S.O.T.U, Day-After Edition

Thanks to some skillful scheduling, I don't have Friday classes, so I thought I'd add to my usual Friday workload of dropping by our Chaplain-in-Residence's apartment to watch The Office at 9pm (she always bakes; tonight's "Death by Chocolate") by adding another post about the speech last night, developing some of the ideas I tossed out there in last night's post along the way.

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Quote of the speech I: "We face more than a deficit of dollars right now: We face a deficit of trust."

Couldn't have said it better myself. People just plain don't trust the United States Government right now, with the Congress (especially the Senate) probably leading the pack but none of the three branches looking too great right now. Obama pointed the finger at the "fourth branch"--lobbyists--for this phenomenon; I'd say that's only part of the problem. A big part, to be sure, but it still fails to account for the parochialism and small-mindedness I wrote about yesterday. The Senate can't even be accused of looking at the trees and not the forest right now--they're too focused on the twigs.

Quote of the speech II: "The nation that leads the green economy will be the nation that leads the world economy, and America must be that nation."

Also true. Promptly offshoring all the manufacturing jobs in wind power (we invented the technology but we import the physical components from China) was a good start. Not. We have got to do better than that. It used to be that buying a home was the surest way of "buying American." That's no longer true, but it could be again if we get serious about designing and building or retrofitting green buildings (solar panels on the roof, greenhouses off the back, whatever).

Random thoughts and wrap-up:

I broached a pretty big topic by bringing up childhood obesity and industrial food production last night. That could be an entire column, or even a book or several (it has been). I started thinking seriously about this issue while on my NOLS course over the summer because one of my best friends on the trip was an Ag major at Texas A&M. He's devoted his studies to figuring out the future of farming, and it was fascinating to hear him tell about the way things are and the way he thinks they should be for a month. This is a guy who earns spending money by growing organic vegetables in his backyard at school and selling them to the organic restaurant around the corner. He's also given up meat, and not because he doesn't like it or for health considerations (he used to be a chef at a BBQ joint), but because he claims he doesn't want to give his food dollar to big agriculture, specifically big meat producers.

That was a bit of an eye-opener: I love my steak (and fish and pork and poultry...) and spend every Friday afternoon when it's nice out grilling up 300lbs. of burger meat and a few butts of pulled pork with the GU Grilling Society (GUGS). Even before NOLS, I'd heard that red meat was bad and blah blah blah, but never really paid attention because 19-year-olds don't give a damn about cholesterol, artherosclerosis, or what have you. But my friend Brady got me thinking, and since I've been back to school this semester I've stumbled across and read some pretty serious material on what exactly big agriculture means.

Now, I'm not about to tell you all that I've gone veg--far from it, and there's good evidence that "flexitarians" or occasional meat-eaters are actually healthier than strict vegetarians anyway. Still, it's fascinating and frightening to read up on this issue and the story behind everything in your favorite local supermarket, Whole Paycheck included (we're going to assume that "Fast Food Nation" and "Super Size Me" have delivered enough evidence for the prosecution against fast food). First of all, agricultural specialization is intimately tied to global warming. As much as a third of all fossil fuel consumption in this country is related to the transport of foodstuffs from their far-flung points of origin to your refrigerator; ethanol actually takes more carbon to make than it saves by being added to the gas in your car; etc, etc, etc. Second, and far scarier, is the real science (as opposed to the junk science preached by big ag and rubber stamped by everyone's favorite government) concerning the effects of industrial food on the human body. Let's face it: our bodies haven't even really come to grips with bread and other high-carb foods from an evolutionary standpoint, and they don't stand a chance against Coca-Cola, rBGH, high-fructose corn syrup, or any of the other crap (sometimes literal) that has been allowed to enter the food supply thanks to specialized, industrial agribusiness practices. I won't even begin to get into what the animals go through before slaughter; that's just gross.

Very long story short, I highly suggest doing some research of your own and then thinking about how you want to vote with your food dollar. Depending on what angle you approach this from, there are tremendous benefits to be realized: nutritional, ecological, environmental, humane, etc. The more you read, the more disgusted you'll be at both the scope of the problem and the apparent ease of the solution. There's no reason on Earth (other than the "corrosive influence of lobbyists" that Obama cited last night) for our country and the rest of the world to be beholden to the insane system that's come to rule food production and distribution in the last couple of decades.

End of sermon. Do a quick online search or pick up one of Michael Pollan's books or the film (and/or accompanying book) "Food, Inc." You'll be shocked and awed... In the meantime, go, Michelle, go--obesity is a huge problem with American kids and it's about time someone took it on.

Finally, a quick point on Obama's remarks on topics related to me and my generation. He acknowledged that Americans want to give their children better lives, that a world-class education is the best insurance against poverty, and that student loans need to be brought under control. Excellent points, all. But I still don't see how that can be squared with the rest of his speech. It's the economy, stupid! Trillion-dollar deficits (likely spurred on by Obamacare) are going to cause downward mobility. Simple as that. They are also going to mean "settling for second"--or worse--internationally. Repeat after me: fiscal responsibility is going to be the order of the next decade, minimum. Regulation, taxation, all of it. Gotta get fixed. Luckily, my family and I are in a position where I am able to pursue a world-class education. A little upward mobility--preferably in a country that's still the world leader--as a result would be much appreciated.