I know it is uncharacteristic of me to put up a post that is not me complaining about the state of the world, but that is exactly what I am doing. I saw something today that I thought was really awesome, and I wanted to put that admiration into words.
I was watching the Today Show, and hearing all about missing babies that may or may not still be alive, about elections and financial crises, and all of the fun stuff of the day. And then, right before I had to take off to work, they ran a color piece on some guy from Sweden (I think) who has invented and built a real-live functioning jet pack which he used today to fly across the English Channel.
He lit his four little jet engines inside a plane flying over France, then dove out of the plane, extended the folded wings strapped to his back, and then flew to England. The only thing he used to steer the plane was his own body.
It wasn't very spectacular or dramatic to watch, just a guy in a white suit strapped beneath a wing. But it was very impressive just the same. I love that this guy even had the idea to try something like this, let alone the tenacity and drive to see it through. It was exploration and achievement for the sake of exploration and achievement, which is always refreshing and uplifting to me.
In a time when people are talking about manned missions to Mars, it seems like a flight across the English Channel has anti-climactic written all over it. But really, this guy is a pioneer, and did something no one has ever done before at tremendous risk to his own life.
It makes me hope for a day when I might be able to strap on my wingpack and fly off to work or wherever, landing on my own two feet, chaining my jet to the waiting bike-rack, and then flying home when I am done. Not a bad thing to imagine at all.
Friday, September 26, 2008
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
The American Nightmare
or: At What Price Prosperity?
I apologize right from the start for the content of this rant. I realize that my harping on the economic status of the country is getting old by now. Frankly, I wish I had something else to rant about, but there is nothing more salient than the economy at the moment, and that is really saying something when the leader of the free world is going to be decided in less than two months.
I have been listening to NPR a lot lately. I like their coverage of the economic crisis. They have intelligent and qualified guests on who talk about the topics of interest of the day. Today, they had a panel on the planned Federal bail-out of these large investment banks that is going to cost tax payers trillions of dollars. It was interesting stuff, and caused me to panic just a little. But mostly is caused me to think about something that never ceases to fascinate me about the American People.
We have this style of life that is the envy of the world. At least that is what we tell ourselves. We have this promise, called the American Dream, that anyone who has a little creativity and a lot of dedication can really make something for themselves. We are a nation of home-owners, avidly in love with suburbia. We are consumers of products from dairy to SUVs and everything in between. We have a distinct culture of comfort and ease, as attested by our drive-through everything and our willingness to sacrifice taste and quality for speed and convenience (see: microwaveble pizza).
We have happilly embraced this lifestyle, and are often proud of it. We call ourselves innovative, imagine ourselves to be the people who have it all figured out. This is what fascinates me: if we have it all figured out, how come no one is copying us? Sure, they watch our movies and listen to our music, but the rest of the world is not restructuring its social systems to be more like ours. People are buying American soft drinks, but they are not buying the American Lifestyle.
I think that is because we are not nearly as great as we think we are. Sometimes we are downright pathetic. In our eagerness to have more and more stuff, we place enormous debt burdens upon ourselves, so that we can barely enjoy our lives. How is that superior to the European countries, where the only debts that are common are car payments and rent? They take lavish, four week long vacations to exotic places, and can afford to because they do not, like many Americans, feel the need to buy a lawnmower/tractor/espresso machine on credit. Americans can barely afford to travel to Grandma's for Thanksgiving because we tend to live inches away from complete financial ruin, in the pursuit of having more stuff, bigger houses, nicer cars.
The truth is, we are miserable. We do not have even close to the highest standard of living in the world, and no one wants to be like us. Sure America is a great place to live, but only people in third-world countries see moving to America as a step up. People living in Europe see a move to America as a lateral move, with some advantages but also plenty of losses. I have seen this first hand.
We are not the land of milk and honey. The American dream often rots on the vine, and very many Americans never reach the kind of personal prosperity and happiness as is common in much less powerful European nations. That is not to say that I am disatisfied. I am happy here. I have just also had the chance to see that I would be just as happy in many other places, and that my happiness is not due to American society.
We pay a very high price in terms of human cost for our style of living. Too high a price. In our need for a McMansion and a Family Fortress SUV, we burden ourselves with more debt than we can pay. We allow ourselves to be deluded into thinking we can afford a home that is ridiculously beyond our means, simply because we can afford the payments for the next three years until the rate changes. These things are inherently unhealthy, unsatisfying, and unsafe. Those are hardly the makings of a dream.
I apologize right from the start for the content of this rant. I realize that my harping on the economic status of the country is getting old by now. Frankly, I wish I had something else to rant about, but there is nothing more salient than the economy at the moment, and that is really saying something when the leader of the free world is going to be decided in less than two months.
I have been listening to NPR a lot lately. I like their coverage of the economic crisis. They have intelligent and qualified guests on who talk about the topics of interest of the day. Today, they had a panel on the planned Federal bail-out of these large investment banks that is going to cost tax payers trillions of dollars. It was interesting stuff, and caused me to panic just a little. But mostly is caused me to think about something that never ceases to fascinate me about the American People.
We have this style of life that is the envy of the world. At least that is what we tell ourselves. We have this promise, called the American Dream, that anyone who has a little creativity and a lot of dedication can really make something for themselves. We are a nation of home-owners, avidly in love with suburbia. We are consumers of products from dairy to SUVs and everything in between. We have a distinct culture of comfort and ease, as attested by our drive-through everything and our willingness to sacrifice taste and quality for speed and convenience (see: microwaveble pizza).
We have happilly embraced this lifestyle, and are often proud of it. We call ourselves innovative, imagine ourselves to be the people who have it all figured out. This is what fascinates me: if we have it all figured out, how come no one is copying us? Sure, they watch our movies and listen to our music, but the rest of the world is not restructuring its social systems to be more like ours. People are buying American soft drinks, but they are not buying the American Lifestyle.
I think that is because we are not nearly as great as we think we are. Sometimes we are downright pathetic. In our eagerness to have more and more stuff, we place enormous debt burdens upon ourselves, so that we can barely enjoy our lives. How is that superior to the European countries, where the only debts that are common are car payments and rent? They take lavish, four week long vacations to exotic places, and can afford to because they do not, like many Americans, feel the need to buy a lawnmower/tractor/espresso machine on credit. Americans can barely afford to travel to Grandma's for Thanksgiving because we tend to live inches away from complete financial ruin, in the pursuit of having more stuff, bigger houses, nicer cars.
The truth is, we are miserable. We do not have even close to the highest standard of living in the world, and no one wants to be like us. Sure America is a great place to live, but only people in third-world countries see moving to America as a step up. People living in Europe see a move to America as a lateral move, with some advantages but also plenty of losses. I have seen this first hand.
We are not the land of milk and honey. The American dream often rots on the vine, and very many Americans never reach the kind of personal prosperity and happiness as is common in much less powerful European nations. That is not to say that I am disatisfied. I am happy here. I have just also had the chance to see that I would be just as happy in many other places, and that my happiness is not due to American society.
We pay a very high price in terms of human cost for our style of living. Too high a price. In our need for a McMansion and a Family Fortress SUV, we burden ourselves with more debt than we can pay. We allow ourselves to be deluded into thinking we can afford a home that is ridiculously beyond our means, simply because we can afford the payments for the next three years until the rate changes. These things are inherently unhealthy, unsatisfying, and unsafe. Those are hardly the makings of a dream.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
30
This weekend was my birthday. Or rather, Monday was my birthday. Now I am mourning the death of my twenties, and trying to fit being 30 years old in the same mind that still prefers X-Men to the Wall Street Journal. Its weird, having this adult body wrapped around my persistently child-like mind. I still look for animals in clouds and try to find the ends of rainbows. How can I also be 30?
Before I launch into that introspection, I must say that I have a seriously awesome family. A whole bunch of them spent the weekend at our place, turning our DINK household into an instant orphanage, or at least that is what it felt like. Kiddies all over the place, of all ages and sizes. It was so nice to have the house full of activity and sound, and to always have someone to throw into the bean-bag. (Dana only gets mad when I throw her anywhere) Mom, Chandelle, the Three Nieceketeers, Will and Becky with Naomi, and Bob (for about 10 hours) all came and crashed in our place. It was awesome. I was honored that they all took the 10 hour drive over the mountains to celebrate with me. Jesse, Wendy, Crystal, Jed and Jon weren't able to make it, but the all called to give me birthday wishes, anyway.
Yeah, it was pretty sweet. I felt really special and loved. I have a good family, I think. They even stuck it out when some of them started to feel sick, to make sure they could celebrate my 30th with me. That made me feel really good, and a little guilty at the same time.
Now for the introspection: I am actually really happy that I have managed to retain as much of my childishness as I have. If I were given a chance to chose, I definitely would pick childish over adultish. Childhood is the realm of fantasy and innocence, the kingdom of hope and wonder. It is the place that adults lose and forever yearn for. It is the playground of the soul, and the classroom of the imagination. Childhood is the place where dancing for joy is as normal as laughter, and where smiling is contagious. Childhood is where humanity is pure and lovely. Its loss is a universal tragedy.
So yeah, I am very glad that I have retained a healthy sliver of my childishness. If that means I will never feel completely at home in my aging body, I will take that as proof that I still have at least one foot in Never Never Land.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Someone please explain this to me. . .
So I am a new home owner, and a proud one at that. Even digging around in my back yard and making expensive home improvements, the whole nine yards. Part of that new home ownership is new mortgage ownership, which I am less pround of, but which seems to be unavoidable.
Mortgate is a simple enough deal, right? Borrow a good percentage of a million dollars with the promise you will pay it back with an even larger percentage of a million dollars, and move in to your little slice of the American dream. Fail to pay it off, and your little slice is foreclosed on, and you lose your home and possibly everything else of value you own.
Easy concept, on the surface. But then they throw all sorts of twists into the bargain, like adjustable rates and sub-prime interest. These things are at best, bad business practices designed to dupe people into buying homes they cannot really afford, and at worst are little more than sanctioned corporate fraud.
But the banks in our country did this stuff anyway. Hooray for capitalism! Lets trick hundreds of thousands of people into buying dream homes they can't really afford, then yank the carpet out from under them and make them both bankrupt AND homeless! As long as the banks make money, right?
Wrong, as it turns out. It seems that all of these people who bought homes they could not afford ended up actually not being able to afford the homes. Imagine that. So there was no money for them to pay. All of a sudden the debt that was in the hands of hundreds of thousands of simple American families was transferred back to the banks that issued the fradulent loans. So the banks LOST money on the deal. Seems fair to me, right?
So please explain this to me - why on earth is the United States Government bailing these banks out? The banks made ridiculous, evil, greedy decisions and prayed on the trust and naivete of the populace and got burned for it. So why on earth should the government save them?
How many of the people who defaulted on their loans, who made their own little greedy, piss poor decisions have been bailed out by Uncle Sam? At my last count, that number was 0. So please explain this to me - the government will pay BILLIONS of taxpayer dollars to bail out a bank, but I, a citizen, could not, EVER, expect them to pay 250,000 of those same dollars to bail me out. On what planet does THAT crap make sense?
Oh, and here is the fecal icing on that vomit-cake: the geniouses who tanked the US housing industry and drove Fanny-Mae and Freddy Mac straight into the ground have both been fired. I heard on NPR today that they are both getting severance packages worth millions of dollars. Sounds fair, doesn't it? I mean, if I completely ruined the financial future of my family, and burried us up to our hairlines in debt, I should deserve a payout of at least a few hundred grand, right?
Wrong, once again. All of it is nothing but wrong.
Mortgate is a simple enough deal, right? Borrow a good percentage of a million dollars with the promise you will pay it back with an even larger percentage of a million dollars, and move in to your little slice of the American dream. Fail to pay it off, and your little slice is foreclosed on, and you lose your home and possibly everything else of value you own.
Easy concept, on the surface. But then they throw all sorts of twists into the bargain, like adjustable rates and sub-prime interest. These things are at best, bad business practices designed to dupe people into buying homes they cannot really afford, and at worst are little more than sanctioned corporate fraud.
But the banks in our country did this stuff anyway. Hooray for capitalism! Lets trick hundreds of thousands of people into buying dream homes they can't really afford, then yank the carpet out from under them and make them both bankrupt AND homeless! As long as the banks make money, right?
Wrong, as it turns out. It seems that all of these people who bought homes they could not afford ended up actually not being able to afford the homes. Imagine that. So there was no money for them to pay. All of a sudden the debt that was in the hands of hundreds of thousands of simple American families was transferred back to the banks that issued the fradulent loans. So the banks LOST money on the deal. Seems fair to me, right?
So please explain this to me - why on earth is the United States Government bailing these banks out? The banks made ridiculous, evil, greedy decisions and prayed on the trust and naivete of the populace and got burned for it. So why on earth should the government save them?
How many of the people who defaulted on their loans, who made their own little greedy, piss poor decisions have been bailed out by Uncle Sam? At my last count, that number was 0. So please explain this to me - the government will pay BILLIONS of taxpayer dollars to bail out a bank, but I, a citizen, could not, EVER, expect them to pay 250,000 of those same dollars to bail me out. On what planet does THAT crap make sense?
Oh, and here is the fecal icing on that vomit-cake: the geniouses who tanked the US housing industry and drove Fanny-Mae and Freddy Mac straight into the ground have both been fired. I heard on NPR today that they are both getting severance packages worth millions of dollars. Sounds fair, doesn't it? I mean, if I completely ruined the financial future of my family, and burried us up to our hairlines in debt, I should deserve a payout of at least a few hundred grand, right?
Wrong, once again. All of it is nothing but wrong.
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