The Land of the Free

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I've been back in America for a month. The first things I've noticed about my beloved homeland after almost a year's absence:

-Everyone is fat! Middle aged people, young folks, old people, babies.... ever our automobiles are much larger than the ones in New Zealand (and wayyy bigger than the ones in India). Seriously America, lay off the bacon. Just 'cause everyone else is getting chubby doesn't mean it's not unhealthy.

- Downtown Seattle has gotten a lot rougher.... maybe it's the economy, maybe I can spot opiate addicts much easier after spending time in the Orient.

-Downtown Bellingham is full of more meth addicts and people dressed like gangster clowns ("juggalos") than when I left.

- People in America are generally much less "proper" than Kiwis or Europeans. We are less politically correct, more direct, and somehow more self-assured in our gaits and style of conversation. It's a hard phenomena to explain completely.

- The Pacific Northwest is, in all fairness, the most beautiful landscape in the world. We've got it all- temperate rainforests with massive trees, deserts, mountains, rivers, the ocean. It's a magical place that is very conducive to life.

It's been nice to visit Taco Trucks and to see all the immigrants in Rainier Valley. Anyone who doesn't like immigration and who is not a Native American seriously needs to lay off of the hypocrisy. The best thing about America, and what makes me the most proud of my country is the fact that anyone's children can be an American. This is not true of European nations. Not anyone's children could be French, for example. I went to public school with kids from (or with parents from) Vietnam, China, Somalia, Ethiopia, Mexico, Germany and many points in between. If a young woman wants to wear a chador in class, no one really trips about it. I think that the freedom and opportunities that America offers to immigrants is our greatest source of strength (economic, political, and moral).

Some of my friends have been getting a bit down about the state of our economy and the world. They believe that the whole environment (and most life of earth) is doomed due to the ever-increasing demands of human consumption. I am much more optimistic. I tell them of a land called West Bengal that is half the size of Washington State with about 12 times the population. Most of the people there survive as subsistence farmers. It's a tough life with high death rates and (relatively) low life expectancy. But they survive. They laugh and dance and love and raise children and are grateful for every new day. I tell my friends about the main city in West Bengal, Kolkata, a crowded, polluted, chaotic metropolis that has a lower violent and property crime rate than any major city in the United States.

The science of economics can be defined as "managing the unlimited wants of humanity with limited means of production." For too long we've been looking at the equation from only one side- encouraging more technology and mining and deforestation in order to attempt to satisfy these unlimited wants. If there is going to be a world worth living in for our children's children, we need to focus on the other potential solution. We should want less possessions. We should seek our happiness through interactions with the people around us and the inherent beauty within us, not earth-destroying consumption. We need to encourage cultural values that reject the empty promises of materialism.

Maybe we could use goats to eat grass instead of burning fossil fuels in lawnmowers.
Maybe we could eat more chickpeas and peanuts instead of cows and pigs.
Maybe there are simply not enough resources on earth for everyone to have a computer and a car.
Maybe the future will be a crowded kaleidoscope full of impoverished people of many different religions and languages and skin tones growing crops in small plots of land or working in cities with fifteen million people.
Maybe they're going to be just fine.

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[momma]

Blessings for your new adventure
>> The love and affection of the angels be to you, The love and affection of the saints be to you, The love and affection of heaven be to you, To guard and to cherish you. May God shield you on every step, May He aid you on every path, And may He hold you safe on every slope, On every hill and on every plain; On earth and on sea until you are home again.<<