Defenestrating Thoughts from the Bivouac

Wow, it’s a long time since I posted anything. I had been doing such a good job of writing and using delayed posting to spread out when things come online, but then I got lazy. And now my head is full of mostly pointless thoughts just waiting to be “defenestrated” out into the blogosphere. :-)

Recently Google added compostable plates, utensils, cups and napkins to our cafeterias. The napkins and plates are made of special paper so they biodegrade easily. The cups and utensils are made of corn starch. For those that are curious, my friends and I have done a few taste tests and the utensils taste just like rice cakes.

Along with these, we have compost bins to toss these and food scraps into. And presumably this gets used as soil additive or mulch. So it would be used to grow more crops.

Now the interesting part (for me): if someone throws away some left-over chicken and it’s used to fertilize the plants, what does this mean for my vegetarian sensibilities? Is there a ethical problem with eating “Chicken-fed cucumber”? :-)

Aside from being really amusing, I suppose it’s not an issue, as random dead animals have been feeding plants forever as part of the circle of life.

Somewhat related, we realized over lunch that one of the traditional “don’t eat things that have nervous systems” approach to vegetarianism has a few flaws. After all, potatoes have eyes and corn has ears. :-)

Nickel and Dimed is a bestselling and highly acclaimed book written by Barbara Ehrenreich where she tries to live as a “unskilled” worker. She works as waitress, housekeeper, and then a Walmart associate, and recounts her experiences trying to make ends meet. It’s a great idea for investigative journalism, so I was excited to read it.

Unfortunately, the book was disappointing for a number of reasons. There was no discussion about potential solutions for the problems at hand, there was way too much liberal guilt and socialist platitudes, and the author spent more time talking about herself (mentioning she has a PhD. every other page) than talking about what she learned from her peers.

The author seemed surprisingly sheltered from the “working class” and came off as a upper middle class elitist. She never really talks to her co-workers to understand how they live and how they get by. And she never transcends her own sense of entitlement and superiority. For example, she considered going to California for her experiment, but didn’t because of her “worry that the Latinos might be hogging all the crap jobs and substandard housing for themselves.”

Take that thought and combine it with assertion that “the laws of supply and demand have been reversed. Rental prices skyrocket, but wages never rise.” It’s enough to make one’s head explode. If there are lots of people willing to work for low wages, the laws of supply and demand would assert that wages would not increase. To even consider that there is a direct relation between rents and low-end wages shows a severe lack of understanding of even basic economics.

Ehrenreich doesn’t stay at any job for more than 3 weeks and as a result exclusively lives in temporary housing. But temporary housing must, by definition, be priced at a premium. She even says that a family can rent a modest home for less than she paid for horrible temporary quarters. Yet, there are many, many pages dedicated to how hard it was for her to find affordable housing.

She gets extremely mad and offended some of the jobs require drug testing. Well, considering that lots of jobs today require it and that she even mentions a “chemical discrepancy” of hers before the test was scheduled, it’s silly to complain about.

Ehrenich rarely talks about her co-workers or what’s she learned from them. The one time that she actually talks to someone, they advice her to “find a church”. But she never goes to a church to get help for finding housing, a job, or groceries. Instead she makes repeated bad choices like $11 dinners, $30 on medicine to mask her drug use, and never sticking around on a job. Most times she doesn’t even properly quit her jobs, she just stops showing up.

She clearly said at the onset that she didn’t want to live the exact life of her co-workers. So in that case it would have been better to sit at home and volunteer as a social worker to get to know the “working class” and then research, research, and research.

Also I should point out, I hate the term “working class”. It’s very insulting and elitist, which is why I keep putting it in quotes. Except for a small amount of people, everyone works for the money they need to live their lives.

It’s too bad, the basic idea of the book is excellent. The lack of research, lack of follow-through, and obvious agenda ruined it. The problem of poverty is very real and more honest thorough discussion still needs to happen. Despite all the books accolades, I don’t recommend reading it.

I recently diagnosed myself with Automotus Anthropomorphus Syndrome. It was the cause of my mild anxiety when I was getting rid of my old car and getting a new one. Basically the root cause of this syndrome is when someone becomes excessive attached to a car and values it like they would a person or, in the more severe cases of the syndrome, a member of the family.

Also, keep in mind that the similarly named Automotus Polymorphus Syndrome is completely unrelated. That’s what Transformers have. :-)

As an aside, you may notice that I changed the post category “Philosophy” to “Pseudo-Intellectual”, as it’s much more descriptive of my writing on things of this nature. Besides, calling it “Philosophy” was unintentionally pompous, it’s not like I need to act smart and superior to get a research grant or something. :-)

So anyway, back the subject at hand. Take my recently replaced car, the 1992 Honda Accord. It was built around Oct 1991, so I was 10 years old at the time. My family bought it around 1994 and it was our family car. I learned to drive on it. It was there on all those roadtrips around Colorado when we were growing up, when I went to college, when I met Crissy, fell in love with Crissy, graduated college, got my first job, severely injured my back, proposed, got married, quit my first job, and started my second job. That’s fairly impressive so it was understandably hard to see it go. Especially when you consider it’s been a loyal and dependable friend. No major repairs, no getting stranded anywhere, no problems in Colorado snow, just solid performance in getting from point A to point B every time.

Oddly this car seems to have that effect on other people. When my parents bought this car, the previous owner made them promise twice to keep good care of it and he was very hesitant in turning over the keys. And he had to sell, since he was leaving the country the next day.

And as testament to how long this car has been with me: when I was cleaning my stuff out of the car, in the magazine pocket by the back seats, I found a Reader’s Digest from April 1994. It’s definitely an artifact from one of the many road trips we took growing up during which Mom would read us the good jokes and test our Word Power.

Crissy suggested that we throw a goodbye party for the car. While it would have been a fun and unique theme party to throw, I told her that she was acting as an enabler of my condition and should know better. :-)

That’s right, after talking about it for years, I finally replaced my legendary 1992 Honda Accord on Friday. And I replaced it with… a 2007 Honda Accord! Woohoo! :-)

I’m pretty happy to have a new car with that great new car smell. I decided to spoil myself a little and get lots of unnecessary options (the EX-L trim level) so I have things like heated leather seats, dual climate control, and a moon-roof.

Since I used this great service called Fighting Chance to learn exactly how car dealerships work and how to shop for a car, I managed to get a incredible deal. In fact, no other dealer in the area could beat (and only one could match) the price that Lynnwood Honda gave me.

I choose the Accord after looking at lots of cars. I eliminated Hybrids, because I feel the technology needs one or two more years before it could be as reliable long term as my old Accord had been.The second reason is I think in 10 years, we probably won’t even have Hybrids cars, since we’ll find some sort of transmission-less car that would be better for the environment.

I wanted to stick with Toyotas or Hondas because of quality and reputation. And I didn’t want a smaller compact (like a Civic or Corolla) because in a few years there will be a “baby on board” so I preferred a larger sedan.

I didn’t want the Camry since it has a funny looking back and it is a few thousand more for some reason. I thought a lot about getting a compact SUV (RAV4 or CRV). I did like those cars a lot. But I ultimately decided that we’ll get one of those “Mommy cars” when we replace Crissy’s car in a few years.

I sold my old car private party right before picking up my new one, so I essentially did a car swap. I was a little sad driving back to work in my new car, but the nice guys who do the valet service at work cheered me up with their ooo-ing and ahh-ing. And when I came to pick up my car, I found it parked with traffic cones around it, so no one could park too close and dent it. :-)

So I’m happy with my new car. I know it’s reliable, has more than enough power for me (166 hp), safe (six airbags, anti-lock brakes, etc.), it looks good, and the price was right.