Just a warning, this is a rant.  Yes, you may be used to thinking of this as a food blog, although that would be foolish since I haven’t posted a recipe for months, but I am now about to rant.  Girl got somthin to say.  You’ve been warned.

Can someone please explain to me why it’s a good idea to spend $700 billion dollars, an amount of money that I argue is not truly comprehensible to any human being, in a plan that probably we hope will improve the economy?  And right after we finished spending over $150 billion on the “economic stimulus” package that “oh well, oops, let’s try again”, didn’t work?!!!

I know a lot of very smart people who think this $700 billion “bailout” is not just a very good idea but crucial to our very survival, but I can’t help but think we’re all being a little bit influenced by reports from the media that use phrases like “accounts are hemorrhaging” and “clean up the wreckage on Wall Street” while we all just forget that those are just metaphors, and that Wall Street is not physically crumbling, and no one is physically losing blood.   (And before you think I’m a completely callous bitch, yes, I do have GREAT sympathy for honest people who were lied to about their mortage options, and are facing foreclosure and the emotional pain and difficulty of losing their homes.  THAT, is what is truly tragic.)

I just think we’ve all gone a little insane, that we accept that doing everything on credit is a sustainable and normal way to carry on our affairs.  We have higher personal debt than ever, our cities and states are in debt, our employers are often in debt, and our national government is in so much debt that were we to take up a collection, every single resident of our country would have to pony up $33,000 to just to cover it.  I mean, one way to look at it is when you owe a loan shark 10 grand, what’s another 700 bucks?  But if you look at the real numbers, we have a debt load of 10 TRILLION dollars, an unfathomable number in itself, but this bailout is not chump change, it’s 7% of the f-ing national debt.  Again, ARE WE CRAZY?

Look, I’m not stupid, I know a downturn in the economy could really hit home were I to own stock, or god forbid were my employer to close up shop for failure to secure credit.  I do know there are real consequences to the status of the economy.  I just think we’ve all forgotten that the whole thing was something we made up in the first place.  Improvement in the economy means that people continue to consume and consume more, and this is a little game we modern humans made up not all that long ago, and we’ve forgotten that economic growth is NOT one of the laws of nature.  In fact, nature overall calls for equilibrium, and we’ve been counting on constant growth for a long time.  It might and probably will be painful, but we’ve got to even out sometime.

LIFE

And now for my second rant.  I read someone’s blog tonight in which the writer said “…while I am not especially fond of war (remember I AM pro-life)…”

And I came to a screeching halt.

I’m sorry, what?

Did you think that because I don’t think that the government should regulate whether a woman can have an abortion, that I am an advocate of killing?

Oh, wait, that probably IS what she thinks.

Well, shit, there’s not really anything more I can say about that.  “Pro-lifers” can be really crazy.

People, can’t we just agree to disagree and err on the side of giving people more freedom rather than less?

I wasn’t planning to use my blog for rants, as I have a tendency to avoid things I think would look self-indulgent or make me look like I think I’m more important than I am. I don’t know where I got that, especially because I’m one of the biggest smarty-pants around, and I just about always think I really do know better than you or anyone else. (Just ask my husband, who, glowingly generous soul that he is, receives the brunt of my helpful suggestions, useful tidbits, and “no, sweetie, I’m right-you’re wrong” patronizing attitude.)

But I’ve just discovered Dooce, and she’s hilarious and cranky and witty and vulnerable, and then this thing happened today, and I was (inspired?… driven?) to write about it.

So here is the ridiculousness that I want to speak my mind on:

I ordered RECYCLED paper towels for work from Costco.com. Three packs of 6 rolls each. I do my best to keep our office as environmentally friendly as possible. We have these expensive water filters so people don’t use so many single-serve bottles, I hardly buy anything disposable that’s not recycled, you get the picture. I’d rather we didn’t use paper towels at all and people just carried around cloths like the No Impact guy, but the folks at work wouldn’t be havin’ it, so I concede and order RECYCLED paper towels. So, back to the matter at hand, the Costco guy brings in the items from the truck individually, cases of soda, big bags of trail mix (I order the big bag and make people share because it uses less packaging). And then he brings in 3 boxes. Each one is sealed up with ONE of the packs of paper towels, and 4 of those bubbly air bag packaging thingys. You know, to protect the paper towels. Because they might get dented.

Jesus, people. I’m trying to REDUCE my carbon footprint here.

I know there wasn’t just one person involved in the inane decision to send my paper towels in an obscene amount of protective packaging, but if there was, I want to pour organic earth-friendly sugar into the gas tank of their gigantic SUV.