Americans are fat and stupid... but not stupid enough to invest in something like this.  Running outside = good.  Treadmills = ok.  But a treadmill-mobile?  What's the point exactly, aside from having something to waste your money on?

I was at the grocery store this morning (getting milk so we can make our own cheese) when I saw this:



That's right, pancake batter in a pressurized can.  Needless to say, I did not think to myself, "AMAZING!"  Instead, it was more, "What the fuck is this garbage?!"  Here's how it works:

Oh, that poor woman having to deal with the supreme difficulties of mixing up a batter.  What a hard life.  Maybe we can organize a 5k run/walk to raise money for the likes of her.

Except perhaps for toast and jelly, pancakes are just about the easiest breakfast food a person can make.  The Norwegian pancakes I make have four ingredients.  It takes all of abut three minutes to mix it all together, then the frying part is exactly the same as it would be with Batter Blaster.  Now, one thing going for Batter Blaster is "organic," but the fact that all this great organic stuff comes in a steel can and is shipped from who knows where isn't exactly redeeming. 

C'mon, America.  Make your own pancakes.  Don't buy crap.  *sigh*

What's next?  Any guesses?

I've posted before about the fun I have with Skymall, you know the stupid mail-order catalog that you find on planes.  Though I've flown a few times in the past couple months, I was disappointed to find that Sun Country Airlines does not carry Skymall.  Sarah was nice enough to pick up one for me when she flew to Texas for work though. 

Without further ado, some of my 'favorites' from the Early Spring 2008 edition of Skymall.

Note:  I wrote this at school this morning between about 8 and 9am during my prep periods.  I don't particularly feel like reading it over right now, so there's a good chance it's a bit rambling, but it is also genuine.

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I am worried.  This is not something that I say lightly because I generally don’t think worrying serves much of a purpose.  If you can do something about what you are worrying about, then do it.  If you can’t, then don’t worry about it.  Simplistic, maybe, but it is generally how I operate.

 That being said, I am worried about the economy and the greater state of global economic affairs and there isn’t one darn thing I can do about it.   

 Locally, I am worried about how an economic downturn will affect Sarah and I.  We are doing better than many, but that doesn’t mean that we are necessarily all that far from money trouble.  Mortgage, a big-assed pile of student loans, paying off a new (to us) car, driving another car that is definitely showing its age, plenty of other monthly bills… it is quite a lot of money that is leaving our pockets.  I/we have been looking forward to the day that I get my own teaching job.  When that happens, I will easily be making more than I ever have and will more than double what I am bringing in now.  But if we suffer a serious economic downturn, could that reduce my chances for a job?  It probably wouldn’t, since kids will still need to be taught, but it is something of a concern.  Could it jeopardize Sarah’s job?  I don’t know.  I will leave it to Sarah to talk about her company should she choose to do so.  But should something happen to her job or mine, that could spell trouble.

 All signs right now are pointing to recession.  This morning, the Fed announced a .75% reduction in interest rates when no meeting for the Fed was scheduled.  This follows a weekend where the international markets have tanked.  It sounds like the U.S. markets are going to probably follow their example despite the interest rate cut.  So it looks as though the economy is going to slow even more.  Combine that with a huge rate cut and it appears we have a recession combined with a good chance for inflation.  Splendid.  Just what we need, higher prices for our consumables. 

 I am listening to NPR right now and they’ve got it right in analyzing what the Fed is thinking.  They have two worries, inflation and growth.  With this rate cut they are saying that they’ll worry about inflation later ‘cause growth is more important in getting the economy on track.  This is where my quieter, yet more ominous worry lays. 

 Our economy is based on consumption and growth.  Says the market news, “GigantoCorp’s stock went down fifteen percent today because their quarterly earnings didn’t meet projections.”  The U.S. was built on the foundation of the marketplace and growth.  Our prosperity is based on buying cars, and MP3 players, non-stick fry pans, Go-gurt, designer clothing, McMansions and Levitra.  If we don’t continue to buy, the economy suffers.  So we buy more and more and more, often times crap we really don’t need.  But we buy it ‘cause we are told to buy it and because we feel it will make our lives better.  The problem is that an economy based on growth is an awful lot like a pyramid scheme, it can only grow so much before it collapses.  It is remarkable that our economy has grown as much as it has in the last 500 years, but it just can not continue.  We are approaching a point where more Best Buys can not be built, more oil can not be pumped, and more bauxite can not be mined ‘cause there just aren’t any more consumers and there is a finite amount of raw resources.

 One of my concerns is that we have reached too far, economically.  One of these days I believe there will have to be some serious pruning of our recent growth, or it may die back in ways we like even less.  I believe that despite our amazing economic history and growth we wrongly went down the path of capitalist and growth economics long ago.  Not that it probably seemed like there was any other option at the time, but those smart choices in the past have lead to the unsustainable economy of today.  In the last ten years or so as I learned more and more about economics, resources, and the state of affairs I have believed that this capitalist system needed to change. 

 My worry is that even though I want a revolution to come, I am comfortable where I am.  Changing our economy away from growth and profit to something more sustainable is impossible, in my view, without supremely painful changes that probably wouldn’t be resolved for years, if not decades.  I can’t even imagine what it would take to change our economic system away from capital and growth to something healthier.  That change would take a near reversal of attitudes by everyone.  I don’t want to give up my bike and outdoors gear any less than the folks in suburbia want to give up their Audis and Prada.  It’s going to happen one way or another though… whether it happens tomorrow, ten years from now, or whether it is somehow postponed for a hundred years.

 I’m not sure I want to see the likely anarchy that would result.  I suppose I will put on a mask of ignorance like everyone else.  I suppose I will buy into the stimulus package that the president, presidential candidates, and congress all support to stimulate more consumption and march blindly towards the precipice. 

I wish I knew how to grow and hunt for my own food and build my own shelter.

I went to Menards this morning to pick up a shelf for one of our cabinets.  I thought it was a little funny that they had a guy dressed in a suit playing a baby grand piano.  Then not too far away from him were the inflatable lawn ornaments, one of which was a Santa Claus in a helicopter with spinning rotors and something else one aisle over playing a horrible version of Carol of the Bells.

Menards, home of live music, lumber, light fixtures, lots of stupid crap.

Simple pleasure - great music on KFAI
Peace

For the past multiple years I have been accumulating things with cords and peripherals to those corded things.  From one place to another I hauled a trunk full of stuff, and later a trunk and a box full of stuff.  Today I tackled the cords.  In that trunk and box was this big tangle of so many different cords, it was almost funny.  Among lots of digital media of all sorts and documentation were the following things:

5 unidentified AC and DC plugs and their cords
5 network cables of various lengths
2 dead old printers (why did I keep those?  Who knows.)
1 long obsolete scanner
1 250 mb zip drive (zip drive, whoa.  There's a flash back)
1 100 mb zip drive (nearly an antique, that)
1 ethernet router
1 answering machine that I got for my freshman year of college, yet only had need for at one place I lived
5 old computer power cords
5 old phone cords
1 plastic Jesus on wheels
2 long unused Gameboy games
half a pack of Christmas stationery from who knows when
At least three copies of different versions of Microsoft Office
A big ol' box of 5.25 floppy disks full of shareware games I played as a young'un
A Minnesota Association of Geography Educators pencil
a hair drier - strange

There was more too, but I didn't exactly take a full inventory.  Now much of the stuff that isn't completely useless or obsolete is on craigslist.  A trip back through time via a huge tangle of cords and flotsam is kind of funny.

Simple pleasure - home made chai
Peace

So I'm curious. What do you think it will ultimately take for the U.S. (and perhaps industrialized nations in general) to change course?

Background. After going to the anti-war rally yesterday afternoon, Sarah and I watched Who Killed the Electric Car?  Basically, the movie was about automakers developing plug-in electric cars for the mass market.  The cars were developed, leased by many people in California, and then the automakers let the leases expire and destroyed them all much to the chagrin of everyone who drove them.  The movie placed the blame for the demise of the plug-in electric cars on...
the oil industry (buying and killing the best battery technology)
auto companies (who would be forced to admit that all of their cars aren't good, if their new electric cars are so good)
the government (for being beholden to big business)
consumers (who are apathetic and will usually eat what is fed to them)
and
the hydrogen fuel cell (which is glamorous, but has plenty of issues, and though would be clean is ultimately [according to the movie] a less viable and efficient form of energy to power cars)
There may have been one or two other culprits they named, but I don't remember off hand, and these are most of them.

This lead to a discussion between Sarah and I that started with the question, "Why would a company kill a project that all signs showed would be very successful (not to mention the fact that it would be a huge step forward in combating global warming)?"



While I want to see the revolution come, I think the powers that be would be able to crush nearly anything that threatens the status quo.  I believe there will be worldwide (or at least continental-scale) calamity before any real changes come about, and at that point it may be too late.

So, what do you think it will take for us to change course?

One of the things I enjoy about flying are the stupid catelogs to look through.  I can entertain myself for a good hour or more with these dumb things.  So without further ado, my favorites from the "Holiday 2006" edition of skymall!


Yeah, that's some good stuff, eh?

Simple pleasure - coffee
Peace