Monday, February 25, 2008

The winter that just won’t go away


I’m the first to admit it: I suffer from SAD—seasonal affective disorder. No matter how I try to psych myself up for it, winter just pisses me off. The years I lived in California didn’t help much: I got used to things such as the crocuses blooming right after New Year’s Day. Now that I’m back in the Midwest, I find myself thinking, “there are places where they don’t put up with this shit.”

Winter has dragged on here in Southernmost Illinois this year. The weather reports say tomorrow is going to be 50 degrees, and the next morning you wake up to gray skies, more snow, maybe another ice storm, a drizzly rain, and the ground stays white. White with tired old snow, crusty, marred by yellow spots where the dogs have pissed, fallen branches—a truly dismal sight.

But I do take comfort in this. Maybe global warming isn’t as bad as we thought. There are those who say this means it’ll be OK.

I hope so.

~

Monday, February 18, 2008

Forgetting to be green

We’ve stopped buying water in plastic bottles, even though our tap water is not exactly of the highest quality. Still, when we filter it in the Brita pitcher, some of the Mississippi mud taste goes away. (It was Mark Twain who described the water in this region quite well: “It’s too thick to drink, and too thin to plow.”)

We thought we were being green by saving up the endless stream of plastic bags from the grocery store in a nifty IKEA plastic bag holder, and bringing them back to the store from time to time, placing them into the Trex collection box, where they’ll be made into vinyl decking planks. But the whole notion of their manufacturing source—petroleum—made me want to stop using them entirely.

So, we acquired a number of canvas bags for shopping. Now it’s just a matter of getting into the habit of remembering to bring them to the store. That’s a several step process: placing them by the front door after emptying the groceries, taking them out to the car so they’ll be there when I arrive at the store, and remembering to bring them in with me when I go shopping.

I’m starting to get into these habits after many years of walking into stores bagless, but it’s not easy to do. More than once I get into the store, pull out the shopping cart, and realize I don’t have my canvas bags with me. So I go back to the car and get them—that is if I’ve remembered to put them in the car in the first place.

If this seems like a stupid post, I’m writing it kind of like when one ties a string around their finger to remember something. It may activate a few brain cells and help me make this a habit.

~

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

What you don’t want, throw out


I’m such a sappy-hearted Midwesterner that most weekends I listen to A Prairie Home Companion twice: once on Saturday night, and again late Sunday morning. Garrison Keillor’s voice has a calming effect on my nerves, though I hate his singing.

His writing is also wonderful because it conjures up rich images that link me to my own past. When he writes about his uncles, taciturn and with very little to say at the family reunions, he could be writing about my now-long-gone uncles too. In his latest column, “The Old Scout,” he riffs on cleaning house, and he ties it to our upcoming election. The last paragraph resonates:

I think of when I was in college and owned about three cardboard boxes of stuff and a corduroy sportcoat and six pairs of jeans and a Webster's Third Unabridged and an Underwood typewriter. I can't be that guy again, but sometimes when life is too much, you want to walk out the front door and leave it all behind and start over. That's how I feel about this election. The White House is a vacuum. The man is a mistake on two legs, a national wrong turn. Stop the car and turn around.


~

Thursday, February 7, 2008

on the fence


I hoped it wouldn’t come to this: a moment for Democrats to seize, paralyzed by a 50/50 split in sympathies. The vitriol spewed by both the Obama and Hillary camps has surprised and saddened me.

I understand and support womens’ longing for a female president. Feminine values are sorely needed in the way we shape this world. Maybe we’d have less war, and more caring at home—though forgive me if I’m stereotyping women with that statement. Yet someone’s gender cannot be the defining reason they should be president.

Why does Hillary get to be a feminist champion? Her 35-year claim on experience was mostly played out in her role as someone’s wife—an enabling wife for that matter. I am a man, and I am a feminist. This does not fit my understanding of feminism.

I proudly support our Illinois senator. He opposed the Iraq War from the beginning, when doing so was unpopular. He does not take money from PACs. He inspires. And 43% of the electorate has not gone on record that they would never vote for him. That part of the population does not oppose Hillary because she’s a woman. They oppose her because for some reason, they don’t like or trust her.

For those who are on the fence, I offer links to two videocasts. The first is from Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig.

The other, you may have seen. It’s the famous Yes We Can song.

My final argument is this: Hillary has taken Barack’s slogan, “yes we can,” and perverted it into “yes she can.” That begs the question: is it about her or us?

~

Sunday, February 3, 2008

Welcome to New Hooverville


“Over the last six months, more than 250 homeless people have pitched tents near the Ontario airport, creating a burgeoning shantytown that sprawls across vacant lots and spills into side streets.” This from an article in today’s Los Angeles Times. It’s a new kind of “suburban sprawl.”

In the Great Depression, these places were called Hoovervilles. When I began a search for an image to go with this post I discovered there must have been hundreds, or even thousands of these shantytowns. There were images from all over. Cincinnati, Grand Forks, Brooklyn, DC, Seattle. It’s clear that they became an inevitable fact of life, and now they’re back. Little surprise: when you squeeze blood from the turnip that used to be called “the Middle Class” people become desperate, and they either die or must live out their shattered lives somewhere.

“Residents live in donated tents with mattresses. They light fires in barrels or grills to stay warm. High winds can topple the portable toilets, spilling their contents. Inside one, someone scrawled "God Hates Us All" in black marker.”

Just as we did with the homelessness problem that crept up on us in the 1980s and 90s, I bet Americans will come to accept these new shantytowns as a natural part of the landscape. Only I hope they won’t call them Hoovervilles. It’s time for a new name. How about “Bushboroughs?” It has a classier tone, I guess to reflect the fact that these shanties won’t be built of old packing crates, but rather high-tech nylon tents from North Face. And now they have porta-potties and social services. We’ve come a long way.

“Tents now cover several large dirt lots on both sides of Cucamonga Avenue. Side streets are lined with battered vans and recreational vehicles. Dogs run wild. A 6-month-old was recently found living in a tent with his mother. Authorities said they would provide better shelter for all mothers with children they find.”


In my travels in Mexico and Costa Rica, I have been appalled when I noticed similar patched-together settlements on the edges of cities and towns. Seeing people living in huts made of tarpaper, odd bits of wood and plastic is gut-wrenching. I know such places can be found in India, Brazil, throughout Africa, and in other desperately poor countries. God help us, it’s now official: this new “Gilded Age” has made us just like the third world.

~