Allegory

This is an allegory i wrote to President Obama and Chinese President Hu about the Copenhagen climate talks. It’s not very well written, I was just filling in a “personalize letter” portion of a petition and felt inspired.

Once there was a forest full of animals. Each type of animal had a king. The kings of the animals were concerned chiefly with what happened within their own species kingdom. One day, a strange creature flew into the forest. “A terrible monster is coming!” he panted. “He will eat you all unless you fight him. But you must fight as one, for otherwise you will not be strong enough to defeat him.” 

The kings of the animals were very distressed to hear this and immediately agreed that they must fight together. They met to discuss it in the center of the forest at nightfall. They discussed it long into the night, and eventually they had only to decide the order in which to march into battle. 

“Let the foxes go first!” cried the rabbit king. “For they are strong and can withstand it!”

“No!” said the fox king. “Let the coyotes go first! There are far more of them and they can afford the casualties.”

“How dare you?” hissed the coyote king. “I think the song-birds should go first. They can dodge the blows of the monster best!”

“We are small and would be crushed! The mice should go!” trilled the song-bird king.

And so it went, for days. The animal kings could not agree who would take the risk of going into battle first. The day the monster was to arrive grew closer and closer, and still they had reached no conclusion. Finally, they did. Since they could not decide who would take the first step, they would not work together. They would each form an army of their species, and they would each fight the monster as they saw fit.

  Finally, the fateful day arrived. Each King had their army at the ready. The monster roared into the forest, and began knocking down trees. Not an army moved.

“Let us fight it!” cried a young rabbit. 

“No,” said the rabbit king. “I will not give in to the other animals.”

The monster picked up a dozen fox kits and swallowed them whole. 

“Oh let me fight him!” cried a mother fox.

“No,” said the fox king. “It is not our responsibility.”

Soon the monster realized none challenged him. He roared and devoured animal after animal. Still, no king would authorize his army to fight. 

Finally, surrounded by blood and fallen trees, one animal remained. The coyote king. Seeing none was left to fight but himself, he charged at the monster. But one animal could do nothing against so great a beast. Before the monster’s jaws closed around him, the coyote king looked out at the bloody wreck that had been his forest. In the final second, he saw the strange creature that had warned them. It lifted from the ground, shaking its head, and flew away.

You expect ME to be vegetarian?

Let me throw some facts at you:

-  1 lb of beef produces the equivalent CO2 emissions of driving 39 miles in an average american car

-A Carnegie Melon study found that the average American would benefit the planet more by being vegetarian one day per week than by switching to a totally local diet

-A University of Chicago study found that switching to a vegan diet would have a bigger impact than trading your gas guzzler for a Prius.

-The head of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, recommended that people give up meat one day a week to take pressure off the atmosphere.

-  Livestock worldwide  generate 18 percent of the emissions that are raising global temperatures, according to United Nations, more even than from cars, buses and airplanes.

- Beef is particularly damaging. Methane, a potent greenhouse gas, is released from flatulent cows and by manure as it decays. Furthermore, to produce 2.2 pounds of beef (1 kg), farmers also have to feed a cow 33 lbs of grain and 66 lbs of forage, which are energy intensive in and of themselves.

- Cutting back on beefburgers and bacon could wipe $20 trillion off the cost of fighting climate change. http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16573-eating-less-meat-could-cut-climate-costs.html

If you’re like I was about a year ago, your reaction to all this is “Shit. There is no way I can possibly give up meat. Better do some quick doublethink.”

Now before you quickly click away from this page to maintain blissful ignorance (and heaping portions of prime rib) let me tell you my story of vegetarianism. My hope is that you’ll realize if someone as addicted to meat as I was can go vegetarian, so, potentially, could you. And I promise,  no guilt tripping.

Last July,  someone told me he tried not to eat much meat. I did my best attempt at a scornful raised eyebrow (I am horribly ungifted in the eyebrow department) and told him I didn’t because I “believed in the food chain.”

He informed me eating meat wasn’t just an animal rights issue, it was an environmental issue. Eating meat contributed to climate change.

So I did what any prime rib loving, pot roast guzzling, spare rib worshiping, pastrami dreaming, hardcore environmentalist would do:  I snorted and continued to consume copious amounts of all my favorite dishes.

About a month and a half later, I was web surfing–always a dangerous activity.  I remembered what that person had said about meat being bad for the environment. Surely it wasn’t all that bad, I thought, typing “Meat Climate Change” into the google search box.

Up came a UN study:

“1 kg of beef is responsible for the equivalent of the amount of CO2 emitted by the average European car every 250 km, and burns enough energy to light a 100-watt bulb for 20 days.”

Shit.

I did some quick conversions.

“1 lb of beef is responsible for the equivalent of the amount of CO2 emitted by the average American car every 39 miles.”

Shi-i-it.

So,  I did what any prime rib loving, pot roast guzzling, spare rib worshiping, pastrami dreaming,  hardcore environmentalist would do:

I  shed a few tears (metaphorically) and swore off beef. I comforted myself with thoughts of  spare ribs,  pork bratwurst, prosciutto, rotisserie chicken, and lamb shank.

I then went off to a summer barbecue where the main dish was, of course, steak. It took me all of 20 minutes, deliberating with myself and asking input from my friends, before I gave in to temptation and ate it.

I’m not an angel.

But I pretty much haven’t eaten beef since then.

Did I miss beef? Like hell. But there were always other things to have, and my family more or less stopped serving beef for dinner. (A former bi-weekly occurrence.) And pork is a tasty tasty thing.

Then, after a few months beef-free, a weird thing started to happen. Chicken lost its appeal.

Let me explain something first. Every year, for the past 4 years, I’ve had two weeks of attempted vegetarianism. Reading segments of The Jungle, Fast Food Nation, and Dangerous Jobs, will do that to you. So will watching the movie Fast Food Nation and dissecting sheep brains. It never lasted. Ever. It didn’t matter how much I knew about the animals’ conditions, the worker abuse, or the sanitation of my meat. It was a habit I couldn’t kick.

So losing my liking for chicken was a BIG deal.

What I really lost my taste for was the texture of meat. Chicken, when it comes down to it, is the most easily identifiable as flesh. At least to me. Having dissected a chicken leg in human anatomy, I could still tell where one muscle slid over the other as I ate my drumstick. Where my teeth ripped the chicken from the bone  also left the muscle fibers clearly discernible.

So I stopped eating unprocessed chicken. Which is pretty funny when you think about it.

This is when things really started getting hairy at the dinner table. A family staple was Whole Foods rotisserie chicken. Chicken stews comprised another large part of our diet. My family had largely cut out steak, they were not giving up their chicken. (Although it was possible to get my sister to put down her food by asking sweetly “And how is your carcass today, sister dear?”  I got in trouble for that, though.)

What did I eat? I had no intention of making my own dinner.  So, I subsisted largely on side dishes. Broccoli and carrots, spinach and pineapple. I felt like a martyr. Particularly at Christmas dinner when my family ate roast beef and I a Boston Market TV dinner.

Then, another shocking thing occurred. I lost my taste for pork. What was happening? Beef and Chicken smelled bad, and now I didn’t even want bacon? Was I sick?

I talked to my friend Lizzie. “Do what feels appropriate to you. Don’t give up something if you want it. I used to be a vegetarian, but now I’m a flexitarian. Not that I believe in labels, anyway.”

So I was a flexitarian. (January)

A month later: A flexi-pescatarian. (pesca= fish)  (February)

After that  : Pescatarian. (March)

What marked my switch from flexi-pesca to just pesca was a visit to Chesnut Hill’s La Rotisserie. I ordered the rib plate, salivating over my expected treat. There was nothing I liked more than their rotisserie ribs.

They tasted like nothing. There was no appeal. In vain I ate half a rib, searching for the euphoria always tucked between the layers of fat and barbecue sauce. It wasn’t there.

I ate my mashed potatoes and gravy and brought the ribs home to my delighted step-father. He gobbled them up, remarking on their deliciousness.

Midway through my pescatarianism I gave up meat gravy and broth. Lizzie said it could be my diet. And I said gravy was a vegetable.

Then, in May,  one of my coworkers physically shoved a national geographic article on overfishing under my nose. I cursed him. I’d been studiously avoiding articles on fishing, assuming my conscience would demand an end to aquatic delicacies.

I tried using Environmental Defense Fund’s online sustainable seafood selector, but I knew I couldn’t check varieties without a handy laptop (I don’t have one) and I hadn’t the willpower to turn down a tasty looking filet of sole.

So, I nixed the seafood for a month. Exception: Calamari. I’m told there are too many squid because of pollution, and EDF puts them among Eco-Best.

But I realized, for me to be a vegetarian, I had to make concessions. So once in a while, I let myself eat fish. It usually comes out to once or twice a month, but I don’t time it.

If you’re curious about the possibility of going vegetarian, let me give you some tips. Not that I’m in any way an expert.

-Don’t expect to be cooked for

-If you won’t cook yourself food, request the vegetables and meat be cooked separately

- there are such things as delicious veggie-burgers. The original garden burger is very good

- learn how to cook tofu, don’t try to live off one kind of ready-made tofu. Your taste buds and sanity will thank you

- During the transition, eat a lot of dairy. But eventually try to cut back on it. (Don’t buy individual servings of, say, yogurt unless you can’t palate anything else.)

- Buy an illustrated (photos) vegetarian gourmet cookbook.  Even if you never cook from it, you will need food porn when your neighbors are eating bratwurst.

- find a restaurant that caters to vegetarians/vegans

- don’t try to go straight from carnivore to vegetarian. You won’t last.

- I recommend getting a CSA (crop share from a local farm). It’s good for the environment, and sticks you with so many vegetables you can’t help but have vegetarian options in your house. And it will force you to learn to cook vegetable dishes yourself.

So what do you say? Do you have beef with climate change?

That’s the dramatic conclusion of a study that totted up the economic costs of modern meat-heavy diets.

To Be a Mother

It should be illegal to post stories this bad.

I wrote this in Writing Short Stories. My teacher edited it. Then, in the typical style of CSW-ers, he never handed it back. Though I hounded him all through the rest of the year, nope. So here it is, wordy, lengthy, boring. Knock yourselves out.

To be a Mother

She looked down at the browned flesh at the base of her arm. Flexing her fingers, she noticed how the veins stuck out around her knuckles. That was fine. Her hands were fine, beautiful, she wanted to kiss them.  Admiring the dirt framing her nail beds, she thought how lucky it was she hadn’t cleaned them up. She’d seen those celebrities on the covers of the magazines. How often had she pulled her skin tight, envying their nip tucks and face lifts? Their hands never resembled hers, they were never so beautiful. Plastic didn’t tell stories. Those stars could pay Madame Opal what they paid those surgeons, but Madame Opal couldn’t help them. Madame Opal would laugh at their foolishness, trading their life secrets for smoother skin. They’d be lost forever, but not she, not Hannah. Reminded suddenly of a nursery rhyme, she recited,

“Remember remember the fifth of November
Gunpowder, treason and plot.
I see no reason why gunpowder, treason
Should ever be forgot…”

Stepping out from the awning, Hannah wrapped her shawl about her broad, bony shoulders. She felt the cold’s shafting pierce through all the tiny gaps in the weave of the fabric. This would not do.  She hobbled home quickly, not stopping to tell the doorman at the big hotel how her foot had been feeling that day. She passed him by as she made her way up the street. She pitied him. Poor thing, all alone all day, no friends but herself. But she excused her selfishness. He would have understood her reasoning, if she had told him.

At the top of the sagging staircase, Hannah turned the key. She heard the banal buzz of the big metal door downstairs. Another neighbor, back again. She contemplated going down to discuss her nursery rhyme with them. She’d had so many lovely conversations about such things with her neighbors. But not today. No, certainly not today.

Inside, Hannah heaved open the chest at the base of her bed, knocking stacks of picture books and old encyclopedias – she did love encyclopedias—from their settled piles. She knew not to look in her regular drawers, everything there was practical. She needed something special.  Leaning over, she pulled out her finest sweater. Painstakingly undoing the folds, she admired it. Oh wasn’t that something. She held it up to herself. Mmm, every thick fiber of yarn intact. She loved the big wreath, right over her heart. Right where it belonged. She loved Christmas. She was a loving person. A warm, caring, loving person. She had a lot to give. So sad it had to wait until now.

She brushed aside the apron; she’d wear that when she baked. She’d make cookies, cake, and hamburgers with mashed potatoes and gravy. She needed a skirt to wear. How often had she told those women at the park? “You can’t wear pants,” she’d say. “You’ve got to wear great long skirts for the little ones to play in!” She remembered the satisfaction of seeing a mother at the park wearing a dress. She’d pointed her out to all the other women. “See her?” she’d said. “Now there’s a mother.” She went up to her to discuss the tragedy of so few mothers realizing how key such wardrobe choices were. When she went up, the little boy hid himself in his mother’s skirt. The little dear. Triumphantly Hannah had pointed out this behavior to the rest of the ladies.  That was why they should wear skirts!  They’d all agreed with her, of course.

Wearing her special sweater and skirt, Hannah walked proudly past the shops and people. A young mother caught her eye. She slowed to follow her. The young mother pushed a stroller full of not one, but two infants. Her brown hair was tucked in a neat bun, with a wisp free near her face, floating in the wind. She wore a snug green wool pea coat with brass buttons, and a long chocolate brown pleated skirt. Her small hands were tucked into cream colored kid skin gloves, and the rim of the sleeve of her brown cardigan peeked out between cream and the green. As Hannah watched, the mother stopped the stroller and leaned over the baby in the pink puffy coat, with yellow mittens clipped to the sleeves. She cooed softly to the child and slipped the yolk colored yarn onto her baby’s beautiful chubby fingers and fat braceleted wrist. Her gloved hands lingered an extra moment before she bent down to kiss the infant’s round cheek.

Hannah stared. Good mothers made sure their babies’ hands were warm. Good mothers kept their hands warm so they could help their babies. Good mothers wore gloves. Hannah’s hands were bare.

“Excuse me, Madam? Where did you buy your gloves?” The young woman turned around. “I ask as a matter of urgency,” Hannah continued, “I have misplaced my albino rabbit fur gloves and require new ones immediately.”

“Oh, well,” replied the young woman, somewhat taken aback, “actually just down there, in Boutique Chambon.”

Hannah smiled, softening. This mother wasn’t out to judge her. “I just wanted to congratulate you on keeping such nice gloves,” she added. “Me and you, we understand. Other mothers don’t get it.” She gave her a knowing smile. The mother wrinkled her face thinking of all the others who didn’t understand. Hannah thanked her and moved off toward the shop. It was so easy to bond with people once you found a commonality.

Bells tinkled as the door closed behind Hannah. “Yes?” asked a voice.

Hannah looked to find a grey haired woman with a tight chignon sitting at a shining glass counter. From all around her spilled ribbons and pinks and lemons and whites and creams and baby blues.

“I want to buy some gloves,” Hannah told her. This was a nice shop.

“You may find more of what you’re looking for in the department store down the way.”

The woman was so modest. She should realize what a nice shop she had. Hannah told her so, commenting on the lovely colors. The woman smiled at her. Normally Hannah would have told the woman all about the lip augmentation process, the magazines always chronicled the stars use such procedures, and Hannah was an expert, but not anymore. If there were palm readers, surely there were lip readers, and she wasn’t about to ruin the woman’s chances at life happiness.

Hannah caught sight of a shelf of gloves. They were beautiful. She moved toward the rows of skins and furs and silks. Hannah reached out to a pearl pink silken glove. The roughness of her hand caught on the fibers as she moved her fingers down the sleeve. As she moved the pink aside, she saw a lavender glove. She pulled it out. Lambskin. The light caught the leather with the sheen of things never worn, things never touched.  Lavender was the color of nurseries. Lavender was the smell of soap.

“I would like to buy this pair of gloves.”

The woman eyed the pair Hannah held. “I think those might be out of your price range.”

Out of her price range. That mother never told her children “No, that’s out of our price range.” Good mothers didn’t have to. Hannah was a good mother. This woman would learn it.

“I would like to buy this pair of gloves.”

Hannah laid them on the counter. Glaring at her, the woman punched numbers into the register.  The number came up on the screen: $58.04.  Hannah bit down on her tongue, sticking her chin far out. She pulled out her small brown leather purse, worn and cracking on the surface. Hannah always kept all her money on her, so she could keep track of it. Having it wander away was no good.  Hannah pulled out dirty bills and big coins. Counting, she poured over the counter as the woman kept glancing anxiously toward the door. No one walked in.

“Here you are,” Hannah handed the woman fifty eight dollars and a nickel. “Do keep the change.”

Wearing her new lavender gloves, Hannah felt radiant. Any child would be proud to have her as a mother. She passed the bench by “Lick-a-Dip’s” ice cream parlor. A young man had his arm around a young woman as they sat together sharing an ice cream. They needed Hannah’s help.

“How old are you?” asked Hannah, smiling at the two lovebirds.

The young woman looked up from her partner’s eyes to Hannah’s face, then looked back at him. Shy little thing, waiting for the man to speak first.  He turned to Hannah.

“I’m nineteen. She’s eighteen. Is there a problem?”

Oh yes, they needed Hannah’s help very much. So lucky she was here to give it. She turned to the young woman.

“I remember when I was eighteen, pretty thing. I didn’t have so handsome a young man, though,” she smiled at him. He could almost be her son.

“I was twenty three, yes a bit older than you–but you’ll get there—when my belly started to swell. It got bigger and bigger. They figured out I was pregnant.  Made me do lots of tests. Mental ones. They’ll make you do them, too. Anyway, after a bit they told me they figured I was unfit to raise a child. And that’s when I did the stupidest thing I’ve ever done.”

Hannah’s eyes filled with tears as she looked at the poor sweet young face. “Don’t you do what I did,” she choked. “Don’t you give up fighting. They say you’ve got to give him up. Don’t you do it. He’s your kid. And you either,” she turned to the young man. “Don’t you let her give up that baby. It’ll be the end of you. You’ll regret it your whole life. They don’t let you see him, either. Not after you sign the papers. So don’t you do it, okay? Promise me.”

They didn’t promise, but that was okay, because they couldn’t. They were so upset by what had happened to Hannah they had to leave. The young woman was trembling.  Hannah had made an impact. She’d done her part. And the two young people were so receptive. Hannah shook off her own tremblings.  She was okay now. Madam Opal had helped her. Her hands had helped her. Everything was going to be perfect again.

Hannah’s breath caught in her throat. There was the Campion Fountain. Here, here was where it would all right itself.  She sat down on the bench on the northern side of the fountain, arranging her skirt in a becoming fashion, a motherly fashion. He should be here at any second. A businessman started walking towards her, this was he! But no, the man walked straight past her outstretched gloves, continuing down the road. A man wearing slacks and a tweed jacket strolled with his wife and son across the way. He was married already! She’d missed so much. She smiled, pretending to look in the other direction as her boy looked for her. But he passed, too. They all did.

Hannah breathed across her pounding chest. Madame Opal had read that it would be today; she hadn’t specified the hour. Hannah had many left to wait. She forced a laugh at her own impatience. Thirty years alone and she couldn’t abide a few hours.

Hannah’s eyes never shut as she memorized each face as it passed. Each face offered the promise of familiarity. Each face passed her by. The church bell struck once, twice, she counted. Two hours since she’d come. Perhaps she was not situated correctly. She went to the other side of the fountain and tried to sit gracefully on the side as she had seen a young woman do. Slipping backwards, Hannah righted herself quickly. Perhaps she would stand looking towards the water.

The sky had darkened.  Could people even see her now? How would he know his mother in the dark? But Madame Opal had said. Madame Opal had promised. Hannah went to another bench on the church side of the fountain. She waited, straining her eyes in the dark. Where was he? Where was the one who would want her? The streetlights broke into shimmering splinters; she closed her eyes for a moment. He would be here soon.

“Dong…dong…dong …”

Wild eyed, Hannah leapt from her sleep on the bench. A woman walked by.

“What time is it?” Hannah whispered.

The woman pulled back the sleeve of her glove. “Midnight.”

Dr. Foster and the Prize Pocket Watch

I wrote a really bad long/serious story and decided to counter it with a really bad short/light-hearted story. It’s for children. I’ll probably post the long one tomorrow. 

Dr. Foster and the Prize Pocket Watch

 

Doctor Foster
Went to Gloucester
In a shower of rain. 
He stepped in a puddle
Right up to his middle
And never went there again!

 

            “Oh help!” cried Cindy Duck. “For my pocket watch has stopped ticking!”

            “Allow me to assist you,” offered Fitzwilliam Goose, gallantly.

            He picked up the gold pocket watch. “How lovely your pocket watch is Cindy Duck, it quite glimmers yellow in the sunlight!”

            Cindy blushed beneath her feathers.

“Ah, I see pink among those quills!” he chuckled.

            “It’s the curse of white feathers.”

            “Quite.”

            “Quite. Now, let’s see to this pocket watch.”

            The problem, of course, with waterfowl having pocket watches is that they rarely can keep ahold of them. Such was the case with Fitzwilliam Goose, for though he tried and tried to keep hold of the shiny metal, it slipped through his oiled feathers and into a hole in the ground. Cindy Duck ruffled.

            “First it stops working, now this! I should have known better than to ask you, you silly goose!”

            Now Fitzwilliam blushed, though his was not quite as visible through his brown and grey feathers.

            “We’ll simply have to dig it out!” he cried.

            She quacked angrily.

            The goose and the duck got out their shovels and began to dig. They dug and they dug, and the hole got bigger and bigger.

            “I don’t see any pocket watch!” cried Fitzwilliam, mopping his fore feathers.

            “This is a vile way to spend a Saturday. I daresay this is the worst way possible. Look at my apron!”

            As so often happens when one declares to be in the worst possible circumstance, luck decides to prove one wrong. This was no exception. The very instant Cindy Duck said it, the sky burst open and rain began to hammer down.

            “You and your long beak!” Fitzwilliam honked angrily. “Your whiny antics have become irksome, Madame. I have tried to help you, and you have done naught but gripe about the soil on your precious white feathers and flowered apron. I’m off to my house. Who wants a duck, anyway?”

            Away went Fitzwilliam Goose.

            “I’ll find it myself!” Cindy Duck called after him.

            She began to dig in earnest, though as she dug, rainwater quickly began filling up her hole. Struggling to dig faster than the rain fell, she enlarged the hole quickly. Soon the sides were three ducks high, but Cindy Duck still had yet to find her pocket watch.

            “Somebody get me a bucket!” she quacked, for the water at the bottom of the hole had almost reached her neck.

            Of course, all the other animals had taken shelter within their homes and burrows, and no one heard Cindy Duck cry for a bucket, or probably would have retrieved one for her anyway. Cindy Duck flapped out of the hole and waddled to her garden shed with all speed. At last, finding a bucket from beneath some flowering pots and a garden hose, she hastened back to the road to bail out her hole.

            Upon her return, Cindy Duck found her hole had filled to the brim with frothy mud-colored water.

            “I’ve got to find that pocket watch!” she cried. Giving a wild quack, she dove beak first into the puddle to muck around for it.

            Now, however important Cindy Duck was, she did not represent the only user of that road. Neither did Fitzwilliam Goose, or even Snodgrass Swan.  If Cindy Duck could read, she would have realized the sign for the road said “Gloucester Way.” When anyone was in a hurry to get to Gloucester, they used this road, for though unpaved, it was the straightest course.

            As it happened, a young boy had fallen ill in Gloucester, and his mother had called the Doctor to come as quickly as he could. Dr. Foster had hastily put on his coat and galoshes, and set out down “Gloucester Way.” He harbored no fear of rain. As a doctor, his duty required he travel to the sickly whatever the weather. Snow was snow, breezes were breezes, and puddles were puddles—nothing to fear. This day, he noted a rather large puddle, but thought as little as he ever did before stepping into it.

            SPLASH! Dr. Foster sank, right up to his middle. He cried aloud in outrage. Dr Foster might walk in rain, but he did not swim, nor did he wade.

            Suddenly he felt a great bite on his leg.

            “What is that?!” he cried. Struggling to remove his great weight from the hole, Dr. Foster knocked more dirt in as he tried to clamber out. He felt something tugging at his waist.

            “What is that?!” he cried again.

             In a rush of adrenaline he launched himself out of the hole, his gut landing on the road. He pushed himself to his feet and ran.

 

            Cindy duck was quite pleased with herself. Though that great oaf had stepped on her tail, she’d come away with a far nicer pocket watch than she’d had that morning. She displayed it on her mantle piece at home, admiring the intricately carved

“H-J–F-O-S-T-E-R.” Undoubtedly it read “Pocket Watch.”

Tangible Waste, Part 1

I recently took a class called “Environmental Art.” Environmental art, if you don’t know, is art either in the environment, made out of the environment, or making an environmental statement. For my final project, I created a piece making a statement about our wastefulness. I collected all the sterile trash (no tissues, food, etc.) I produced and formed it into a 3 dimensional life size representation of myself. I wanted to see how long it would take me to spawn a Trash Geneva. It took two weeks, which, considering I produce substantially less waste than the average American, live with my parents and don’t take credit for common household waste, and stand five foot nine inches tall, is not very long at all.

 

My spawn and me

 

We stand back to back

This project prompted me to do a bit of research and a lot of navel gazing on the topic of waste. Here you are, my poor unfortunate readers: Tangible waste, installment 1. Motives, part 1:

 

Why doesn’t the average American realize the havoc they’re wrecking on the environment and jump to action?

There is, of course, the obvious point that we live in a culture of consumerism, and a culture of consumerism is inherently a culture of waste. Also, the less well off a person is, the more trash they’re likely to produce. It takes money to be able to always choose the less wasteful option, and little can be bought without gratuitous packaging, anyway. 

The amount we waste isn’t obvious. We live in a society constructed to hide our waste. We have sewer systems, incinerators, dumpsters, and landfills. In many urban areas trash day comes once a week, and few people ever see more trash than their household produces between pick-ups.  Furthermore, the trash is wrapped up in bags, and taken to the curb in the wee hours of the morning. I would hardly blame society on this one, but 6:00 am is not apropos for environmental realizations.

Presumably, the average American isn’t particularly aware of the current environmental crises. The typical school science textbook does not have a section on climate change, and this is unlikely to change as notoriously right wing Texas still holds great influence on textbook content (they choose one book for the whole state) and budget cuts don’t really augur new classroom textbooks anyway.

The media doesn’t put across environmental messages as it ought to. Which, again, is a problem with how it’s constructed. Companies buy airtime, and how it has worked is companies with the most money buy the most air time. Generally, the richest companies are the most exploitative somewhere along the line; otherwise their profits would be smaller.  For example, an oil company exploits the environment. However, since they make so much money they can buy as much airtime as they like to indoctrinate the average television addict with pro-oil messages. The oil company won’t talk about the effect of their product climate change.  Less wealthy, more scrupulous companies can’t buy as much airtime, so the quantity of information they can pass on through the media is much smaller.  Not for profits usually have still less money, and can pass on comparatively miniscule bundles of propaganda.

            Perhaps this will change with the collapse of the economy and its rebirth involving (hopefully) “green collar jobs”   The economy, unfortunately, is not my shtick.

 

More dogma coming soon, and in the meantime, try to use that mug twice before you wash it.

Going home (if not to stay)

Assignment: Most meaningful words you hear today. 

 

I had just gotten off the T, my backpack plastered as ever with a “Stop Bitching Start a Revolution” bumper sticker and weighing heavily upon my sunburnt shoulders. I looked ahead of me to the bench across from Starbucks. There, sitting cross legged in a very yogic manner, was a young man. He wore a handwoven purple pullover with thin embossed yellow and green vertical stripes, perhaps from Africa. His thick tannish hair stood out three inches from his head in what I would have called an afro, but that it had only a slight wave. He sat erect, reading a book placed over his sandaled feet from a slightly tilted head.  As I walked by, he looked up and met my eyes, locking them. I didn’t smile, though I thought he looked like a prettier Bob Dylan. He didn’t smile either, his brow slightly furrowing as he studied my face. I soon passed him, continuing to walk down the street. I wondered who he was, why he was there. I stepped off the end of the block and into the crosswalk.

“I like your bumper sticker!”

 I spun around, at the other end of the block he was leaning forward from the bench. His voice went up at the end when he shouted it, like a child calling goodbye to someone they love. Desperate to be heard, desperate to be remembered. 

“Thank you!” I yelled back, then crossed the street.

Remember Jim Jeffords?

I’m taking Memoirs. When I write something tolerable. I’ll post it. This was the first assignment. 

Memoirs assignment:

Are you old or are you young? Answer in the form of a short memoir.

 

“Geneva! Come look at this!”

I bolted down the staircase, eager to abandon my fraction conversions and Jamestown reading. Something very exciting must be happening. I vaulted over the sofa, an ivory feather swathed in Limited Too. 

“Mommy what’s happening?”

“Shhh!”

She pointed to the screen. “Jim Jeffords breaks from Republican Party.”

“Yay! I hate republicans! Who’s Jim Jeffords?”

I was indoctrinated, there was no getting around it, but I chose to be. I no longer permitted dinner conversations to be wasted on recounts of daily activities; I grilled my parents for information about politics.  I would snap at my poor mother when she couldn’t answer all my questions about something they said on NPR, and retreat to my room in disgust to study Newsweek. My favorite sources, however, were those written for people my age. 50 Simple Things Kids Can Do to Save the Earth still sits on my shelf, miraculously not lost after dutifully following me on all my fifth grade escapades, forgotten every few months when I’d come across a new book about the Beatles, complete with pictures and euphemistic renditions of Brian Epstein unexpectedly dying because he “Accidentally took too many sleeping pills.”  I thought that a pity and vowed to count my pills properly should I ever need help sleeping.

            As it happened, my mother could satisfactorily explain the implications of Jeffords’ switch to the independent party, and I sat down and wrote a long letter to my new hero. I asked my grandparents for his book My Declaration of Independence, which I poured endlessly over when it came out, but eventually put aside as beyond my comprehension. Instead, I turned on “Oops I did it again” and had a celebratory dance party.

Confessions of a Negligent Gas Tax Supporter

I checked my email for the first time in weeks this Monday night. Browsing through the messages I came to one from Shawn Fitzgibbons, whom I had worked with during the Obama campaign.

“Welcome Delegates and other Democratic Friends

Governor Patrick will be coming to meet with 2009 convention delegates and Patrick Team members on:  7:00 p.m., Monday, May 4, 2009.”

 

I swung my head to the top of the screen “7:39 PM.” Shit. I decided to check the rest of my messages later and bolted over to the meeting.

I tiptoed through the back of the small crowded Newtonville office, slinking by houseplants and representatives to get behind the built in desk space in the middle of the room. An excellent position; I pricked up my ears. They were discussing the defeated gas tax bill.

I had walked in during the middle of Deval Patrick’s answer to the gas tax question, so I’m going to fast forward to a synopsis of the information I gleaned afterward from Newton political activists, state representative Kay Khan, and Massachusetts Democratic Party Chair John Walsh.

It’s been on the news a fair bit. Massachusetts has an enormous budget gap and we need to hike taxes in order to close it. The question is: should we increase the sales tax, the gas tax, or the income tax? Nobody wants to be the unpopular one advocating for more income tax, so that was pretty much nixed from the get-go. The much contested bill increasing the gas tax by 19 cents to 42.5 cents a gallon did not pass the Massachusetts house of reps. They instead favored a sales tax increase.

The reason? Reps from the western part of the state and the Cape claimed that a gas tax hike would target their areas unfairly. They argued their constituents didn’t have alternatives to driving. In Boston public transportation is much more of an option because of the MBTA, and things are generally much closer together. Not only that, but the gas tax even had an earmark for the MBTA, from which Western MA and the Cape would not benefit. Representatives from areas near the border argued that their constituents would simply cross state lines to buy gas.

            Deval Patrick had another argument against the gas tax, which he told us that night: A gas tax would inspire people to buy hybrid vehicles.  If they switched to hybrid vehicles, they wouldn’t buy as much gas.  Wait . . .  what?

            The reason I support the gas tax is because it would inspire people to use less gas, thereby cutting carbon emissions.  I’m no financial savant.  For me, closing the budget gap is a side benefit of the gas tax. Killing two birds with one stone, so to speak. To hear our governor say the reason we weren’t pursuing the gas tax was because it would have positive environmental effects was very disconcerting.

            When I spoke with Kay Khan about the defeat of the bill, I heard another disconcerting thing. “No environmentalists picked up the cause,” she said. “None of them came and fought for it.  I wrote an amendment to it, so I would have heard. But none of them rallied for it.”

I kicked myself. Some environmentalist I was. “Is there anything I can do now?” I asked.
“Call Cindy Creem. It’s in the senate now. But I think we should be fighting for the sales tax at this point.”

 

Bottle Deposits:

I got a chance to ask Deval Patrick about expanding the deposit bottle category. I asked him why we weren’t including non-carbonated alcohol in it. He said because they were increasing the sales tax to include alcohol, candy, and soda and he didn’t want to overwhelm people. I looked at him in what I was later informed was a rather cold manner.

“You think we should include it?” he asked me.

“Yes. We need to protect the environment.”

 

 

What do you guys think of Governor Patrick’s take on the gas tax? Is it reasonable because the purpose is in fact just to decrease the budget gap? Is it as infuriating as I find it because it does have environmental implications? I don’t pretend to be an expert on anything financial, but this strikes me as wrong. Et vous?

English Should Not Be the US Official Language

The United States is a nation built by immigrants. Often called the Great Melting Pot, the U.S. is renowned for its ability to soak up people from countries all around the world and still remain distinctly American. In fact, many argue that the mix of cultures is what makes America America. Some people, however, fear that potentially too much of one culture could dominate America.  English has always been the primary language used in the United States, but as the number of non-English speaking immigrants increases, many Americans feel the need to make English official not only in practice, but in law. While making English the official language of the United States would alleviate some issues, such as the cost of translation, the option for immigrants to stay non-English-monolingual, and the potential language barriers, Official English would also make life far more difficult for assimilating immigrants. Until English-only advantages can be proven to outweigh the disadvantages, America has no need for an official language.

One of the main arguments for English as the official language of the United States is that it is necessary for immigrants to learn English to function in society. Many supporters of English as the official language claim that undocumented immigrants have no reason to learn English since Executive Order 13166 was passed by President Clinton in 2000, which required all federally funded institutions to offer translation services. (Point/Counterpoint pg 76). This argument in itself is unsound. Clearly if English is required to function in society there is a reason to learn English. A study preformed in 1992 showed that on average immigrants who don’t speak English earn 17 percent less than those who do. (Point/Counterpoint pg 81).  Another clear importance of English is clear communication, illustrated by the number of medical mistakes through misunderstandings.  Acceptance into American culture is on the line as well, as people cannot unite socially until they understand each other.

Supporters of Official English always claim the currently arriving immigrants are not learning English as fast as the previous immigrants. (Point/Counterpoint pg 91). First it was the Germans and Scandinavians who were unusual slow, then it was that the Eastern Europeans, Jews, and Italians were slower, and now Latin Americans are supposedly the slowest yet. However, studies have shown that today’s immigrants are assimilating faster.  Research shows that there is a three generation assimilation pattern with today’s Latin immigrants. The first generation immigrants are monolingual, learning some English but speaking their native language at home. The second generation is bilingual, growing up speaking their native language at home but speaking in only English when they moved out. The third generation is English Monolingual, growing up speaking English and continuing for the rest of their lives. (Immigrant America pg 183) In time the immigrants of today will be as Americanized as the Irish or Germans.

            Despite what the advocates of English as the official language would like people to think, English is not at all on the decline. Due in part to the past great imperialism of Britain, and later also America, English is used all over the world. The language gaps between the once-colonies have slowly been filling over time to create an acting international language. As the world becomes more and more aware of the predominance of English, especially in educated communities, English usage spreads farther and farther. Accordingly, in English’s largest home, America, English spreads more quickly than ever. In a study preformed by Lieberson, the United States has the highest rate of mother-tongue shift toward (English) monolingualism than anywhere else on the planet. (Immigrant America pg 183).  In fact, 95% of all Americans speak English.

For the remaining five percent, Official English laws would only hinder their assimilation. Immigrants cannot learn English overnight. If English was made to be the official language, immigrants would be required to attend many weeks of ESL (English as a Second Language) classes. However, ESL classes are expensive, and few immigrants have money to pay for them when they first arrive. Immigrants also clearly have needs besides learning English. They need to feed, house, and clothe themselves, for example. To fulfill these basic needs takes money, which cannot be made by sitting in expensive lessons. However, as soon as immigrants can afford ESL classes, most hurry to take them. In Los Angeles, 1986, 40,000 immigrant adults were being turned away from the ESL program; and this at the same time California was passing proposition 63 to make English the official state language. (Immigrant America pg 202). As one university professor put it, passing a law to declare English the official language of the United states “seems like passing a law to declare that air or oxygen is the official respiratory gas.” (Point/Counterpoint pg 94).

The Official English supporters also claim translation services are draining the United States treasury. Their favorite argument revolves around bilingual education. They claim that bilingual education is ineffective, mainly because it does not always place English assimilation as the priority. They also argue bilingual education is more expensive than traditional education. This is true, but not by much, as discovered by the California legislature. (Point/Counterpoint pg 92).  In the early 1990’s, the entire budget for bilingual education was $750 million (American Issues Debated); a paltry sum, compared to the $12 billion per month spent on the Iraq war in 2008 (http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/335955.aspx). Additionally, bilingual education has been proven to be effective. Generally, immigrants’ test scores improve in all subjects when they are placed in bilingual schools. (Point/Counterpoint pg 89).  Official English supporters also complain that the United States will have to spend billions of dollars translating federal documents into every imaginable language. In fact very few documents need to be translated at all, and that probably won’t change whatever the law says. The U.S. General Accounting Office audited the government’s production of translated documents between 1990 and 1994, and found that 99.94 percent of all printed documents were written exclusively in English. (Point/Counterpoint pg 93). The documents that the government does have translated are often done so because of the benefit for everyone. For example, the IRS translates tax information into Spanish so that Spanish monolinguals have no excuse for not “filing their 1040’s in a timely and accurate way.” (Point/Counterpoint pg 93). Also, it is to everyone’s benefit to translate driver’s ed. documents, for it is important that non-fluent English speakers understand everything taught before they pass. (American Issues Debated pg 106)

            The legal validity of making English the official language is even questionable, though several states have already passed such laws. While it is required to have a basic understanding of English before naturalization, many legal citizens have minimal or no English knowledge at all. (http://www.uscis.gov/files/article/M-476_English.pdf). The Fourteenth Amendment; Section One states that “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.” It is a privilege of United States citizens to understand from the health care workers serving them to what candidate they support.  The Supreme Court, however, has yet to rule on the issue. (Point/Counterpoint pg 94).

                        Though Official English supporters claim that America needs English-Only as law, English needs no bodyguard as the language with the fastest expanding usage of any worldwide.  While they also claim that Official English will hasten English assimilation, statistics show otherwise by the waiting list for ESL, which would be cut back by this law. Official English also cannot help further segregating U.S. citizens from non-citizens, regardless of their country of residence. Let us have Turkey, Belgium, and Canada as examples: when there is no problem to be fixed, no benefit to be gained, and actual disadvantage given by a proposed law, there is no earthly reason to instate it.

Profitable Environmentalism

I came to the Charles River Clean Up because I try to do it every year. I couldn’t last year; I’d slit my thumb open on an aluminum foil box. I came because I love helping the environment. I came because it’s always a laugh when I inevitably fall in. I came because I love being outdoors. Most of all, I came because I care.

I arrived behind the Shaws in Waltham about 9:02. I signed in, picked up a T-shirt and latex gloves, and took two bags.  Then, they cornered me.

“Who are you here with?” asked a man in a yellow CRCU T-shirt. Aha, an authority. Everyone else’s T shirts were green.

“Just me. We should start, right?”

“Well, how would you feel about doing some sorting? We’re going to be sorting the trash that comes in.”

“Umm. ..”

“You don’t have to, we can try to find somebody else.”

“No, no! Just, why—is this to recycle?”

“No, we can’t recycle them, we’re just counting.”

Not yet sold, but intrigued, he introduced me to the woman running the sorting—the ineffable Ann Dorfman.

“I’m going off to other sites, we need somebody to run this. Will you do it?”

“Um, sure, at least some of the time, but, why are we sorting them?”

She explained briefly. I did some research when I returned home. 

In 1984 The Massachusetts Bottle Deposit Law (MBDL) was enacted. Now people received money for returning their deposit bottles and cans.  This was originally very successful in keeping litter off the streets. However, bottles are only “deposit” if they are carbonated—so largely beer, soda, and red bull. As the years wore on, the percentage of non-deposit bottles steadily increased. As you can imagine, as that percentage increased, so did the litter in the parks. Non-carbonated/non-deposit containers now represent about 35% of all away-from-home beverage containers. The percentage found in the parks seems to be much higher than 35%, presumably because deposit bottles are returned for cash.

There’s an interesting twist, though. When you buy a deposit bottle, you pay an extra five cents, which you theoretically redeem when you return the bottle. The five-cent deposits for bottles that aren’t returned go to the state.  Wow! Profitable environmentalism! Pretty snazzy. Massachusetts currently has a budget gap of $3.5 billion.  This has lead to heavy-duty reexamination of potential state income. Now, the state is looking at expanding the deposit to include bottled water, juices, and sports drinks. These account for about one third of beverages sold in Massachusetts.

 Governor Deval Patrick estimates that by adding these beverage containers as deposits, the state would collect $58 million. That’s $20 million more than with the current law. And what would this go to?  According to Robert Keough, a spokesman for the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, “$10 million of the new revenue would go to reducing Massachusetts Water Resources Authority rates. The rest would be divided between the general fund and grants for municipalities to expand recycling programs.” So it would decrease litter, increase recycling, decrease the budget gap, and increase state funding for recycling programs.

And the government has no data yet on the percentage of deposit to non-deposit containers littered. I would be collecting data with which to help pass the legislation. 

PSYCHE!

I agreed to run it.

 

As the clean up had only just begun, no bags were yet ready to be sorted. I went off to start collecting trash and beverage containers. I collected a bunch, before realizing how few of my fellow underbrush combers had their separate clear container bag. I distributed them to people, running all along both sides of the river, explaining, cajoling, and panting. I am a very bad runner.

            Upon my return to the plastic sorting tarp, I found the bags had started coming in. Ann explained to me again: Cups go in this pile, carbonated alcohol in this pile, non-carbonated alcohol in this pile, carbonated non-alcohol in this pile, plastic bags in this pile, milk jugs in this pile, and non-carbonated non-alcohol in this pile. Count the big non-carbonated alcohol bottles and the nips separately. Don’t forget to count the big plastic trash bags.

It didn’t seem very hard.

She asked if I had any questions. I didn’t. She left in her car to go to other clean up sites.

The first wave of bags consisted of unsorted trash and containers. I hadn’t caught everybody, nor the ones I did catch in time, for their first bags to arrive pure.

I began digging through wet, dirty, smelly trash. It was fun. There were a lot of bugs. It was still fun. I roped in a volunteer.

The piles began to grow. It was soon clear alcohol was the Charles River beverage of choice. It was also clear that non-deposit bottles outnumbered deposit bottles on a massive scale. 

Pretty soon most people brought pre-sorted bags, and those that didn’t could be glared at until they agreed to sort them right there.

My volunteer left. Will (the man in the yellow shirt) roped in some new ones for me. We continued to sort.

The influx of bags began to dwindle. We began counting the different containers, bagging them after each count. As soon as we finished, though, more would come in. We’d count and bag again.

“Do you want me to get you another pair of gloves?” a twenty-something year old volunteer asked me.

“What? Oh.” I laughed, looking down at my hands among the shards of glass I was sorting through. The fingertips had come off four of the glove’s fingers, and there was a large slash in the latex across the back of one.

We went to get new ones, and I caught sight of a pile of thick cloth work gloves.

“Are these available for our use?” I asked Will.

“If I said yes would you cry?” he asked, chuckling.

Hmm. I took a pair. Besides a bee sting I was no worse for the wear.

My volunteers and I finally came to the last of the bags.

I added up the numbers:

 

Deposit non-alcohol containers: 108

Non – deposit non-alcohol containers: 262

 

Deposit alcohol containers: 172

Non-deposit alcohol containers: 203

 

Nips: 74

Big non-deposit alcohol bottles: 129

 

Cups: 148 (presumably many more were thrown into the trash pile)

 

Milk jugs: 9

 

Grocery bags: 20 (presumably many more were thrown into the trash pile)

 

 

Trash bags: 56

Recycling bags: 18

 

Some interesting tidbits and a few questions:

• Almost all of the non-deposit non-alcohol was bottled water, Gatorade coming in second place, then juice.

• A considerable number of the non-deposit non-alcohol containers were cans, mostly of Arizona drinks.

• Many energy drinks are carbonated, I had been told carbonated non-alcohol was synonymous with soda. No longer true.

• Most of the cups were Dunkin Donuts. I didn’t see a single Starbucks.

• The volunteers were provided with huge cases of Aquafina. I berated Will for this, but apparently they were dropped off without explanation. He promised to try to prevent that occurrence next year. I suggested water coolers.

• A large percentage of the beer came in enormous bottles, not single serving (I hope).

• I wasn’t sure if foreign beers counted as deposit. I put them in anyway.

• The idea of counting bags of different types of bottles to determine percentage is not particularly rational. Also, I forgot.

• I imagine the deposit and non-deposit alcohol containers are so much closer in number because a) no one cares about five cents once they’ve had a few, and b) some are likely drinking by the river in order not to get caught drinking at all. Returning the bottles would be impractical.

• I wonder how the phasing out of reusable/refillable bottles affected the increase in litter. People used to bring back their bottles to the store so they could be used again, sans melting. Milk trucks were also common. 

• How would this affect the lives of trash-pickers?

• Would this shoot the reusable/refillable container movement in the foot, so to speak?

• Why aren’t we currently looking at deposits on non-carbonated alcohol as well?

• I don’t think the photos of me doing a super-man pose in the middle of some trash bags should go any farther than iphoto. Really, I forbid you from sending those to my school.