Bag lady

I refer to myself here.  I’m not talking about a homeless person!  My house is being taken over by plastic shopping bags. 

One thing that strikes me since I’ve been back is the number of plastic bags Americans use.  The packers at my local grocery store double bag almost everything and will put one item in a bag.  I can come home from the shop with 25 grocery items and 16 bags!  Sometimes I get paper to pack my newspapers in for recycling, but I still get too many bags.

In Taiwan I had a grocery cart, as I did in Switzerland, and in Sweden I had a collection of canvas bags (which are still in storage, waiting to come here).  In Europe, we paid for each bag we used.  Believe me, that cuts down on bag usage.

I try to reuse them as trash bag liners at home, and they do come in handy when scooping the cat litter daily, but it’s still overwhelming.  I’ve started buying some canvas bags, and I try to bring empty plastic bags with me when I go to the store.  It sometimes confuses the packers.  These young kids don’t seem to know the meaning of the word “reuse”.  It’s sad.

And then today, I read the following. It comes from the website Care2.com, and it is so scary I had to put it here so it would get more coverage!

Bring Your Own Bag

What’s your answer to “paper or plastic?” How about, “No thanks!”

If every American consumer brought their own reusable bags when shopping, we’ll cut more than a billion pounds of CO2 this month – that’s the equivalent of taking 1.3 million cars off the road!

When you bring you own reusable bag to the store, you’ll save wildlife, reduce waste and pollution, and reduce our dependence on oil. Hundreds of thousands of sea turtles, birds, whales, and other marine mammals die every year from eating plastic bags mistaken for food. And an estimated 12 million barrels of oil are required to make the 100 billion plastic shopping bags used in the U.S. alone each year.

For today’s daily action, pledge to “Bring Your Own Bag” this month when you shop and make a big impact with a simple action

An abuse of power–mad end-of-term ramblings

With a title like that, you’d think I was talking about someone in politics.  I’m not.  I’m talking about myself.  For my freshman writing classes’ final assignment, I made them read the last blog entry I wrote.  Since they inspired it, I thought it would be a good idea.  Then I made them write a self-reflective essay.

Some agreed with me.  Many took umbrage.  Some think I just don’t understand them.  Others think that I don’t know the real them, but just the them at school.  Sorry, I thought school was real life for them.  My mistake.

One wrote how he was the product of his society, so it’s all our fault. 

And I think he’s right on many levels.

We are actually creating a pliable, complacent group of workers.  I am pretty sure that not all young people are this passive.  Let’s just say I refuse to believe that all young people are this passive.  I’m sure there are pockets of kids being groomed for leadership roles in the future.  But it’s not my students.

Mine are mostly the first generation students.  Many are grandchildren of immigrants.  They are climbing into the middle class and are happy to be there.  The dormant Marxist in my brain is screaming warnings at them.  Sometimes the warnings slip out of my mouth.  I want them to realize that they can be more.  That the American Dream is not just about materialism.  There’s more to it.

I guess it gets back to my song and dance about commercialization.  It’s as if Americans use cheap material goods as a pacifier.  Retail therapy is considered a catch-phrase not an imbalance.  When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping.  That was funny as a joke, but for too many people it’s not a joke.  Why worry about the future when there’s a sale on at Macy’s, and they’re open till midnight?!

Unfortunately, I don’t have time for more musing.  With a perfectly straight face, I must leave now and go shopping.  If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em, eh?  And we’re about to have a snowstorm, so I want to stock up on salt and sand.

Random unsettling thoughts and observations

One unsettling trend I have noticed since I’ve gotten back is the terrible work ethic of my students.  Rotten wouldn’t be too strong a word, and I mean that in the traditional sense of decay.  I have spent much of the semester railing at them for being unprepared for class, unprepared for life.  They worry me, not for the sake of my course, but for the sake of the country.

Then just last  night a friend called to see how I was settling into America.  She has lived here 40 years, but she’s not American by birth, so she understands the feelings of displacement and of not belonging that have been plaguing me and my son since we’ve been back.  She’s a university librarian on Long Island, and while I was bemoaning American students to her, she soon had stories of her own to share.  Shocking stories.  Disheartening stories.  Together we lamented the state of the upcoming generation and what it means for America.

But she told me something scarier.  A friend of hers owns a company that outsources to India.  Not because of the labor costs, which are a benefit, but because the young American workers are just so bad!  They have a poor work ethic and low standards.  The Indians who work for her work hard and well. 

The company owner’s argument is why should she pay premium prices for work that is mediocre at best?  She would pay premium prices for premium work, but who in their right minds will pay top prices for junk?

And therein lies the rub.  She’s absolutely right, and what true-blue American capitalist would argue with her?  She’s not running a charity.  She’s running a business.

I’ve been trying to get my students to understand that I don’t really care about the course, per se.  I care about them.  And from what I can see, they aren’t ready to join the work force.  Some of them are already in it, in typical student jobs in fast food or retailing, but mediocrity rules there, too, as we all know.

I don’t want to tar them all with the same brush.  I have some hard workers who will do just fine in life.  If the rest of their generation doesn’t mess it up for them. 

And my friend and I both agree that it’s not the kids’ fault, per se.  Their parents, our generation, has crippled them.  Unfortunately, we have a prime example of what happens when spoiled, indulged and sheltered kids get into positions of power.  Look at the state of the presidency.

This morning, though, when I was trying to get myself motivated to face another day, my thoughts started to swirl.  Yes, look at the presidency.  Look at the corruption in our government.  The selfishness, the rot.

I’m back to the image of rotteness.  And I had to wonder this morning, has America passed its “use by” date?  Have we passed the prime and moved on to overblown and into the rotting stages?  Scary, scary thoughts.  I’ve often written about the ultimate and inevitable fall of Western civilization.  Greece fell, Rome rotted and fell, the Church-led Europe fell.  What makes us think we won’t go in turn?  It’s hubris to think we are the eternal apotheosis of civilization. 

In my  mind, I see America as an apple.  A beautiful, juicy red apple.  It’s always had a worm hole or two. It’s never been perfect, but now those worm holes are starting to spoil, and other spots on the apple are spoiling.  How long will it take us to rot through and fall to the earth?  We can certainly slow down the spread.  We could use metaphorical refrigeration, but once the rot starts, it’s going to spread.

This generation will have children and raise them, but by what standards?  Entropy isn’t just a theory.

On one hand, I feel I should be detached, just let history shape and flow around me.  Change is good, after all.  On the other hand, I want to fight as hard as I can to stop the rot and turn America healthy again.  One way to save rotting fruit is to cut out the rot.  To change metaphors, to save a body, a doctor might take the radical step of amputation.  Scary thought.  Who am I proposing to cut out?  Well, I think the nature of economics is doing the cutting for me.  America workers with lousy skills are being cut out, replaced.  They sink another step lower on the economic ladder and are no longer part of the work force.

That’s working on one level, but not on another, on the level of society as a whole.  I told you these were random thoughts, and part of me really wants to work on them.  But another part of me has to get to work.  But I’ll get back to this.  It’s too important not to.

iGive

It’s crunch time in academia, so no time to write, but I just have to tell you about a program I found through a charity newsletter I read.

iGive.com lets you pick a charity.  Then you download a small program or shop many of your favorite stores through their website and part of your purchase price is given to the charity of your choice.  And it’s great stores I shop at anyway–even e-bay, my shop of choice!  In the past week I’ve donated $8 to my charity, The Robert F. Kennedy Memorial.  That’s not much, but it’s eight bucks they wouldn’t have gotten, and I had to buy the stuff anyway.

If you sign up to the newsletter, you can get specials like free shipping and discounts, too.  Merchants are fighting for our dollars this year, so they are open to incentives. 

I always tell my foreign students that Americans are incredibly generous people.   We’re not the only one’s but we’re pretty good at giving.  This is a painless way to do it and stretch your holiday budget a couple of extra inches.

Snow days

I haven’t had a snow day since I left the States.  Still don’t have one today, but everyone else in this neck of the woods does!  Six students came to class today, out of twenty-five.  Since most of them are residents, I find this a little disconcerting.  I’m here!  Where are you?

In Taiwan, no snow days.  Obviously.  We did have typhoon days, though.  I was only there for one, and it was actually before school started, during the teacher prep time.  No biggie.

Switzerland doesn’t have them and neither does Sweden.  Ya’d think Sweden would have snow days, but Swedes will travel through anything.  And when you have snow five or six months a year, you just get used to it.

Over the weekend, people started to talk about the possibility of a snow day, and I scoffed at them.  Sweden has toughened me to the elements, I guess.  But by Sunday night, I was hoping.  It wasn’t that I didn’t want to go out in the snow; no, I just wanted the day off.

 I woke up this morning and turned on the local news to hear the cancellations.  Everything around us is closed, so I was happy.  Then I saw that we weren’t listed.  I changed channels “in case.  No joy there, either.  Finally, I called the school and heard “sure we’re open”.

Actually, there’s no reason not to be open.  It’s snowing and raining, but the roads are slushy, not icy.  Of course, they won’t be fun after sunset, but I plan on being home for that.

But I sure enjoyed Sunday night, thinking there wouldn’t be school.  It was a feeling I haven’t had in a long time.  Nothing to do with culture, per se, other than the fact that snow days are a pretty American thing.  I’m hoping to survive the semester without one, that’s for sure.  Too little time, too much to do.