Well, I'm off tomorrow. I'll be spending ten days in Greece with my family before heading over to Ghana to intern with Dad. I could say a bunch of insightful stuff right now about carbon emissions or changing the world, but I don't really feel like it. So instead, I'm going to detail my plan to decisively defeat all the Ghanaian microbes that are conspiring to get me sick as we speak.
Last time I was in Ghana was in the summer of 2008. I spent three weeks traveling around with Dad and my friend Carol, and I got decently sick. Not death-defyingly so, but by the end of that trip, I was eating about 400 calories a day and had lost 10-15 pounds.
This time, I'm ready. I've been training for this all semester by consuming as much bacteria as I can: raw milk, expired yogurt, homemade kombucha, expired raw milk...I should have at least three trillion good happy bacteria in my intestines, ready to fight. But just in case, I have the most comprehensive, no-nonsense med kit ever, and I am going to outsmart and outlast anything that tries to get me in less-than-perfect physical condition, microbe or otherwise. Here's what I'm hauling with me *possible TMI warning for people who get weirded out by indirect references to vaginas*:
-Ibuprofen, for good old-fashioned cramps and other assorted aches and pains
-Pepto-Bismol, to calm my tummy dragon down (his name is Chester, and he gets really excited in developing countries)
-Immodium, in case Chester does not listen to the Pepto-Bismol
-Two courses of cipro (an antibiotic), in case the tummy issues are actually Chester being attacked by unhappy bacteria that the raw milk bacteria are unable to subdue
-Anti-yeast infection medication, in case taking said antibiotics messes up my delicate bacteria-yeast balance
-Sunscreen, because I am a devoted fan of Cosmo's Practice Safe Sun Campaign (srsly guys, it's the most important issue ever)
-Triple antibiotic ointment, in case the whole giant-trenches-full-of-trash-on-the-side-of-the-road thing results in an injury
-Anti-itch cream, for when those pesky disease-carrying mosquitoes decide I taste good
-Malarone, for when said mosquitoes end up being female and members of genes Anopheles (aka malaria-transmitting ones)
-Plan B, in case some non-consensual shit goes down. Told you I was ready for everything.
In addition, I am vaccinated against yellow fever, typhoid and hepatitis A and B. And I just got a tetanus booster in January. So suck it, microbes. The only way you're getting me sick is with rabies (please no).
5.15.2011
Things that make life beautiful
It's finals season, which means I've been studying and writing papers for the past three or four days. So I just wanted to take a minute to think about some of the awesome, happy things in the world and remind myself that there are so many things that matter much more than finals.
Things that make the world an amazing place:
brunch with friends
wearing dresses
summer rainstorms
sex, love and heartbreak
one of those sunsets that looks like the entirety of the human condition spelled out in color
mint tea
staying up until 3am talking about revolution
walking barefoot through mud or damp grass
singing around a campfire
family stories
fresh, homemade cheese
the feeling you get hanging 100 feet off the ground at a belay station with your best friend next to you
a wolf's distant howl on a cold night
Things that are so much more important than finals:
fixing our food system
making a world where the lives of humans and non-humans are all valued and respected
cultivating awesome friendships with people who are just as radical as you
believing in something with your heart and soul
learning how to live without oil
making music
learning how to trust someone completely
getting rid of zoos
writing something that matters
Things that make the world an amazing place:
brunch with friends
wearing dresses
summer rainstorms
sex, love and heartbreak
one of those sunsets that looks like the entirety of the human condition spelled out in color
mint tea
staying up until 3am talking about revolution
walking barefoot through mud or damp grass
singing around a campfire
family stories
fresh, homemade cheese
the feeling you get hanging 100 feet off the ground at a belay station with your best friend next to you
a wolf's distant howl on a cold night
Things that are so much more important than finals:
fixing our food system
making a world where the lives of humans and non-humans are all valued and respected
cultivating awesome friendships with people who are just as radical as you
believing in something with your heart and soul
learning how to live without oil
making music
learning how to trust someone completely
getting rid of zoos
writing something that matters
5.08.2011
Macro vs. micro
Instead of studying for finals (because, really, who cares how DNA is transcribed?), I've been reading (shocker, I know). I just finished The Devil's Highway, by Luis Alberto Urrea. It's a beautiful narrative following a group of Mexicans who attempted to cross into the US through the Arizona desert. The route they chose is notoriously deadly, and of the original group of twenty-six men who set out for El Norte, fourteen of them were flown home in bodybags. This is not an anomaly. This happens all the time. As you sit here, reading this, there are men and women walking through the desert who are dying of heat and thirst and exhaustion. They will likely rot in the desert alone. Their bodies will not be identified. Their family will not be notified. They will disappear.
There's a very good reason why this happens. It's not because the desert is hot. It's not because there are people who want to come to the United States, whatever the cost. It's because of criminally insane border policies and politics. It's because of US immigration policy and trade liberalization and global economic factors that are driving Mexican families further into poverty. It's not about individual choices, any more than climate change is caused by us all not driving Priuses.
The other book I've been reading is called Sweet Charity?: Emergency Food and the End of Entitlement by Janet Poppendieck. Her thesis is essentially that food banks and soup kitchens are doing more harm than good in the effort to combat hunger. That might sound weird, so bear with me for a minute.
Hunger is a very visceral issue. We identify with it easily, and it's one of the most noncontroversial charitable activities in the world. Most major religions have specific provisions in their holy texts about feeding the hungry. For those of us who are food secure, the idea that people in the United States of America don't know where their next meal is coming from is deeply disturbing and makes us feel awful and a bit guilty. We debate the merits of giving spare change to homeless guys, but you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who seriously believes it's wrong to provide someone who's hungry with a meal.
So we have all this guilt and frustration. And we channel it into organizing food drives and volunteering at food banks. Let me be clear: these things are not bad. They're not wrong. But they are a band-aid. They're not solving a problem. And the people who do this work for a living know this. Food bank directors are painfully aware that they're not fixing anything. These things are called "emergency food" for a reason. They're supposed to be an exception. But they've become the rule. And, Poppendieck argues, by directing so much energy at this band-aid strategy, we've stopped trying to solve the problem of hunger. We, as Americans, don't demand increases in food stamp benefits. We don't have meaningful public discourse about defining the federal poverty line in more realistic terms. We drop a can of food in a bin at the store and feel a little better.
Why are people hungry in the United States? More to the point, why do we frame this as an issue of hunger? We've somehow managed to frame the issue of poverty almost entirely in terms of hunger. Poppendieck speaks at length about other factors causing poverty. Real wages have declined precipitously since the 1970s. Housing costs have gone up, to the point where they're routinely 50% or more of a low-income family's budget. People are not poor because they make bad choices. People are not food insecure or hungry because they buy cigarettes.
Reading these books concurrently has put me in an uncomfortable place with regards to activism. I'm a micro girl. I want to help people. I want to go work for No More Deaths and put jugs of water out in the desert so people won't die. I want to hand out food at the FamilyWorks Food Bank in Seattle, where I've volunteered for much of my life. I want to see people smile. I want to talk to them. I want to make everything better.
This is work that needs to be done, to be sure. But it's not going to solve the underlying problems. Giving delirious desert walkers water is not going to stem the tide of immigrants who are literally willing to go through hell to get to this country. Handing out cans of beans to people who need them won't raise the minimum wage or change the fact that one-eighth of Americans are currently on food stamps.
I don't think macro policy work is necessarily the answer either. To be sure, I would rather live in a country where we feel strongly enough about human rights that we give anyone who is unable to feed their family money to do so. I would rather live in a country with closed borders that has a reasonable number of visas and a humane policy for dealing with people who are living here illegally. But more than that, I want to live in a world without poverty and inequality. I want to live in a world where you can make enough working as a cashier at Safeway that you don't need food stamps to buy a bagel and banana on your lunch break. I want to live in a world where our border is open to anyone who wants to come across it, and more than that, I want to live in a world where we don't have thousands of people willing to risk death to come here because they can find meaningful, well-paying work at home. I want to live in a world where we don't need food stamps as much as we don't need food banks. And that world is never going to come about through government reform.
I'm not going to end with an answer or a compromise. I know I need to read more, and think more. I know you can do macro and micro. I know there are options and people who've thought about this before.
But I would like to ask you to spend just a few seconds of your life right now thinking about some of these people. Think about the people who, right now, are walking across the Arizona desert in search of a better life, the people who are half-crazy with heat and dehydration and have nothing to keep them going except hope and prayer. Think about the people who work one or two jobs and have food stamps and still can't afford to feed their families, the people who skip meals and pretend they're not hungry so their kids won't go to school with empty stomachs. These people are not literary devices or abstractions. They exist right now, in this country. If that's something that you believe should change, think about something you want to do. Something you would do if you had time. Anything. Anything at all. And even if you can't do it right now, keep it with you. Pass it on.
There's a very good reason why this happens. It's not because the desert is hot. It's not because there are people who want to come to the United States, whatever the cost. It's because of criminally insane border policies and politics. It's because of US immigration policy and trade liberalization and global economic factors that are driving Mexican families further into poverty. It's not about individual choices, any more than climate change is caused by us all not driving Priuses.
The other book I've been reading is called Sweet Charity?: Emergency Food and the End of Entitlement by Janet Poppendieck. Her thesis is essentially that food banks and soup kitchens are doing more harm than good in the effort to combat hunger. That might sound weird, so bear with me for a minute.
Hunger is a very visceral issue. We identify with it easily, and it's one of the most noncontroversial charitable activities in the world. Most major religions have specific provisions in their holy texts about feeding the hungry. For those of us who are food secure, the idea that people in the United States of America don't know where their next meal is coming from is deeply disturbing and makes us feel awful and a bit guilty. We debate the merits of giving spare change to homeless guys, but you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who seriously believes it's wrong to provide someone who's hungry with a meal.
So we have all this guilt and frustration. And we channel it into organizing food drives and volunteering at food banks. Let me be clear: these things are not bad. They're not wrong. But they are a band-aid. They're not solving a problem. And the people who do this work for a living know this. Food bank directors are painfully aware that they're not fixing anything. These things are called "emergency food" for a reason. They're supposed to be an exception. But they've become the rule. And, Poppendieck argues, by directing so much energy at this band-aid strategy, we've stopped trying to solve the problem of hunger. We, as Americans, don't demand increases in food stamp benefits. We don't have meaningful public discourse about defining the federal poverty line in more realistic terms. We drop a can of food in a bin at the store and feel a little better.
Why are people hungry in the United States? More to the point, why do we frame this as an issue of hunger? We've somehow managed to frame the issue of poverty almost entirely in terms of hunger. Poppendieck speaks at length about other factors causing poverty. Real wages have declined precipitously since the 1970s. Housing costs have gone up, to the point where they're routinely 50% or more of a low-income family's budget. People are not poor because they make bad choices. People are not food insecure or hungry because they buy cigarettes.
Reading these books concurrently has put me in an uncomfortable place with regards to activism. I'm a micro girl. I want to help people. I want to go work for No More Deaths and put jugs of water out in the desert so people won't die. I want to hand out food at the FamilyWorks Food Bank in Seattle, where I've volunteered for much of my life. I want to see people smile. I want to talk to them. I want to make everything better.
This is work that needs to be done, to be sure. But it's not going to solve the underlying problems. Giving delirious desert walkers water is not going to stem the tide of immigrants who are literally willing to go through hell to get to this country. Handing out cans of beans to people who need them won't raise the minimum wage or change the fact that one-eighth of Americans are currently on food stamps.
I don't think macro policy work is necessarily the answer either. To be sure, I would rather live in a country where we feel strongly enough about human rights that we give anyone who is unable to feed their family money to do so. I would rather live in a country with closed borders that has a reasonable number of visas and a humane policy for dealing with people who are living here illegally. But more than that, I want to live in a world without poverty and inequality. I want to live in a world where you can make enough working as a cashier at Safeway that you don't need food stamps to buy a bagel and banana on your lunch break. I want to live in a world where our border is open to anyone who wants to come across it, and more than that, I want to live in a world where we don't have thousands of people willing to risk death to come here because they can find meaningful, well-paying work at home. I want to live in a world where we don't need food stamps as much as we don't need food banks. And that world is never going to come about through government reform.
I'm not going to end with an answer or a compromise. I know I need to read more, and think more. I know you can do macro and micro. I know there are options and people who've thought about this before.
But I would like to ask you to spend just a few seconds of your life right now thinking about some of these people. Think about the people who, right now, are walking across the Arizona desert in search of a better life, the people who are half-crazy with heat and dehydration and have nothing to keep them going except hope and prayer. Think about the people who work one or two jobs and have food stamps and still can't afford to feed their families, the people who skip meals and pretend they're not hungry so their kids won't go to school with empty stomachs. These people are not literary devices or abstractions. They exist right now, in this country. If that's something that you believe should change, think about something you want to do. Something you would do if you had time. Anything. Anything at all. And even if you can't do it right now, keep it with you. Pass it on.
Epic summer countdown
Now that I've laid out my life plans, it's time to lay out my summer plans. For quick and easy reference, I am referring to this summer as Operation Acquire an Intestinal Parasite and Huge Carbon Footprint While Changing the World and Learning How to Milk Cows (OAIPHCFWCWLHMC, for short).
First stop: Greece. I'm chilling with my family for about ten days in Athens and on two Greek islands. This will not accomplish any of the world-changing or cow-milking alluded to in my operation, but it will make a dent in the carbon footprint. Also, I will probably get a nice tan.
Second stop: Ghana. I'm interning with my dad's company, Burro, which sells things designed to allow people with almost no money to be more productive. Right now, they rent rechargeable batteries and sell battery-powered LED lights (which replace kerosene lanterns) and battery-powered cell phone chargers. (Many/most Ghanaian villages have no electricity, so cell phones usually get rounded up by an enterprising person and taken to an on-grid location to charge. This is very inconvenient and costs people a decent amount of money.)
After doing some market research with existing clients, Dad is looking at expanding into agricultural inputs, so I will be researching options for this with a Ghanaian university student. I have really mixed feelings about offering people in developing countries (or anywhere, really) agricultural chemicals. On the one hand, ag chemicals are demonstrably pretty not-good for life. On the other hand, Ghanaian farmers are going to use pesticides whether we supply them or not (probably), and it's so completely not my place or job to go around lecturing actual farmers about how to feed their families. So I will try not to worry too much about the macro effects and focus on learning cool stuff about micro-level agricultural policy and marketing and telling people's stories on the Burro website.
I'm really excited for this, though. For one, I've never had a proper full-time internship with a large degree of autonomy. Much less one in Ghana where I'll be working with a Ghanaian student. I'm hoping to learn as much as possible about the lives of Burro customers, agriculture-related or otherwise. I'm also looking forward to driving the official Burro pickup truck, which is painted bright lime green and has a donkey's head on it (painted, that is. Not a real donkey's head.) Also, I plan to acquire at least one intestinal parasite in Ghana. Maybe I can even break my weight-loss-due-to-violent-illness record (last trip, I was there for 2.5 weeks and lost about 15 pounds).
After Ghana, I'll be home for about a month. Most likely working for my corporate overlords and spending the rest of my time reading about Ecuador.
And then...Ecuador!!! I just got official confirmation that I get to spend two weeks before my study abroad program starts working on an Ecuadorian farm/wildlife refuge. According to the email from the guy who runs the place, I am expected to work 7am-3pm weekdays doing any and all of the following things:
-cultivating the fields
-taking care of both wild and domesticated animals
-fixing fences
-building
-milking cows
-any other thing that we need to do
Which means OMG I GET TO LEARN HOW TO MILK A COW. This is serious, guys. This is worth at least +15 hippie points.
And then I'll be studying abroad!
I'm off in a little over a week, and I'll try to update as much as I can while I'm traveling the globe. Hopefully I won't get killed by a cow, or the aforementioned intestinal parasite.
First stop: Greece. I'm chilling with my family for about ten days in Athens and on two Greek islands. This will not accomplish any of the world-changing or cow-milking alluded to in my operation, but it will make a dent in the carbon footprint. Also, I will probably get a nice tan.
Second stop: Ghana. I'm interning with my dad's company, Burro, which sells things designed to allow people with almost no money to be more productive. Right now, they rent rechargeable batteries and sell battery-powered LED lights (which replace kerosene lanterns) and battery-powered cell phone chargers. (Many/most Ghanaian villages have no electricity, so cell phones usually get rounded up by an enterprising person and taken to an on-grid location to charge. This is very inconvenient and costs people a decent amount of money.)
After doing some market research with existing clients, Dad is looking at expanding into agricultural inputs, so I will be researching options for this with a Ghanaian university student. I have really mixed feelings about offering people in developing countries (or anywhere, really) agricultural chemicals. On the one hand, ag chemicals are demonstrably pretty not-good for life. On the other hand, Ghanaian farmers are going to use pesticides whether we supply them or not (probably), and it's so completely not my place or job to go around lecturing actual farmers about how to feed their families. So I will try not to worry too much about the macro effects and focus on learning cool stuff about micro-level agricultural policy and marketing and telling people's stories on the Burro website.
I'm really excited for this, though. For one, I've never had a proper full-time internship with a large degree of autonomy. Much less one in Ghana where I'll be working with a Ghanaian student. I'm hoping to learn as much as possible about the lives of Burro customers, agriculture-related or otherwise. I'm also looking forward to driving the official Burro pickup truck, which is painted bright lime green and has a donkey's head on it (painted, that is. Not a real donkey's head.) Also, I plan to acquire at least one intestinal parasite in Ghana. Maybe I can even break my weight-loss-due-to-violent-illness record (last trip, I was there for 2.5 weeks and lost about 15 pounds).
After Ghana, I'll be home for about a month. Most likely working for my corporate overlords and spending the rest of my time reading about Ecuador.
And then...Ecuador!!! I just got official confirmation that I get to spend two weeks before my study abroad program starts working on an Ecuadorian farm/wildlife refuge. According to the email from the guy who runs the place, I am expected to work 7am-3pm weekdays doing any and all of the following things:
-cultivating the fields
-taking care of both wild and domesticated animals
-fixing fences
-building
-milking cows
-any other thing that we need to do
Which means OMG I GET TO LEARN HOW TO MILK A COW. This is serious, guys. This is worth at least +15 hippie points.
And then I'll be studying abroad!
I'm off in a little over a week, and I'll try to update as much as I can while I'm traveling the globe. Hopefully I won't get killed by a cow, or the aforementioned intestinal parasite.
5.04.2011
Life plans
I've been getting the "what do you want to do with your life?" question a lot lately, and I thought I'd just summarize my thoughts here so I can have a definitive record to laugh at when I'm 30 and actually have a job that's completely unlike what I'm describing. Basically, my future can be boiled down into three competing (and not necessarily mutually exclusive) post-grad plans, which each have a story arc that follows logically from them. So, without further ado, I present Rachel's Grand Conspiracy to Save the World, Find Love and Happiness and Learn to Make Some Really Cool Hippie Foods, Guys.
plan a: journalism
post grad: Find a journalism internship or job, preferably with a lefty magazine that does quality investigative reporting (oh hey Mother Jones/oh fine, High Country News, you're pretty legit too).
where this goes: Become a freelancer or get on the investigative team of an awesome publication. Expose toxic waste, corporate greenwashing and how the world's actually going to hell way faster than people think. Get better at multimedia, take awesome trips and report on them, have a really cool blog.
how my whiny liberal ideals do: Rest comfortably in the knowledge that I'm bringing the truth out into the light of day, rest less assured in the knowledge that I'm making suffering into a form of pornography for white upper class people and that my livelihood depends on other people having to live through wars, rape, famine and environmental destruction. Eventually become cynical and bitter, but join a food co-op and feel better about myself.
how I live: With a small garden, but that's probably it. I wouldn't have the time to have a full agricultural operation, do a community garden, knit or any other handicraft type things. I probably have a car that's fuel efficient ish but not great. I probably fly a lot.
changing the world: Not directly. But potentially non-directly in important ways.
plan b: become an actual hippie
post-grad: Move back home and do Wilderness Awareness School's Residential Program. Spend the year learning about tracking, yurt-building and a ton of other useful life skills. Work at Safeway on non-school days, get food stamps and debate whether or not I can afford raw milk.
where this goes: Possibly into one of the other life options, but I get super involved in community gardens, the local food scene, co-ops and the like. I quit Safeway but continue to work in hippie grocery stores like the Madison Market Co-op. I get some chickens and some goats and have raw milk all the time. I make most of my own food. I blog all the time and maybe write a book about the grocery store industry that a bunch of upper middle class white foodies buy so they can feel guilty and laugh at my stories about crazy people. I don't have a real job because I don't really need one.
An alternate plan, plan 2b, would involve a brief but illustrious career in somewhat illegal resistance measures, after which I retire, disillusioned, or wind up in federal prison for the rest of my life. So there's always that.
how my whiny liberal ideals do: Feel amazing and happy much of the time, but live with a nagging worry that I'm not doing anything to change the system, and a nagging knowledge that opting out of problems doesn't fix them. Somewhat reassure myself that teaching kids how to garden is probably super-worthwhile, and that I'll be able to take care of myself after peak oil decently well.
how I live: No car, and killer legs from biking all over Seattle. With neighbors who are also hippies or who hate me because of the goats. I probably have a composting toilet, and I make some awesome kale chips. I use the the words "commons", "co-op", "community garden" and "industrial capitalism" a lot.
changing the world: Not really, but teaching the interested and privileged in it to live better, and prepping us all for the crash. Seriously, it's coming, guys.
plan c: international development
post-grad: Do the Peace Corps, which is a catch-all term for "live in a developing country for a few years and do some type of development project". Probably not the actual Peace Corps, though. Probably something more like permaculture or eco-stoves.
where this goes: I get really involved in some cool project and want to stay in that country. I spend 5-10 years traveling around the region I'm working in and doing on-the-ground development work. I start to miss my family and start a nonprofit or business which will allow me to keep doing what I want but spend some time back home in Seattle too. Possible alternate: I get burned out, go to grad school and spend my life teaching idealistic undergrads about politics and the environment and why everything is really, really screwed but life is awesome anyway.
how my whiny liberal ideals do: I feel good because I'm "helping people", but I spend a lot of time worrying about capitalism and neocolonialism and why I'm spending time telling other people how to run their lives when there are very real problems with poverty in the United States. I also have a huge carbon footprint from flying to Latin America all the time.
how I live: Pretty flexible schedule, lots of hard work. Abroad, I have a house which is very nice by local standards, with water and nice locally made furniture. In the US, not much of anything--maybe a small house or condo, maybe a car. I eat local foods abroad because that's what people eat in other normal countries, but I don't spend a bunch of time fermenting tea and learning how to make cheese.
changing the world: For some people. And unlike with plan b, they won't be the rich white ones, mostly. Small steps, but steps.
So there you go. This summer will be a nice crash course in plan c, with a bit of b thrown in there, but I'll talk about that another time.
plan a: journalism
post grad: Find a journalism internship or job, preferably with a lefty magazine that does quality investigative reporting (oh hey Mother Jones/oh fine, High Country News, you're pretty legit too).
where this goes: Become a freelancer or get on the investigative team of an awesome publication. Expose toxic waste, corporate greenwashing and how the world's actually going to hell way faster than people think. Get better at multimedia, take awesome trips and report on them, have a really cool blog.
how my whiny liberal ideals do: Rest comfortably in the knowledge that I'm bringing the truth out into the light of day, rest less assured in the knowledge that I'm making suffering into a form of pornography for white upper class people and that my livelihood depends on other people having to live through wars, rape, famine and environmental destruction. Eventually become cynical and bitter, but join a food co-op and feel better about myself.
how I live: With a small garden, but that's probably it. I wouldn't have the time to have a full agricultural operation, do a community garden, knit or any other handicraft type things. I probably have a car that's fuel efficient ish but not great. I probably fly a lot.
changing the world: Not directly. But potentially non-directly in important ways.
plan b: become an actual hippie
post-grad: Move back home and do Wilderness Awareness School's Residential Program. Spend the year learning about tracking, yurt-building and a ton of other useful life skills. Work at Safeway on non-school days, get food stamps and debate whether or not I can afford raw milk.
where this goes: Possibly into one of the other life options, but I get super involved in community gardens, the local food scene, co-ops and the like. I quit Safeway but continue to work in hippie grocery stores like the Madison Market Co-op. I get some chickens and some goats and have raw milk all the time. I make most of my own food. I blog all the time and maybe write a book about the grocery store industry that a bunch of upper middle class white foodies buy so they can feel guilty and laugh at my stories about crazy people. I don't have a real job because I don't really need one.
An alternate plan, plan 2b, would involve a brief but illustrious career in somewhat illegal resistance measures, after which I retire, disillusioned, or wind up in federal prison for the rest of my life. So there's always that.
how my whiny liberal ideals do: Feel amazing and happy much of the time, but live with a nagging worry that I'm not doing anything to change the system, and a nagging knowledge that opting out of problems doesn't fix them. Somewhat reassure myself that teaching kids how to garden is probably super-worthwhile, and that I'll be able to take care of myself after peak oil decently well.
how I live: No car, and killer legs from biking all over Seattle. With neighbors who are also hippies or who hate me because of the goats. I probably have a composting toilet, and I make some awesome kale chips. I use the the words "commons", "co-op", "community garden" and "industrial capitalism" a lot.
changing the world: Not really, but teaching the interested and privileged in it to live better, and prepping us all for the crash. Seriously, it's coming, guys.
plan c: international development
post-grad: Do the Peace Corps, which is a catch-all term for "live in a developing country for a few years and do some type of development project". Probably not the actual Peace Corps, though. Probably something more like permaculture or eco-stoves.
where this goes: I get really involved in some cool project and want to stay in that country. I spend 5-10 years traveling around the region I'm working in and doing on-the-ground development work. I start to miss my family and start a nonprofit or business which will allow me to keep doing what I want but spend some time back home in Seattle too. Possible alternate: I get burned out, go to grad school and spend my life teaching idealistic undergrads about politics and the environment and why everything is really, really screwed but life is awesome anyway.
how my whiny liberal ideals do: I feel good because I'm "helping people", but I spend a lot of time worrying about capitalism and neocolonialism and why I'm spending time telling other people how to run their lives when there are very real problems with poverty in the United States. I also have a huge carbon footprint from flying to Latin America all the time.
how I live: Pretty flexible schedule, lots of hard work. Abroad, I have a house which is very nice by local standards, with water and nice locally made furniture. In the US, not much of anything--maybe a small house or condo, maybe a car. I eat local foods abroad because that's what people eat in other normal countries, but I don't spend a bunch of time fermenting tea and learning how to make cheese.
changing the world: For some people. And unlike with plan b, they won't be the rich white ones, mostly. Small steps, but steps.
So there you go. This summer will be a nice crash course in plan c, with a bit of b thrown in there, but I'll talk about that another time.
4.30.2011
Customer comment of the day
I'm checking out an older (but not that old) woman. She has a bunch of stuff that fits nicely in one bag, plus a huge plastic container of salad greens and two six packs of beer (in bottles).
Me: Do you want your salad in a bag?
Her: Yes.
Me: *putting salad in a bag* And would you like your beer in bags?
Her: Yes. That's a lot to carry, don't you think?
Me: *smile* Well, I guess that's up to you. (which I meant to indicate: I'm not judging you by your bag choice)
Her: Well, as long as you're going to use bags, I might as well...you know in Germany they don't have bags in stores?
I'm thoroughly confused at this point: she seems offended that I asked her about bag preference, but was also implying that we're inferior to German stores and shouldn't give out bags. So...
Me: Well, they also have incentives for solar power and aren't crazy.
Which, I probably shouldn't have said. Though I said it with a smile and shrug, sort of like, "Yeah, Germany is probably right about this one, but whatever, right?" And she looked fine when I said that, and not offended at all. But then, the best part: she finishes paying, I hand her the bags and she looks at me and says:
"I'm surprised. Does management know about your outspoken views?" in this super-condescending tone of voice implying that if management did know, then they would fire me on the spot for having opinions and wanting to not use as many bags. And then she just looked at me disapprovingly for a minute and walked off.
And I was really pissed that she couldn't seem to decide if I was a) a customer service provider who should keep her mouth shut, which doesn't explain why she brought up Germany or asked my opinion about how much stuff she had, or b) a real person, who is entitled to opinions and voicing them, which doesn't explain the last comment at all. Because more than anything else, I find it frustrating when people try to be all nice and cozy but then get really touchy if you don't act like the kind of person they want you to be. I can be a classy, understanding customer service person to you, as long as you're nice. And I can be casual and chat and make snide comments about when I get to go home if that's what you want to do. But you have to pick one, because I can't do both in the same transaction.
Also, really? That whole thing just sounds like she's asking someone to come manage me, because I'm displaying dangerous behavior more commonly known as thinking for myself.
Also mostly, I was just really, really confused by this encounter. And as a result, I reflexively cringed for the rest of the day whenever I asked anyone if they wanted a bag for their two items. But I kept asking. Because if we give people bags when they don't need them, then THE TERRORISTS WIN OMGYOUGUYS.
Me: Do you want your salad in a bag?
Her: Yes.
Me: *putting salad in a bag* And would you like your beer in bags?
Her: Yes. That's a lot to carry, don't you think?
Me: *smile* Well, I guess that's up to you. (which I meant to indicate: I'm not judging you by your bag choice)
Her: Well, as long as you're going to use bags, I might as well...you know in Germany they don't have bags in stores?
I'm thoroughly confused at this point: she seems offended that I asked her about bag preference, but was also implying that we're inferior to German stores and shouldn't give out bags. So...
Me: Well, they also have incentives for solar power and aren't crazy.
Which, I probably shouldn't have said. Though I said it with a smile and shrug, sort of like, "Yeah, Germany is probably right about this one, but whatever, right?" And she looked fine when I said that, and not offended at all. But then, the best part: she finishes paying, I hand her the bags and she looks at me and says:
"I'm surprised. Does management know about your outspoken views?" in this super-condescending tone of voice implying that if management did know, then they would fire me on the spot for having opinions and wanting to not use as many bags. And then she just looked at me disapprovingly for a minute and walked off.
And I was really pissed that she couldn't seem to decide if I was a) a customer service provider who should keep her mouth shut, which doesn't explain why she brought up Germany or asked my opinion about how much stuff she had, or b) a real person, who is entitled to opinions and voicing them, which doesn't explain the last comment at all. Because more than anything else, I find it frustrating when people try to be all nice and cozy but then get really touchy if you don't act like the kind of person they want you to be. I can be a classy, understanding customer service person to you, as long as you're nice. And I can be casual and chat and make snide comments about when I get to go home if that's what you want to do. But you have to pick one, because I can't do both in the same transaction.
Also, really? That whole thing just sounds like she's asking someone to come manage me, because I'm displaying dangerous behavior more commonly known as thinking for myself.
Also mostly, I was just really, really confused by this encounter. And as a result, I reflexively cringed for the rest of the day whenever I asked anyone if they wanted a bag for their two items. But I kept asking. Because if we give people bags when they don't need them, then THE TERRORISTS WIN OMGYOUGUYS.
4.24.2011
Why it matters
Sometimes, people find me a bit depressing. I spend a lot of time talking about wanting to end capitalism or fight back against ecological destruction. I'm the Debbie Downer at dinner parties, always ready to point out that cage free eggs don't actually mean anything or that our personal choices to buy Priuses are not going to stop global warming.
Because of this, I get friends who call me a pessimist. Sometimes, people I don't know very well tell me that I must hate life or hate the world if I'm so unhappy all the time. And there is nothing that could be further from the truth.
I am completely in love with the world, in so many ways. I love the smell of wet cedar bark and the first day of spring. I've spent hours sitting in forests watching birds and deer and the trickles of sunlight that make their way through the canopy. I've slept outside in the desert and been woken up by a warm breeze and the full moon shining in my face. I've stayed up until 5am having amazing conversations with friends about love and life and cookies.
There are some people who comprehend the magnitude of the problems facing the world and try to rationalize it by bringing up science and evolution. Ninety-nine percent of the species that have ever existed on earth are extinct, they say, and even if we fundamentally alter the world and poison it and warm it up, even if we don't make it through that, something will. Something will evolve to survive, and life will go on.
And I would like to say now, very clearly: Fuck that.
Yes, it's true that almost every species that has ever existed is now extinct. But that's not a reason to let our planet go to hell. I want this world to exist for my proverbial children and grandchildren, and I want it to exist for wild salmon and bears and tigers and polar bears and some really cool non-charismatic megafauna that are having a tough time staying alive.
I'm too in love with this world to give it up. I've been privileged to experience so much of what's good in the world, and so little of the bad. And there is so much good: stinging nettle tea, hugs, knitting, music, campfires, sitting on porches in the sun, clean water, love, heartbreak, friendship and laughter. I want everyone to experience the joy that I have. I want people to be free from jobs they hate and war and disease and starvation. I want us all to be able to see those good things and fight to keep them there.
This is what calls me. This is why I'm so damn stubborn and so upset sometimes. I see what's at stake. And I'm not giving up.
Sometimes, I imagine that we don't stop polluting our planet. I imagine that we trash it, and populations start collapsing, and someone figures out how to terraform Mars. I imagine that much of the world (those who could afford it, anyway) would get on the ships and head off to a bright new future on a red planet. I wouldn't. I would stay behind, because this beautiful blue ball spinning through space at incomprehensible velocity is the only home I've ever known. I would stay, because expecting me to live without the Earth would be like expecting me to live with a hole in my heart. I would stay to be with all the non-humans who wouldn't have the choice to move on. I would stay, because that's what you do with your home. You don't give it up easily. You don't give it up without a fight.
Because of this, I get friends who call me a pessimist. Sometimes, people I don't know very well tell me that I must hate life or hate the world if I'm so unhappy all the time. And there is nothing that could be further from the truth.
I am completely in love with the world, in so many ways. I love the smell of wet cedar bark and the first day of spring. I've spent hours sitting in forests watching birds and deer and the trickles of sunlight that make their way through the canopy. I've slept outside in the desert and been woken up by a warm breeze and the full moon shining in my face. I've stayed up until 5am having amazing conversations with friends about love and life and cookies.
There are some people who comprehend the magnitude of the problems facing the world and try to rationalize it by bringing up science and evolution. Ninety-nine percent of the species that have ever existed on earth are extinct, they say, and even if we fundamentally alter the world and poison it and warm it up, even if we don't make it through that, something will. Something will evolve to survive, and life will go on.
And I would like to say now, very clearly: Fuck that.
Yes, it's true that almost every species that has ever existed is now extinct. But that's not a reason to let our planet go to hell. I want this world to exist for my proverbial children and grandchildren, and I want it to exist for wild salmon and bears and tigers and polar bears and some really cool non-charismatic megafauna that are having a tough time staying alive.
I'm too in love with this world to give it up. I've been privileged to experience so much of what's good in the world, and so little of the bad. And there is so much good: stinging nettle tea, hugs, knitting, music, campfires, sitting on porches in the sun, clean water, love, heartbreak, friendship and laughter. I want everyone to experience the joy that I have. I want people to be free from jobs they hate and war and disease and starvation. I want us all to be able to see those good things and fight to keep them there.
This is what calls me. This is why I'm so damn stubborn and so upset sometimes. I see what's at stake. And I'm not giving up.
Sometimes, I imagine that we don't stop polluting our planet. I imagine that we trash it, and populations start collapsing, and someone figures out how to terraform Mars. I imagine that much of the world (those who could afford it, anyway) would get on the ships and head off to a bright new future on a red planet. I wouldn't. I would stay behind, because this beautiful blue ball spinning through space at incomprehensible velocity is the only home I've ever known. I would stay, because expecting me to live without the Earth would be like expecting me to live with a hole in my heart. I would stay to be with all the non-humans who wouldn't have the choice to move on. I would stay, because that's what you do with your home. You don't give it up easily. You don't give it up without a fight.
4.11.2011
Derrick Jensen vs. Ayn Rand
I have an account on Library Thing, a site that lets you catalog, tag and manage your books. I was browsing through my library and decided to take a look at my author cloud, which is basically a weighted list of all the authors you own books by (more books means the author's name looks bigger). A lot of the huge names were favorite childhood authors--Orson Scott Card, JK Rowling, Amelia Atwater-Rhodes. But outside of that field, two of the biggest names were Derrick Jensen and Ayn Rand.
I cannot think of two people whose written works are more diametrically opposed. Derrick Jensen is an anti-civilization deep green activist who believes that we need to return to a level of technology and population closely resembling the Stone Age if we ever want to live sustainably on this planet. His books are incredibly lyrical, and link the pervasiveness of rape and child abuse in our society to deforestation, mining, climate change, imperialism and almost every other global problem you can think of. Reading Derrick brings you to your knees in tears because he shows you simultaneously how awful and abusive our culture is, and how beautiful the world is and can be if we have the courage to fight back.
And then there's Ayn Rand. Somewhat better known, Ayn's books are thick and pay homage to human genius in its many forms. Atlas Shrugged is her thousand-page ode to capitalism, an economic system which allows the brilliance of one man (say, someone who invents the lightbulb) to benefit the masses of humanity. The Fountainhead is her tribute to the individual going against the conventions of society and having the courage to be brilliant. And Anthem is a dystopian novel in an entirely collective world where one man and one woman rediscover human curiosity and the concept of self and run away together.
A lot of people have a lot of bad things to say about Ayn Rand, as they should. Her no-altruism, no-government world leaves a lot of people out, and she's completely incapable of understanding and addressing concepts like privilege, racism, sexism, learning disabilities and the like. All of the sex scenes in her books are either outright rape or distinctly rape-esque. She is the right of American intellectual discourse, taken to its logical conclusions and stripped bare of any pretense.
And what Ayn is for the right, Derrick is for the left. Environmentalists get accused of being anti-capitalist, anti-growth, anti-business and anti-technology all the time. Most of them awkwardly backpedal and retract or soften statements they've made, trying to find some compromise between two fundamentally irroconcileable systems. Derrick doesn't lie and he doesn't compromise. He draws his lines clearly and picks a side. The living health of the planet is more important than economic growth and production. Production is just another name for turning living things into dead things, and civilization is sustained only by widespread violence. Come over to the side of the living planet, and fight like your life depends on it, because it does.
I'm drawn to both of these stories, both of these worldviews. Obviously, I'm more in the Derrick camp than the Ayn one. I'm an environmentalist. I'm not that into capitalism, our culture, or really civilization itself. I'd rather we spent most of out time growing our own food and making clothes ourselves. I'd like to keep the Internet and Western medicine, and I'm not sure where all that fits in. But I like where Derrick is going. I want to be there.
Even given this, Ayn isn't wrong about everything. At its core, much of her writing is about the beauty of human curiosity and innovation. This is the oldest cultural myth of Western civilization, and I'm aware that it's problematic. The lone man bravely staking out new ground gets to conveniently ignore the workers who make his lightbulbs and build his railroad and all that. And more to the point, because of inherent inequalities in the world, some of those railroad workers and lightbulb factory employees could probably find the cure for cancer or something equally important if they weren't trapped in an economic system where they have no other options for work and can't have agency in their own lives. But even with those problems, I find something incredibly inspiring about the heights that the human imagination has reached to. We've built a transcontinental railroad, gone to the moon, mapped the human genome and invented the Internet. I think a lot of that is built on collaboration, but there have definitely been people throughout history who had a vision, an incredible mind, and the resources to go with it.
The problem with these two worldviews is that they can't coexist. I think Derrick is right about what needs to happen. We need to un-grow, depopulate, re-learn to take care of ourselves and our landbases and live much more simply than we do now. But the curiosity that had fueled Ayn Rand's work is something fundamental to human nature. People want to understand how the world around them works. They want to make an impression or a discovery that will change the course of history. That desire might be rooted in Western cultural conditioning. But human curiosity is universal. And curiosity is going to push future humans, even if they're living in sustainable earth-dwellings, to wonder about us. It's going to push them to rediscover the technologies we came up with. It's going to push them to lightbulbs, cars and computers. It's going to push them towards machine-based technology.
Reading these two authors, I've had to come to terms with many false beliefs that I've held. Derrick has gotten me mostly past the idea that we can somehow technologically engineer ourselves out of the violence and environmental destruction that fuels our economic growth. But Ayn has also gotten me over the idea that we will ever go back to a place where we don't have that drive to discover and develop. No matter how bad peak oil is or what happens to the planet, people will still have that curiosity.
I don't know what to do with this realization. It doesn't speak well for the future of the planet, or ultimately the human race. And it makes it so hard for me to pick a side. I know, feel and understand that my health is ultimately dependent on the land the sustains me--clean water, breathable air, healthy soil, functional ecosystems. I've slept under the stars for months at a time. I know what it is to feel completely at peace, and the only times I've ever felt that way was when there was nothing separating me from the stars. But I'm still seduced by the terrifying beauty of industry. Walking through the sixth-largest coal plant in the country, I was awestruck by the scale of human imagination. I find factories haunting and poetic. When I see smokestacks, I think of the end of civilization, but they look so beautiful that I want to sit there, transfixed, and watch the apocalypse unfold.
I exist, day in and day out, praying that there will never be a moment when my life is on the line, when I truly have to choose between the two.
I cannot think of two people whose written works are more diametrically opposed. Derrick Jensen is an anti-civilization deep green activist who believes that we need to return to a level of technology and population closely resembling the Stone Age if we ever want to live sustainably on this planet. His books are incredibly lyrical, and link the pervasiveness of rape and child abuse in our society to deforestation, mining, climate change, imperialism and almost every other global problem you can think of. Reading Derrick brings you to your knees in tears because he shows you simultaneously how awful and abusive our culture is, and how beautiful the world is and can be if we have the courage to fight back.
And then there's Ayn Rand. Somewhat better known, Ayn's books are thick and pay homage to human genius in its many forms. Atlas Shrugged is her thousand-page ode to capitalism, an economic system which allows the brilliance of one man (say, someone who invents the lightbulb) to benefit the masses of humanity. The Fountainhead is her tribute to the individual going against the conventions of society and having the courage to be brilliant. And Anthem is a dystopian novel in an entirely collective world where one man and one woman rediscover human curiosity and the concept of self and run away together.
A lot of people have a lot of bad things to say about Ayn Rand, as they should. Her no-altruism, no-government world leaves a lot of people out, and she's completely incapable of understanding and addressing concepts like privilege, racism, sexism, learning disabilities and the like. All of the sex scenes in her books are either outright rape or distinctly rape-esque. She is the right of American intellectual discourse, taken to its logical conclusions and stripped bare of any pretense.
And what Ayn is for the right, Derrick is for the left. Environmentalists get accused of being anti-capitalist, anti-growth, anti-business and anti-technology all the time. Most of them awkwardly backpedal and retract or soften statements they've made, trying to find some compromise between two fundamentally irroconcileable systems. Derrick doesn't lie and he doesn't compromise. He draws his lines clearly and picks a side. The living health of the planet is more important than economic growth and production. Production is just another name for turning living things into dead things, and civilization is sustained only by widespread violence. Come over to the side of the living planet, and fight like your life depends on it, because it does.
I'm drawn to both of these stories, both of these worldviews. Obviously, I'm more in the Derrick camp than the Ayn one. I'm an environmentalist. I'm not that into capitalism, our culture, or really civilization itself. I'd rather we spent most of out time growing our own food and making clothes ourselves. I'd like to keep the Internet and Western medicine, and I'm not sure where all that fits in. But I like where Derrick is going. I want to be there.
Even given this, Ayn isn't wrong about everything. At its core, much of her writing is about the beauty of human curiosity and innovation. This is the oldest cultural myth of Western civilization, and I'm aware that it's problematic. The lone man bravely staking out new ground gets to conveniently ignore the workers who make his lightbulbs and build his railroad and all that. And more to the point, because of inherent inequalities in the world, some of those railroad workers and lightbulb factory employees could probably find the cure for cancer or something equally important if they weren't trapped in an economic system where they have no other options for work and can't have agency in their own lives. But even with those problems, I find something incredibly inspiring about the heights that the human imagination has reached to. We've built a transcontinental railroad, gone to the moon, mapped the human genome and invented the Internet. I think a lot of that is built on collaboration, but there have definitely been people throughout history who had a vision, an incredible mind, and the resources to go with it.
The problem with these two worldviews is that they can't coexist. I think Derrick is right about what needs to happen. We need to un-grow, depopulate, re-learn to take care of ourselves and our landbases and live much more simply than we do now. But the curiosity that had fueled Ayn Rand's work is something fundamental to human nature. People want to understand how the world around them works. They want to make an impression or a discovery that will change the course of history. That desire might be rooted in Western cultural conditioning. But human curiosity is universal. And curiosity is going to push future humans, even if they're living in sustainable earth-dwellings, to wonder about us. It's going to push them to rediscover the technologies we came up with. It's going to push them to lightbulbs, cars and computers. It's going to push them towards machine-based technology.
Reading these two authors, I've had to come to terms with many false beliefs that I've held. Derrick has gotten me mostly past the idea that we can somehow technologically engineer ourselves out of the violence and environmental destruction that fuels our economic growth. But Ayn has also gotten me over the idea that we will ever go back to a place where we don't have that drive to discover and develop. No matter how bad peak oil is or what happens to the planet, people will still have that curiosity.
I don't know what to do with this realization. It doesn't speak well for the future of the planet, or ultimately the human race. And it makes it so hard for me to pick a side. I know, feel and understand that my health is ultimately dependent on the land the sustains me--clean water, breathable air, healthy soil, functional ecosystems. I've slept under the stars for months at a time. I know what it is to feel completely at peace, and the only times I've ever felt that way was when there was nothing separating me from the stars. But I'm still seduced by the terrifying beauty of industry. Walking through the sixth-largest coal plant in the country, I was awestruck by the scale of human imagination. I find factories haunting and poetic. When I see smokestacks, I think of the end of civilization, but they look so beautiful that I want to sit there, transfixed, and watch the apocalypse unfold.
I exist, day in and day out, praying that there will never be a moment when my life is on the line, when I truly have to choose between the two.
3.18.2011
Regional, day seven: night in the desert
This entry was originally written in my journal during a regional geology trip to West Texas from March 12-19, 2011. For the complete list of regional geo blog posts, click here.
day 7: Big Bend Ranch State Park
It’s hot.
But the desert at night cradles me, whispers to me, teases me with the promise of sleep. The moon is so bright it’s hugging me, pulling me close, promising that no ill will befall my makeshift camp in the dark. I am contorted between pebbles poking my back, angled just so to avoid the thorns of plants I still cannot name. The wind sings, distantly off-key, not enough to be unsettling, but enough to keep me from sleep. I roll and turn, and I think that if I lived here as people were meant to, tonight I could rise up and walk silently to nowhere, feeling the moon with me the whole way there. I dream of living, ignoring my need for water, the technical fibers that keep me warm on night less hospitable to human life. I want to sit silent forever, staring eternity in the face. I want to run and scream and laugh with the wind as it calls out to me. I want to never, ever forget that this is possible. I want to live knowing this is the most real my life will ever be.
day 7: Big Bend Ranch State Park
It’s hot.
But the desert at night cradles me, whispers to me, teases me with the promise of sleep. The moon is so bright it’s hugging me, pulling me close, promising that no ill will befall my makeshift camp in the dark. I am contorted between pebbles poking my back, angled just so to avoid the thorns of plants I still cannot name. The wind sings, distantly off-key, not enough to be unsettling, but enough to keep me from sleep. I roll and turn, and I think that if I lived here as people were meant to, tonight I could rise up and walk silently to nowhere, feeling the moon with me the whole way there. I dream of living, ignoring my need for water, the technical fibers that keep me warm on night less hospitable to human life. I want to sit silent forever, staring eternity in the face. I want to run and scream and laugh with the wind as it calls out to me. I want to never, ever forget that this is possible. I want to live knowing this is the most real my life will ever be.
3.17.2011
Regional, day six: the cinnabar mine
This entry was originally written in my journal during a regional geology trip to West Texas from March 12-19, 2011. For the complete list of regional geo blog posts, click here.
day 6: driving, passing through an old mine for cinnabar, also known as mercury ore
The old mines we went to look so innocent. They’re the kinds that make me wonder if extraction might be ok. Cinnabar sounds so innocent, almost like a cinnamon roll, something sweet you can pop in your mouth. None of the connotations mercury conjures up. How can something toxic like that be here, in the middle of nowhere, in such a nondescript place? Why doesn’t nature come with bright yellow signs and hazmat suits? And is it even toxic in this form? Or do we take it and bend it that way, realign the chemical bonds so they slip quietly into our lungs and nerves and muscles and stay there?
And gold. We use so much to extract gold. Cyanide. Mercury. A toxic cocktail of minerals, just for the sake of a shiny piece of jewelry. It’s just like diamonds. Every rich, married woman in the world has Sierra Leone’s blood on her ring finger. But it glows such a beautiful red. I wonder how much of the gold we dig is for industry and how much is for people*. I wonder how much of it ends up in electronics. I wonder what intrigue, human suffering, global trade routes, corporations, hardworking union men and abandoned small towns were part of the story of this mine.
*Bob Carson’s note in my journal: 80% of gold is for people, not industry
day 6: driving, passing through an old mine for cinnabar, also known as mercury ore
The old mines we went to look so innocent. They’re the kinds that make me wonder if extraction might be ok. Cinnabar sounds so innocent, almost like a cinnamon roll, something sweet you can pop in your mouth. None of the connotations mercury conjures up. How can something toxic like that be here, in the middle of nowhere, in such a nondescript place? Why doesn’t nature come with bright yellow signs and hazmat suits? And is it even toxic in this form? Or do we take it and bend it that way, realign the chemical bonds so they slip quietly into our lungs and nerves and muscles and stay there?
And gold. We use so much to extract gold. Cyanide. Mercury. A toxic cocktail of minerals, just for the sake of a shiny piece of jewelry. It’s just like diamonds. Every rich, married woman in the world has Sierra Leone’s blood on her ring finger. But it glows such a beautiful red. I wonder how much of the gold we dig is for industry and how much is for people*. I wonder how much of it ends up in electronics. I wonder what intrigue, human suffering, global trade routes, corporations, hardworking union men and abandoned small towns were part of the story of this mine.
*Bob Carson’s note in my journal: 80% of gold is for people, not industry
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