It’s time for a New Conservatism
by Joel Tagert
The Metropolitan

A while ago, I found myself delighted by what some students had done at their apartment about a block away from campus. There, in a cheap block apartment in a rough neighborhood, on the thin strip of earth separating the sidewalk from the street, these students had planted rhubarb, squash, green beans, and tomatoes.

As if that weren’t enough, they had unhooked the pipe below their kitchen sink and were using a five-gallon bucket to catch their dishwater. They then used the dishwater to water the vegetables.

Here’s a true conservatism for our time. What might happen if America’s poor took these students’ example and began using what space and resources they had to reclaim their independence and build their self-reliance? This kind of constructive work produces more than vegetables.

Our government has failed to encourage this kind of conservation. I’m always shocked when I see enormous new homes being built that still don’t have solar water heaters. This is a 20-year-old technology that saves homeowners money and reduces pollution. Denver is sunny, on average, more than three hundred days a year, and yet our government is unwilling or unable to require builders to install such simple energy-saving devices.

And with all of the hullabaloo about the drought, there are, again, obvious measures that could be taken by builders. How about a cistern to catch rainwater from the roof and another cistern to catch gray water from sinks, bathtubs, and showers? The water thus conserved could feed the hungry lawns that American suburbia insists on having.

We have rolling blackouts in multiple states, but we don’t ask people to conserve electricity; we have worldwide starvation, but we don’t ask people to eat less; we have global climate change, but we don’t ask people to stop driving SUVs.

Instead, when the economy falters, our almost-elected president tells us to “Spend, spend, spend!” like an exalted car salesman (and indeed, he is little more). But wouldn’t it make more sense to save money in tough times?

There’s a story about that old trickster, Mullah Nasruddin. One day Nasruddin went before the townspeople and proclaimed, “O townspeople, when I die I want to be buried head first.”

“Why?” they asked him.

“Because if I am right side up in this life,” he replied, “I want to try being upside down in the next.”

We live in an upside-down world, especially regarding materialism. America has forgotten the value of conservation, if indeed it ever knew it. Instead, day after day, we hear greed and materialism praised under the rubric of capitalism, our state religion. George Bush’s national security strategy says that we will kill for it. But what is free market capitalism but the enshrinement of greed as a cultural value?

I have always objected to Republicans calling themselves “conservative.” They are not conservative; they are profligate. They are, as my Webster’s says, “1. Heedlessly or extravagantly wasteful. 2. Completely lacking in self-restraint: dissolute.”

What better word for a political party whose primary faith is in the power of greed? How better to describe those who encourage us to buy rather than give, to spend rather than save, to drill rather than drive less, to kill rather than aid?

No, don’t look for conservation in the vast green lawns of the Republican Party. Look for it instead in narrow dirt easements made to bear fruit, in peanut butter jars used as drinking glasses, in videos signed out from the library, in eating at home, in frugality known as the virtue it is.

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Cell phones cause stupidity
by Tim Dunbar
The Metropolitan

Caution: Cell phones cause stupidity
.
It’s true. I know this because I do not own a cell phone — I don’t plan to, either; if anyone wants to get a hold of me that badly they can send a telepathic message — and I have seen otherwise normal, intelligent human beings turn into masses of babbling flesh while gabbing on one of these nuisances.

Case in point: Last week, in a quandary over where to find a parking space, I found myself under the Auraria Parkway bridge. My car was behind another pointed south and waiting to turn. I saw that the guy was talking on a cell phone and thought nothing of it until two very large semis coming from the east signaled a right turn. The person in front of me, who, I thought, must have at least a few working brain cells since he was parking for class, proceeded to, without so much as taking even an obligatory glance in his rear-view mirror, shift into reverse (so as to make room for the gargantuan trucks) and SLAM INTO THE FRONT OF MY CAR!

The pair of semis successfully made the turn. Meanwhile, the bloke in front of me WAS STILL TALKING ON THE PHONE and hadn’t made a move to get out and assess the damage he may or may not have caused. I waited patiently — because, in truth, I hadn’t spotted a parking space and didn’t really have anywhere else I could go — while he ended the call and slowly got out of his car.

“Oh, God,” he said with a quiver in his voice, probably wondering whether I would kill him or not, “how much damage is there to your car?” I looked at the front of my car (well, actually my dad’s car; it’s a convertible and as Nick Nolte says in “48 Hours,” “I’m a ragtop man.”) and saw that, thankfully for both of us, it didn’t have a scratch. The collision sounded much worse than it actually was; probably had something to do with being under a bridge.

Being the kind of guy who believes that the pen (or in this case, the spoken word) is mightier than the sword (or in this case, a tire iron), I said “Looks like none, but you might want to consider ditching the cell phone ‘cause it’s pretty obvious you can’t talk and drive at the same time.” He thanked me (for what, I’m not sure; maybe for not doing him bodily harm), got back into his car and drove off in search of a parking spot.

But it’s not just drivers. I’ve been rammed into more times already this semester than I can count by people who treat the world as their very own personal phone booth. Talking and walking, it seems, is as difficult as talking and driving.

What is the fascination with these things, anyway? If people aren’t yakking away on the damn things, they’re staring at them as if they hold the secret to life itself. Now, I know that some of these newfangled phones have games; can take, send and receive pictures; and that text messaging is “in” right now — hey, I’m not completely in the dark ages, you know — but for God’s sake, what’s so wrong with having simple face-to-face conversation? Have we really devolved into a society so riddled with people suffering from ADD and ADHD that we have to be stimulated all the time?

And the conversations you have. . . Trust me, no one but the person you’re talking to cares what (or whom) you did last night, that you, like, hate your classes, or that so-and-so is having, like, a kick-ass party Friday night. But we hear you, loud (mostly too loud) and clear.

One more thing before I have all cell phone fanatics calling for my tarring and feathering. OK, two more things: First, the simple act of having a cell phone does not make you cool, or hip, or in. Nearly everyone on the planet has one and no one is impressed, so you can quit flashing the things around like they’re some kind of talisman that will make you instantly popular.

Second: You know those hands-free devices that hang from your ear, the ones with the microphone built into the cord? Well, they make you look — and there’s really no way of getting around this — like you’re talking to yourself. So no matter how hard you try, no matter how many corners you slither into, or how animated you try to look so people will know you’re having a very important conversation with a very important person, you still look like an moron who’s talking to himself.

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Species Lebensraum
by James Shipley
The Metropolitan

Just a little thing on my mind this month. What with classes starting again and all, I wanted to say something about what one of my current instructors has called, “the greatest problem facing the world today.” So a little vocabulary lesson, then on to the real lesson.

A meme is an idea that takes on a life of its own, replicating itself through minds the way a gene replicates itself through bodies. Lots of our big ideas are memes. Paradise, apocalypse, utopia – those are memes. The idea of a world savior, a Christ or a Buddha – that’s a meme. Most of what Jung was talking about in terms of archetypal imagery and the collective conscious – those are memes and constellations of memes, too. At some deep level, the most successful memes seem to be fundamentally related to biology, to the experience of being born, growing up, living and dying as a biological being. So deeply related that they seem almost genetic.

“Be fruitful and multiply and have dominion over the Earth.” Most people would agree that’s been a successful meme, replicating itself through minds over several thousand years. But isn’t there a biologically driven component – even a genetic program – involved in the success of that meme? Can a meme or a gene in fact become too successful? If conditions change but the gene doesn’t, what then?

The gene can become neutral, “dead weight,” or it can become deleterious, harmful to the continued existence of the individual or even to the species. Some memes, some ideas, are like that too. They may have been good ideas at one time, but conditions may have changed. The Genesis plan of “be fruitful and multiply and have dominion,” has become the Holocaust plan: Consume the Earth until there is nothing left to consume. Consume so-called inferior species out of existence to make room for the “master” species, Homo Sapiens Sapiens – much the way the Nazis attempted to consume an “inferior” race out of existence to create Lebensraum for the “master” race. Most species on Earth now go extinct not from hunting or trapping but from habitat destruction. Plant and animal habitat is destroyed to make way for human habitat. Species Lebensraum.

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Aggressive driving in Denver

Bryan Goodland

If you’ve been in Colorado for any length of time you probably have become accustomed to the way that Coloradans drive. If, however, you’re a transplant as I am, then it may still continue to shock you.

In Denver, at least, they have decided to try to put an end to the aggressive driving that takes place on the interstates in and around the city. The Denver police purchased two new unmarked sedans to patrol I-25, I-70, 270, 225 and 6th Avenue. Although that doesn’t seem like enough to make a difference, it may help curtail some of the more obvious violators.

Cars cutting you off, switching lanes five at a time and people driving ten or twenty miles above the speed limit are commonplace in both the city and on the interstates. The Rocky Mountain News reported that the Colorado State Patrol issued 16,657 tickets to aggressive drivers last year. I would guess that number will increase this year.

How many accidents these people have caused is probably beyond most people’s calculations. However, this kind of adolescent behavior is certainly involved in a majority of the accidents that occur in Colorado. It isn’t hard to use your turn signal or to change lanes one at a time, yet so many people lack the courtesy and the intelligence to use these simple techniques. How many accidents and deaths could be prevented if we all began to drive

Cartoon by Adam Goldstein

with a little more responsibility for others on the road.

All of this is probably indicative of the increase in stress and drive time that we have all experienced. In a recent survey, Denver ranked in the top five worst cities to drive in, partly because of the longer than usual rush hour that occurs every day. This waiting in traffic inevitably leads to road rage and eventually to poor decision making while driving. Add to this the myriad of people who talk on cell phones, read, and do a variety of tasks while trying to move down the road at 65 mph. The combination of all these factors leads to an increase in traffic accidents and an increased presence of law enforcement officers.

The resolution to all of this would seem fairly simple. Drivers need to slow down and pay attention to what they are doing, which is supposed to be driving. If you plan on using the interstate during rush hour, realize that the traffic will go slow and there is nothing you can do about it, except plan an alternative route. It is time that those who live in Colorado learn to adapt to the driving situation here and become more responsible for how they drive. My advice, take a deep breath, slow down and use those turn signals, because tomorrow you’ll have to do it all over again.

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Objectivity a sign of pass-the-blame society

Nick Bahl

Shame on you, Jayson Blair and The New York Times for maintaining the status quo! Affirmative action laws, reverse discrimination, this so-called “liberal journalistic integrity” that the media claims is possible, and all the remaining issues that have been resurrected from the dirt of a bad seed will not be discussed on my time. I leave that to the majority of journalists who seek to create excuses – keep passing the blame – for their own incompetence. These journalists fail to see the issue and instead they address the resulting problems one by one. I am not a scapegoat journalist and never will be, but what is a scapegoat journalist?

Scapegoat journalists claim that they are objective. Objectivity is impossible unless you go through a rigorous personization process and reach beyond your subjective nature. How does this work?

Humans learn through their senses. Everyone’s senses are not the same. Right away we see that objectivity is impossible (this is another irrational offspring of liberal politics being based on the assumption that people are equally rational. Rationality is relative!). Objectivity requires equality as an essential characteristic. Are there not people who are blind?

Our individual senses interpret the world around us and combine those sensations with personal experience to create our reality. When living in your reality, you cannot possibly be objective since you are totally immersed inside your individual and subjective world. When someone says something, it enters your head through your senses and combines with prior knowledge so that you can give the words meaning. You give the words your own, subjective meaning. In the very end, subjective-objectivity becomes objective because it has become truth and is perfectly comprehensive, subjectively and objectively. Objectivity is impossible by itself.

Recently I discovered that a large number of journalists believe that once someone has written editorials – thinking for yourself is wrong because objectivity is the idea – they cannot write news stories. News stories are supposed to be objective even though as you look at the whole of a newspaper it’s slanted. How does this match with their “objective ideal?” Don’t they prove themselves wrong?

The more you know, the more objectively you can choose to write. This “choose” is the true origin of any possible form of integrity, journalistic or in general. You should choose to use your knowledge to be objective. If you don’t choose to be objective you don’t comprehend the implications of what you’re writing and you’re slanting the story with your own ignorance.

On the other hand, if you know about a subject you can consistently write objective stories. By knowing about the topic you can pick out the relevant ideas from all sides of the issue and as such you can choose to write the relevant information given by each side. This is impossible if you don’t know anything about the subject. Isn’t this why journalism professors tell their students to research before going to cover a story? They say you can’t be objective if you have an opinion, but they tell you that you must get information beforehand, which will naturally create opinions going into the story. Something’s wrong here! What is it?

Evidently journalists think that on-the-fly opinions are better than thought-out opinions. Is it that they don’t trust themselves to “choose” to do their jobs? It absolutely is! I have a feeling the insecurity of being hated by the public forces them into this situation. But they’re hated by the public because of the biased stories brought to life in the soil of their bred ignorance. Only in journalism is it considered a bad thing to be knowledgeable and intelligent. Are we then surprised that this is the trend in American society?

America is becoming a pass-the-blame society. Scapegoat journalism is simply a sign of the Times! Jayson Blair and The Times only did wrong by following right along with the status quo. Diversity and ethics in the newsroom is an important issue, but knowledge and understanding in the newsroom are much more important. Wouldn’t knowledge and understanding solve diversity and ethics?

The most important problem facing America in the next 25 years will be education. Without education, voter participation will continue to stutter along, and that, my friends, is the most important issue America will face in the next 50 years. Does journalism have an obligation in all of this? Is there anything scapegoat journalism is good for besides aiding a horrible trend that threatens our country and the world?

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