Tagged: Society

“Super” Centers

I spent some time in a “super” center today. You know what I’m talking about – a warehouse the size of a city block that offers everything you could ever want except automobiles and health care. From an efficiency standpoint, I understand the attraction. These behemoths offer one-stop shopping. Need underwear? Check. Need Bananas? Check. Hell, I could see the bananas from the underwear section. Yikes.

So what’ s the problem? I suppose it’s that these stores are very imposing and poorly integrated into communities. They’re surrounded by massive, non-porous parking lots. Yes, I know, how else are people going to get everything they’re buying home if not in their automobiles . . .

What if these things were built underground instead of on land? While the battle of massive chain stores versus independent retailers wouldn’t be resolved, at least society would benefit from a planning perspective. Could you imagine acres of housing and community space existing above a one-stop shop? Man alive that would be great. Just hit “S” on the elevator and the door would open into the store; carry your supplies upstairs in reusable bags and you’re set. When you’ve finished changing underwear or eating bananas then you could go outside into a community park and walk the dog or catch up with neighbors.

I dream of places that do not yet exist. Nothing practical stands between my imagination and reality but the unwillingness of people to change and adapt. Let’s take these closed car dealerships and factories and turn them into vibrant, environmentally-friendly miniature cities. Let’s start tomorrow.

A Life Including Service

Today is one of those days that reinforces why I volunteer and selfishly, the satisfaction I get from doing so. I waver almost daily on how much involvement I want to have in my community. There are days I just want to hole up and not deal with the struggle of trying to make things better. This is America after all. I eat what I kill and if the system is unfair, too bad. Fortunately I don’t rest on that attitude for long. My “whatever” thinking is generally fleeting.  This is America after all. I can make a difference - little ol’ me.

This line of thinking reminds me of an episode of Friends in which Joey and Phoebe are debating whether or not there is such a thing as a selfless good deed. My thought is that there are, but they are fewer and further between than most people would like to believe. I’m fairly certain I’ve never committed a selfless good deed because helping others and volunteering makes me feel good, even when I receive nothing tangible in return, as was the case today. I’m not sure I’d do what I do if I didn’t get something out of it.

This morning was the bimonthly board meeting of an organization with which I’m involved called St. Louis Artworks. I’ve been a board member about a year and a half, and while I haven’t contributed as much as I’d have liked to, I’ve been able to influence the direction of the organization in a positive way . . . at least that’s what I’ve been led to believe. Today’s board meeting was different from most because it was the most connected to the actual inner workings – the employment of youth in artistic disciplines – of the group since I joined the board. After the board meeting the members were given an informal tour of three of the disciplines being taught this summer – ceramics, printmaking and sculpture. Each discipline is staffed with some good kids.

While there are exceptions, most of the students who participate live in the City of St. Louis, are African American and come from low to moderate income households.  A few months ago I had the opportunity to interview these students for admission into the program. Today I got to see those who were selected hard at work. The most amazing part of what I saw this morning is that some of these students are finally in an environment that allows them to thrive, or at least be enlightened to subjects they would never know about were it not for this program. Their minds are opened and hope is permitted to build inside of them.

One such young gentlemen came up to me today and introduced himself the second I walked into the room. He took me on a tour of the room and showed me what his group was working on. He was courteous and professional. This student was one of the more outgoing of the bunch, but for most this is their first job. The interview day I mentioned earlier is often their first exposure to the working world and the intimidation and reservation these kids feel is palpable in the room. I don’t know this particular student’s background but he told me he wanted to go to school to become an architectural engineer. I told him my degree is in engineering and he asked if it was hard. I told him yes but while he seemed slightly dejected he was simultaneously upbeat. He said he was at going to try nonetheless. I told him the best things in life aren’t easy. That little bit of undefinable, immeasurable ambition is fuel to my fire and will keep me going for a little bit longer.

If you long to feel worthy I encourage you to spend some time with those different from you and offer whatever it is you have to offer. Everyone will be better off for it.

Your God’s Cool Too

Today is a reminder that while there are plenty of religious nutjobs in America, we’re pretty lucky all things considered. Israel bombed Gaza today and Pakistan is mobilizing troops away from Afghanistan (WTF?) and towards India. But, an op-ed article published in The New York Times today called, “Heaven for the Godless?“, not only bodes well for me (oh, the irony) but offers a sense of temperance among believers in the U.S.; all this much to the chagrin of evangelists, which is awesome.

The author, Charles Blow, references a couple of recent studies by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life which conclude that somewhere between 65% and 70% of Americans believe “religions other than theirs could lead to eternal life”. The piece also says the studies concluded that, “Nearly half also thought that atheists could go to heaven — dragged there kicking and screaming, no doubt — and most thought that people with no religious faith also could go”.

Other tidbits from the article in relation to Christianity include:

  • only 39 percent of Christians believe that the Bible is the literal word of God;
  • only 18 percent think that it’s just a book written by men and not the word of God at all;
  • only 1 percent of Christians, when asked what it would take to achieve eternal life, said living life in accordance with the Bible.

These conclusions clearly speak toward tolerance. I believe the isolationist society we’ve built, and continue to embrace, contributes to these figures, even though they were surprisingly low to me. Blow posits that just being a decent human being is good enough in the eyes of many to achieve eternal life:

One very plausible explanation is that Americans just want good things to come to good people, regardless of their faith. As Alan Segal, a professor of religion at Barnard College told me: “We are a multicultural society, and people expect this American life to continue the same way in heaven.” He explained that in our society, we meet so many good people of different faiths that it’s hard for us to imagine God letting them go to hell. In fact, in the most recent survey, Pew asked people what they thought determined whether a person would achieve eternal life. Nearly as many Christians said you could achieve eternal life by just being a good person as said that you had to believe in Jesus.

The commonality in all religions is common sense, and never has a war started over common sense. It’s when reasonable men start believing unreasonable things that they start battling.

The world has been offering up some pretty depressing news lately. The results of this study reinforced an idea I’ve held for some time, and that’s that if we continue to raise awareness and educate people, the need to defend the lunacy of religions will fade and the ability of all people to get along will be unavoidable.

Changing Habits

I received an email from Sierra Club today with a link to a website called 50 Ways to Help the Planet.

The crazy thing is, on the site, “they” give you 50 actual ways to help the planet. Unbelievable!

This isn’t the first published set of green action items, and it won’t be the last, but the lesson to take away from these lists is that they all ask people not to do things differently every now and then. but to change our habits. Only if fundamentally alter our behavior will we change the course we’re on.

The devastating climate change we’re experiencing currently took millions of people and decades to create. Changing to compact fluorescent light bulbs, while helpful, is only a small piece o the puzzle. The 49 others ways to help the planet presented on the list I’ve linked to should also be done by everyone; they must become habits.

Number 8 on the list – Go Vegetarian Once A Week – is the change in lifestyle that can go the furthest, yet is most often ignored by people. The site says, “One less meat-based meal a week helps the planet and your diet. For example: It requires 2,500 gallons of water to produce one pound of beef. You will also also save some trees. For each hamburger that originated from animals raised on rainforest land, approximately 55 square feet of forest have been destroyed.”

Bill Maher talks about vegetarianism on his show frequently, but no one else in the popular media – if HBO can be considered that - ever mentions it. I’ve talked about it time and time again, most recently in reference to an article written in The New York Times by a freakin’ carnivore of all people. And like Mark Bittman, the author of the NYT piece, a realistic real goal for environmentalists should be to get people to eat meat only once a day, not just be vegetarian once a week.

So go check out the site; it has bitchin’ free wallpapers for download and some great t-shirts for purchase.