Her green plastic watering can 🎶
Arabic, Colorado, linguistics, dad and kid stuff 🦖🚀, poetry, fiction. Some guinea pig content. Recovering academic.
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Her green plastic watering can 🎶
It's kind of hit or miss. I consistently get the paywall on my Android phone but actually on both Chrome and Safari on my work MacBook I can read it fine, at least at the moment but I'm in my office now, don't know if it works in my home Wi-Fi.
That would be a bit more involved, although I wager it can be done. I just coded this while I was putzing around. Have you tried Tor browser though? That's actually what I use to read the BBC website, it just may be a bit slow for audio.
I was actually wondering about that! 🙏
I can add תי רעכס to the list of Hebrew vocabulary I know, along with שׁנורקל and יאללה
It is so lame that good artists (of all types) are expected to create TikTok-style videos peddling their creations because this is the only electrolyte-enriched Brawndo that people will drink.
ärklig looks like it means "powerful," I don't know why. Very strong word.
I can't hear that difference actually in fighting and crime. Looks like Canadian raising may be getting the Gulf of America treatment
For me riding and writing are a bit different. The i in writing sounds like the i in white or fight and riding sounds like the i in rye or sigh. Is that the raising your referring to?
Employers and employees are generally allowed to be jerks, or at least, there is no law against it. I'll leave it at that as everyone heads back to work today.
Most workplace harassment cases are governed by federal laws such as Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits harassment based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, or their state equivalent dealing with civil rights. ADA may also be relevant.
Okay, Labor Day is over folks so I'll stop here. One more common issue I encountered: there isn't really such a thing as a "hostile work environment" in labor law.
"physical or mental exertion (whether burdensome or not) controlled or required by the employer and pursued necessarily and primarily for the benefit of the employer and his business."
This is important because it means employers can't say an employee starts getting paid once they put on their uniform or arrive at their work station. SCOTUS stated that time worked, expansively, included all
48. The definition of "time worked" is interesting and was established by Anderson v. Mt. Clemons Pottery Co. (1946), where employees' work was recorded to the nearest quarter hour. SCOTUS found against the employer and required payment for all time worked.
47. From what I've heard it could take (before Trump) about a year to get a DOL claim adjudicated versus under six months in Colorado and over two years in Texas. This is just anecdotal from my own experience with Colorado Department of Labor and Employment
46. In comparison, for example, Colorado has about forty investigators for about 3m workers, or one per every 70k.
45. Enforcement is another issue that may be stronger at the state level. Department of Labor Wage and Hour has 611 investigators to oversee compliance for approximately 165 million U.S. workers, or about one investigator per every 250k workers
44. Many states have their own legislation. Usually, as in the case of Colorado's Equal Pay for Equal Work Act, the require equal payment for broadly "similar job duties" rather than just the "substantially equal" in the federal definition.
43. The Equal Pay Act of 1963 prohibits sex-based wage discrimination but applies a relatively narrow standard—requiring equal pay for “substantially equal” work in the same establishment. Women's earnings rise from 62.3% of men’s earnings in 1979 to 81.1% in 2018. See 31 above.
42. There has been debate about whether such laws increase pay, with some evidence indicating that they mostly curb pay at the higher end of the range and thus lower the average. But they do increase the publication of pay ranges in job descriptions more than whining about the subject on LinkedIn.
41. The following states now have laws requiring pay transparency practices like reporting and including pay range in job descriptions.
Oh good!
40. Montana is unique for its 1987 Wrongful Discharge from Employment Act (MWDEA), which, after a six-month probationary period, prohibits employers from firing employees without good cause (e.g. performance or business needs).
39. Two weeks' notice has no legal basis. All US states except Montana are at-will employment, meaning either party can end the relationship at any time for any reason or no reason at all, assuming something like discrimination isn't involved.
"stipend" always sounds fishy to me. There's rules around internships and I've actually seen small businesses in Colorado go so far as to say they had "volunteers"!
After this I'm going to talk about states with interesting laws like those that address gender pay disparity and pay transparency.
38. 27 “Right-to-work” states are U.S. states that have laws saying employees cannot be required to join a union or pay union dues (or “agency fees”) as a condition of getting or keeping a job.
37. The Wagner Act was amended by the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947 by Republicans who, with some Democratic support, overrode a presidential veto to ban wildcat strikes, solidarity strikes, secondary boycotts, secondary & mass picketing, closed shops, & donations by unions to federal political campaigns
36. Like FLSA, the Wagner Act also excludes independent contractors, domestic workers, and farm workers. It did not contain provisions for racial discrimination, although some unions prohibited Black membership and the NAACP lobbied Senator Wagner to include such provisions
35. After taking office, Trump fired two NLRB officials, including board member Gwynne Wilcox, the first NLRB member to be fired in the 90 years of the agency' existence.
34. The National Labor Relations Board was established to enforce the Wagner Act.
33 source: www.bls.gov/news.release...
33. Union members earn about 18% more than nonunion workers, according to recent U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data, which translates to nearly $10,000 more annually for full-time workers. This wage premium is even higher for women (+23%), African American workers (+20%), & Hispanic workers (35%)
32. Anyway getting back to unions The NLRA was strongly opposed by conservatives and members of the Republican Party, but it was upheld in the Supreme Court case of NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., decided April 12, 1937.
31. Pay for women has remained lower for women than for men, even when adjusted for education, experience, etc, for decades:
30. Professional and managerial union membership is now proportionally higher for women than for men:
29. The highest union membership rate in the US was 20.1%, reported in 1983. It's now about 9.9%.
28. Following the passage of the Act, usually known as the Wagner Act, union membership nearly doubled, with union density rising from about 8.5% to 18.2% in five years
27. The National Labor Relations Act in 1935 gave workers the right to organize and bargain collectively.
26 b. They argued that he was not an employee. He and other "franchisees" sued in 2008 and the case was settled in 2022, with Jan-Pro paying $30 million to the affected franchisees, providing minimum payments of $3,000 per person and potentially more depending on claims and years of service.
26. Vazquez v. Jan-Pro Franchising International, Inc. A Californian cleaner, Jerry Vasquez, purchased a "franchise" license from Jan-Pro. He had to wear Jan Pro uniforms, his schedule was set by Jan Pro, and he had no control over clients he cleaned for. He was not making minimum wage.
25 b. The plaintiffs' attorneys tried to go after the garment purchasers, NASDAQ listed national retailers, but were unsuccessful
25. Ho v. Sim Enterprises: 13 Chinese immigrant garment workers, mostly women, from a Manhattan factory won over $1.2 million in damages for unpaid minimum wage and overtime pay owed from 2005 to 2010. One plaintiff was paid $100-$200 per month.
I got ahead of myself there. More interesting lawsuits about subcontracting and misclassification when there's more likes.
24. Uber's chief counsel, Tony West, is Kamala Harris's brother-in-law.
23. For example, Uber fought against legislation such as California Assembly Bill 5 (AB5), which aimed to reclassify gig workers as employees, by supporting Proposition 22 in 2020.
22. Employers can avoid providing FLSA protections to workers by classifying them as "subcontractors" rather than "employees."
So you'd be exempt under FLSA, although state law might supercede it, but in my experience with Colorado there are a lot of exemptions for that sort of thing and for minors even in states with a lot of protections www.dol.gov/agencies/whd...
21. If the minimum wage had tracked average worker productivity growth since 1968, it would be over $26 per hour today.
20. The highest state minimum wage is also Washington, where it's $16.66 per hour.
19. The highest municipal minimum wage in the United States in 2025 is in Burien, Washington, where the minimum wage for employees of large employers is $21.16 per hour as of January 2025.
18. Because Congress hasn't updated the minimum wage provision since 2009, states and municipalities have independently increased theirs.
17. In 1977, Congress eliminated the subminimum wage provision for agricultural workers and extended full minimum wage coverage to a greater number of agricultural employers, though some smaller farms remained exempt and agricultural workers continue to be excluded from federal overtime protections.
16. In 1966, Congress passed an amendment to the FLSA that finally extended minimum wage protections to some agricultural workers, but this was a partial coverage that still excluded many smaller farms and certain types of agricultural labor.
15. One of the largest exemptions carved out under FLSA was for agricultural workers. This was because Southern reps and Senators argued that Black and white agricultural workers shouldn't be paid the same minimum wage. As a result there was no minimum wage for ag workers
That's an interesting question, I'm not sure. That gets into minor law if you were under 18.
14. The original minimum wage under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) of 1938 was set at 25 cents per hour, equivalent to approximately $5.48 in 2025 dollars when adjusted for inflation.
13b. You couldn't argue that you had a contract to pay the guy a cent per egg, you had to keep records of hours worked and pay the minimum wage.
13. The reason it was drafted this way was to limit "subcontracting" workers, who were not considered employees and wouldn't be covered by FLSA. So basically, a guy walks into your farm to collect some chicken eggs, they're covered by FLSA.
12. The definition of "employment" in FLSA is one of the most famous circular definitions in legal history. Employee is defined as "any individual employed by an employer" and employ is defined as including "to suffer or permit to work."
11. Minor league sports professionals are also exempted. The average salary for a minor league baseball player in 2025 varies significantly by level but generally falls in the range of about $20,000 to $37,000 per year.
10. Students are also exempted from the salary provision. This is the basis on which grad students are not considered employees for the purpose of adherence to FLSA provisions.
9. All teachers, instructors, etc exempt from the salary provision. So if you adjunct for a university they don't have to pay you minimum wage or overtime or even keep a record of how many hours you work.
8. Some professions are exempted from the *salary requirement* so they meant if you're a member of this profession, your employer doesn't even have to pay you $35k a year, they can just not pay minimum wage or overtime.
7. The current minimum FLSA salary for exemption under the Fair Labor Standards Act is $35,568 per year. Planned increases for 2024 and 2025 were struck down by a federal court, so this previous threshold remains in effect nationwide for the executive, administrative, and professional exemptions
6. FLSA allows some employees to be exempted from its provisions, ie they don't get minimum wage or overtime, if they meet a minimum salary.
5. The last federal minimum wage increase in the United States was on July 24, 2009, when it rose from $6.55 to $7.25 per hour, and it has remained unchanged since.
4. When a federal law establishes something and isn't drafted to transfer a power to an agency, Congress has to change the law. That means, unfortunately, Department of Labor can't raise the minimum wage, so Congress has to.
3. Perkins witnesses the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire in 1911. The fire caused the deaths of 146 garment workers—123 women and girls and 23 men, mostly immigrants—who died from the fire, smoke inhalation, falling, or jumping to their deaths.
2. The Secretary of Labor in 1938 was Frances Perkins. She was the first woman to serve in the U.S. Cabinet and played a key role in designing the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938.
1. The federal minimum wage and overtime rules (time and a half over 40 hours/week) were established in 1938 by the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). That was under Roosevelt so yes you have a Democrat to thank that your employer can't pay you a dollar an hour.
And school should be year round
For Labor Day, one like, one US labor law fact.
I would suggest they put you in charge of things but I don't think you want any more promotions!
I wouldn't feel bad. Every place is understaffed these days if an employer wants things done on time they should hire more people!
😁
Apple TV?
Yes
Egyptian Arabic idiom of the day: من علامات القيامة min ʿalamāt el-ʾiyāma "A sign of the End Times ..."
Well in that case, to paraphrase Lennon, whatever gets you through the week! I like Wawa actually too when I'm in the area
I have a new Happy Place. I can already imagine us setting up shop in Tangier as الخنزير المستقل and getting raided immediately by the police.
Oh that's perfect.
That's true. They are probably the most geographically misunderstood animals after turkeys really.
Roman Rabbit has some potential as a band name too
Although everyone in this conversation definitely passes that test as well with flying colors
I think I've amply demonstrated my eccentricity credentials by now btw if anyone wants to hire me for that
Well calling it a pig is also wrong lol
It is actually interesting, I hadn't thought of it. India? Wikipedia gives الكابياء الخنزيرية خنزير غينيا الكُوبِي خنزير الهند الخنزير الغيني الأرنب الرُّومي القبيعة It obviously can't be both an Indian Ocean Pig and a Roman Rabbit
My pleasure doctor! Hang in there 💪
Even at fourteen bucks for a nigiri maki combo and five or six for my private pickled ginger stash it's still no contest.
I actually don't know what to call them in Arabic! Arabic Wikipedia gives too many options so we just call them ginīhāt.
That's why it's grocery store sushi lol.
With their pumpkin spice lattes smh
They had their chance to hire an obsessive guinea pig owner who writes programs to scan Arabic poetry and relates everything back to Star Wars and 18th c. British literature.
How come grocery store sushi never comes with enough pickled ginger?
Maybe I should get some scientific publications under my belt.
I don't know the context but would be funny to see Hermes Trismegistus cited in a scientific paper
Those are my grown-up fingertips for scale