When Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev came back from his trip to the United States he had the answer to all of the USSR’s agricultural and other problems – corn. A directive was issued and pretty soon corn was being planted everywhere with joyous reports pouring in from all corners of the country even from places where corn had no chance of maturing due to the short growing season. Just like in the Special Olympics it wasn’t the results that counted, people got points (and awards) for participation.
I thought about overachieving and stupidity when I came home the other day to see my neighborhood lined with blue trash carts.
With these trash carts the City of Olathe is about to start its recycling program. I am skeptical about the benefits of recycling and until now did not participate in the program since it was not mandatory and cost an additional charge. My household doesn’t produce enough recyclable materials as outlined by the City to even bother. As a matter of fact we just don’t have that much trash in general. When the City supplied everyone with 95 gallon trash carts few years ago I immediately traded down to a smaller 65 gallon size and even that is almost always half-empty. I hardly ever have any items that fit the description other than an occasional phone book, a rare plastic bottle, or a piece of cardboard, so the 65 gallon cart represents about 65 times more volume of recyclables my family can produce in a year. The City did a test-run and feels that I will have enough stuff to fill it every two weeks. Obviously this is not going to happen.
In addition to the fact that I never volunteered to participate and wasn’t consulted with before the cart was dropped off in my driveway I literally don’t have any room in my garage to keep two 65 gallon containers. Hardly anyone in this neighborhood has more than one-car garage and most of the people already keep their regular trash carts out on the street (against the regulations), so now it will be adorned by two giant trash bins per household. However, the main non-benefit of the recycling program is a mandatory increase in the cost of the trash pick-up. While no one has to participate, everyone has to pay supposedly to attain a “long‐term stabilizing benefit to recycling because landfill costs are increasing”. Now I am torn between wanting to get something for the money I suddenly have to contribute and the realization that I will probably never have enough recyclables to even bother rolling the cart out on the pick-up day. Most likely I will just return the cart and curse the City every time I pay the bill.
I realize that many people believe in recycling, Jesus Christ, hope and change, world peace and global warming/cooling or both. Nothing wrong with that. What I find idiotic is the city investing in enough of the $65 trash-carts for every house, special trucks and equipment, with many people like me who will opt out of the program for various reasons. I have no idea how many people will return the carts or just leave them outside as decorations. The time will tell. I wouldn’t have any problem with just a price increase without the recycling gimmick, I realize that the costs are rising, but what may be a good idea for some, was imposed on all by the same type of thoughtless overachievers who long ago were planting corn inside the Arctic circle.
In the meantime you are welcome to drop off your recycling at my house – it’s already paid for.
If you have thirty minutes of spare time, watch this episode of Penn and Teller Bullshit, maybe you’ll recognize yourself.
The truth is, I am lazy, my car is in the shop and I have nothing better to do working tirelessly to entertain you. Some of those might have been used in the previous posts, sorry.
When I was growing up® beauty salon employees were not dressing up as nurses any longer, although this seems to be a fancy establishment in 1956 Moscow.
Ernest Hemingway is thought to have said that you must do four things to be a man: plant a tree, fight a bull, write a novel and father a son. My life didn’t follow Hemingway exactly but I think I am pretty close: I am raising a daughter, write a blog, planted a sunflower which grew to the size of a small tree and if a bull ever shows up on my doorstep willing to fight, I’ll have only two words for him: “steak dinner”.
This spring I planted some mammoth sunflowers on the 0.00034 acres of land that I own and it proved to be a source of constant amazement and comments from my neighbors. The tallest sunflower is now 9 feet tall and is crowned with a huge flower.
At first is was taller than me…
…than way taller than me.
Soon it was ready to bloom…
…and then it did.
But the most amazing thing is what’s inside.
Sunflowers in front of my house inspired me to get out, play my guitar and sing.
Guardian published an interesting list of 25 people it the heart of the meltdown listing 25 individuals and entities who (in their opinion) had a hand in our current economic situation. As indicated in the comments to the article, not everyone agrees with their choices which include Alan Greenspan, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and others. Other people think that Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and Milton Freedman deserve to be included as well.
My favorite nominee – American and British Public:
There’s no escaping the fact: politicians might have teed up the financial system and failed to police it properly and Wall Street’s greedy bankers might have got carried away with the riches they could generate, but if millions of Americans had just realized they were borrowing more than they could repay then we would not be in this mess. The British public got just as carried away. We are the credit junkies of Europe and many of our problems could easily have been avoided if we had been more sensible and just said no.
To that I add overly-encouraging real estate agents, overestimating appraisers, extra-helpful mortgage brokers and anyone who profited on these loans. The reason the scheme worked is that it was structured as a multi-level-marketing pyramid with profits multiplying at the top, while the bottom supplied new applicants. These were the members of the public too, just as guilty as the rest.
I wrote about it earlier, but some years ago I was predicting this collapse when it still sounded a lot like conspiracy theory and I’d like to be included in the list of people who saw this coming. I guess I am always pessimistic (and defeatist) anyway so my predictions didn’t sound out of character.Right now my pessimistic worldview tells me that no one knows how to get out of the crisis. Many qualified people offer solutions both in academia and business but any action would be experimental, and I can only hope it will be easy on the test subjects.
In the meantime I’d like to wish all victims of the economic crimes, especially local Sprint employees, good luck. Every day I think about what would happen if I lose my job and nothing encouraging comes to mind, so I feel for the people who have to make these choices today, on someone else’s terms, in this economy. There is no question your company was mismanaged and robbed and it’s not your fault (unless you are the one who did the mismanaging and robbing, then it’s your fault, I hope you invested with Madoff). I hope you will find something soon, a secure well-paying job where your talents will be appreciated. You’ll be better off even if the pay is not the same. Good luck!
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Guardian published an interesting list of 25 people it the heart of the meltdown listing 25 individuals and entities who (in their opinion) had a hand in our current economic situation. As indicated in the comments to the article, not everyone agrees with their choices which include Alan Greenspan, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and others. Other people think that Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and Milton Freedman deserve to be included as well.