An Appreciation of Saint Patrick

I adore this time of year; the clock springs forward, croci pop the earth's crust, and supermarkets compete for the lowest price on corned beef. If this is really the end of days, and beef is going to become a rare commodity, rather than migrate to the vegan option, I am going out with a smear of fat on the lip, and an extra pound on the hip. 

This behavior of mine concedes that we are locked into a pattern of self destruction.  As The Donald and his ilk fire up their private jets, single handedly offsetting whatever strides I, and thousands of others might make to conserve, it finally comes down to; I am not going to sacrifice mine so that that prick can fly off to Palm Beach without a care for the world. 

I am not content with the traditional New England boiled dinner. For me the prospect of $1.69 a pound point cut corned beef is an opportunity to reach for the divine. There is probably a shrine somewhere high in the Balkans; "Patrick passed here, on his way to Ireland from his Greek retreat". On that journey he must have experienced the bliss of the truly magnificent contribution that is attributed to Romanians, the pastrami. Clearly he lost the recipe on route.

I have discovered it, and the process of rolling my own. A pastrami is a corned (cured) beef, that is, boiled, subjected to the seasoning of a particular spice rub, smoked, steamed when re-heating, sliced thick, and piled on slabs of twice baked rye bread. It is literally to die.

A word on smoking. There is no way to convert that proud outdoor grill of yours to a smoker. Despite hundreds of instructions from so-called experts, it doesn't work. Smoking requires a low, slow, moist heat. You can build intricate smokers. For my money, you can't beat the simplicity of a Brinkmann Smoker

It comes in pieces. The base holds a good pile of brickets, started in a charcoal chimney. You add to the fire a handful of oak, apple, or wood of choice, sticks that have been soaked in water. You then place the body of the smoker on the base and place inside the water pan, filled with water. Place the first rack just above the water on the clips that will receive it. Place the meat, I get three roasts on a rack, around staying close to the edges for maximum "bark" crusty bits. Then the next rack, the rest of the beef, then put the cover on and leave alone for an hour. At that point you want to throw on some more brickets and sticks, (through the door on the side) and turn the beef around to maximize contact with the smoke. Two hours will do it. 

Now back to the basics. When shopping for corned beef you are going to have several choices. There is pink, treated with nitrites in the cure, grey untreated, and because of the fact that less is more, it costs three times what pink corned beef sells for. Then you will have a choice of flat cut, or point cut. Flat cuts are leaner and cost twice what point cuts cost. I choose point cuts BECAUSE they are fatter and can stand up to the long slow process of cooking and moistening the final product. At this time of year you are going to find stacks of 

roasts in the meat case. They are not all the same. I might examine ten before I pick the one I want. I am looking for a pointed cut with a streak of fat appearing to split the roast in two. It does. If I am going to the effort to make pastrami, I make a batch that fits the smoker. Seven roasts, about twenty pounds works for me. 

I begin by getting out the lobster pot, you can do this in stages or go in tandem with a pal, and before I slow simmer the corned beef, I score them with slashes about an  inch apart, 1/8 in deep, across the fat, the entire length of the roast. It keeps them from tightening into weird shapes. I simmer them for 2 hours (they don't need seasoning). Remove from the pot and let them cool. 

Now create a rub of 1/4 cup K salt, 1/4 cup paprika, 3 tbl crushed coriander seed, 3 tbl brown sugar, 3 tbl black pepper, 2 tbl crushed mustard seed, a scattering of crushed red pepper flakes, and either flaked garlic, or powder, or crushed cloves, say 8 cloves or 3 tbls of ersatz. Buzz in a blender or processor. Rub the cool roasts all over and let sit while you prepare the smoker. 

When the smoking is complete the shrinkage will reveal the horizontal cut, there will be a streak of fat you will follow.  You are going to make, a flat roast, and a pointy one off the top. The flat roast is ready to carve. Critical is to see the grain, it is obvious, and cut across it. This is your sandwich pastrami. 

The top cut can be chilled and used for hash the next day. When you slice the pointy cut you are going to see the chunks of fat that can easily be trimmed off and then the lean can be chopped for your hash: Home fries with lots of onion, mixed in equal proportions to the pastrami, pressed in a pan, heated, topped with a poached egg. I am now poaching eggs in my nuker. I 3/4 fill a custard cup with water, crack an egg in the water, top the cup with plastic wrap, prick hole in the top, nuke for 1 minute 5 seconds at max. Remove egg with slotted spoon. Perfect. 

I have read of yet new attempts to get rich providing meals ready to eat to civilians. The arguments goes that despite numerous hours clocked watching food channels, and morbid obsession with food, the modern has neither the time or interest to cook. So obviously the above takes time. But really, most of the time is spent waiting, and occasionally watching. During which time you can be doing all kinds of things like reading, or talking face to face with the people you are going to share this with. Or making cole slaw or apple brown betty for dessert. My triple bottom line is that for me and mine, cooking and eating is The pastime, the preferred activity and I want to hear what others run against it. "Oh, I am so busy at work, I haven't the time." Or, "When I get home I am too exhausted to contemplate cooking." That's what weekends are for. And the above beats anything you can buy eating out.

Divestment

Bill McKibben is heard to say that he is thrilled to see the "kids" on campuses all over the country taking on the divestiture challenge.

Here is the local press reporting on Sterling College divesting as a way to avert global warming. 

Following up on my last post I want to note what isn't being said to the students who are pushing for divestiture on their respective campuses.

Let's start with the most basic understanding of what a divestment entails. You sell the stock of company X out of your portfolio to another buyer. The net number of shares, or capital position of the underlying company doesn't change. So you haven't done a thing to halt global warming. You have done the least you can do, a symbolic gesture that may feel good, but as I have contended, actually saps the energy and responsibility away from actions that might actually make a difference. 

The professional journal The Chronicle dealt with the issue from the perspective that divestment will not have a negative impact on its member institutions' portfolio performance. 

A letter from a faculty member (music department) in response speaks to the morality of divestment regardless of portfolio performance. 

This august organ says nothing about the underlying issue; what to do about the reduction of our carbon footprint?

As I set forth in the previous blog, production is a by-product of demand. Want to do something about the burning of fossil fuels? Stop consuming them. If one were truly interested in a mass movement that might have an impact, rather than divest (a meaningless gesture) from a consumption group, say auto manufacturers, an organizer would move to reduce sales of the vehicles of consumption. But then that organizer would run headlong into all the vested interests arguing that the economy was saved by the bailout of the auto industry. We are up against the double bind again. 

It gets worse. The colleges that have signed on to divestiture are small and remote and totally dependent on autos and trucks, burning fossil fuels, to get their students hither and yon. If their faculties were alert to the implications of divestment a grand discussion could be joined that would make visible this hypocrisy and the greater problematic (classist and racist) issues of stopping "development" in other places. Maybe some sensitivity could be stimulated for those persons who live in other remote areas of this country, or who are desperately trying to enter the 21st century as developing countries. 

Organizers of divestment movements like to point out the success of actions against South Africa in the attempt to undo apartheid. There was a commonly held agreement that apartheid was an evil practice and by withholding economic activity one could sway the government to alter its behavior. There is no parallel in selling one's stock in a fossil fuel producing firm. 

What is required, and what is feasible, is the changing of the basic patterns of consumption, of these students in particular. When I arrived in Maine to try to develop a model of how a university might create incentives for students to get out of their cars, I was informed that car pooling just wasn't part of the culture of Mainers. We couldn't even get bike sharing started without a fight. When we were students car sharing was normal. Ride to/from boards were posted in student unions all over the country to assist moving students home for the holidays or weekends. No more. On a larger scale students could and should be organized to demand the alternatives be developed. But, they should be schooled in what is practical and affordable. They should be schooled in the real costs of burning fossil fuels (throughputs) so that they can make rationale judgements about what they are willing to spend to secure their energy future. And they should never ask others to do without something they are unwilling to sacrifice for themselves.

The Battle for the Minds of the Young

Every 16 year old in China is dreaming of owning their own car.

Traffic In Shanghai

AAA estimates that 43.6 million Americans will travel more than 50 miles from home for the Thanksgiving weekend. Of the 43.6 million, 90 percent will drive to Thanksgiving destinations and 7 percent will fly.

When  I awoke today I upped the thermostat to 70 which kicked on the gas fired furnace in my house. I had fried eggs for breakfast cooked over my electric stove. I drove my 20 mpg auto to the market and bought 3 pounds of salmon from Norway. I watched a little of the LSU game on my LCD TV and wrote some of this post on my computer. I did a crossword puzzle under a reading lamp. The weather warmed up and we took the opportunity to visit the beach 8 miles away.  I don't intend to stop any of the above. I wouldn't presume to ask anyone else to either. I was not coerced by any corporation to consume any of the energy that sustained me today.

Bill McKibben and company have been on the road staging events intended to rally troops in a battle against the agents of climate change. They know who the enemy is: "Rogue, Criminal, Fossil Fuel Corporations." 

The following is from their web site: 

"We’re hitting the road to jumpstart a new movement".

"It’s simple math: we can burn 565 more gigatons of carbon dioxide and stay below 2°C of warming — anything more than that risks catastrophe for life on earth. The only problem? Fossil fuel corporations now have 2,795 gigatons in their reserves, five times the safe amount. And they’re planning to burn it all — unless we rise up to stop them.

This November, Bill McKibben and 350.org are hitting the road to build the movement that will change the terrifying math of the climate crisis.

Activists and All-Stars

As he travels the country in a sustainable bus, Bill will be joined by a rotating cast of committed artists, actors, and musicians — each dedicated to spreading the message of the challenge before us. Every event will be a full evening of music, interactive video, and thought-provoking ideas. By the time you leave, you’ll be fired up and equipped with the tools, strategies, and resources you need to take on the fossil fuel industry."

Here is how this tour played out in Boston on Nov 16. 

Short bumper sticker versions of the "Do The Math" show:

We've got one chance left.  Let's not blow it.

Fossil fuel corporations are civilizational criminals.

To hit them where it counts, cut off their money supply.

We're All In This Together.

So who goes, buys tickets to these events, and joins the mob think? Reminiscent of rock and roll concerts to me. 

At the very time they were charging people $10 to get on-board, a kid in Dorchester was whipping his tricked up Scion bT with those flashing  spinners through the Micky D lot. He was looking for his squeeze, to take her to Best Buy for a pre Black Friday sale of a mobile she's been craving.

Naomi Kline, a partner in the Movement,  identified the problem source as "rogue corporations" when interviewed on Bill Moyers show.

How convenient. These hucksters of climate change have identified the bad guys, and they are "them".   I am going to find and share indy sources of counter think. 

Climate Connections responses to Bill McKibben's piece in Rolling Stone.

An excerpt here:

"There is a crucial and obvious need for a real movement to tackle the climate chaos juggernaut.  But this movement will not be based on math-based reform.  Reform what?  Can we have friendly Capitalism?  Can the very markets that have led us to the brink of the abyss now provide our parachute? McKibben points out that under this system, those with the money have all the power.  Then why are we trying to reform this system?  Why are we not transforming it?

And this brings me to the final trap that McKibben falls into in his Rolling Stone piece: compartmentalization.  Scientists are trained to compartmentalize–to see things in their individual tiny boxes and not connected to anything else.  Geneticists have dangerously perfected this science.  But everything on this planet is connected to everything else on this planet, and as Dr. Smolker points out, if you focus solely on eliminating fossil fuels without changing the underlying system, then very bad things will take their place because it is the system itself that is unsustainable.  It is a system designed to transform “natural capital” and human labor into gargantuan profits for an elite few: the so-called “1%”. Whether its driven by fossil fuels or biofuels or even massive solar and wind installations, the system will continue to devour ecosystems, displace forest-based communities, Indigenous Peoples and subsistence farmers from their lands, crush labor unions and generally make life hell for the vast majority of the world’s peoples.  That is what it does.

To eliminate fossil fuels, you have to transform the system that empowers the fossil fuels industry.  In diversity is strength, any ecologist knows this, and our movements for change are no exception.  The more we understand that the roots of the issues we are fighting are intertwined, the better we can cooperate to change the system driving them.

System Change, Not Climate Change."

Anne Petermann is the Executive Director of Global Justice Ecology Project.  She has worked for climate justice since 2004, and is a founding member of the Durban Group for Climate Justice, Climate Justice Now! and Climate Justice Action. 

When Ms Petermann speaks of transformation she doesn't go so far as to describe the impact of what she is thinking. I will. If you cut back or out of the "business"  model of human organization lots of people are going to lose their jobs, others are going to be less rich, and the catechism of growth will be erased.  These facts are understood by the "right" which vehemently opposes any change in status-quo and labels the activity socialist.

The system that underlies the "fossil fuel industry"  she identifies is utterly and totally dependent on consumption. When will we accept responsibility for the creation of the problem, and when will we begin the rather simple process of changing it? Not through mass movements, or political organization, or demonizing the so-called bad guys, but by accepting the simple truth that every drop of oil burned was bought by people like you and me who use it. 

Here is how we use it: The following excerpt gives you some perspective on the generators of CO2 emissions. Energy-Related Emissions: Energy-related carbon dioxide emissions account for more than 80 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. EIA breaks energy use into four end-use sectors (Table 6 below), and emissions from the electric power sector are attributed to the end-use sectors. Growth in energy-related carbon dioxide emissions since 1990 has resulted largely from increases associated with electric power generation and transportation fuel use. All other energy-related carbon dioxide emissions (from direct fuel use in the residential, commercial, and industrial sectors) have been either flat or declining in recent years (Figure 8 on the right). In 2008, however, emissions from both electric power and transportation fuel use were down—by 2.1 percent and 4.7 percent, respectively. Reasons for the long-term growth in electric power and transportation sector emissions include: increased demand for electricity for computers and electronics in homes and offices; strong growth in demand for commercial lighting and cooling; substitution of new electricity-intensive technologies, such as electric arc furnaces for steelmaking, in the industrial sector; and increased demand for transportation services as a result of relatively low fuel prices and robust economic growth in the 1990s and early 2000s. Likewise, the recent declines in emissions from both the transportation and electric power sectors are tied to the economy, with people driving less and consuming less electricity in 2008 than in 2007. Other U.S. energy-related carbon dioxide emissions have remained flat or declined, for reasons that include increased efficiencies in heating technologies, declining activity in older “smokestack” industries, and the growth of less energy-intensive industries, such as computers and electronics. 

Let's get more specific.

Concrete Abstract: The cement industry contributes about 5% to global anthropogenic CO2 emissions, making the cement industry an important sector for CO2-emission mitigation strategies. CO2 is emitted from the calcination process of limestone, from combustion of fuels in the kiln, as well as from power generation.

 Are you ready to tell the people of the world that they can't live in solid structures?

 A breakdown of emissions among sources shows that solid, liquid, and gas fuels contributed (for 2000–2004) ≈35%, 36%, and 20%, respectively, to global emissions (Eq. 1). However, this distribution varied strongly among regions: solid (mainly coal) fuels made up a larger and more rapidly growing share of emissions in developing regions (the sum of China, India, D2, and D3) than in developed regions (U.S., EU, Japan, and D1), and the FSU region had a much stronger reliance on gas than the world average.

Ready to tell the people of the world that they can't heat their homes?

The food industry accounts for about 25 % of the total CO2 emissions in the Western World. The CO2 emissions derive from raw materials, production, waste, energy consumption, transport, etc. If the entire value chain is included, emissions from trade, consumption and disposal should be added to the above amount as well. At the same time, consumers, retailers and authorities focus increasingly on resource utilization, ethics and environmental protection.  

Here are some numbers to consider after having just gone through our consumption orgy of Thanksgiving eating.

"This Thanksgiving, Americans will toss a whopping $282 million of uneaten turkey and about 204 million pounds of that turkey meat into the trash, attributing to the $165 billion in uneaten food Americans waste every year."

Read more

All of this copy is in consideration of one meal. Which corporation can I blame for this?  

Ready to tell the people of the world they they will starve while we throw away or burn their food for fuel?

 The headlines read; "Sandy is a wakeup call" regarding the effects of climate change. "Do the Math" people refer to Sandy and take the opportunity to demonize the fuel industry as causal agents.

I chose to live on a barrier island in Florida. I now live less than two blocks from an ocean cove on the coast of Maine. I chose to live in harms way. I have been lucky. 

These folks are not so lucky. Who do we demonize for their poor choices? These people are not working on docks moving the world's goods along a string of ports. These people were enjoying the seashore. If Sandy reinforces any message it is that people should not live in the paths of destruction. They do so at their own risk. 

This pic inspires another set of questions not considered by "Do The Math". 

Imagine they win. They deny the industry the money they need to develop the fuel we seem to need. Imagine the gas lines. Imagine the crisis. Imagine the acts of war to restore the fuel stream. 

The battle for Colton, a precious metal used in the making of cell phones, seems to be behind the war in Congo.  

Malala

Undated file photo of Malala Yousufzai, a 14-year-old schoolgirl, who was wounded in a gun attack in Swat Valley northwest Pakistan

This the face of resistance. Why doesn't every woman in the world demonstrate solidarity with Malala. Pick a day, December 1, gives us a month to communicate.

On December 1, 2012 Every woman in the world walks out. 

Every Walmart worker walks out. 

Every teacher walks out

Every nurse, caregiver, health care provider, walks out

Every travel and leisure industry staff person walks out

Every stay at home mom walks to the park with her kids

Every entertainer walks out

Every cashier walks out

Every University employee walks out

Every news talking head walks out

Every sex trade worker walks out

Every woman bus driver walks out

Every armed service employee lays down her rifle and walks out

Every elected official walks out

Every sales person walks out

Every woman with a sexual partner says no (Lysistrata) 

The world stops. No speeches, no rallies, no sense of inferiority.

Every woman in the world unites. 

Happy New Year

I reacted to the most disgusting cartoon published in a small local press. I could no longer bear silent witness. 

I wondered what the definition of hate speech actually was and of course there is no clear definition, or international standard. Wiki's entry.

With this summary in hand I had a focus for this posting, or so I thought. In protest of the depiction of Arabs in the most hateful and provocative images imaginable, I would collect the historical evidence of the hateful cartoons that have decorated our media. I would post some of these images.

 I would try to provoke the persons responsible for the containment of the current hate speech to draw a line somewhere and stop hiding behind the so-called first amendment right to abuse minorities. We have no such right and I try to imagine what would happen if such cartoons were published today. Actually they are. Anti-gay hysteria is alive and well, and vicious anti-Obama cartoons stand in for blacks everywhere. Or do we pretend there is no racism implied? 

And then. And then in my research I discovered the double standard that Israelis go on about. First this appeared last Sunday: Sunday, 16 September 2012 

"An amateur 2012 film titled Innocence of Muslims was produced by Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, an Egyptian-American Coptic Christian. Nevertheless, the Arab world was quick to publish cartoons accusing Israel and the Jews as being behind the film."

Then I read of an International Holocaust Cartoon Contest sponsored by Iranian newspaper Hamshahri. This is the winning entry:

Then, I found Jon Stewart's send up of anti-Semitic cartoons:

The Daily Show
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The summary of this glancing view of mine is available in this headline and story from the BBC in 2006: 

"Contradiction in Arab cartoon views 

 Blatantly anti-Semitic literature is on sale in Cairo, just like many other Arab capitals. The BBC News website's Martin Patience reports on the apparent inconsistency in the Egyptian reaction to the Danish cartoons caricaturing the Prophet Muhammad."

The story ends with an interview with the shop-keeper:

"Shop manager Mustapha Said insists that he is respectful of all religions including Judaism...He adds that Jews should take to the streets in protest about the Protocols."

There's the picture I want to see. Tens of thousands of Jews rampaging through the streets, burning embassies, killing diplomates. Demanding an end to the double standard, the proliferation of hate, and the scapegoating, the endless scapegoating.

L'shanah tovah!

Contrails

We have lived in a succession of places that were also tourist destinations. It is troubling. Yesterday we were in a traffic jam, in the Old Port of downtown Portland, Me. Thousands of tote bag wielding small spenders criss-cross the streets in search of; the perfect lobsta lunch (lobster from Canada), the memorable tchotchke (made in China), the "real" Maine (starts one mile inland). 

We grew up In Washington, D.C. Markie sent me the following article from the POST,  in which the author, a D.C. native, bemoans the fact that venues are opening that market to blacks, in traditionally black neighborhoods, that scrub the "reality" of the black experience, off the block. 

When we lived in LA I came to know that Universal City, Los Angeles has a "ride" called Hollywood, that simulated the real Hollywood Blvd less than a mile away.  Of course the girls and the players, the junkies and the gangsters have all gone missing from the "city-walk experience".

Let's chalk it all up to bumpkin travel. Though we may disdain this kind of activity it is the fastest growing economic development activity on the planet. http://www.wttc.org/research/economic-impact-research/ 

We can ratchet up a notch and rationalize other forms of tourism that appeal to a more sophisticated traveler. The eco-tour, the adventure tour, or the special event. The Olympics certainly qualify. Those of us that watch on TV notice the towers in the long shots of the venues. Those towers are council housing and you can bet that NBC is not going to take you on a tour of the real East End experience. The following is an excerpt from a Reuters piece filed last week from the games 

"Millions of foreign visitors descending on London this month may not notice, but within sight of the gleaming Olympic venues are some of the city's most troubled neighbourhoods where the unattainable glamour of the Games has only fuelled resentment.

It was here, in worrying proximity to the Olympic sites, that gangs of masked teenagers went on the rampage last year, looting shops and turning streets into battle zones - a trauma that still hangs heavily over the socially segregated area.

People in big cities complain the world over and London is no exception but in the British capital problems are confounded by the proximity with which the rich live next to the poor.

In contrast to the million-pound town houses of London's plush West End, the East End is a scruffy, post-industrial world where alienated youths live side by side with immigrants, young aspirational families and artists squatting in old warehouses.

And with the Olympic bandwagon rolling into town, complete with electric fences and soldiers, many are struggling to see how they will benefit from the regeneration of east London". 

We start to get a glimpse that our indulgence in travel may have consequences beyond the minor inconvenience of a traffic jam. This disconnect between the classes is made all the more hurtful when busloads of tourists choose to look past the reality of the situation to indulge in their personal fantasies. We validate the exploitation of the indigenous to serve our needs for security, comfort, and a decent cup of coffee. 

This article  highlights the facts that despite the economic disaster that befalls Spain, their tourism is actually up this year. Ironically some of the increase is attributed to the Arab Spring making those nations in turmoil no-longer suitable destinations. I can't imagine the feeling that the formerly middle class Spaniard suffers on watching the more fortunate frolic in his homeland.

The same disconnect between the tourists and the population they are rumbling through is just as exquisite in Greece, Italy, France, the zone on the brink of economic collapse. We are revisiting the days of Weimar, and it didn't end well. 

Of all of the forms of travel that are insensitive to their impacts is the self righteous, the journey of discovery, the march through the bad lands, camera in hand. The process of enlightenment. This article re. Henry Rollins advice on travel was brought to my attention:

   "You’re going to see that global climate change is very real. And that for some people, their day consists of walking 12 miles for four buckets of water. And so there are lessons that you can’t get out of a book that are waiting for you at the other end of that flight. "Your showers will become shorter."

Imagine, don't dig a well, or volunteer to help alleviate the problem, or do anything other than document how the other 9/10 live and then take a shower. This kind of behavior is so well documented, and historically criticized,  it is a wonder that it still exists. Not only exists, but is growing. We see films like Slumdog Millionaire, or Exotic Marigold Hotel extol the splendor of Mumbai while millions of its residents are starving. The Rollins piece provoked the following comment: Davis Says: 

January 17th, 2012 at 10:23 am

"It is difficult to learn anything about a place when you are passing through, even as close to the ground as a backpacker. You will have no idea what caused the things you see or what they mean to the people there. You will be insulated by your language and culture and comparative wealth and the natural limitations of your observations. You will privilege the few conversations you have with locals and have no good way to judge whether what they tell you is accurate. You will, for these reasons, tend to see what you expect to see or what you are told you are seeing. You may see a poor person, but can you really see the cause of his poverty? You will return home convinced that you have seen much more than you really have seen, and convinced that you have seen the proof of things that may not be so. So many of the important thing that shape our life are invisible to the eye.

Let me propose an experiment that cancels out the gross problems of language, culture and wealth: Imagine someone from New York City spending three months on the ground, not in India, but in Indiana. Would he, after three months, understand the Indianans, their values and view on life and the forces that shaped their existence to the same extent he might imagine he did of the Indians he passed on the streets of Delhi?"

Nor will the sybarite sipping her Negroni by the pool in Tuscany, or the students taking the side trips to the "Great Houses" of Britain have a clue to the meaning of their experience. Or, the consequences of their acts.

Prosperous

I am reproducing the following letter to the editor printed in the current issue of The New Yorker in which the author hits a new note in the on-going discussion regarding the "value" of college education. More to my purposes is to point out his concern regarding the vast numbers who won't live as "prosperous" as their parents. This has become such an accepted proposition that it needs to be examined.

RE: THE COST OF COLLEGE

A letter in response to Nicholas Lemann’s article (May 28, 2012)

JUNE 25, 2012

Nicholas Lemann concludes his piece on student debt with a few words extolling the societal benefits of higher education (Comment, May 28th). Perhaps, but the dollar value of a college degree for many students is not clear. While there is considerable debate over the numbers, it seems that about half of all jobs in the foreseeable future will require a four-year college degree. If our society needs half our workers to do skilled work that doesn’t require four-year degrees, our obsession with making college available to all seems destined to disappoint. There’s a flip side to the studies that promote the benefits of college: if college-educated workers are now making eighty-four per cent more than high-school graduates, up from forty per cent more in 1983, it means that those who can’t afford a college degree have fallen radically behind. We need to respect the fifty per cent of workers who do so many essential jobs, and we need to pay them a living wage. Part of the desperation for a college education is that the gap between the rich and the rest of society has grown so large that everyone except the very few winners in our brave new economy will lead lives that are much less prosperous than those of their parents.

Tim Butterworth,Associate Fellow.Institute for Policy Studies,Chesterfield, N.H.

My father owned a succession of Jew Canoes. His last was that 1972 Eldorado which he kept in its own house in Florida. When I met Carrie her daddy drove a 1956 Coupe-deville. Her grandfather drove a Chrysler 300. They all consumed an average of 7 mpg. Our first vehicle was a Lambretta motor scooter. Our first car, a Fiat 500. 

My father was a home builder. His house was a 2400 square foot rambler. He built much larger houses. Today they would be called McMansions. He referred to them as "Big-Mothas". Carrie's parents built a three level split with a two car garage.

My father would answer when asked, "how was the restaurant?" "It was fantastic, the steaks fell off the sides of the plate." My parents favorite restaurant was Momma Leones in NYC where you could order an antipasto that just kept coming, "and the shrimp. they never stopped bringing those shrimp". They lived large. It was the motif of their generations' lives."Do you want to be Queen for a Day?"

We met in college. Carrie stopped after her second year to earn the bread to keep us going. We studied liberal arts. I majored in American Thought. We were the first people in our families to go to college. We borrowed the money and paid our own way. 

Our first apartment was advertised in the Washington Post as a studio at a very uptown address for $75 a month. It was on the ground floor, past the laundry. A dentist had offices on this floor and controlled more space then he needed. He sub-leased a triangular space to us. The walls were 17 ft long leading to a bathroom at the apex. No kitchen. We put a "bar" piece in as a room divider and stored a hot plate, rotisserie (which blew fuses on the entire floor), and pots and pans on the one shelf. We did dishes in the shower. We had a cat. When we invited our parents over the first time, we cued the doorman to help with the joke. This building had a turnaround drive. It is still a prestigious address. Neither set of parents could believe we lived here. The doorman showed them in. They entered the apartment, "living room" and when they asked to see the rest, were led into the tiny bathroom. I remember my father's reaction, "people can't live like this."  We did until the city insisted that it was a non-conforming space and we had to leave to move into our next one room studio. 

When we bought a house it was 768 sq ft.We had a dog, a cat, and a child.   We expanded it to 1100 sq ft. over the thirty years we owned it. 

We ate ramen, mac and cheese, and a lot of iceberg. We never, here comes the cliche', ever, felt poor. Our fortunes rose and fell, we moved. We ate better. I don't know how to measure our "prosperity". Clearly we didn't share our parents life style. Today you would measure our btu footprint as a fraction of our parents and it would be celebrated in some quarters as ecologically correct.

It is critical that we challenge the generally accepted definitions of "prosperity". The facts are that all over the world, the desire to live large as individuals, and to grow as nations looks all too similar to how our parents, and most of my gen live. We can't sustain that life-style. We have to change the paradigm. It begins by challenging the terms that set the tone, for what constitutes a prosperous life.