Are We Getting What We Deserve?

We have been living high on the hog for a long, long time. I was just saying the other night that it seems like I can remember the first house of cards falling, Enron, then they slowly started to drop all over the place. The never-ending war in Iraq, this idiot president getting elected twice (that still blows me away), the credit/mortgage fiasco, the cost of oil, the scramble to find renewable sources of energy all of a sudden and a stock market that barely deserves its name anymore. Maybe they should rename it the worthless paper market and have a going out of business sale. Can the stock market declare bankruptcy? I didn't get a great grade in Economics as I recall.

Our dollar has been king worldwide for the majority of the last century meaning we were always the ones trekking to every other country in the world, insisting people speak English without much effort to learn their language. I still can't say I understand why the English pound sterling and Canadian dollar and the Euro are all worth so much more than our dollar. I mean those countries aren't big producers of anything much so how did they come to be in such a positive financial situation.

Over the years, our vehicles have gotten bigger and more powerful until it was starting to seem like practically everyone in the country was driving around big-ass SUV's or F350's or Rams or Silverados or the worst of all, the Dually. The kind of car you hate having in front of you because you can't see around them to see what's happening up ahead, you hate having park next to you because their oversized doors make mincemeat out of your car, you hate getting stuck with when you have to rent a car because it's going to cost you a fortune to fill the gas tank or you get cut off by since they ALWAYS do that because who's going to argue with them?

We've been sucking up gas aka oil like there was an endless supply just to keep these monsters eating up the miles. It was almost like we were out of control, like we couldn't be stopped. And we weren't stopped until we were forced to by dire circumstances. Have you seen a picture of the Arctic (polar) ice cap lately; it's almost gone.

How about our homes? No one is looking for the three bedroom, one bath ranch anymore, now it's 3,000-5,000 square feet regardless of the size of your family. And the materials those homes are made with are getting more and more expensive like bamboo floors, stone and handmade tile inside and out, etc. There appears to be a distinct need to keep up or surpass the Jones's or the Smith's or the Johnson's next door. We have become a very gaudy and decadent society.

But our greed didn't stop with all this, no it carried over into our daily eating habits until the majority of America isn't just overweight but is now obese. The thing I was most struck by in Denmark when I went to visit my daughter in 1997 was the lack of huge supermarkets. Instead they had small markets with possibly one of each item in them, sometimes you had to go to multiple markets to find the item at all, celery comes to mind. It was March after all and less than 20 degrees. I also have to say, I have never seen an obese person in Europe. That doesn't mean there aren't any but they certainly aren't as prevalent as they are here. But it's not just about poor eating habits and the proliferation of high calorie, high fat, low food value, fast food. A singular lack of exercise goes hand in hand with the poor diet. This of course ties directly back to the glut of cars on our roads every single day.

That is the nice thing about Portland where there are so many bikes, walkers (not the kinds with handles and wheels), scooters, skateboarders and mass transiters who leave the wheels at home, if they even own them. Maybe Portland can begin to influence the rest of the country but first we need to get alot more cars off the road here too.

Does it all truly come down to greed, laziness, boredom, over-stressed lives, what?