranked choice), montana (just primaries), nevada, oregon (just ranked choice), and south dakota (just primaries). but dc went for ranked choice and independent primary votes.

every state that ran a ballot measure about restricting votes to citizens (+ non-minors) voted it in: idaho, iowa (18+), kentucky, missouri, north carolina (18+), oklahoma, south carolina (18+), and wisconsin (18+).

same-sex marriage was codified in california, colorado, and, soon, likely hawaii. were still waiting for more votes from california on this (>50% votes in so far and its slightly leaning towards keeping it) but nevada outlawed involuntary servitude. massachusets just barely made the cut to allow gig workers to unionize and oregon is broadening labor rights in the marijuana industry.

[plethoraworldatlas]

A pair of conservation coalitions on Monday made good on their threats to sue the U.S. government over its denial of federal protections for gray wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains, where state killing regimes "put wolves at obvious risk of extinction in the foreseeable future."

The organizations filed notices of their plans for the lawsuits in early February, after the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) determined that Endangered Species Act protections for the region's wolves were "not warranted." The Interior Department agency could have prevented the suits in the U.S. District Court for the District of Montana by reversing its decision within 60 days but refused to do so.

"The Biden administration and its Fish and Wildlife Service are complicit in the horrific war on wolves being waged by the states of Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana," declared George Nickas, executive director of Wilderness Watch, one of 10 organizations represented by the Western Environmental Law Center (WELC).

"Idaho is fighting to open airstrips all over the backcountry, including in designated Wilderness, to get more hunters to wipe out wolves in their most remote hideouts," Nickas noted. "Montana is resorting to night hunting and shooting over bait and Wyoming has simply declared an open season."

Brooks Fahy, executive director of Predator Defense, another WELC group, pointed out that "these states are destroying wolf families in the Northern Rockies and cruelly driving them to functional extinction via bounties, wanton shooting, trapping, snaring, even running over them with snowmobiles. They have clearly demonstrated they are incapable of managing wolves, only of killing them."

KC York, founder and president of Trap Free Montana, also represented by WELC, said that "Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming know that they were let off the hook in their brutal and unethical destruction of wolves even acknowledged as such by the service."

"They set the stage for other states to follow," York warned. "We are already witnessing the disturbing onset of giving the fox the key to the hen house and abandoning the farm. The maltreatment is now destined to worsen for these wolves and other indiscriminate species, through overt, deceptive, well-orchestrated, secretive, and legal actions."

The other organizations in the WELC coalition are Alliance for the Wild Rockies, Friends of the Clearwater, International Wildlife Coexistence Network, Nimiipuu Protecting Our Environment, Protect the Wolves, Western Watersheds Project, and WildEarth Guardians.

The second lawsuit is spearheaded by the Center for Biological Diversity, Humane Society of the United States, Humane Society Legislative Fund, and Sierra Club, whose leaders took aim at the same three states for their wolf-killing schemes.

"The states of Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming act like it's 1880 with the most radical and unethical methods to kill as many wolves as possible in an effort to manage for bare minimum numbers," said Sierra Club northern Rockies field organizer Nick Gevock. "This kind of 'management' is disgraceful, it's unnecessary, and it sets back wolf conservation decades, and the American people are not going to stand by and allow it to happen."

Margie Robinson, staff attorney for wildlife at the Humane Society of the United States, stressed that "under the Endangered Species Act, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service cannot ignore crucial scientific findings. Rather than allow states to cater to trophy hunters, trappers, and ranchers, the agency must ensure the preservation of wolves—who are vital to ensuring healthy ecosystems—for generations to come."

The Center for Biological Diversity's carnivore conservation program director, Collette Adkins, was optimistic about her coalition's chances based on previous legal battles, saying that "we're back in court to save the wolves and we'll win again."

"The Fish and Wildlife Service is thumbing its nose at the Endangered Species Act and letting wolf-hating states sabotage decades of recovery efforts," Adkins added. "It's heartbreaking and it has to stop."

[uboat53]

New laws coming into effect as of the New Year!

In Idaho and Louisiana, bans on gender affirming care for minors will come into effect. West Virginia also has a ban, but it allows access with parental consent and a medical diagnosis. Meanwhile, in Maryland, gender affirming care will be covered by Medicaid and Hawaii is requiring that new marriage certificates be issued on request to people who change their gender and is replacing "mother" and "father" with "birthing parent" and "non-birthing parent" in state law. In Colorado, buildings that are at least partly owned by government entities will be required to have at least one gender-neutral bathroom on any floor that has public restrooms.

Washington state will make new or renewing insurance plans will no longer be allowed to charge deductibles or copays for abortions. California will protect both abortion and gender affirming care from out-of-state litigation.

Indiana will make it easier for parents to challenge books in school libraries while Illinois will block state funding to public libraries that ban or restrict books.

In Illinois, police will no longer be able to pull over drivers because of something hanging from their rear-view mirrors (this is jokingly being referred to as the "fuzzy dice" law). Also, Illinois will be banning high-powered rifles and high-capacity magazines. It is also allowing victims of deepfake pornography to sue.

Minnesota has a new Red Flag law that will allow police to take guns away from people deemed to be an imminent threat. Colorado is banning ghost guns. Connecticut is requiring online dating operators to adopt policies to prevent harassment. North Carolina is requiring porn sites to confirm that users are 18 years old by using commercial databases and allows parents to sue if their kids access porn.

Twenty-two states will increase their minimum wage. If you live in AK, AZ, CA, CO, CT, DE, HI, IL, ME, ML, MI, MN, MO, MT, NE, NJ, NY, OH, RI, SD, VT, WA, or DC, minimum wage will be going up. In addition to these, NV and OR will increase the minimum wage in July and FL will see an increase at the end of September.

In federal news, as of the New Year, your employer may be able to make a matching contribution into your 401(k) retirement account when you make student loan payments.

Finally, the FAFSA is getting shorter and easier to fill out. This should mean a lot more low-income borrowers getting federal assistance.

Here's my sources which have more details on all of these if you're interested in checking them out:

[mooifyourecows]

Something interesting I learned is that here in Illinois, if the weather gets real bad and snowy, they just SHUT THINGS DOWN? Like stores close and stuff???? Wow that's pretty cool, like, in Idaho, they wouldn't even shut the schools down in a blizzard unless the buses physically could not drive through the snow drifts. And stores and stuff NEVER shut down. They expected you to trek through two feet of snow to get to your shitty minimum wage job, no excuses.

One winter, the snow was so bad and so thick, and the temperatures so low, my dad had to come save me from my house in his tractor because nothing else could get down my lane. And my partner's boss still expected him to get to work on time lmao fuck that guy I hope he's dead now

But here, they get a little bit of snow on the ground and everyone is like "better not risk it, see you next week".

Fun!

[innocencelives]

i rlly like the movie my own private idaho, the director gus van sant made it as part of the new queer cinema movement, something which depicted queer people as living on the fringes of society, as vagrants, runaways, etc. the main charachters were prostitutes who hung out in abandoned buildings with drug addicts, crazies, whatever. i think i relate to that idea of being in the underground. everything i love is part of the underground. i mean a part of me wants a good job a husband and a house or whatever but ive found my community, my home, and my passions on the fringes. both my lifestyle kink and the art i do everyday are considered controversial. i feel like i should feel more shame over it. but i spent my whole childhood feeling ashamed, hating myself, who doesnt? i didnt exactly choose all of it. i never even thought about college, didnt take my SATS, bc i was depressed, even though my whole family is college educated. even now i just dont see th point. im 25, im on disability, like so many things about my life scream depressed: i dont have sex, ive never had a partner, im very poor, i need help with some basic tasks, but im the happiest ive been in my whole life. i think id rather be 10x poorer than i already am than get a minimum wage job. mooching off the government i guess but? im happy. i am genuinely satisfied in my life. i feel this weird need, like i have to hate myself, but it doesnt feel necessary anymore. like im maybe at the point where everyone in the world thinks i SHOULD hate myself and i finally dont. i dont mind living in the fringes or having my art and lifestyle exist in the underground, im happy.

[avagueidea]

This is a friendly reminder to check your state's ballot measures!!

Some states are voting on Ranked Choice Voting this year (to either enshrine or prohibit) including: Alaska, Colorado, Idaho, Missouri, Nevada, and Oregon.

There are a lot of other ballot measures too! They're a major way to make a difference in otherwise very Red leaning states. Take Missouri for example; in addition to RCV, there's also abortion rights and a minimum wage hike on the ballot! (Missouri Ballot Measures)

I know a lot of people want to feel like they're doing more than just voting blue by obligation. We are playing a numbers game tho and we all have to be smart first and foremost. But ballot measures are something to vote with your whole heart and can create some of those radical changes that are particularly difficult to pass in legislation (such as RCV). Because even in states that seem to go red by default, amendments can swing surprisingly liberal. But we still have to get out and Vote on them!!

the american voting system is NOT EQUIPPED to support a 3rd party without ranked choice voting. and until we get RCV, it's one or the other. and it WILL be one or the other.

a lot of 3rd party candidates sound great, but they do not have a realistic chance at winning. be realistic. you know who does have a chance at winning? the household names, trump or harris.

splitting the vote by going 3rd party is what made trump happen in 2016, it was hillary clinton's downfall. it was USED by state sponsored internet trolls to spread propaganda, destabilize and divide the left. it was endorsed by trump himself, he tried it in 2020 too, and he's doing it again now because he knows it might be the only chance he has at winning.

be VERY wary of anyone telling you vote 3rd party. it's trump or harris. it won't be stein, de la cruz, or sherman, or fucking anybody else ive never heard of, because nobody is talking about independent candidates, and EVERYONE is talking about trump and harris.

it will be trump or harris for president, and it will be trump if you vote 3rd party. and ill tell you as an anarchist, i would rather have kamala harris and all her flaws in office over the fascist donald trump who would see me and my queer siblings and my friends and family of color dead.

do not split the fucking vote.

[wyrmguardsecrets]

PNW is nice but absolutely have a job that will pay at least 50k a year you cannot survive on minimum wage. It's also overwhelming white, including queer spaces, whitness will always attempt to take center in any space. Anywhere outside the major metro areas (SEA, PDX, VAN) is red, some places are even sundown towns. Stay out of northern Idaho it's full of neo nazis.

-

[margot-my-boo]

My answer is establish work shelters that are fre from Estacada to Portland busses can connect to the work shelters where they work 20 minimum hours paid a week for room and board to pick fruit by hand where need be, then a bus from Portland to Idaho doing the same, as well from Portland to long beach, wa now doing so on the columbia gorve works both sides ofcthe rivers. Homeless fruit work shelters they work enough in season or work more then 25 hours if they want to but working enough of a farming season they get free shelter through winter. Establishing some as minimum wage work shelter hotels single occupancy shelters for minimum wage singles. Then establish same for families with children and without. Hen also routes to sandy and snow bunny to pick fruit from Gresham and Clackamas to estacada.

Gods start. Whatever.who care not listening. This is communism.

[valla-chan]

Since eggs actually are up to 10 dollars a dozen, let's talk about something.

7.25 dollars an hour is federal minimum wage, which applies or is dipped below in several US states. And by several I mean:

Georgia

Wyoming

Alabama

Idaho

Iowa

Indiana

Kansas

Kentucky

Louisiana

Mississippi

New Hampshire

North Carolina

North Dakota

Oklahoma

Pennsylvania

Tennessee

Texas

Utah

Wisconsin

So, in order to be making enough to what would be considered a nightmare wage in 1923 worth rioting in the streets over, you would need to be making ever so slightly over double that minimum wage. For an 8 hour day.

But what would a 1923 person see 125 dollars a day, their example of a measly amount, as anyway? Let's go figure that out.

Oh dear. Let's try it in reverse.

Well. This certainly must mean nothing at all.

Going to work for 8 hours at double the current day federal minimum wage to earn what would be worth 1 hour of current day federal minimum wage in 1923 must just be all our faults for not being born in the right century.

via

[joshscorcher]

3 Misconceptions about Americans and non-Americans

After interacting with many different people around the globe, especially on social media, I notice that Americans have very big misconceptions about the world outside, and non-Americans have big misconceptions about the USA. Most of it is just simple ignorance and not malicious racism, so I thought I’d try to clear some of it up.

3 Big Misconceptions that Americans have about the world outside the US.

1. Most other countries, especially non-Western ones, are not developed.

Many Americans don’t realize other countries are developed that we might realize., especially in countries that are described as “third-world.” One of Kenya’s biggest pastimes is cyber cafes, and they’re really cheap. Malaysia has a big (some locals would say internationally untapped) market for electronic entertainment.

Yes, there are countries that still need help and there’s a reason America is the biggest monetary contributor of foreign aid in the world, but take a step outside the continent and you’ll realize that things are not so different depending on where you are.

2. Other developed countries, especially in Europe, are paradises with more rights and better quality of life.

I’m not trying to poo-poo on other countries out of spite; I’m simply calling attention to facts. You know how you can’t be evicted in the U.S. for no reason? Australia doesn’t have that protection and they have a housing crisis now! You know how you can’t be fired in the U.S. if you get sick? You can in the UK! What many Americans assume are standard protections and rights that developed nations have? Other countries may not actually have them, even European ones!

I’ve noticed that Americans (and to a lesser extent all countries) have a bit of “grass is greener” syndrome when it comes to other countries. It’s fair to believe that other countries have some benefits that we don’t and it’s fine to want to implement them, but don’t automatically assume that moving to them will be “everything I have now +1.”

3. Other countries hate your country or consider you the laughingstock of the world.

Sorta. Many of them do, but in my experience, if you get non-Americans in a neutral setting and ask them about their own country’s politics, economics, and/or social issues? Oh ho, brace yourself for a RANT. I’ve also noticed that many make fun of the U.S. as a form of “punching up” humor, and this is often fueled by a little resentment that U.S. culture and news constantly permeates modern news and entertainment discourse.

People like to make fun of the U.S., but there are just as many people who see the U.S. as a bastion, just ask protesters who are sick of their regimes like Hong Kong and Cuba. It’s easy to believe that America is hated everywhere, but much of that comes from a very American-centric perspective of the world and social media. It’s not as bad as you think.

3 Big Misconceptions that non-Americans have about the US.

1. All states have the same culture.

Because the U.S. is so large, it has so many different geographical areas and so many different cultures who have called this place home. Louisiana is very different from Oregon. California is different from Texas. New York is different from Florida. Kansas is different from Massachusetts. Heck, even adjacent states like Idaho and Washington are wildly different! Or even in States like California, you’ll find that the coast and southern areas of the state are have completely different cultures from the northern and eastern areas. The State of New York? The New York you see in the movies is just the tiny little island of Manhattan and the rest of the state is almost nothing like it! 

There are rivalries between states that you might see echo rivalries like Scotland and England, Sri Lanka and India, Sweden and Denmark, or Tanzania and Kenya.

Financially, there’s a lot of disparity as well. A poor person in America is statistically better off than a poor person in many other countries, but don’t let that fool you. There is a lot of income and lifestyle disparity in the U.S. between the rich and the poor. Heck, the minimum wage and standard of living varies depending on which state you’re in! A studio apartment in New York City is MUCH more expensive than a two-storey house in Nebraska!

Point is, there is no “average” American.

2. The President is the leader of our country and can make laws and declare war.

This idea that the president is our leader is a misconception that started with Teddy Roosevelt, arguably our first “celebrity president.” (Some argue it was Lincoln, but I digress.) The president is merely the leader of our executive branch of government. We have an executive branch, a legislative branch, and a judicial branch. Each has checks and balances towards the other.

What powers does the president have? Check here. The office more limited than you might think. Many powers you think he has are actually delegated to the other branches of government or even the states themselves.

3. We are refused treatment or bankrupted by medical bills because we do not have socialized healthcare.

I’m not trying to defend our healthcare system as perfect (oh HELL no, it needs some big improvements), but the idea that we can get bankrupted by an accident is simply untrue. In fact, it is ILLEGAL for a hospital to charge a person more than they can afford or refuse them treatment for a medical emergency. It’s gotten to the point that even many Americans don’t realize they have this right!

Side note, this is an annoying thing about our culture and laws. Because we have been granted so many freedoms and protections, you see some people like landlords and hospitals try to get you to waive those freedoms and protections in contracts which is why it’s so important to read the fine print before you sign anything.

[realcleverissues]

Homelessness & Politics

Been doing some more reading on homelessness and I was curious as to why blue states have more homelessness than red states.

And you’re probably thinking, “well, blue states are more populous and have big cities”, but even on a per capita basis, blue states have around 5x as many UnHoused (UH) people as red states.(More on the absolute vs relative numbers soon...) So why are the numbers so different between red and blue states?

So, a few thoughts:

1. We may not be getting accurate counts of the total population of UH people in every state - particularly red states which seem less concerned about it.

2. Kinda macabre, but it’s possible that the mortality rate for UH people is higher in red states due to lack of social services. iow, the UH people in red states may be dying more, and that keeps their population lower. I tried to find data on this, but again, most places - esp red states - don’t really track this data. So for now, it’s just a hypothesis.

3. Homelessness is the result of other factors, some of which may differ between states, such as housing demand vs availability as well as income distribution and inequality. For instance, it may be easy to buy land in wyoming cause it’s huge and only 37 people live there so prices are dirt cheap. In contrast, housing demand in cities is typically very high. Additionally, there’s more inequality in cities, with salaries ranging from minimum wage (or even sub-min wage) to tech and finance bros earning 7 figure salaries. This imbalance drives up housing costs since the rich people can afford more of the limited, in-demand space, than poorer people - esp as the level of inequality increases.

4. Lastly, I know there’s a lot of talk about UH people moving to the coast for the benefits those places offer, but, firstly, once again, it’s a fraction of the overall UH population. But secondly, I honestly don’t know how true it is. There may be other explanations for UH people moving places. For instance, Seattle has a lot of benefits, but we apparently only bring in a quarter as many people from out of state as california. Why? It could be that the weather in cali is just more forgiving than in other places, like rainy seattle. Additionally, many UH people use panhandling to meet their needs. If you live somewhere with 10x as many people, it would seem you’d be likely have 10x as many interactions and bring in 10x as much money. So, those are other reasons why the fraction of UH people that move elsewhere might do so, aside from direct gov’t benefits.

5. So, something I hear all the time is people complaining that the homeless are just people coming in from outside the state for the liberal benefits. In Seattle, where I live, only 5.5% of our unhoused come from outside King County. In LA, it’s as high as 18% - which is a lot, but still only a fraction of the total numbers. Still, this can have a big effect because of population size differences.

For instance, Washington State is bordered by conservative Idaho. WA has around 20k UH people. Idaho has around 2k. Assuming the 5.5% from out-of-state applies across WA, then 5.5% of WA’s 20k UH equals 1,100 people. A pretty small amount of WA’s whole UH population. But if those 1,100 came, for instance, from Idaho, it would represent a huge percentage of Idaho’s population. Idaho has around 2k UH, so if we add 1,000, we’re essentially increasing their unhoused numbers by 50%. And while WA would still have a lot more unhoused people, when we compare the states, this alone makes a big difference: In absolute numbers, it changes the ratio between the two states: From: 20,000 vs 2,000 = 10:1 To: 19,000 vs 3,000 = 6:1

or, looking at per capita numbers:

                                         WA                       Idaho Population:                        7.6M                     1.7M UH pop:                             20k                           2k Ratio:                               1UH/380ppl               1UH/890ppl Iow: WA has 230% more UH/capita Post-Adjustment: UH pop:                               19k                     3k Ratio:                                  1UH/400ppl        1UH/595ppl (Notice that the WA numbers didn’t move much, but the idaho numbers moved dramatically.) Now, WA only as 150% more UH/Capita. Still bad, but wayyy less bad in comparison. 

Here’s what this looks like for California assuming, conservatively, 10% are from out of state. Let’s say half from nevada and half from arizona.                                         Cali                       Arizona Population                    39.5M                         7.2M Unhoused :                    150k                          11k UH/Pop:                       263ppl/UH               654ppl/UH Ratio:                                  1               :             2.4         

Post-Adj:                         UH:                                 135k                         18.5k* *note: half of the 15k cali lost went to nevada, so arizona only gets 7.5k more) UH/Pop:                      292k  ppl/UH           389 ppl/UH Ratio:                                    1              :             1.3 In other words, instead of Cali having more than twice as many UH/capita, it would only have 30% more. Still bad, for sure, but a significant difference.

Keeping these various points in mind, there may be a variety of reasons for the differences in UH numbers between red and blue states which may not be tied to politics at all. Blue states may, in fact, have worse outcomes here, though it may be due to reasons beyond their control. Similarly, red states may not necessarily be “doing things better” than blue states, and may be benefiting from their poorer economies, smaller city sizes, and outward migration. I’d love to see a study which examined these and other factors. But either way, the crisis of unhoused people is serious and getting worse, and likely to continue. we gotta fix this problem.

[peachy-panic]

Only Temporary: Sebastian Tate

Hello. I was completely blown away by the positive response I got on the first piece of Jaime’s story (title under construction). Thank you to everyone who had a kind word to say about it! You made me really happy I made the mildly frightening choice to post.

In the interest of acclimating to the no-rules, freedom-to-post-out-of-order structure of this community, I wanted to introduce a new piece of the puzzle this time, with a new character that will come into play later.

Also, this piece goes into a little bit of the details, but for frame of reference on the BBU-adjacent thing: this story takes place in a not-so-distant future of the BBU, where WRU has undergone some changes. I look forward to exploring this world building more as I go.

Anyway, I’m rambling again. Thanks for reading. Here it is:

WARNINGS: General BBU warnings, talk of institutionalized slavery, classism, and general terribleness of large corporations. Referenced past homophobia and rough parental relationships, briefly implied/referenced non-con.

When Sebastian reflects on the day he graduated from med school, a sort of emptiness is the memory that first bobs to the surface. Among the cheers and camera flashes in the crowd, white coats and proud smiles, what Sebastian recalls most vividly from that day is looking out into the sea of parents and families and people there to support their loved ones on one of the biggest days of their lives, and not seeing a single person that had come for him.

What should have been one of the happiest moments of his life had been quickly overshadowed by the sinking feeling that none of it mattered as much as it would have if he had someone to share it with. Like there was something so fundamentally wrong with his life, that even something as objectively good and right and decent as becoming a doctor could be dulled over into a feeling of nothingness.

Perhaps, he thinks in hindsight, that moment had been foreshadowing for the following months ahead of him.

Watching rejection after rejection pour in from his top residency programs had felt like nothing short of his own personalized nightmare. He had spent several nights in a row on the phone with Alex, his undergrad roommate and only friend, clamoring back from the edge of many a panic attack, spiraling into all-out existential dread about the future and the past and what all of it meant for him if he couldn’t land an internship, let alone a real job out of school. To his credit, Alex never gave up hope in his friend. Or at least, he did a decent job hiding it if he did. Which was probably exactly what Sebastian needed to get through that particularly dark time in his life, and a good reminder of what a solid friend he had. Even if it was a party of two.

Unfortunately, Sebastian did not have the same faith in himself.

He was able to keep up some facade of optimism as his top five were picked off one by one. Telling himself, despite his devastation, that they were a pretty far reach, anyway. Even with good academic standing, it was famously no walk in the park to land yourself at John Hopkins or Mayo as a first-year. He even maintained a brave face as his first few safety programs reached capacity and moved forward without his name on the roster.

It wasn’t until he received his final rejection letter from some internal medicine place in Bumfuck, Idaho that he felt himself slip into dangerous territory. Sebastian knew himself well enough to know his own depressive patterns by then, and he knew it was only exponential decay from there.

Rock bottom came, as it did, in the wee hours of the night, after a full bottle of wine. Alone in his small apartment, surrounded by half-packed boxes with no destination, Sebastian found himself sprawled out on the floor with his laptop hot against his thighs. He couldn’t have explained why he opted for a privacy browser, but something about it allowed him to justify the words that he typed into the search bar.

It was a new low, and one he had sworn to himself he would never stoop to. Yet there he was.

He gave himself a moment to reconsider, to back out of what was undoubtedly a morally-gray train wreck waiting to happen as his thumb hovered over the enter key. And then the alcohol decided to override his moral compass.

Facility Care is the open secret of the medical profession. It comes with its fair share of stigma, and rightfully so, but it is notoriously easy to break into and pays a decent wage.

There are two types of people who end up stooping to that kind of employment. More often than not, it consists of doctors and nurses who had their licenses revoked or suspended somewhere along the line and needed a way back in. As far as Sebastian understood, they aren’t terribly ridgid about the particulars of each circumstance. After all, in the eyes of the law, the patients they would be treating are a price tag away from being entirely expendable.

The other percentage of Facility Care workers, and the reason Sebastian found himself staring at his too-bright computer screen with a sinking feeling of dread that night, are young medical graduates who find themselves in a tough spot. It isn’t difficult to spell out the logic behind that one when you open the WRU CAREERS tab on the home page and see the bright white words printed across the top of the screen:

LOAN FORGIVENESS.

It is shamelessly predatory and aggressively capitalistic, but Sebastian supposes that particular exploitation is pretty far down on the list of transgressions for an institution of legalized slavery. A few broke and hopeless medical students were hardly going to keep the Powers That Be up at night when they were able to rest easy under the weight of hundreds of thousands of stolen lives.

The whole thing is part of the massive PR overhaul the company did a few years back. In a world that was slowly inching toward civil activism and with the accessibility of platforms like social media to hold them accountable, WRU had to adapt to survive. Adaptation, in this case, took the form of changing the barest of minimums in order to keep themselves above board — to the public eye, anyway. Anyone who dares to take a closer look at the policy changes can see that it’s bullshit.

Changing ownership conditions to a rent-by-contract basis isn’t the humanitarian move they try to paint it as. In the end, it probably just equals out to more money in the company’s pocket when they can get more return on their “investments,” and a larger chance of exploitation for the people being moved around.

Getting rid of the Romantic division is an entirely meaningless gesture when they are still loaning out human beings with no legal rights and the inability to say “no.”

And offering an open job market with good wages and healthcare options to lower class individuals is a pretty convenient way to mute the backlash.

Essentially, you can tie a system of slavery and abuse up in a bow and make it pretty on the outside, but at the end of the day, it’s still fucking slavery.

Not that he has any room to criticize now. Now that he’s one of them.

In the end, Seb tries to justify his decision a few different ways. He is, after all, more or less a young man alone in the world. The odds are stacked against him and have been for a while. With only his own two legs to stand on, the only force stronger than his internal ambition is his instinct for survival, and he’s been running on those fumes for longer than he can count.

He had lasted less than two months under his parents’ roof after he came out of the closet at eighteen. It wasn’t exactly a surprise for anyone involved; Sebastian’s parents had known about (and subsequently bottled) his… urges… since he was in high school. Probably before that, if he is being honest with himself. And Sebastian, for his part, had spent the better part of his teenage years mentally preparing for the inevitable. He can recall long, late nights he had spent crying into his pillow and the perfectly-scripted ‘coming out’ speeches he recited to his mirror when he was one-hundred percent sure his parents were asleep.

Of course, none of the preparation had been anywhere near adequate when he actually found himself wilting beneath the heat of his father’s glare, the weight of his mother’s grief.

But. He had recovered. That is the point he tries to remember when the memories sting fresh beneath his skin, even all these years later. He has more-than proven himself to be a survivor. He has worked harder than anyone he knows for every scholarship, every grant, every dollar to put himself through school. Sacrificed nights out and real relationships for night shifts at shitty diners and long weekends cramming for exams. It hadn’t been easy, but he considers it the price he had to pay for his independence. For freedom, to live the life as the person he is meant to be, despite his unfortunate odds. He spent years telling himself it would be worth it. That one day, his hard work would pay off.

He can’t stop now.

Sebastian doesn’t have the luxury of taking time off to reroute when his navigation has gone amiss. He is walking the precarious line of rapidly accruing interest and student loans and a dwindling savings account, and there is no safety net below him.

Beggars can’t be choosers, and as it turns out, beggars sometimes have to compromise their moral integrity in order to survive.

It’s only temporary.

That is the mantra that gets him through the (half-drunken) application process and the (disturbingly lax) interview process. It is a job. One job. In the medical field, though the details are up for debate, and it is real-life money for rent and food and a savings that will hopefully be sizable enough to get him where he really wanted to be. Which is… really, anywhere else.

He can do ‘temporary.’ And perhaps, some misguided part of him thinks he can do some genuine good from the inside, too. ‘Be the change you want to see’ and all that.

It is a far jump from the floor of his apartment, sloshed and exhausted and desperate, to the cold, sharp reality of walking into his place of employment on his first day of work. Ironically, it feels a lot like an echo of the emptiness from his graduation day.

‘Sterile’ doesn’t quite cover it. ‘Sterile’ is the expectation of any well-respected medical establishment, but the inside of the facility walls has been wiped clean of far more than bacteria and germs. It is completely devoid of humanity. The long corridors that connect the medical wing to the general ward are windowless and dimly lit by flickering fluorescent panels that had make his head pound for the entirety of his first week.

He is given an office, though it is a term he, himself, might use loosely, as it is more akin to what was probably a storage closet before the old prison had been converted into the state’s training headquarters. It leaves him just enough space for a small desk and two chairs. On his first day, he asks if it is okay to bring in some personal items to spruce the place up. The older, balding doctor who had been assigned to show him around merely shrugs, and Sebastian decides to take that as a yes.

The small, pink-framed photo of a six-year-old Sebastian Tate in his grandfather’s white coat and an old-school stethoscope around his neck is hardly enough to make the place cozy from the corner of his desk, but it’s a good enough reminder of why he has to make this work.

‘It’s only temporary.’

‘Be the change you want to see.’

He will do his best.

[aleatoryalarmalligator]

As you all may know, my mother is on a ventilator for covid 19. She didn’t believe in covid. I tried to tell her but she didn’t believe it. She tried to tell me some kind of Qanon bologne when I’d try to tell her. I would give anything to have more time with my mother. There is some signs of improvement in her feeling better but I am not wanting to become too hopeful. She was on the phone with one of my elder sisters for six minutes rather than two the other day. She was angry at her for letting her kids come in to her house knowing they had covid.

I’m very angry at her doctor who told her she didn’t need the covid shot, in fact just telling her she is healthy. She has a small body frame and is on the shorter side but weighs nearly three hundred pounds and struggles to get around. She’s 59 years old and works as a nurse at a nursing home and works way too hard on minimum wage, has given birth to six children, has always had asthma and is prone to bronchitis and pneumonia. She’s a prime candidate for covid, in fact she is who I thought about the day I remember reading about covid. It’s like this disease was designed to kill my mother.

They sent her to southern Idaho for a ventilator. She is lucky to get one. They’ve run out in many of these red states that didn’t take covid seriously enough. It does not bring me any joy that right wingers and people who didn’t believe in the shot are dying. I’ve had liberal friends say over simplistic things about people from red states getting what’s coming to them and so forth, and people have rejoiced at the idea of trump supporters getting sick and suffering and dying.

I am left leaning, but I never want to get so caught up in my political ego that I eradicate any notion of humanity to the people I don’t agree with or might not even like. Their pain and lives are real and legitimate as anyone else’s. Their families matter too. They are wrong, my mother is wrong. She’s been backwards about a lot of the world my whole life.

But she’s also a very kind person. She is always giving to people and has contradictory, while supporting a fucking horrible president, also put up for and fought her job because of racism she was seeing all around her. She doesn’t really think like a conservative and her way of approaching life didn’t really ever reflect a deeper conservative value or drive. I’ve noticed other conservatives never liked her.

She believed the wrong things because she was driven by religious faith and loneliness to believe the rabbit hole of alt right Facebook. She doesn’t have much of an education, was bullied and abused for most of her childhood. she went to over twenty different schools and moved a lot throughout her childhood. She got married and started having children very young. She always worked as a bartender, or as a caretaker to children with disabilities or elderly folk. She barely understood the internet. She believed in god and joined religious groups on Facebook very open and blindly without even understanding propaganda or the political climate of what is being fought for, which pretty much took her down this poisonous road. And now she’s barely able to talk in an icu all alone, as this virus that she didn’t believe in tries to kill her.

Moving to the city and always being left leaning, but being from a rural area of the inland north west, where I was outnumbered and lived amongst these folk who didn’t like me all that much but I was always having to find ways to accept and understand sometimes gives me a perspective perhaps that maybe liberal kids from middle class families from liberal cities have missed out on. I will never be able to see it as black and white. It would be easy to just say that the people in Bible Belt areas deserve this and be rid of any sadness or guilt. I was disgusted by the anti intellectualism I was surrounded by and I lived for most of my twenties in my own world to avoid it when I was growing up and lived in my home state which is fairly red. But people are the same everywhere. They really are.

Her recovery is slow and I worry something terrible is happening to her organs and lungs as she has fights for her life. I hope her body is strong enough to keep fighting. I appreciate the care and labor and sacrifice the hospitals have given to keep people alive. There is so much anguish. We have lost a mural of so many wonderful and beautiful souls to covid. It’s hard to even fathom the grief and pain it’s left in its wake. I can barely cope with my own.

I took a walk today to think. I haven’t wanted to listen to music in a long while because my mood is on my mother’s condition, but I put in John Prine. He was one of the first people to die of covid that I cared about, albeit indirectly as I only know him through his songs. I had a ticket to go see him play before covid took his life. It was going to be small and intimate outdoor concert in town. His music was always so real and down to earth. He sings about the quiet sad things of getting old and the way that love is about the daily existence with other people. How you build and cope with things.

One of his last songs on the album before he died was about how science has no business tinkering with nature. It’s so genuine. And ironic. Not everyone shares this belief, but I think that the covid flu was made in a lab and someone made a mistake and let it out into the public. I believe it was just human error in Wuhan. Nobody, no government or anything wanted this. And the Chinese government did everything they could to avoid fessing up to the mistake. So the idea of a lab grown virus being what killed John Prine kind of hurts in a way, though he also often sang about being comfortable with death and having peace with a life that was happy.

There are countless people I could blame for my mother’s disease. I could blame the dystopian Chinese government and their inability to admit fault, I could blame our government and our long-standing capitalist system that monetary prioritizes gain over human life, I could blame my mother’s cruel upbringing for not giving her the tools she needed to make wise choices about the world around her, or she herself for not taking care of her body. I could blame her mother and father and brothers.

I could blame my sisters kids for their lack of consideration of what covid would do to my mother’s health knowing she was high risk, or my eldest sister herself for being lazy and letting them go to my moms house knowingly.

I could blame some mentally unwell woman named Susan who my mother might have vaguely known for inviting her to a Facebook group of hate and conspiracy, or blame the nuns who drove religion into my mother’s head as a child. I could blame the easy to punch Ted Cruz or Tucker Carleson or any of the right wing mouth pieces for spreading lies and misinformation to the people they are supposedly speaking up for on behalf of about covid. I could blame it on our artificially based two party system that prevents real discussion from ever happening.

In the end, there is a myriad of things I could blame. So many pieces to the puzzle I could write volumes. But it doesn’t change where we are at now. And I have little control of the world around me. Or what made it that way. It’s disappointing. And in a way, John Prine has that message too. I’m just sad. I try to remember that my mom of the many people I have known was very accepting of death. Maybe it’s because she’s a person of faith, but she has a practical dark humor about her too that makes her accept it. I know she wouldn’t want me to be sad, but I am all the same.

It’s happened at this point where I am genuinely feeling my age and kind of at a crossroads in who I am as a person and what I want to do. I’ll talk about that some other time though. There is only so much a person can read.

[daysten444]

When you start talking about wages and what ppl make and how it’s not enough to live, there’s always those people who come out of the woodworks (sir we’re on the Instagram page commiethoughts (/s) why are you here?) and say how you should move to the middle of bum fuck nowhere to buy a house. But they fail to recognize what works for them once cannot be applied to all 300 million people who live in America today.

If everyone tried to buy a house in Bum Fuck Idaho what do you think is going to happen to housing values in Bum Fuck Idaho??? Also Bum Fuck, Idaho cannot accommodate everyone. A lot of these small towns would crumble under a mass influx of people. (This whole thing is prompted by a dude I saw on Instagram who was flexing how in his town he can buy a 3 bed 3 acre house with 120,000, but his town has less than 5,000 people in it and is 2 hours away from the nearest city).

Also America is largely car dependent, but living in the city or suburbs allows for easier access to groceries, medical care, and almost most importantly because we live in late stage capitalism, work. Lots of ppl are working jobs in the city and cannot commute 1.5+ hours a day each way!! Never mind the fact that lots of these rural-er areas are majority white which will be uncomfortable for people of color. At best everyone keeps too themselves at worst people of color who move to these areas go missing.

Moving also costs money and when you are living paycheck to paycheck you cannot afford to save for moving costs. And it’s really easy to live paycheck to paycheck when the liveable wage is double the minimum wage.

North Carolina’s liveable wage (how much you should make to be above the poverty line)

Total required income before taxes: $30,617 (which comes out to be $14.72)

Estimated housing costs: $8,865

Estimated food costs: $3,177

(Also I don’t live in North Carolina I just chose somewhere where cost of living wasn’t atrocious) also these figures are from 2019 before the current housing market which has since ballooned even more. That estimated housing cost comes out to be $740 a month and while I don’t live in NC I still doubt that I could find a $740 one bedroom apartment with ease. Of course this part is speculative.

My state from this article has a similar total required income. With our housing costs at $9,900, that is $825 a month and I can speak to the struggle to find a one bedroom for $825 for sure. And before people come in talking about just get a roommate, that’s not the point. I, as a single person, should be able to afford a space to myself. I should be able to choose whether or not I want a roommate, not have it forced upon me because if of the cost of housing.

And these calculations are done for a livable wage. Making ends meet on the current minimum wage is impossible. And then people are quick to say “why are you working minimum wage at your age? Get a real job”. There’s so many socio-economic factors as to why this may not work for someone. College degrees are expensive (and increasingly quite useless), they can’t afford the time and effort it takes to find another job (taking time off to interview), access to learn new skills is blocked, etc etc. Everyone should be able to live comfortably no matter what job they do. To say otherwise is so insanely classist. Why shift the blame from the government and corporations into individuals? (Oh right, because they’re the people that benefit from this current system or are the ones convinced that the system benefits them even though it doesn’t because of profuse propaganda and are fine with bc obviously they are doing fine as a white man in bum fuck no where as a plumber so of course the propaganda is the truth)

The reason for all of these issues is that the system is working exactly as it’s designed. But somehow it’s “thanks obama”, “biden’s America”, etc etc. Don’t get me wrong I hate these guys but the right hates the issues of late stage capitalism and then blames it on the democrats in power. When the democrats in power are legit not doing anything helpful.

[dreamonminecraft]

S..seven fifty per hour? Are you okay?

Bro minimum wage in Idaho we out here thriving I worked 5 hours today and got like $20 in tips I kinda want to die but I'd miss my shift tomorrow 🤪