The Very Last Riddle in the How Well Do You Know Me Series

I just remembered that I never announced the winner of the “How well do you know Clarissa?” series. I never wanted to become one of those sad cases of “Mommy Brain” people but it seems that I didn’t manage to escape the curse completely. So let’s do the very very last riddle in the series and then discover who our winners are, OK?

As I was scrolling down my blogroll, I discovered an article titled “Support Striking Fast Food Workers.” As a former union organizer, I will always stop and read anything related to strikes, so I started reading this piece. However, there was something in the very first paragraph of the article that made me realize I would not be able to continue reading it. Here is the paragraph in question:

Today, fast food workers across the United States are striking for higher pay. Paltry minimum wages mean that workers are paid as little as $7.25 an hour — not nearly enough to live off of, let alone raise a family. More than 13 percent of fast food workers rely on food stamps to make ends meet, and a disproportionate number of fast food employees are women of color.

Now, who knows me well enough to guess what is it that I saw in the article that made me stop reading it?

I can’t wait to try this out on my family members.

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37 responses to “The Very Last Riddle in the How Well Do You Know Me Series”

Evelina Anville

August 30, 2013

Hmmm. I’m assuming because of the phrase “raise a family”? But I’m not entirely sure, since given the context of the paragraph, “raising a family” could also indicate single women trying to support their children–so it doesn’t seem to be recalling the fantasy of one spouse at work and one spouse at home. So I’m not entirely sure. But my best guess is you found the phrase “raise a family” problematic……

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August 30, 2013

I think “let alone raise a family” is true also if both parents are working in the sector, so don’t view this phrase as problematic. Don’t believe that relying on food stamps people are families with housewives. Single mothers, yes.

I guess you didn’t like singling out women of color.

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musteryou

August 30, 2013

off of

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Z

August 30, 2013

off of is what you and I would find most offensive, but is it what Clarissa most objects to?

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1. musteryou
  
  August 30, 2013
  
  I’m more autistic than Clarissa, so I only remember things about grammar.
  
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Nobby

August 30, 2013

Hmmmmm…what did you see that made you stop reading?

Well, based on a reading of your blog, I’d say with 100% certainty that you spotted an opportunity to be petty.

I know you pretty well, huh?

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bloggerclarissa

August 30, 2013

So you are a fan of a petty blogger? That’s a cute identity to have when you can manage nothing more exciting. Have you tried knitting?

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1. josie
  
  August 30, 2013
  
  It seems to me the time has come clarissa that you are held acountable for YOUR ABUSIVE BULLING of your blog’s readers. YOU CAN BE BOTH VERY PETTY AND ABUSIVE YOURSELF! It seems that you don’t have any sympathy for anyone who isn’t born with a academic spoon in their mouth! These restaurant workers that are getting minimum wage are taking the brunt of the students that you acedemics couldn’t reasonably guatantee a job after graduation! THEY ARE NOT JUST HIGH SCHOOL WORKERS LIVING AT HOME WITH THEIR FAMILY! You might find out about this more closely when your kid gets this old, though I certainly hope not! MINIMUM WAGE SHOULD BE A LIVING WAGE! That is, a wage that you can afford to build a life, raise a family, or even afford health, car & property insurance, healthy food, & modest entertainment to keep one’s brain & mind healthy enough to survive without drugs, gambling & other outlets that just ease the pain, but don’t solve the problem! People don’t come into this life wanting to be a loser. These things happen when either life doesn’t provide the requisite necessities, or family, politics & economy make that impossible. When life sends you the choice of shit sandwich or straight shit en masse, anesthesia becomes all someone can live for! I have heard you say many good things about women’s rights, & a few things about other rights. But many of the things you say seems to be from the viewpoint of a person who made it out of oppression (in your case the USSR’s oppressive regime), and now thinks that nobody outside of where they were oppressed can have any equally severe problems! You need to start walking in the shoes of these people first before you can blog critically! In this spirit I tried to be more subtle about these things last time you heard from me! I WON’T BE SUBTLE ABOUT MINIMUM WAGES THAT ARE LESS THAN HALF OF A LIVING WAGE!
  
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  1. bloggerclarissa
    
    August 30, 2013
    
    Breathe deep, buddy, and try to concentrate. I support raising the minimum wage in the US to $15 per hour. Now troll some more blogs to figure out where this weird rant was supposed to be addressed.
    
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2. Stille (@aperfectbalance)
  
  August 30, 2013
  
  Fascinating to see what psychological dramas people cast you in, Clarissa.
  
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  1. bloggerclarissa
    
    August 30, 2013
    
    This turned out to be the best riddle of all because we can see how many people are incapable of maintaining a dialogue with anybody or anything other than weird voices in their heads.
    
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3. Nobby
  
  August 30, 2013
  
  I was right, wasn’t I?
  
  By the way, which petty blogger do you think I’m a fan of? I’m not really a fan of any of the bloggers I read. I tend to only read blogs of people who I find breathtakingly obtuse and ridiculous. It’s incredibly funny if you don’t make the mistake of getting involved in back-and0-forth with one of these teidous…Oh Yeah.
  
  Have a wonderful life.
  
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  1. bloggerclarissa
    
    August 30, 2013
    
    You are a very boring fan. Have you tried getting a life instead of worshiping me?
    
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4. Nobby
  
  August 30, 2013
  
  I have a life. My life is devoted to worshipping you. I don’t care how many people call me turd-worshipper.
  
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  1. bloggerclarissa
    
    August 30, 2013
    
    It’s OK, you don’t have to try so hard. Everybody here has compassion for you.
    
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5. David Gendron
  
  August 30, 2013
  
  Dear Josie-Nobby the fucking jerk,
  
  Although I’m against living wage regulation but I’m a iron fist supporter of union workers, I hope you’ll stop to vomit your fantasies.
  
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  1. bloggerclarissa
    
    August 30, 2013
    
    In the post I even said that I used to be a union organizer. Plus I keep blogging about how much I love unions and think everybody should unionize. Still, people insist on fantasizing that I’m anti-union. This is simply bizarre.
    
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6. David Gendron
  
  August 30, 2013
  
  Yeah, I know that you’re a union supporter.
  
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  1. bloggerclarissa
    
    August 30, 2013
    
    Thank you! 🙂
    
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Shakti

August 30, 2013

My guesses:

-All of the prepositions.
-The identity moniker at the end. (“Women of color”)
-off of
-Passive voice!
-framing pay in terms of “raising a family” (without stating that many are single parent homes; a household in which not all adults are working makes you see red)
-The fact the link is basically a monster block quote linking to two other articles

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Michael Blekhman

August 30, 2013

As to me, I would stop reading it as soon as I saw that it was about fast food and a strike – I find both disgusting.

Instead of striking, I would recommend the fast foot sellers to live on fast food to make both ends meet. I do hope they can afford tons of that “food”.

Regards,
Michael Blekhman

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el

August 30, 2013

// Instead of striking, I would recommend the fast foot sellers to live on fast food to make both ends meet. I do hope they can afford tons of that “food”.

I was shocked to read it, if you’re serious, since:

1 – actually, fast food is more costly than buying potatoes, rice, probably a few most cheap sausages or the cheapest cuts of meat (chicken neck, wings, etc)

2 – fast food is horribly unhealthy and living on it leads to obesity, blood pressure and numerous other health problems from childhood. Which later, without good health insurance and without funds for lifestyle change, remain not adequately treated and lead to suffering, earlier deaths and money paid by state, when people with long untreated problems arrive to ER.

“Save” now – pay later.

3 – surely, the people actually in the situation know more about it than me or you, and already eat unhealthy food. Only even it doesn’t help.

4 – it’s a disgrace that full time working people rely on food stamps to survive. We’re talking about the most basic stuff here, not “good life” of luxuries. What can they do except striking, starving or using government’s money via food stamps to survive till they go on pension, instead of trying to earn enough to be independent by demanding higher wages?

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1. Stringer Bell
  
  August 30, 2013
  
  Didn’t know this today would come, but I finally agree with el over something!
  
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el

August 30, 2013

And, if you find striking disgusting, why should corporations hold all the power without workers being able to strike? Why are corporations better than workers?

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1. el
  
  August 30, 2013
  
  // And, if you find striking disgusting, why should corporations hold all the power without workers being able to strike? Why are corporations better than workers?
  
  I meant that in today’s market society corporations and their workers have opposite goals (max profits + min pay VS living normally), and each side has “weapons,” even if corporations have much more power. Why are only workers’ weapons (strike) disgusting?
  
  Society’s interests =\= corporations’ interests either, with corporations Loving 3rd world countries with cheap workforce. But you won’t want to live in such a country. Hopefully.
  
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josie

August 30, 2013

It seems that you are the MOST HEARTLESS PERSON I have met here! Strikes are the only way workers can level the POWER field with their employer! I agree that fast food is bad. Fast food of any type is purely disease promoting, not nutritious. But people NEED employment! Most fast food establishments don’t even provide a full 40 hrs at sub living hourly wages. THEY GET DOUBLE SCREWED! Most won’t ALLOW more than 20 HRS. PER WK! And EVEN WITH 40 HRS THEY COULDN’T MAKE ENDS MEET! There is much more to making ends meet than just food! Rent, transportation, medical etc. AND FAST FOOD WORKERS CAN’T MAKE IT even if they ate every meal at work! AND the food they sell is extremely overpriced so that only executives do well, and the managers might make a living wage.
So I say STRIKE EVEN MORE & DON’T QUIT until every one is guaranteed a living hourly wage AND ENOUGH HOURS TO MAKE A LIVING!

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1. bloggerclarissa
  
  August 30, 2013
  
  Hysterics can discredit even the most noble idea.
  
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Lear

August 30, 2013

“and a disproportionate number of fast food employees are women of color.” What does this have anything to do with the strike? it’s about salaries right?

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Z

August 30, 2013

It’s a composition problem. This is written in such a way as it could seem to imply it is worse for women of color to be poorly paid than for other people. The connection between the two ideas — $7.25 is not a living wage, and women of color are overrepresented in this industry — is not well articulated. I, too, bet this is the aspect of the piece that irritated Clarissa.

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NancyP

August 30, 2013

You are a master of cooking cheaply, and think that food stamps are unnecessary? Food stamps free up money to pay for rent and heat, though.
I used to be a pro at “101 ways to cook turkey leg”, when turkey legs were really cheap after Thanksgiving.

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n8chz

August 30, 2013

“$7.25 an hour — not nearly enough to live off of”

I can just imagine Clarissa bragging about having lived on a lot less, and of course “live off of” is very crude English usage.

Please understand that the hourly rates are less than half the story. The real nickel and diming is in the number of hours. Of course Clarissa has also been dismissive of framing the ongoing precaritization of work as an actual issue (or labeled it a crime against feminism), so perhaps appealing to that angle won’t help.

If nothing else, I would urge even moderately progressive people not to join libertarians and other conservatives in making spreadsheets demonstrating how small an income is survivable. Progressives hand ammunition to their enemies by making note of consumption of luxuries by supposedly poor people. Perhaps we should all re-read chapter 6 of The Road to Wigan Pier to better prepare ourselves to deal with that type of issue-framing.

Do send a letter to the editor (preferably not for publication) pointing out that their argument is weak. But don’t poke and probe the weaknesses of your allies in public view. That’s at best like berating your subordinates in front of their peers.

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bloggerclarissa

August 30, 2013

Is it the heat wave that’s causing all this or what?? I don’t even understand this comment.

I was never an illegal immigrant and never worked for less than minimum wage. I worked for minimum wage as a student. N is the one who was an illegal immigrant and who survived on less than a minimum wage in harsh menial jobs.

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paranoid

August 30, 2013

“Off of”might annoy you but not enough to stop reading. “Women of color” is my guess for the reason given by Lear.

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David Gendron

August 30, 2013

Women of color, sigh…

And what’s a “disproportionate number” in a real number?

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1. paranoid
  
  August 31, 2013
  
  Who even calls herself a woman of color? I’ve heard people call themselves Black, Mexican or even Latina, but not of color.
  
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David Gendron

August 30, 2013

I don’t think you should have stopped to read it.

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David Gendron

August 30, 2013

Women of color could be problematic, because this problem affects also many white men. Why an isolated worker should raise a family by himself? Child support doesn’t exist for poor single parents?

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