Minimum Wage - In praise of being a monkey.

"If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys!" (?) I can remember the Britain that existed before the Labour party came into power in 1997 and I can remember the Britain after. Labour introduced the minimum wage. Britain before the minimum wage was not too different, though arguably it is worse after it. The minimum wage has not really changed a thing except to make it harder for desperate people like me get money when I'm desperate. Most of the press and population, indeed the general consensus seem to go along with the minimum wage - it is argued that it was a good thing that can give a civilized wage. For me a wage is a wage and if you don't like it, you can try getting another one. Welfare provision should exist and should not be conflated with the minimum wage. It should be there to help the too young, the too old or otherwise sick and incapable people of living in reasonable comfort.

There is an argument for the minimum wage in agriculture. Before the Labour party of 1997 in the UK, a minimum wage existed for farm workers. Agriculture is often subsidized as food production can be an urgent matter, particularly taking into account wartime shortages or periods of scarcity or hyper-inflation. Given that food is so vital, farmers will always need workers and traditionally if not a minimum wage, workers were looked after to an extent on the farm, receiving a portion of the food and in a modern context, where they may have to be peripatetic, a legally enforced minimum wage. Similarly, soldiers who fight on behalf of the state would be entitled to receive some sort of minimum wage.

Leaving aside exceptions as above, a minimum wage is decided by the market. The typical cost of a weekly rent or a loaf of bread will dictate the sort of wages workers will expect to work at the lower end of a spectrum. Workers in a certain guild will know what their fellows are paid and will refuse to work for masters who pay below what their peers get as an average. In an interesting experiment, two chimps were required to work and one was paid cucumbers and the other paid grapes. When the cucumber chimp discovered what its peer was paid, it literally downed tools and refused to work until it too was paid grapes - grapes being more desirable in taste and energy than cucumbers. People will tend to react no differently. People understand what a minimum wage is and will make choices based on what is available and what they need. The terrible problem with a legallyenforced minimum wage is that it rises quite exorbitantly along with inflation, and year on year, the minimum wage goes up, and employers are required to keep pace.

Here is one result of the legally enforced minimum wage: A thriving black economy. In Britain today there is a cadre of workers, especially immigrants who are not even legal residents paid way below the legal minimum wage in industries such as gathering shellfish or in care homes for the elderly. These people are very happy to earn below the minimum wage as they typically earn a lot more than they may do in their country of origin. They get to live contentedly where they are without being detected by the authorities and they can keep their options open about saving up and going back, or working themselves up to becoming legal residents with proper wages. The authorities don't really take as much action as they could and these people make a huge contribution to the "British Economy" saving the government welfare provision and helping the middle classes to obtain their necessities in life or luxuries, without having to pay through the nose for them. Unfortunately, the under-classes, those with not much experience or education in Britain, the native people, can't get jobs so easily as they would legally require to be paid the minimum wage and many employers prefer to get the same work done cheaper using the black economy. This leads to resentment, racism and a growing wave of crime with so many people, born and bred in Britain losing out in competition against foreign workers.

The bottom line, enunciated by critics before the minimum wage came along remains the devaluation of the local currency and spiraling wage inflation. The great and the good politicians who gave us the minimum wage have been voting themselves huge pay rises ever since they came into power. Most of them don't get paid according to what they do but according to who they are. When a politician decides what a minimum wage should be, he/she will willy nilly award himself/herself a maximal wage given they place themselves so far above the minimum level. Similar wage rises apply to the top civil servants, lawyers and judges. It actually contributes to a disparity in wages between the private and public sectors, with the private sector paying closer to the minimum wage for jobs less than the white collar level. The money that I earn simply is not worth what it is meant to be with a minimum wage in place. If I earn one pound, it is immediately rated against the standard of the minimum wage rather than against its own intrinsic merit. Pretty soon, the pound becomes small currency and loses its status. As an institution the one dollar or the pound come to be regarded as worth a fraction of what it was once considered and treasured to be. Every penny just does not count any more, until you make a certain packet of them first. The minimum wage does contribute to price rises in most goods and services. As a wry observation, it is not the employer who will administer a legally enforced minimum wage, it is you the customer or the taxpayer. You will invariably be required to pay more in costs and taxes.

I've never had a proper job in my life. I have done more than ten jobs and still don't earn an average wage (I happen to be a student at the time of writing). For this reason, given the high standards of paper qualifications I've obtained, I should be begging for a minimum wage. However, the best jobs I have done were done on, or below the "minimum wage". One of them included pulling up birch saplings in a forest, where birches were not considered appropriate for the heathland they were trying to encourage. This was the sort of job where I could rest on a bed of moss and stare at the blue sky before getting back to work and counting my hours of work. Sadly, the people who employed me then could not afford to employ people in the same capacity without obtaining a substantial grant, thanks to legally enforced wage inflation. They would not stoop to employing people below an affordable level illegally, and this sort of job remains undone in the modern, minimum wage world. Similar jobs that can't really get done as efficiently include litter picking, clearing up weeds from rivers to make their courses swifter (stopping them flooding their banks when excess rain falls), clearing up drains or sewers. Hence we end up with mountains of rubbish, rivers flooding their banks, overflowing sewers and a countryside that is not effectively managed. There are of course voluntary bodies and people who would be willing to work for nothing, but this is a crux in the argument against a minimum wage.

When it comes to labour the minimum wage represents the punishing adage "my way or the highway". You have the option of working for nothing on a voluntary basis or not working at all in that particular job on a longer term as they could not afford to pay you. This particularly applies to vital but often unsung jobs and services. E.g., a charity dealing with taking care of wildlife or animals could theoretically only rely on volunteers, but most of them would be short term and they would lose some of their best people who could possibly only afford to work a short while. The only long term volunteers they may get would be retired older people who lived off their pensions and could afford to sustain a voluntary effort. Thus, even if you enjoyed such a voluntary role, if you wanted to work for this organization you would be barred from it as the only two options would be, working for nothing (which you can't afford), or working for the minimum wage (which the charity can't afford). Surely it would be better if you worked for something in between and you may be able to just, afford that. The most satisfying job in the world may be a low paid one, but the minimum wage could take away your right to work if that organization can't afford the minimum wage. Thus the minimum wage creates unemployment, underemployment and destroys so many vital niche jobs that could be starting points for many careers. It abolishes my right to work for a wage I choose should it be below the minimum wage within a legal framework. It creates a thriving black economy that demands illegal immigrants or the jobs are exported to countries where the wage is a lot smaller. Consequently the local population where the wage is enforced lose jobs and get resentful (how many factory closures have you heard of?). Charities and the voluntary sector suffers without being able to afford key members of staff who may start on a voluntary basis and the minimum wage discourages several menial jobs essential for the well being of the environment such as rubbish clearance. The rich still get richer and your money loses its value, year on year. I would rather have something rather than nothing when it comes to income - so thanks New Labour for nothing. If you pay peanuts you get monkeys? Tell that to the monkeys in the houses of parliament.

How to get a PhD

I did a PhD the hard way in the UK. What you need more than anything else is a driving desire to do some research and an idea of how that research and its completion will help bring benefits to the area of your interest and to the wider community and environment in general.  This may of course mean finding a better career path.

It's probably easier to get into a PhD immediately after an undergraduate or Masters program but you can do it later in life when you may be sure that it is what you want to do. After realizing you want to do this, and mustering the interest, you need money, an institute of learning and a supervisor.

Money represents stability, and you can't do the PhD with ease if you are not stable. You need to eat, sleep, relax and be able to afford a rent/mortgage. You may have to rely on your friends, parents, college or institution, spouse or employer to support you one way or another.

Good PhDs always need a great deal more support than your supervisor, even if you have the money.  More important than your supervisor, is the institute of learning you choose.  The institute will represent your connections and these may be strongly associated with your supervisor.  You may simply register with the institute to pursue your work elsewhere as I did – but wherever you work will mould, not just your PhD, but your career.  A pleasant and supportive institute is best.  After your PhD, this institute may represent a badge of honour.

A supervisor is not as crucial though it can be the difference between joy and grief in the process of your research.  You'd be lucky to find a supportive supervisor, many just take the credit and do the minimum. You will ideally need many other academics to help you, to deal with various technical aspects you can't do yourself. You may need extra training as in statistics, molecular biology, experimental methods.  On a PhD you should always be willing to be open to learn and apply new skills.  Finally, you need to work very hard in quiet surroundings: privacy and room to do your work is vital. A library with the references you are after is ideal or if you are lucky, an office. These days the internet is essential. Communicating with helpful friends, colleagues and institutional affiliation in the widest sense of the word are vital.

If you don't have enough money, you could do your work on a Part time basis and work the rest of the time. Say three days of work and two days for research. University jobs are ideal as they create time in the long holidays for you to pursue work. They also offer internet access and other perks including quiet places with heating (or may be AC), a stimulating environment and theoretically, access 24/7, yes a PhD often demands burning the midnight oil, though you can sleep for part of the day.

The process of doing a PhD is typically divided into three phases: finding a project and reviewing the literature; doing the research including experiments or fact finding and writing up.  If you choose an area that is obscure like a genus of fish that no one has heard of, or the life of some obscure writer, it will be easier in the sense that you will have little background material and will generate the research yourself.  In other words, if you are in virgin territory, you don’t have to worry too much about keeping up with the latest findings or dong a huge amount of raking over past literature.  You have more chances of being original and creative.  The downside is that attracting funding may be a lot harder.  If you go into an area that everyone’s already busy with like finding a cure for aids or cancer, you will be able to get funding (subject to more competition), but will have far more literature to keep up with.  It will be harder to define what the most original aspect of your work is.

Typically, finding the topic you want to work on is the easy bit.  It is when you get your teeth into it, that it becomes hard.  Actually phase 1 and 2 are done together.  Lots of people say that you should begin your write up while doing research.  This is true but only up to a point.  You don’t start by writing your theses, but by writing preliminary reports and abstracts of your work.  These will yield the templates to do your final write up.  Don’t confuse the templates for the final write up.

Writing up can be the hardest or the most pleasant stage of your work depending on your perspective.  Anything from 3-6 drafts and redrafts may be needed.  Here I’d like to digress by speaking about your most important tool, the laptop.

I went through three laptops during my work over eight years.  The PC based laptops needed changing quite frequently under the circumstances.  Then I got an Apple Macbook Pro and realized just how versatile it was.  I could have Windows and Mac on the same machine running simultaneously.  The Apple environment presents greater stability and ease with features like “spotlight” to find things with rapidity and screen capture, so you can generate images in a trice based on images you generate yourself or from the internet.  There is a lot of free software available to make your life easier like “Seashore” a graphics package.  There is no problem with Windows exclusive software as you can blend both worlds together.  By the way, don’t forget to make backups of your project.  Driving my writing using one of the best machines on the planet made everything a lot easier and more pleasant (and no, I’m not being paid for that plug – at least not yet).

Here’s another tool you may find useful.  A USB powered flatbed scanner like a CanoScan Lide machine.  You can take it to a library and scan documents as a PDF directly into your laptop.  The flatbed machine can be transported easily along with your laptop to a library.

Once again I come back to people.  You will need emergency funds and lots of help and assistance.  Ask, ask and ask again.  Be humble, go on your knees and be generous in your acknowledgments.  Send people little cards, to say just how much you appreciate their help.

Feel free to be bold and creative in the layout of your theses with lots of sections (no need to number sections and subsections slavishly, I divided my theses into 5 “Parts” and further into “chapters”) and illustrations as may be needed.  I was really helped along in the end by working in a library with friendly staff who go me all the references I was after.  Most of my theses got together AFTER most of the work was done, given I had to revise and revise the original beyond the scope of what I thought.  Being ambitious will cost you time – don’t overdo as you’d be lucky of more than 10 people are actually interested in reading your theses.  What comes after is more important.

Here’s the usual good advice.  When writing up, you write the introduction and abstract at the end to tally with your conclusions and discussion.  Start with writing about the methods used and results before moving to discussions and conclusions.  Finally, you can work back into your intro piece and blast your trumpet about just how unique your discoveries are.

In the end, you may be THE expert in your chosen field - don't be cowed, be confident. Be ready to share your research with the wider world by publishing.

A PhD may be the hardest thing you ever do. It may involve amazing journeys to exotic places. Be prepared to eat frugally and live on a budget. There is no guarantee it will do your career any good although you may be able to make a greater social contribution than without your degree.

PhD programs differ from country to country.  Books like “Saving planet Earth as a career” that I’ve reviewed here can help.  Read one about “how to do a PhD” or similar, when you begin your PhD.  Never underestimate the workload – take it in your stride.  At least it sounds impressive to tell the people you know “I’m doing a PhD” – and enjoy the rare privileges of being a student (even if most of the time, you don’t even know if you will ever get it).  It may actually be more frustrating after a PhD but by then, you will hopefully be someone else.

Skinned alive in Chinese fur farms

I received one of those emails from a friend – an action email about some kind of suffering or other and to send copies of it to friends and sign a petition etc.  The sort of email one will either act on or delete without much thought.  The enclosed video was harrowing and horrifying showing a Raccoon dog (it looks a bit like a Raccoon but is a dog) being skinned alive in a fur farm in China.  At the end, even after all its feet had been cut off, the animal was still alive and had sobered up after its vain struggles.  Like something out of a horror film like “The Fly” it raised its head, blinked with its remaining eyelashes and then lay its head down to continue dying for anything from 10-20 minutes.  Yes sir, in Chinese fur farms they are skinning cats and dogs alive.  Apparently its easier.  Why bother doing anything else?  It’s only part of a globalized industrial process with China as a major provider of fur lined clothes that are cheap and fashionable.  Since then, a petition is going around and the Chinese embassies have sent out a press release about these “isolated incidents” and why they are concerned about it as much as anyone else.  There is no evidence anything is being done about it.  People who know the Chinese and some other far eastern countries including Japan and Korea are aware that sometimes they seem to have a “cruelty gene” – and that expression was supplied by a European lady I know once married to a Chinese gentleman.  Actually, I think we all have something of the cruelty gene, but according to our culture, will not express this much if at all.

Once upon a time I used to skin dead birds and mammals (mostly things that were found dead) to prepare study skins.  Skinning animals is quite important when butchering a large mammal.  The worst bit is when the skin comes off the head and you see these dark eyes exposed against the fleshy head.  In Siberia, where people breed and herd reindeer and live off them, animals are slaughtered very fast - a slit to the throat.  They are not even aware of their fate just before, and die a quick death.  All the meat is eaten and the skin is turned into materials and clothing, especially thick warm boots.  In the past more than now, the bones were also used.  This is the appropriate use of an animal, an appropriate way of dispatch and use of the skin.  The native American cultures of the USA had a similar relationship with buffalo.  The Chinese fur farms offer no comparison.

Here the carcasses of still living animals are piled high on top of dead ones to rot away and may be even feed the caged ones awaiting a similar fate.  The caged animals can see their compatriots being taken out, stamped on and skinned alive and sometimes there is a crowd of people who are laughing (according to the report of this Raccoon dog I read).  Young puppies, cats and dogs in a living hell.  Sometimes without the skin they even manage to stand.

Our skin is the largest organ of our body.  Without it we would die fast enough from dehydration and rapid infection based on conditions.  Normally the loss of skin would be associated with death such as in a fire.  Few animals in nature would have to face being skinned alive.  Once deprived of a skin death is practically guaranteed and it is a painfully slow one in the fur farms.  Even though it is easy to see an animal as a body with a skin and see the skin as so much like a garment, it is important to understand that the skin is (as much as a the skeleton) an integral part of the animal; not a superficial addition.  Our clothes are superficial but an animal has no clothing.  When an animal is skinned, if it is alive, it changes from a whole being into something less, yet conscious.

That skinned, live, animal was probably the most humiliated and deprived creature I had ever seen.  Deprived of any kindness or sensitivity, being abased and made a laughing stock and losing the only thing capable of affording it protection against the elements.  Yet it bore its last suffering in a sober fashion.  What more could it do than to stare at that camera, blink and lie its head down?  These acts of mass vandalism are going on right now.

To correctly use an animal perfectly, even if exploiting it fully is to rear it from birth, feed it, take care of it in reasonable circumstances and then kill it without it even knowing, quickly and then to make full use of it.  In the USA an autistic woman who understood cattle, recommended a clever method of leading them to the slaughter so that they still had their friends and died fast.  In Japan, they produce luxury beef from cattle who are reared like pets in the finest surroundings with fresh grass.  Sweden has some of the highest animal welfare standards in the world in the context of agriculture.  Each situation has to have its standards:  In the UK wanton cruelty to animals is illegal, no skinning of animals alive would be allowed.  However, in Nicaragua (as reported in a recent BBC Wildlife magazine) where there are no similar laws, as an example of modern art, the artist starved a dog alive and people were coming and watching the dying exhibit while it was held.

When we go to a supermarket most of the meat has sort of been reared responsibly but as for the fish, well that has probably been caught without much care about animal welfare and with many hundreds of non target species dying in the process.  The problem is there is very little legal regulation about fishing conduct or practice, especially in international waters with absolutely no policing except for the likes of Greenpeace.  We don’t really think twice about buying four cans of cheap tuna (tuna being higher up in the food chain than mere sardines or plankton) for the price of two.  These are wild animals.  They have typically not been harvested with sensitivity and nature picks up the tab.  We as uneducated consumers continue to think we deserve our healthy cheap food that we pay for that was in effect, stolen from the natural world (historically we only stole a little, now the big ships have bigger appetites).  Only ethically sourced and produced fish is OK to eat in these days of industrial fishing I say.

Back to fur farms.  It is really very difficult to do anything except to avoid buying clothes from China lined with cheap fur and sign a petition.  You could let other people know but then, I am not really too keen for you to see the video I saw.  The problem is, when you watch horror movies some of that horror can rub off on you unless you can really come to terms with it with peace, understanding and compassion/love.  I feel ashamed to be a human, but I can act in this world most strongly only from being in the human state.  Let us try to avoid wanton cruelty and not pretend like some people that life exists to be exploited by our species any way we wish with no thought for consequences.  If you think like that, you are not being fully human.

I cannot apologise to that dog on behalf of the human race – god only knows what its final thoughts were as it looked into that camera, but I hope that whatever it was trying to communicate has been appreciated by someone to some extent so as to help prevent such cruelty in the future.

The Best Binoculars for Birdwatching

Binoculars are essential for bird-watching. The choice of binoculars depends on your budget, your choice of terrain and the level of your professional involvement in nature watching.

If you are a beginner or buying for a child you should go for a reasonably priced or even cheap pair with sufficient light gathering qualities. Binoculars come with two numbers such as 8x40. The first is the magnification. For bird-watching 7-10 inclusive is fine. The second is the diameter of the objective lens (mm), that is the lens furthest from the eye through which the light enters. If you divide the diameter by the magnification - you should get a value of 5 or better for good light gathering including at dawn or dusk or if you operate in a forest environment. So 8x40 or 10x50 will both yield a value of 5. If the value is greater than 5 (7x50) you will have even more light gathering power for working on subjects in shadowy conditions at closer range. Thus If you operate in open spaces with large distances, a larger magnification such as 10 will be preferable to a smaller, but the larger the magnification, the heavier the binoculars may be and this can lead to hand shake. For practical birdwatching binoculars of magnification 7-10 inclusive is more than adequate with an objective diameter that yields a value of 5 if divided by the eyepiece. The smaller the magnification, the closer you can focus and this can make certain binoculars attractive for closer up work like butterfly watching as well as birds. You should ideally have close focusing of 10 feet or less.

When the light enters the binoculars, it has to go through several lenses and at each lens some of the light will be reflected leading to a dimmer light reaching your eye. It is better to have fully coated lenses which minimize the reflected light and the highest standard of prism is made from a type of glass called BAK4 - and it is useful to look to this level at least of glass quality. Most binoculars have lens coatings and this is what gives them their colors (red, blue or green). These coatings are very similar to those used on anti reflective spectacles. You can check the quality of the light getting through by holding the binoculars at arms length and looking through the eyepiece lenses (the ones that join the eye). You should see a point of light where the light is entering through the objective lenses (make sure the caps are off and the unit is facing a source of light). The larger andmore circular this is, the better the coating. If the spot of light is square, there is a loss of light and clarity. The diameter of the spot of light is called the exit pupil measurement and this is what you calculate (in mm) by dividing the objective diameter (in mm as above) by the magnification.

Traditional binoculars are called poro-prism binoculars. The eyepiece and objective lenses are staggered. Roof prism binoculars are more sophisticated but not necessarily better. In these it looks like the light goes straight through though actually the light is refracted even more (bent, reflected and twisted). Poro-prism binoculars gather light more readily and offer better depth perception in judging distances. If you get a reasonably priced, light pair of binoculars (around or less than 2 pounds (1kg)) - at about 8x magnification this should be fine to start with. Companies like Bushnel and Audbon or organizations like the RSPB all sell good pairs like this.

Roof prism binoculars can be more compact and fully sealed unlike poro-prism ones. This can make them more waterproof and fog proof and there will be no condensation issues if they are sealed with an inert gas like nitrogen inside. These are more expensive to buy as they have more lenses inside which need to be fixed in place and minimize light and color distortion.

The eyepiece lenses can have rubber eye-caps to help spectacle wearers and binoculars often give "eye relief" figures, which is the distance that the eyepiece lenses can comfortably be held away from the eyes with a clear image. If you wear spectacles try and get eye relief of at least 15mm.

OK, now I'm going to make your life easy and recommend three websites (two in the same place) which effectively answer the above question better than I can. You can find more information than I can provide and one of the pages provides a detailed list of brands and prices - it is a lot better for you to check them yourself before you buy. I wish you well in your purchase as bird-watching is definitely an environmentally friendly activity - good for you and in the long run the birds that you see. Some manufacturers actually engage in helping to research and conserve birds, and if you get your binoculars from them, part of your money will also assist avian conservation.

http://www.birdwatching.com/optics/binoculars1.html

http://www.birds.cornell.edu/Publications/LivingBird/Winter2005/Age_Binos.html

http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/gear/binoculars/