Stuff YOU Should Know
Trump Tweet Attacks Baltimore
Have you ever heard of Rep. Elijah Cummings? He’s a Democratic congressman who has represented a Maryland district which includes over half of Baltimore since 1996. He serves as chair of the House Oversight and Reform Committee and also happens to be a vocal critic of Trump and his policies–most recently, the separation and incarceration of migrant children along the U.S. southern border. And as of last week, he became the latest recipient of one of the president’s racist and controversial tweets.
Trump recently came under fire for tweeting that four freshmen Democratic congresswomen–all women of color–should stop criticizing his policies and instead go back and focus on fixing the countries they came from (all but one of the women were born in the United States, and the fourth is a longtime naturalized U.S. citizen). Similarly, in Trump’s tweet about Cummings, he said that the congressman should stop criticizing Border Patrol and should instead focus on fixing Baltimore, which he called rat-infested and the worst district in the U.S.
Cummings’ district is majority black and has a median household income of $60,929. Immediately, Cummings and other elected officials from the area struck back. Bernard C. “Jack” Young, the mayor of Baltimore, tweeted that Trump is a disappointment to the United States and the world. Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen, also a Democrat, called Trump a racist and a bully. Martin O’Malley, the former governor of Maryland, accused Trump of using the language of a fascist. And the Baltimore Sun produced an editorial saying that the president was trying to appeal to his white supremacist supporters, and compared him to the same vermin that he claimed have infested the city of Baltimore.
Dig Deeper Democratic Speaker of the House (and vocal Trump critic) Nancy Pelosi comes from the city of Baltimore. In fact, her father was once the Baltimore mayor. How did she respond to the president’s tweet?
Illegal Snacking
Gone are the days when food delivery was limited to pizza and Chinese food. Thanks to food delivery services, you can have virtually anything you crave delivered quickly to your door. But a recent study by US Foods reveals something troubling: nearly 30 percentl of delivery drivers admit that they have stolen some of the food they were supposed to deliver. This doesn’t mean that they run off with entire orders; it just means that sometimes they get hungry and may just grab a bite or two, something that you wouldn’t even notice was missing.
Obviously, this is a problem, as no one wants to think about a stranger digging through their food. But what to do about it? Most customers are in favor of adding some kind of tamper-resistant label, seal, or sticker to the meals. Many delivery services already have policies in place to deal with unauthorized snacking, such as issuing refunds to the customer, opening investigations, or terminating drivers’ accounts if a customer suspects that their meal was tampered with.
Other than that, the most common complaint about food delivery services is that the food is not always delivered hot, fresh, or quickly enough. For drivers, common concerns include customers who don’t tip; restaurants not having an order ready on time; and an irregular pay scale (drivers typically make an average of $13 per hour). Despite this, the food delivery market continues to grow, with many experts saying that in the near future, most meals will be prepared in restaurants and delivered, rather than being prepared at home.
Dig Deeper If foodservice delivery drivers typically make about $13 per hour, how much is that per year (if they work full time)? How does this amount compare to the federal poverty line?
The Teeter-Totter Wall
Ever since Trump campaigned for the presidency in 2016, he’s been promoting the idea of a border wall between the United States and Mexico. Since then, this “wall” has become the subject of countless debates, thousands of editorials, and even led to the longest federal government shutdown in U.S. history. Now, two California-based professors–Ronald Rael, an architecture professor, and Virginia San Fratello, an associate professor of design–are adding to the dialogue in a new and inventive way. They’ve created a series of pink, custom-built seesaws that they have set inside the border wall itself: half on the U.S. side, half on the Mexico side. But why?
The pair first came up with the idea and conceptual drawings for the plan ten years ago, after the passage of the Secure Fence Act of 2006, as part of a larger project they were doing as a criticism of physical barriers in general. They wanted to show how people on both sides of a border are still intricately connected to one another and to emphasize how important it is to show love and kindness and empathy across physical lines.
Last weekend, they put the idea–aptly named the “Teeter-totter Wall”–into action, without asking permission or notifying the media. With the help of an architectural group and steelworkers, they installed the seesaws in the New Mexico border town of Sunland Park, nine miles northwest of El Paso. (Ironically, this is the same town that set up a GoFundMe campaign earlier this year and raised millions of dollars to privately build their own section of the border wall.) Though they only remained up for a day, the seesaws had their desired effect, as children from the U.S. side and the Mexico side of the barrier and their families were able to join together in play.
What Do You Think? Rael’s Instagram post of the event has already been viewed hundreds of thousands of times. What do you think makes the “Teeter-totter Wall” such a popular idea?
Goodbye Mini Shampoos
It’s as common in hotel and motel rooms as the Bible in the nightstand drawer: the tiny bottles of shampoo, conditioner, and lotion that you find in the bathrooms. Some of us actually use them, others pocket them for the next time we might need a travel-sized toiletry. But while adorable, these tiny toiletries are about to become a thing of the past, as some hotel chains have already begun the process of phasing them out.
Why? A couple of reasons. First, they are expensive to produce. InterContinental Hotels Group, the chain that includes Holiday Inn and other well-known hotels and resorts, produces an estimated 200 million miniature toiletries every year. And second, these many tiny plastic bottles are a major environmental concern. In a time when people are trying to move away from single-use plastic bags and plastic drinking straws, hotel chains can make a huge impact by eliminating several million tiny plastic bottles annually. So this decision is a big win both financially and environmentally.
But what if you don’t want to tote big bottles of shampoo and conditioner with you across the country? You’re still fine. In addition to eliminating miniature bottles, hotel chains are also installing bulk-sized containers of shampoo, conditioner, lotion, and sometimes even body wash in their rooms. These containers are often bolted to the shower wall (sorry!) and can be made of ceramic or refillable plastic. But if you still feel like the lack of tiny shampoos is detracting from your overnight experience, never fear: you can still pocket the little paper-wrapped soaps.