The Weekly Meat

Spare Change

They're out there, in uniform, in the middle of busy intersections — ten- and twelve-year-old kids — scrambling between cars with their coffee tins, asking for donations. There's an adult or two around, and the tin cans say [SomeTown] Softball, or Cheerleading, or Track.

I'm sorry if these are your kids, or kids you know, but get real. Charity and good will is one thing, but when did we, as a society, have become such fat, lazy slobs as to think that we're each entitled to payment simply for being alive? And what the hell kind of adult oversees these "fund-raising" efforts? Why teach kids to spare for change, to beg — to be satisfied with living on the dole rather than working? If these adults don't have enough moxie to organize a simple car wash or bake sale, should they really be supervising kids at all?

Hey, here's a free idea. Maybe we could encourage those kids to become the writers and thinkers of the future by starting an empowerment project in which they write a newspaper, publish it, and sell it to us. Oh yeah, that's right . . . much smarter (and far more needy) people are already doing that successfully.

I grew up in a town a lot like the one in which I now live. Some folks were well-off, and some were not. But no one begged for money. They worked for it. Youth soccer teams made money the same way Smith Barney claimed to: they "EARNed it." There were car washes and bake sales and raffles. Donors got something for their trouble — and, more importantly, we kids learned the lessons of hard work. If we didn't sell enough raffle tickets or brownies, or wash enough cars, or find a sponsor, well then, we didn't get new uniforms.

A while back, AKL and I took a long bike ride on a hot, sunny day. On our way out of town, and again on our way back an hour or two later, we stopped and bought 25 cent cups of lemonade from a 7-year-old girl. She was new to the world of business, and had a little help from her mom, but that girl learned a few things that Saturday. She learned the necessity of simple math in the real world (two cups of lemonade times 25 cents, out of one dollar). Maybe her mom taught her what "overhead" is, maybe not. I know for certain she learned about the value of return customers, and what "tips" are. And she sold a lot of lemonade that day.

Seems simple enough. You want cash? You work for it.

We have become irresponsible with our money. We buy lottery tickets instead of groceries (because, surely we're all owed a big payday). And every day we open our mail boxes to more offers for another credit card we can't afford. Maybe we even get the new card to pay off the debt on an old one. And if we are fortunate enough to own a home, what do we do? We take out a home equity loan (because certainly, we deserve "free" money) to pay off our credit card debt.

But to what end? Credit is based on — often foolish — optimism: that life will be better tomorrow, belief in "the American dream," and the steadfast notion that we will one day soon have more money than we have now. Don't get me wrong, I have lived paycheck to paycheck, and I'm very fortunate to not live that way now. Yet too many of us live far beyond our means (and, of course, we're encouraged to at every turn).

It's time to rein it in. And our kids too. (There's simply no way I'm ever dressing up daughters RK and E-O in some goddamn uniform and asking them to go hassle shoppers heading into the grocery store.) Thank god our fearless leaders in Washington — like the supervisory team parents noted above — have our education and well-being in mind, and aren't leading us down a road paved in debt.

Yeah, thank god for that.

Meat Addiction

I had no clue when I named this blog that folks might stumble their way onto these pages by googling "meat addict" and the like. Apparently, it's an increasingly popular thing to search for. Not as popular as "Scarlett Johanssen" perhaps, but let's not digress.

The name of this site, plus my post on (cheese) addiction, plus Google's proprietary algorithms place me fairly high on the list of results for that particular search. Now, don't get me wrong (especially you meat addicts out there — I appreciate the hits), but meat addiction? Who knew?

Yet, enough folks are afflicted by, or curious about, such a thing as to search the internets for it, and some of those folks are in turn curious enough or desperate enough to click on The Weekly Meat for answers. Well, I'm flattered — albeit naively curious — and hey, I'm here to serve my constituency (even those just passing through). So I've put forth some research to get to the bottom of this burgeoning phenomenon.

First off: Is there such a thing?

I realize addiction can be a tricky thing. Clearly, the most pandemic of addictions seems to be that of booze — something the human body does not historically/biologically need to survive. But meat? Homo sapiens have depended on it for eons. True, in our post-industrialized global reality, we can now get by swimmingly (if not happily) on a meat-free diet. Or to generalize, if you're reading these words, it's a fair bet that you do not need to kill wild game for the sake of sustenance. Not that there's anything wrong with it, mind you — I appreciate game as much as the next guy. I'm just saying it's no longer essential to our survival as a species.

Maybe it's more a problem of psychological dependency. If one works at it long enough, I suppose we can become addicted to nearly anything. Videogames, crosswords, blogging. Watching hockey fight videos on YouTube. Whatever.

And where might meat addiction rank in the world of addictions? Might it threaten the addict's well-being more seriously than, say, heroin? Dubious, but as with all addictions, it's a matter of degrees. I mean, is the afflicted in the habit of sneaking meat at work? Running late for appointments, furiously slugging down mouthwash to cover the smell of Slim Jims? Not-so-discreetly surfing barbecue porn sites behind the spouse's back? Cutting out of the office early to head over to the local butcher shop? Suffering meat blackouts? The mind reels with possibilities.

Maybe there's another angle I'm missing.

Ah. Further searching shows that some of this business about meat addiction is to do with Big Meat (that is, the Industry, à la "Big Tobacco"). And on that score — though we might differ a bit on some details — I'd agree that yes, certainly we do have a meat problem in this country.

Our problem is this: The meat that we most often consume does not come from healthy stock. Rather, it comes from animals who live nearly their entire brief existence while penned together like the shrink-wrapped food product they will become; hopped up on drugs and hormones to keep them from dying, because they're being fattened up on "food" they were not physiologically meant to eat and that they cannot digest without said drugs; all while wallowing in their own excrement. (For much more on this, I highly recommend reading Michael Pollan's excellent book The Omnivore's Dilemma; or more briefly, this Time article; or even the politically correct CDC website.)

So, we have a problem. But are we "addicts"? Whether or not we eat too much of it, or whether we have a compulsive need to eat it, I'll leave up to the evangelists out there — or better yet, to you. Rather, what I'd argue is that "meat addiction" may be missing the point. For we are in denial of an addiction to something much bigger: We are addicted to cheap goods, and it is this addiction that feeds our meat troubles.

We have convinced ourselves that it is our American birthright to pay next-to-nothing for nearly all goods and services. Thus, we turn our backs on the reality that behind our $5 t-shirts, 50¢/liter soda, and $2/pound meat is sweat-shop labor, high-fructose corn syrup, and "Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations" (CAFOs).

And our $5 t-shirts, soda, and factory-farmed beef are slowly and methodically killing us as surely as heroin. The meat and soda are doing it medically, thanks to our country's #2 corn fetish (For an entertaining look at how and why, watch King Corn or Supersize Me or The Meatrix). Even the t-shirts are doing it culturally, (macro)economically, and spiritually.

Big Meat is a scourge, and it has been since the advent of, well, ice, which in combination with the railroads, allowed the shipping of meat. Upton Sinclair's The Jungle exposed horrifying slaughterhouse conditions over a hundred years ago, and effected fairly sweeping change, but not nearly enough. And the meat and farm lobbies have become exponentially stronger in recent years (amazing how the strength with which they argue is directly proportional to the damage they are causing), and once again, they are abetting the fouling of our food sources.

So, what to do? The answer, as with any addiction, is simple — if not easy. You want to start putting the Big Meat CAFOs out of business? Don't buy their products. Tell ADM, Cargill, Monsanto, et al. to go screw. Check out some of the great sustainability resources, find a local farm where they allow cows to eat the grass they were born to eat, join a meat CSA. The difference in taste and nutrition between CAFO and pastured beef is astounding.

"I would," you say, "I'd eat that way every day, but it's expensive."

And there's the rub. We are so far removed from our food sources that we have no appreciation for their true cost (neither monetarily; nor environmentally; nor ethically/morally). We spend far less on food than we used to. Further, our elected fat cats have so devalued both food and nutrition, that we don't seem to care to spend the money necessary to perhaps help us live longer. Instead, we subsidize the growth of more and more shit corn to feed our livestock. Crazy, when you consider how much we as a nation spend on the care of serious (and clearly related) health issues like diabetes, high cholesterol, heart disease, colon cancer, hip and knee replacements, etc.

Sure, the immediate situation is complicated too by the fact that our housing costs are so high (i.e., After rent/mortgage, who has money left over to eat well/righteously?). But housing costs have risen at a rate inversely proportional to food costs. Not directly, but the case could be made that we are willing to overpay for housing precisely because we underpay for food.

So where does all this leave us? I don't know, frankly. If I did, I like to think I'd have a more influential day job. But I do know this: I don't have to buy products that contain high-fructose corn syrup; I don't have to buy sick chicken eggs; I don't have to buy factory-farmed beef. I don't have to be an addict. I've got some say in this thing. And there's no need for me to start throwing meat on the fire of our national dependence. However much it might help bring traffic to this blog.

Feedlot photo via USDA. Turkeys photo by Scott Bauer, via the USDA.

BeezleBubba

This being the new year and all — and an important one, at that — let's start things off with a resolution: This time, let's please don't vote for another guy like the one currently in office. Not that I voted for him last time — or the time before that. But millions did. Not millions more than voted for his opponent in 2000, but still. OK, I'll stop. This is not to slam President Bush. OK, it is, but in a more specific way. And too, to slam the apathetic among us.

We live in a culture that celebrates and rewards — and yes, elects — mediocrity. Scores of corporate VPs and politicians get where they are not by succeeding, but by failing for so long and so consistently that they are eventually promoted to become someone else's problem; they actually fail upward. Forty years ago, education and writer Laurence Johnston Peter put forth his "Peter Principle," which states that "Employees within an organization will advance to their highest level of competence and then be promoted to and remain at a level at which they are incompetent." Well folks, guess what? The organization in question is our United States itself.

George Bush was elected precisely because of his mediocrity. Millions of Americans saw him as a likable, normal "Bubba" (to borrow from Bill Clinton's run) of a guy who spoke their nucular language. Just a regular Joe, clearing brush out on the back 40. His everyman-ness was (rightly so) the least spun aspect of his immaculately-manicured campaign.

And no, I'm not falling for Bush's well-honed "Aw shucks" demeanor when I call him an everyman. He's one of those guys who was born on third base, thinking he hit a triple. Most of us haven't had anywhere near his opportunities in life. (Hell, I'd love the chance to run a baseball team into the ground as quickly as he did [specifically, I'd like to do it to the Yankees].) But he's normal in his intellect, in his curiosity, his drive, his work ethic. He's just plain ordinary. Most of us are no different. Excepting, of course, the fact that —  well, uh — we're not the president.

But the fact remains that George W. Bush is the president — a failed symbol of our lazy desire for formulaic blockbusters and their paint-by-numbers sequels, and chain restaurants in which we can eat the same meal whether in Boston or Bismarck.

Those movies and the meals are never very good, but they are familiar. And what's most familiar to us politically is rich white guys. Granted, some of those rich white guys started off not so rich (see Clinton, Bill; Edwards, John; etc.), but we seem to fall for them just the same.

I voted for John Kerry last time around simply because he was there. But the guy's a complete stiff. And I don't mean he looks like he was carved from the same wood as George Washington's purported teeth, I mean that he's an out of touch rich white guy even among like-minded rich white guys.

In the 2000 election, George W. Bush painted himself as a good manager. A "decider." Said he surrounded himself with people who understood the issues he couldn't quite master himself. Well, anyone who read the modest Project for a New American Century manifesto his people wrote ten years ago should not have been the least bit surprised at the direction we headed under the Bush administration.

Well, now we're stuck with our current situation. And despite our desire for ordinariness, we no longer live in pedestrian times, and we simply cannot elect another pedestrian leader. We need someone who is extraordinary, not extra-ordinary. Electing an average Joe to the most powerful office in the world is irresponsible and reprehensible, and we can't get fooled again.

I don't necessarily care who we all vote for — as long as we do vote, and do so not simply for someone with whom we agree on critical issues, but for a candidate who has made the most of his or her opportunities in life (made more of those opportunities than you or I would have). Someone who sweats the details; excels under pressure; surrounds him or herself not just with smart people, but with smart people who own and listen to their conscience; and for god's sake, someone who does not take more vacation than we do.

Corporate Grass Roots

Two years ago, a co-worker brought me a draft of a letter to the Senior VPs of the large corporation for which we work in the cubicled salt mines. The letter was a plea for the cause of energy conservation within the company. We’re a multinational Silicon Valley software company of roughly 5,000; surely, we could be doing something — anything — to green up.

We cranked out a final copy of the letter and began asking colleagues to co-sign with us. It felt somewhat revolutionary (Sure, we work for The Man, and sure, he checks our email and peeks in our web browsing, but we're free-thinking individuals, dammit, not mindless proles...); we were earnest and enthusiastic and ready to take on the big guns with our well-honed rhetoric.

Thankfully, before we dashed off the letter to corporate, the local facilities manager — a seasoned DC lobbyist, and all for our cause — asked us to reconsider our actions. Somewhat chastened at first, we did, and instead wisely decided to form a small task force to see what we could do locally, with the long-range plan of using our presumed success as a proof of concept to sell the conservation argument up the ladder to corporate.

Even as I get older and  — ahem — more respectable, it bores me to do things slowly and methodically, but ultimately, we made the right choice. Sure, I'd love to see change happen through punk rock, bold art, and strong words, but change doesn't happen overnight, and no one likes to be shown up — especially those with initials in their job titles — and the letter, signed by 50 employees might have seemed a bit mutinous to our paycheck-endorsers. Sometimes, it’s simply not necessary to fight corporate city hall loudly, as morally empowering as it might feel at the time. In fact, if we had, we might have more easily forgotten our cause after getting a lip service response. Instead, we now have a hugely successful locally-grown initiative that is indeed the model of conservation we’d hoped for.

Thanks to buy-in from the site manager, and local facilities, IT, and business unit group heads, as well as excellent employee support, the initiative within months reached our initial goal of reducing the amount of electricity our site uses by 100,000 kilowatt hours (kW h), annualized, and we have since saved another 50,000 kW h per year.

At our site of approximately 300 employees, computers outnumber people nearly five to one, so clearly there was some (as the suits like to say) “low-hanging fruit” to be had. Thus, our biggest gains have been made not by changing expensive building systems like HV/AC, but by improving inefficiencies in our computing operations. We’ve given away unused equipment, shut down rarely-used equipment, set machines to power-savings mode, and asked fellow employees to forgo power-draining "screen savers" (that’s right, kids, it takes a lot of CPU power to draw those pretty multicolor 3D pipe designs and such) in favor of turning off their monitors when they leave for the night. Electricity rates vary, so cost savings are somewhat tough to estimate (certainly over $20,000 per year though), but in terms of usage, our simple housekeeping measures have so far conserved enough energy to power 18 average New England homes, yearly.

What’s more, we haven’t spent any corporate funds to achieve our substantial savings. We even convinced our vending machine contractor to install on our soda machines energy miser sensors, which power up a machine only when they detect motion (i.e., a customer), while maintaining beverage temperature as necessary.

In addition, we’ve greatly changed the way that we use the computing power we do have — not only centralizing data storage on robust servers, but sharing their processing power as well. We then access those servers not with power-hungry tower-style computers, but with laptops which, on the average, use one-quarter the power of most bigger, desktop CPUs.

We’ve continued to maintain, not increase, our energy usage, and to share information with other sites and encourage them to set up similar local initiatives, and have slowly — and successfully — been pushing energy awareness and savings up the chain of command. We’ve even been cited positively by corporate executive staff, when asked what we as a company are doing to green up.

Not bad for a few local folks with a chip on their collective shoulder and a hopeful eye toward change. Our grass-roots solution demanded that we change first — not simply talk the talk of revolution — and it ultimately proved far more effective than our initial demand for that same change in corporate. Our well-written and thoughtful letter to corporate would have been, essentially, an op-ed piece without a newspaper to print it and only a very small audience to read it.

The tendency in most large corporations is toward apathy and wastefulness, but it needn’t be. Sure, we’re all more thrifty at home than at work, but what a simple thing it is to turn off the lights when you're done in the copy room, or to police up computers left on in empty cubes. It’s no skin off my nose, and though I’d rather see executive pay come back in line with say, reality, wastefulness breeds more wastefulness, and it’d be nice if the suits had fewer excuses when it’s time for raises to be handed down to those of us toiling in the mines.