2021
February
26
Friday

Monitor Daily Podcast

February 26, 2021
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Linda Feldmann
Washington Bureau Chief

What’s a fair wage? Back in the 1970s, a teenage girl in suburban Boston could make 75 cents an hour babysitting – or $1 an hour if the “employer” was more generous. Her brothers would make several times that for snow-blowing people’s driveways.

That, of course, was the informal labor market, and not about a living wage. (The gender disparity was – and is – another issue altogether!) Today, America is deep into a debate about its federally mandated minimum wage – currently $7.25 an hour, where it has sat since 2009. 

The Democrats want a phased increase to $15 an hour by 2025, but they are unlikely to get it as part of their $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill. Thursday night the Senate parliamentarian ruled that the $15 provision cannot be included in that chamber’s version and still allow passage by a simple majority. 

And so the debate will go on. Costco made headlines this week by announcing a raise in starting pay to $16, not out of “altruism,” the CEO said, but because it “makes sense for our business.” 

Some employers say they’d have to cut payrolls to accommodate the higher wage. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates the $15 plan would cost 1.4 million jobs by 2025 even as it lifts 900,000 people out of poverty. 

Democrats and Republicans alike are putting forth their own ideas, each highlighting the values that they say wage decisions need to embrace. It’s a discussion well worth having. 


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Today’s stories

And why we wrote them

Tingshu Wang/Reuters
People wearing face masks due to the coronavirus are seen near the lit-up Olympic rings at the top of the Olympic Tower a year ahead of the opening of the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing on Feb. 4, 2021.

The debate over boycotting the 2022 Olympics throws into relief a far bigger question: Is Beijing’s growing influence allowing it to reshape global human rights priorities?

The Explainer

The latest U.S. coronavirus relief bill is massive and moving through Congress on party-line votes. So it’s worth taking a close look to learn what’s in the bill. Stimulus payments and public health are just the start. 

A deeper look

Robert Gilhooly/Special to The Christian Science Monitor
Ten years after the 2011 tsunami, the commercial center of Minamisanriku, Japan, has largely been rebuilt.

Many fishing villages along Japan’s northern coast have an intimate and fraught relationship with the sea. Minamisanriku has become a symbol of resolve as it resurrects itself after the 2011 tsunami.

Television

Courtesy of Carnival Film & Television Limited 2011 for MASTERPIECE
Dan Stevens and Michelle Dockery star in a scene from Season 2 of “Downton Abbey” on “Masterpiece.” “Downton Abbey” will be available for streaming on PBS Passport beginning February 27.

What does the longevity of “Masterpiece” say about American tastes? As the PBS program known for its British dramas celebrates the half-century mark, we ask an aficionado about its appeal and influence. 

Essay

Karen Norris/Staff

Even a frivolous pursuit can be worthy of praise. Our essayist turned amateur topiarist fusses over her 12-foot-long boxwood salamander because of the delight it brings – to herself and others.


The Monitor's View

It has been a decade since democratic aspirations swept up young people across the Middle East. The Arab Spring did not last long. Most regimes pushed back hard. Military rule returned to Egypt. Libya descended into chaos. In Syria, at the heart of the region, an ongoing and devastating civil war has left more than 60,000 dead, many by torture or in dire conditions in Syrian jails.

Yet this week, a trial verdict in Germany revived hopes that the ideals embraced by millions in 2011 endure. A court in Koblenz convicted a former Syrian security officer on charges of torture and sentenced him to 4 1/2 years in prison. The man had sought asylum in Germany and was recognized by other Syrians in Berlin. Then Germany, claiming universal jurisdiction over crimes against humanity, put him in the dock.

The verdict marks the first time that any official in the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad has been held legally accountable for crimes such as torture. The man, a relatively low-level figure identified as Eyad al-Gharib, was one of two Syrians put on trial in connection with the civil war. Human rights activists know of perhaps a dozen others hiding in Europe under the guise of refugees. The conviction sets the stage for similar trials of former Syrian officials in Germany, Norway, and Austria.

Bolstered by Russia and Iran, Mr. Assad may be on the verge of finally crushing any of his opponents – terrorists, separatists, or democrats – who rose up against him over the past decade. He stands accused of using chemical weapons against his own people. There may be no foreseeable way to hold him accountable within Syria. But the trials in Europe are more than just an exercise in international humanitarian concern. They rest on the persistent efforts of Syrians themselves to uphold ideas of justice and democracy. The evidence brought against Mr. Gharib comes from the meticulous work of collecting evidence by former security officers, journalists, human rights lawyers, the families of victims, and survivors of abuse.

The Arab Spring was not meaningless to them.

The effects of this verdict on Syrians are difficult to see for now. A famed Syrian documentary filmmaker, Feras Fayyad, told Agence France-Presse, “I hope the victims can sleep better tonight.”

Many hope that justice will ultimately be a path to national reconciliation. One of the plaintiffs, Hussein Ghrer, noted this effect on himself: “[This is] the first time in my life that I experienced a fair trial.”

In European courtrooms, Syrians are once again showing that they will not be deterred. The conviction of a prison guard marks a healing moment. For families of the regime’s victims, it may salve their wounds. For the millions displaced and dispersed, it marks a deeper understanding about the purpose of justice in eventually shaping a new Syria that lives up to the ideals of the Arab Spring.


A Christian Science Perspective

About this feature

Sometimes it can seem as if we have too much or too little of something. But the realization that God imparts to us everything we need, in the perfect way, empowers us to experience healing and harmony – as a woman experienced after a growth developed on her face.


A message of love

Tristen Taylor
Each year, people around the world drink about 6 billion cups of rooibos tea. And all of it comes from just one small place in South Africa. Wupperthal is isolated. Its closest neighbor is 43 miles away through the Cederberg mountain range. The town’s only shop burned down in 2018 during a wildfire, which left behind the shells of 53 homes. But Wupperthal has endured, and it’s one of two places where wild rooibos is harvested. Going up into the mountains to gather wild rooibos is nothing new for the people of Wupperthal. Most are direct descendants of the indigenous Khoi pastoralists who harvested rooibos for hundreds of years. They taught European settlers about the many uses of the plant – settlers who, in the early 20th century, claimed rooibos tea and then made a global industry to sell it. Christoline Swartz runs Red Cedar Cosmetics, which sells rooibos shampoos, gels, and soaps. The 2018 fire consumed Red Cedar’s factory, but she continues to work from home. She learned about rooibos harvesting from her father, who learned it from his. To her, she said in Afrikaans, “Rooibos is ek.” Rooibos is me. In the view of producers like her, the European rooibos industry took more than traditional knowledge. It took culture. Identity. In 2019, the industry signed an agreement with Khoi and San representatives that recognizes the traditional knowledge of rooibos and pays recompense. It’s a sweet victory for the Khoi and San – and for Wupperthal, the beautiful soul of rooibos. – Tristen Taylor / Correspondent
( The illustrations in today’s Monitor Daily are by Jacob Turcotte. )

A look ahead

Thank you for joining us. Please come back Monday, when we’ll look at why state Republican committees are all in for ex-President Donald Trump – even in states that are trending blue.

More issues

2021
February
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Friday
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