Conversations on the Road

One of my favorite things in life is roadtripping with my parents out east every summer. We're on our way to North Litchfield, SC. Somehow we got on the topic of how Carl Icahn has destroyed St. Louis (by killing off TWA, which killed our airport, which killed...etc.).

My Mom HATES Carl Icahn. She hates him because he doesn't think about how his mergers and acquisitions affect the people in the companies. We had a pilot and a mechanic for TWA in our old church and they either lost their jobs or were demoted significantly.

In my Global Perspectives class this past semester, we talked about how America is one of the easiest countries in the world to fire someone. This is great for globalization, but hurts a lot of feelings. Here is a list of countries, ranked by how hard it is to fire someone: Difficulty of Firing Index

PANCAKES + per diem

can't find the picture i'm looking for now, of Claire at the Artisan. I'll find it later.

The Artisan coffee shop, one of my favorite places in town, is kind of struggling lately and started a great thing: staying open 24 hrs/day and serving all-you-can-eat pancakes & sausage & bottomless coffee from 11pm-6am for $8.60. Just for this week and next week (finals week). Awesome.

I inherited my Mom's body in many ways, but one of them is that we're extremely affected by caffeine. I forgot about this and got overly excited about the bottomlessness of the coffee and had two cups tonight and this is why i'm up at 2:40am instead of asleep for my 9am class tomorrow. Sigh. I am just as affected by beer, except in the other direction. (depressant vs. stimulant, thank you, two years of D.A.R.E.)

But I'm here to tell you about something interesting I learned today in my Global Perspectives class. Also, my professor is a total badass. Why? One reason: we didn't have class the last two weeks because he was in Bolivia. Cool. Another reason? Even when in Columbia, MO, he carries a copy of his passport and a $100 bill in a secret compartment in his belt, as well as carries his wallet in his front pocket to avoid pickpockets. Hilarious. This is probably only funny if you have his class, my apologies.

We talked today about planning our sojourns in countries and how to plan them out financially. In the military (mostly) they have calculations for this based on a 'per diem' rate, which is kind of a daily cost of living which takes into account lodging costs as well as meals. Here are a couple cities' per diems (per day):

St. Louis - $162
Kansas City - $145
Columbia, MO - $99
Seattle, WA (for Ailsa) - $216 (Tacoma is $167, Mexico City is $273)
Sao Paulo, Brazil - $251
Hong Kong (for my friend Caroline studying there this fall) - $361
London, UK - $336

Ouch.

Capitalism: Root of All Evil

In my never-ending and constantly evolving journey to figure out what is wrong with the world (besides the obvious Sin), I'm beginning to look to Capitalism.

When my brother Steve was in college (or just out) we were talking about something like American culture around the dinner table (I can still remember where he was sitting) and I said something or other that I thought was a pretty original idea about American culture and he said "Well, that's because American culture is completely formed by Capitalism." I had never heard of this idea before and only had a vague notion of what Capitalism was in the first place and so just became quiet and still thought I was right.

Well, it turns out that I think Steve's right. At least I think so. I'm not completely sure, but here's a oft-quoted passage from Marx and Engel's The Communist Manifesto:

"Constant revolutionizing of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober sense, his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind."

The last part is bolded for effect; mostly because it's so dang powerful. I think what is so relevant is the phrase "...all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify." I think it speaks to the sense of temporariness in our current culture - especially in personal relationships.

So maybe our culture has just come out of our relationship with money. After all, that is where our hearts are. Jesus said: "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."

Also, in the process of figuring out all of this I have seen more and more in my life how I actively participate in capitalism/postmodernism/etc.. What is this? Is it bad? Understandable? More on this later, but I've begun to read a book my mom gave to me a year ago while they were visiting me at L'Abri in England called Invitation to Solitude and Silence: Experiencing God's Transforming Presence and which I haven't had an interest in picking up until last night. In the introduction it talks briefly about how part of taking a break from the world is to engage in Spiritual Discipline because it aligns ourselves with a different style of living. Interesting.