Friday, November 1, 2013

Smoke and Mirrors


-          Let’s do a C.T. scan
-          Ok.
-          All C.T.'s are scheduled for Wednesday
-          Ok.  How much do they cost?
-          840 dollars. Some insurance companies cover 100%, others 80%, and  others....
-          Ooooh, I knooow my insurance most definitely does not cover 100%.
-          We give you a 50% discount if you pay in full when you come in.
-          Oh that’s good, I’ll do that, is that after the insurance pays their  part?
-          No.

Riddle: how much does a C.T. scan really cost?

Thursday, October 31, 2013

Business News



Facebook stock is up 40%.  Apparently the “biness” is growing; meaning there are more users.  It is also developing, or has developed, a mobile app; meaning more people are on it, in more places, at all times.  But it is revenue that makes stocks go up, not mere usage, and Facebook revenue seems to be up as well.  Good for Facebook and its stock owners.  A company that produces fuck-all and makes money selling advertising is doing better than the broader stock market with stocks of companies that actually produce tangible goods.  Granted Facebook “produces” a communication environment; and god knows, maybe those communicating on it actually exchange productive ideas... 
    

I’m nothing if not optimistic in my pessimism.

Wednesday, October 30, 2013

2nd quote for the day

Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
Pablo Picasso

gimme a hammer


…I miss the days when I used to come to my blog freely and just write whatever came to mind.  These days I feel more self-conscious: paranoia assumes a viewer.  God knows why, for the chances of people actually reading what I write in this miasma of information that surrounds us is very low, random, and in the end, quite meaningless (though once upon a time, it actually got read with consequences)

Assuming a viewer can sometimes be a good thing. I do think it can help one grow as an artist; but it can also act as a barrier to work.  What’s all that bullshit (though not such bullshit) Lacan said about the toddler facing himself in the mirror and “realizing” that his ego is formed by “others” (or some such thing), leading to all kinds of neurosis?  In theory: part and parcel of growing up…old(er). 

Sometimes I get blocked in the studio for the same reason I stopped blogging as often as I used to. Time to bust up the mirror.  As that despicable man and sometimes great artist (Picasso) said, “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up."





Saturday, September 21, 2013

Where did Syria go?


It was only last week that I was bent out of shape over that "Syria theng"; now the "theng" is all but gone.  No real mention of it on the main media.

Man, as an artist, I have, for years, been reading about how we live in the era of spectacle; but never has it been this apparent.  These are truly vertiginous times.


Thursday, September 12, 2013

Do Over? Cold, or is it Hot War

Mark Tansey, White on White

Who'd'a'thunk it?  ...That we'd be revisiting a world viewed as a battleground between the USA and Russia.  Granted, it is looking a little bit weirder than last time, so to quote the father of communism himself, "History repeats itself, first as tragedy and then as farce."  

I've always thought that farce had no teeth, but I am beginning to rethink that.  I'm not feeling too comfortable right now.  India has not weighed in yet, but the BRIC countries of Brazil and China are applauding Putin's words and actions and calling him a great leader. They seem to respect Vlad's strength and leadership and agree with his chastising of America.  And believe you me, as a Brazilian myself, I really really get the impulse; but I really really know a little better than to give in to the impulse and applaud Vladimir as an impartial level-headed democratic leader acting on the behalf of the good of the world at large.

I can only conclude that we, as a species, are afflicted with severe amnesia at this point in our technological development.  Putin, ex-KGB and dictator of Russia (regardless of what he tries to pass himself as), is anything but a freedom loving individual with any right to take up any high moral ground on any matter.  He has proven, again and again, that he will not hesitate to trample over anybody's rights and life if said individual (or group of individuals) gets in his way.  That he is successfully fashioning himself as holding the high moral ground in this "Syria theng" is pretty surreal and more than a little scary.

For a nice take on Vlad's editorial:
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/358480/american-ineffectualism-mark-steyn



Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Self-Preservation

It is a possibility that this Russian deal to "hold" Syrian chemical weapons was negotiated by Putin and Obama during the G-20 summit. If so, Obama's sense of self-preservation remains intact and maybe he is learning something about politics.  Who knows, maybe one day he will learn to negotiate with people on this side of the globe before drawing red lines all over the place, though I'm not holding my breath.

...Now, if this Russian offer was not negotiated and Putin is running the show, we are really in a sinking ship with no Captain... better hold your breath.

Friday, September 6, 2013

Spineless

Listening to the congress finesse this Syria Non-Policy in a way as not to break with their parties and yet not infuriate their constituency, which rightly don’t understand what the President is trying to accomplish with 90 days of military involvement on disclosed targets, is beyond maddening and a little surreal.  Nice to see the democrats try to eat their war and have it too for a refreshing change...  

Wednesday, September 4, 2013

Middle East Fatigue



Though what prompted me to start this so-called blog was the entrance of Sarah Palin into the national political arena, it’s been a while since I’ve ranted and raved about political issues.  Not because there hasn’t been a mountain of things to rant and rave about since; but because I ceased to derive pleasure from doing so.  This “Syria thing” however has stirred my bile some, and I find myself screaming at the radio, and at the TV, and at my mother when she says, “You have to do something against this monster.”  Frankly, I have Middle East fatigue.

Whether we have to do something or not, very much depends on what our goal is.  And though no politician ever states it, whenever we get embroiled in that Middle Eastern viper’s nest (which is always) it is primarily to keep the export of oil flowing smoothly.  Any humanitarian aspect to our involvement is incidental and secondary; even though, as Americans, we want to believe that it is primary. 

Stated or not, and although the goal of keeping oil flowing smoothly sounds straightforward enough, choosing the right game to play (using human lives) to keep it that way, in an enormous and diverse region full of warring factions and tribes functioning with a Middle Ages mentality (and I don’t exclude Israel from the bunch as long as they have Hassidim dictating their land policy), is all but impossible.  That, Mr. President, is why you should keep your big mouth shut, and try to refrain from aggrandizing yourself until you actually use, for perhaps the first time ever, your brain to think about the consequences of your un-tele-prompted words.

Over the past many days, I’ve heard a lot of theories about why we have to get involved once more in what has become an even more complicated game than it ever was.  Yesterday, I heard a guy tell me (on the radio) that if we had attacked Saddam Hussein in the 80’s, when he did indeed use chemical weapons against the Iranians and against the Kurds (and against whomever he wanted to), the landscape would be much different today.  No shit Sherlock, but different how?   We did eventually get tired of Saddam for straying from behavior that used to serve our purposes; and we did invade, though too late according to yesterday’s report.  But who’s to say what difference it would have made had we attacked early; plus in the eighties, he was serving our purposes of balancing the power in the region by keeping Iran at bay. 

The wishful thinking behind our recent invasion of Iraq was way more complicated than slapping Saddam on the hand, like we did the first time around in the 90's at the tune of $60 billion, and like Obama wants to ineffectually do to Assad.  It was overtly about regime change.  I’m not sure what the Bush Administration advisers were snorting at the time, but the thinking was that we would present, as in the verb “gift”, democracy to a country which, because of its relatively stable economy and educated populace, would embrace it with open arms.  Once the Iraqis tasted the freedom that comes with western style democracy, said democracy would spread over the entire Middle East; we would disengage militarily, sing Kumbaya together, have a meeting of the hearts and minds, and oil would with gusto ejaculate from the ground and flow freely our way forever after….    

Despite what they were snorting (and I must have picked up on their fumes because I bought what they were selling at the time- a mistake I will not be making again), you gotta hand it to Bush’s advisors; the invasion of Iraq and the toppling of Saddam did indeed prompt people all over the Middle East to develop a taste for “democracy”, and to rebel and depose their dictators in what the media have dubbed as the “Arab Spring”.  Though if April showers bring May flowers, I’ve yet to see them.  And relations between the West and the Middle East continue to be as circuitous as ever, if not more.  Enter the Syria problem.

The best analysis I heard was from a guy at the ChristianScience Monitor reminding those who might forget that Syria is being propped up by Iran.  Any war we start in Syria will be a proxy war with Iran (our “real” “enemy” from way back when Saddam used to be our foil against them); which is what McCain and his cronies are hoping for.  McCain and Co. must be snorting some of the left over Bush administration shit.   Even if they actually believe in democracy for the people of Syria, did the short lived experiment with democracy in Egypt (like Syria, a relatively developed country that, by all western logic, should have been able to put together a working democracy that was representative of all its people) not teach these clowns anything?!!!  We don’t even really know who these rebels are who plan to run the country once they hang Assad, and intelligence has it that they are riddled with Al-Qaeda.  How can getting embroiled in this mess sound like a good plan?   That must be some very good shit they are snorting in parts of Capitol Hill. 

The report from the Christian Science Monitor also points out that Iran is spread very thinly trying to support the Assad regime, and that this is becoming an “Iranian war”.  They are hoping Obama gets involved so it can become the “Obama War” and they can divest themselves from it a little in order to keep fomenting trouble elsewhere.  Letting Iran spread itself thin sounds like a great strategy to me. It is time we let those people deal with each other.  Yes, oil might sky-rocket for a while, and there will be hell to pay here if it does; it will probably make the recent recession look like child’s play.  But the status quo, that is, our starting wars with no goals or end, cannot hold.  The American people no longer support such action; like me, they seem fatigued.  Maybe we are stupid, but we are not seeing the benefits from the past 12 years of  military engagement.  And forget the costs of our big heavy duty engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan; look at what our “light support” in Libya wrought: can you say Benghazi?


So, Mr. President, before you start speaking without thinking again, and before you make this thing in Syria your legacy, stop and cogitate.  Find yourself a brilliant chess player, preferably one from the Middle East, to help you navigate through this troubled zone.  Lobbing a few missiles is simply not the answer; but, Mr. McCain, neither is Regime Change à la Americaine.   Mr. President, this is a lot more complicated than your little community organizing mind seems capable of working out, not to mention that We the Community are sick and tired of war. ...But as surely as I sit here typing, we are moving in that direction "one more again"... let the games continue.

Tuesday, July 23, 2013

you gotta luv 'em

Oh, what the hell, why be civilized, it's my blog.  Been hearing this news all day and just have to react:

You gotta fucking love Europeans.  Hezbollah kills Israelis for years and the Europeans call them a political party.  Then they start killing Syrians, and all of a sudden Europeans decide they are a terrorist group.

Hey Europe!


Tuesday, June 18, 2013

devo-loped



It’s strange to be in my 50’s, having been a citizen of two very different countries, and watching both (and the world) change incrementally.  A friend told me we don’t get any wiser when we get older, just older.  I’m not so sure; I guess it depends on what one has in their head to begin with.  The thing I seem to be getting is a different perspective; it’s wider, if not wiser.

Today I heard in the news that a group called Summit just bought a mountain in Utah for what I thought was a very reasonable 40 million dollars.  $40,000,000 sounds cheap for a mountain.  Summit is a company that puts together invitation-only events for leaders in business, entertainment and philanthropy.  They seem to care about the communities, or at least pay lip service to caring about them, and probably even believe that the events they develop benefit the communities in which they insert themselves.  In buying this mountain to develop as a playground for “leaders”, they claim they will be developing it in such a way to benefit the (by choice) sleepy community around the mountain.  One of said sleepy community’s main concern happens to be that they do not want to be priced out of their community; and I am not sure how developing a mountain for the rich and famous fits in with such goal.  I’m sure the legislators and developers will figure something out short term; but from my perspective, the long term does not look promising for this community's "non-leaders".

I was only half listening to this news item as I woke up from a slumber in order to get on my bike for my morning ride.  But as I was biking through a beautiful and unusually cool pre-storm morning, its information kept resonating in my mind.  I thought about our shrinking world, and about free-floating capital, and about the country I was born in, and the one I currently live in; the former labeled these days as “developing” and the latter as “developed”. 

When I was young, what we now call developing nations  were known as “third world countries”, or worse, “banana republics”; one of their main characteristic, then and now, being the existence of a small privileged class and a huge underclass.  The world has changed some since then; communication is instantaneous and capital moves somewhat more freely, but the main structures seem to remain in place.

Americans are indoctrinated with the idea of progress from the moment they are born and throughout their schooling.  I was schooled in several American institutions, so I speak from experience.  We are schooled to believe that progress is inevitable, will mimic the very particular history of this country, and means that eventually there will be justice, political freedom and economic well-being for all.   I was taught to believe this mumbo-jumbo in school, all the while growing up under a dictatorship form of government.  Being young, I believed it.   

The dictatorship is gone in Brazil and now it is illegal not to vote (irony?).  And although there seems to be more money and opportunity, there remains a small privileged class, a merchant class, and a huge underclass.  And as I was biking today, I thought of Summit and the people they cater to; and I thought of the global nature of our world and of free-floating capital.  And as I thought of how the hopeful (and the young) like to see globalization as a vehicle of progress towards justice, and democracy, and economic security for all, I couldn't help but think that lately this here developed nation is looking a lot like the third world country I came from.  That maybe globalization does not mean that eventually all developing nations rise to meet a higher standard, but that some rise and others fall to meet a middling standard where there will always be a small (and in some cases deserving) privileged class, somewhat of a middle class, and a huge underclass. 

...But I am old; and 40 million still sounds damned cheap for a mountain.


Saturday, June 15, 2013

Segurança Pública



The week has been filled with news about the “NSA eavesdropping”, though metadata collection is not quite the same thing as eaves- dropping.  This morning I half heard news on statistics about the demographic who cares and doesn't about this.  Apparently young people are non-plussed, while older ones seem to care more; whatever “care” might mean…  I guess I don’t fit any profile since I am older and could care less; though my good American husband tells me I should care a little.

I stopped even thinking about who had data about me when 20 years ago I tried to apply for a JC Penney card in order to get some discount or another, and was told that the social security number I gave them was different than what my credit report informed them it was.  I informed them that the computer was wrong.  I knew then that data about me, right or wrong, was electronically floating around the universe and paradigms had shifted, at least they had in “the free world”.

I’m not much for social media, since as it is, I waste enough time emailing and occasionally putting words on this here nowhere place whose bits and bytes are being "monitored" as I type (delicious).  But at one point in time, I did put my profile on LinkedIn, whose function in my life I am still unsure of; I probably don’t use it as I should.   I was job hunting and figured “why not?” 

As with any social media, being on LinkedIn means that one gets invited to “connect” with people.  If I know the person who "invites" me, I accept; and when I “accept”, LinkedIn automatically routes me to a page with several profiles it thinks I might want to invite to connect with me.  I've noticed that as time has progressed and I have accepted more and more invitations on LinkedIn, the page it sends me to in order to invite people to connect with me is starting to get crowded with people I've never met and who have very little in common with me.  Ok, the premise of social media seems to be that it is a forum where one connects with known people, as well as, a place to meet strangers and make new "friends"; but LinkedIn is not a social site, it is a professional one, and to link with people who don’t know me from Adam and with whom I have nothing in common makes no contextual sense to me.

This morning, when I accepted one more connection and was sent to my “invite” page, I noticed I knew no one on it.  For “fun”, I spent some time scrolling down and still did not find any familiar face.  Like I said, I see no reason to connect with strangers in industries I know nothing about in a professional site, but it got me thinking of the metadata the NSA has been warehousing.  Warehousing info and being able to use it effectively, much less nefariously, are two very different things.  My husband might be right that one political party or another could get hold of some piece of data in order to pull “a Nixon” or “an Obama” and use the information contained in it to benefit their own party somehow; but it seems to me that there are easier ways to be dirty.  Maybe it is a good thing that the fact of the surveillance has come to light; but as far as I’m concerned: File away. Paradigm shift or not, there is safety in numbers.…


Thursday, May 9, 2013

procrastination and coincidence


...was getting ready to take pictures of etchings when I found myself confronted with the paper cup "phones" I had stapled to my photo-taking wall and had forgotten about.  As I started messing with them in order to take them down, I liked the way the cups were cascading out of their tray and decided to take a picture of that...

...But the cups were moving.  Moving to the music emanating from the radio.  Music that might have been Copeland's Appalachian Spring.  Because when my consciousness shifted from visual to aural, which wasn't a long time, that's what was playing.  And that is a long piece of music.  A piece of music that I can't stand.  

...If Copeland ...then Copeland in small doses... ...not so bad.



Monday, May 6, 2013

Question of the day.

Do any women ever get MFAs from CalArts?

I always read about famous male artists who got their MFA's from CalArts in its heady late70s'- early80's heyday, but have yet to run across a female artist who has. hmmmm


Wednesday, March 20, 2013

El Capitalismo




Started reading my Art in America March issue today.  So far I've encountered the usual post-colonial, post-capitalist, post-this-and-thatsis writing criticizing and kvetching about all the “bourgeois white male European” stances; those that, let's face it, we will never get rid of because, hey, in the end, Art as we know it was invented by male white Europeans, and the paradigm will endure.

But this is neither here nor there. I get the “project” of trying to figure out how to integrate the history of other cultures, other races, and different genders into the amalgam of cultural production that for better or worse has its origins in, yes, white male Europe.

But again, this is neither here nor there.  Mostly, what has struck me this morning has been the more than usual (as of late) amount of ads for non-art related, high-end consumer goods permeating the magazine.  For instance, pages 2 and 3 (very expensive pages I bet, coming as they do right after the cover): a spread for Hermes


pp. 7 and 8: Saint Laurent


p.12: Van Cleef and Arpels (apparently and “Haute Joaillerie" at the place Vendôme in Paris which the likes of me will never enter)



 pp. 37 and 38: Lincoln Motor Company. 




… And this is as far as I have read this morning. 


As of last month, there weren't this many ads for “stuff” so up front in the magazine.  And there was a time when the only people advertising in art magazines were directly related with the production, exhibition, and sale of art; never of generic high-end consumer goods. 

As I've said, this is as far as I've read this morning.  But the contrast between the ideology of the people who write and edit these magazines with the advertising spreads that allow them to keep writing and editing always makes me pause. This is not a novel insight, and I know this is just a microcosm of the art world at large. In fact, this state of affairs is something “the art world at large” itself complains about constantly, even though it continues to operate within the same state of affairs it constantly criticizes.  

Call it hypocrisy, bad faith, blindness, sado-masochist dependence, or just what it really is: market forces generated precisely by the people kvetching about them.  It’s just something that makes the thousands of words emanating form this world, decrying this and that, feel rather empty. 

Viva El Capitalismo…


Monday, March 4, 2013

Globama

I heard the news today oh boy....

... Obama vows to do something about global warming.  And here I had no idea he was running for ruler of China!  But it shouldn't come as a surprise; he sure has the disposition for it.  His despotic demeanor and tendency to spend other people's money makes him a perfect candidate! 


Thursday, February 7, 2013

Ironies of the (Two) Day

1- Obama complains there is no humility in government these days. 

I can hardly keep a straight face as I type!  The words "humble" and "Obama" don't even belong in the same Universe!

2- The Spaniards are seemingly atoning for the Inquisition by granting citizenship to Sephardi Jews that were forced out of Spain during those "troubled times".  One of the many ironies about this news is that they will only allow Jews that are still practicing Judaism to come back in!  Apparently Jews that fled, but converted anyway for fear of being persecuted in foreign lands still under the Spanish sphere of influence, need not apply!

Glee--> this is deliciously hilarious.  Me, I'm wondering if beckoning  Jews to come back into the country at this point in time has anything to do with their current economic predicament....  ....Ah, I'm just being a jaded old Sephardi Jew; they are obviously doing it out of the goodness of their political heart...  

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

more on guns


PRI's The World reported today that the NRA was arguing to keep gun laws as they are in this nation by using Switzerland as an example of "unlimited" gun ownership.  The World did a good job at interviewing a Swiss man who actually was a victim of gun violence in Switzerland. They did not dwell on that, and he did a great job at pointing out the historical differences between how the two cultures view guns and come to own them.  Unfortunately I can't find a link to the interview. 
Of course I had to comment on it:


Hi, I can’t find the story to leave a comment, so figured I’d send it to you:

I enjoyed your story on how the Swiss own and use guns.

As to the NRA’s comparison of American gun culture to the Swiss one, I can only paraphrase:

America, I visit Switzerland every year. I’ve known Switzerland since I was a kid. Members of my family live in and some are buried in Switzerland. America, you’re no Switzerland.

The two cultures are so different that arguing for unlimited gun ownership on that basis is beyond ridiculous. The arguments put forth by the NRA against any background check of anything and anyone seem emptier as minutes tick by. Unfortunately, their lobby is too powerful, so we will go on our “shoot ‘em up” merry way no matter how many hearings the senate conducts. It’s just who we are... for now.

Sincerely,
...

Addendum: next day: ...shootings yesterday, more shootings today in America; this time in a middle school.  Like I said in my previous blog entry about guns, it seems to be a daily occurrence lately.  And I am just talking about shootings reported in the news, the ones that happen on top of a background of unreported gang shootings which we just take for granted.  Nothing like this happens in Switzerland. Whatever their faults, and the Swiss are not faultless, shooting people and kids daily is not one of them.

Monday, January 28, 2013

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

It's the Culture, Stupid



Gun violence in America…  What can be said?  Honestly, not much.  It’s too complicated, intractable, and at this point in history, moot.  Some countries can deal with their guns, but their ability to do so is cultural; our culture just can’t do it.  And there is no changing this culture.  You can’t even get Americans to accept the perfectly reasonable metric system, much less grow a healthy gun culture.


Yesterday, I forwarded some incredible pictures about other parts of the world to a couple of friends.  To one I prefaced the email with “some unbelievable pictures from parts of the world that defy my comprehension”.  A lot of the pictures involved what I can only describe as over-population: lots of people per square meter of space.  One of the friends I sent them to, knowing how I can rant and rave about the stupidity of the masses, responded by telling me that I was lucky to live in what I often think of as “this little-populated hell hole” because otherwise I would explode….  I had to concur that there could be worse places to live in…


… And because it was late, and there had been another bloody shooting in America, the word “explosion” prompted this:

 ... speaking of exploding: what's with all these fucking shootings in america--- these fucking cowards gotta go spend time in some of these places... I can't believe it lately, it's like a sick joke: every day some fucked up person shoots people for no reason... was in the studio today listening to the news of one more shooting and I truly started believing god existed and was just "having a good time”--- it's the kind of shit a God would think of as a joke...  ok, I'll stop babbling- I'm only making sense in some very weird alternate universe... it's late and I should be in bed...

So yeah, every day, some sick joke…  This morning, I wake up to find out that the joke has become nuanced.   I woke up to the news that yesterday’s shooting in Texas resulted from the altercation between two people.  Both were gravely injured, as well as, a bystander maintenance person at the college where it happened…  The nuance is that the reporter made it sound like this shooting was ok because these two people actually were having an argument, unlike in the spate of shootings we have been having, where the targets were chosen randomly. 

Y…eeee…sss ...an argument can be made for this shooting being different in kind from some of the many others… And mmm…aay…bee .... in some very weird abstract moral scale, random shootings are more reprehensible than “shootings for a reason”....  But let’s get real here, these two guys (I assume they were guys) were having an argument in a college: a place purported to deliver higher education, though, like whatever argument they were having, that is entirely debatable....   But what kind of argument could have possibly engendered such violence?

“You asshole, Popper is right!”
“Fuck you it’s Wittgenstein all the way!  Take this!” Pop, Pop

Ok, I would venture that the argument was not over two dead Austrian philosophers who hated each other.   But when the fuck is it alright to pull a gun and shoot another person during an argument, whatever it might be about, in a public space, in a supposedly civilized country?! 

Seriously, the, what to my ears sounded like a, most cavalier attitude displayed by the NPR reporter towards this “reasonable” shooting … and here I interrupt to stress NPR, a most liberal of stations, making the reporter’s attitude even more perplexing… Anyway, the NPR reporter’s cavalier (or maybe she was just relieved, because disagreements are "easier" to comprehend than random violence) attitude this morning just further confirmed that something is seriously amiss in the good ol’ US of A.  

Like I said: intractable and moot.


Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Yogurt and Plastic



Recently I have started making my own yogurt.  “Why?” one might ask, as my husband did, twice, recently.   Not because I am the clichéd “granola eating”, wholesome, Luddite, vegetarian zealot type.   And not because it is cheaper either.  I use organic milk, which tastes like something, as opposed to the one not labeled “organic”, which tastes like nothing.  It is more expensive.  Add to that the energy it takes to make, and I doubt that my yogurt is cheaper than store bought; but I confess to not having done the math.    Better tasting or not, I really buy the organic milk in the hopes that the “organic” cows are treated more humanely than the industry standard.  Hope does spring eternal, and I pay for it.

One day I was half-listening to the news on the radio when I half-heard a report about the consequences of America’s new infatuation with Greek yogurt.  In order to thicken Greek yogurt, one needs to strain the whey off of it, and it takes 3 gallons of milk to yield 1 gallon of Greek yogurt.  In order to feed America’s appetite for it, I can’t even imagine how many 1,000’s of gallons of whey are being produced that need to be disposed of (!)   Apparently, the whey from yogurt does not have enough protein to be used effectively in animal feed, so disposal is indeed a problem.  In such quantities, it is not a food, it is a pollutant, and its dumping in waterways would result in fish kills.  Again, holding to the idea that hope springs eternal, I choose to believe that American Industry, unlike that in other parts of the world, is acting scrupulously when it comes to disposing of such waste. That day, I stopped buying Greek yogurt.

Last Sunday, my husband saw me making one more batch of yogurt; and having forgotten the answer I gave him the first time, he again asked why I had chosen to start making it.  I love yogurt and eat it every day.  And after the report I heard on Greek yogurt, I started thinking of the hundreds of plastic containers of yogurt I have bought over the years: one or two big containers a week.  That’s a lot of plastic.  I decided to make my own yogurt in order to stop buying plastic containers, at least where yogurt is concerned.  You see, I think of the dead plastic zones in the middle of our oceans all-too-often, and it hurts me to think of all the wild-life that dies as a result. 

I explained my reasons to my economist husband, and he smiled that “you must be kidding/are you nuts” economist smile of his; a smile prompted by reasoning that as an economics degree wielding wife of an economist I fully understand.  In the big scheme of things, my stopping to buy 80 or so plastic containers a year puts no dent whatsoever on human plastic waste, and barely puts a dent on my own consumption of plastic.  The plastic continents in the middle of our oceans will keep growing whether or not I stop consuming plastic yogurt tubs.  When The Ranting Economist looks at me with that cost/benefit analysis smile of his, I bring out the econ jargon and tell him that “I derive utility from not consuming plastic tubs with my yogurt. I am getting benefits exceeding my costs, even if I'm not making a marginal bit difference.”  Hey, there’s just no arguing with “Because I feel like it.”

Last week, on that same Sunday, we went shopping at WholeFoods.  We go there because they claim their meat is humanely raised; and yes, that impacts the utility I derive from eating meat.  I don’t love Whole Foods, in fact, I mostly dislike it.  The produce, like most produce in America, looks tired, limp and dead; whether their fruit will taste good when you try it at home is a crapshoot; and finally, things are too expensive and I am sure too much of it ends up in the trash. The place is just too big and just too corporate to merit the name “Whole”; but it has good, tasty, and hopefully humanely treated meat, so we shop there for it.   What struck me last week as I first walked in, other than the usual unappetizing exhaust blast of cooked fish cum rotting food smell that overwhelms one as one walks into the place, was the sheer amount of plastic enveloping EVERYTHING.  For one of those weird super clear moments one gets every once in a while, I was overwhelmed by all that plastic and felt paralyzed.  Whole Foods is supposedly the food industry’s answer to the food industry’s abuse of the environment, and at that moment, that felt like a cruel joke.  But soon the “little shopper” in me took over, my moment of clarity dimmed, and my paralysis cleared; I was off and running.

I am a 21st century American capitalist pig; or what the art critical establishment calls “neo liberal” these days.  I do go to the supermarket and I do buy the plastic enveloped food they dish out, I even shop at (horrors!) Wal-Mart.  And whether I spend time thinking about the destruction of the planet or not, I am surely helping to destroy it just like the next guy.  I know I do have some choices and could mostly limit myself to buying locally.  I sometimes do; but it is costly and inconvenient, the food isn’t that good, and even the local guys hand you the food in plastic bags.  I do often wish we would go back to the days when things came wrapped in paper and in glass containers; but I know glass is heavy, and transport costs affect food costs.  But when I think of such costs, I do wonder about how much we, as a species, actually value our planet; and the evidence seems to point to “not that much”...  Or maybe it is futile to think of “we as a species”…

 …Heck, I’ll just keep making yogurt.



quote of the (to)day

Peter Plagens, AIA Jan 2013

Tuesday, January 1, 2013