So sign us up for big screen TVs, for cruises and a new car every two years; what’s the matter with a new set of golf clubs, with another pair of shoes, a breakfast nook and a new bay window? Don’t we need a new grill, a riding lawn mower, a faster computer, a digital video recorder? It seems to me that our lives have become so suffused with work that we now believe that the good life has be purchased, instead of lived.
Reading these stories, about people with such a hunger for a different life that they borrow without any possibility of repaying, made me think about our foreign policy.
It seems to me that Americans have a tendency to buy things pitched to us by charlatans. In 2002, the
The emotion that led us there was not unjustified – the 9/11 attacks on American soil were deeply unsettling, and the country longed for a return to safety. But we transferred that legitimate desire to an unrelated thing. It’s something like a mother that misses spending time with her husband and children, who channels that unvoiced desire onto a Viking stove. The stove represents cooking, meals together, shared time gathered at the hearth. But buying objects that represent unfulfilled needs traps us in the very life that was depriving us. We have to keep working to pay the growing bills, and while we are busy the stove gathers dust.
Unfortunately the American people failed to take account of the APR on our National Credibility Card. It looks like the rate’s variable. Iraq is ours now, and the cost of this impulse purchase will just keep going up.
But as Americans usually are, I am optimistic. Frugality and delaying gratification used to be a source of pride in this country. This is my prayer: when we get out of this hole we’ve dug for ourselves, may we as a nation have finally learned to read the fine print.
(I got the stove = family time image from a book I read or an article somewhere, but I can’t remember what it was. If anyone comes across it please let me know so I can give proper credit.)
1 comment:
Emily... since you dislike the phone so much...
Most states in the US leave curriculum decisions to local school districts. Colorado, for example only has a total minutes per year requirement for graduation... plus you must take a year of US history. That is the only formal requirement.
Some states have various degrees of requirements. Notably, NY, Florida, Illinois, Texas and Calif have very strong state control. They even specify the textbooks (thus huge competition by publishers to sell to those states... and not to offend those states in any way in the textbook... thus milktoast US history in highschool). More enlightened districts have grad requirements but do not ususally specify exact books or learning activites. Boulder is pretty wide open. Good administrators trust good teachers. And then we have the effects of the evil Bush Baby and ESEA... better know as No Child Left Behind. Schools are forced to refocus on only the most basic of reading and math skills because those are the only things tested. Screw human relations, art, music, social studies... In fact both Boulder High and Fairview FAILED once again to show adequate yearly academic progress on the state tests! Can you believe that shit?... only takes one second language learner to miss the test... and the whole school fails... despite those two schools graduating 20 or more National Merit Scholars every year for decades. The tests do not count individual progress in a single year as a valid measure of ability. A non-English reading 9 year old who learns to read at a third grade level by the end of fourth grade is considered a failure because he does not read proficiently at the fourth grade level.
The act will be up for review this Sept... let's see if the Democrats grow some balls and change it... and actually fund the damn thing.
LaRue
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