New Years Resolution x 12

So this year I did something rather new.  Instead of deciding, arbitrarily to change my life starting New Years Day, I would instead make a series of smaller, more manageable improvements.  See, when you decide you need to turn your life upside down and do everything at once, it makes it, well, too hard.  Also, the moment you break one of your resolutions, you often find yourself figuring you blew it and you cave to all.

Well look no further than this 12 month approach.  Each month you decide to take up one doable challenge.  The idea is that if you cut out a bad habit or addiction for three weeks, you will probably no longer be so controlled by it.  Additionally, if you add a new habit to your regimen for a month, you have a pretty good chance at sticking with it, at least partially so.

Think of something small you can do that would just make your health or life a bit better.  Then do it for a month.  If you’re cutting something bad out of your life, you know you’re not giving up your vice completely, but putting it off for a set amount of time.  If you’re adding something new, you will know that you can accomplish it regularly, and after the month is over you might manage to keep it up.

Try something not so hard first… perhaps give up red meat for a month.  You know you’ll come back to it after the month is over, but when you do come back, you won’t find yourself eating red meat quite as often.  Try to brush your teeth one extra time every day each month and then after that, you might find yourself brushing that extra time five or six times a week. Not bad, right?

March for me, is going to be the month of vegetarianism.  I eat meat pretty often, and I think I would do well to cut back.  Leave a smaller carbon footprint, consume less calories a day, get more vitamins and antioxidants… good, yes?  Come April, I will begin eating meat again, but I’ll have learned lots of new vegetarian friendly recipes and I’ll probably generally not want to eat meat so often.

So think about it, make 12 small resolutions to yourself to just cut back or do that little something extra.  No need to wait till next New Years.  Start now; make small and manageable promises to yourself and then feel good when you stick to them.

Support The Troops

I got an email from a friend of mine about the need to support the troops. The email compared the hardships a hypothetical “you” feels with the hardships a soldier serving in Iraq. Here are a few excerpts:

You stay up for 16 hour.
He stays up for days on end.

You take a warm shower to help you wake up.
He goes days or weeks without running water.

You put on your anti war/don’t support the troops shirt, and go meet up with your friends.
He still fights for your right to wear that shirt.

You’re angry because your class ran 5 minutes over.
He’s told he will be held over an extra 2 months.

You make sure your cell phone is in your pocket.
He clutches the cross hanging on his chain next to his dog tags.

You see only what the media wants you to see.
He sees the broken bodies lying around him.

You sit there and judge him, saying the world is probably a worse place because of men like him.
If only there were more men like him.

If you don’t support your troops well, then don’t repost, it’s not like you know the men and women that are dying to preserve your right…

This is not some humble request from some ubiquitous entity known as “the troops” to be respectful; this is a bunch of absurd tear jerking comparisons someone thought it would be appropriate to slap together and turn into a chain email. Everyone has their own challenges, and it is wrong to say that your challenges don’t matter because someone else faces different challenges. It is wrong to say that someone’s struggles matter less because someone else struggles more. Life isn’t measured by comparisons unless you want to try to shame someone, like this attempts to do.

This email is cavalier enough to assume we all run around wearing “fuck the troops” t-shirts and criticize soldiers in our spare time and then live self-indulgent, hateful lives. But, it’s not bold enough to mention the politicians who started the war; the politicians and business war profiteers who are financially benefiting from the war; the military officials who signed stop-losses on soldiers; the politicians who won’t set specific objectives, goals, or deadlines.  No, this email tells you that it is your fault the soldiers are shaken awake by mortars and forced to stay months after their contract is over.  It is clearly your fault “the troops” don’t have enough food, water, or supplies (or combat armor).

I would like to go line by line and rail against this email, but it would be far too long and some are too easy.  The clutching the cross next to his dog tags sure is a heart-breaker, isn’t it?  It definitely evokes images of Platoon or Saving Private Ryan in my mind.  Must be absolutely true, because obviously all of the troops are devout Christians who pray to Jesus while clutching their cross on the battlefield.

These are the sound-bytes that are hurting free speech in this country.  The nation needs to learn that dissension is not unpatriotic.  Dissension is part of the democratic process – the very thing we are attempting to instill in other countries.  It’s true that not every nation grants as much liberty as the United States, but it doesn’t mean that your right to disagree is some cushy privilege that you don’t deserve since you aren’t serving in the military.  I dare not even imagine what the country would be like if everyone who wanted the rights provided for in our founding documents was required to actively serve in the military.  Criticizing the government, in the situation we’re currently faced with, is support for the troops.  Supporting the troops means criticizing the government that uses stop-loss tactics and doesn’t provide adequate armor. Supporting the troops means criticizing the government that attempts to increase troop levels arbitrarily with no end in sight and no clearly defined goals or objectives.

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Not to drag this out much further, but the “anti-war/don’t support the troops shirt” line made me kind of laugh, actually.  Does anyone have a “don’t support the troops” shirt?  I’m not sure I have ever seen one.  Though, I have seen plenty of yellow ribbons with the affirming version of the catchphrase on plenty of SUVs.  Maybe, instead of paying $1 to a charity for a yellow ribbon sticker, you could not drive an SUV that fuels the instability that fuels the war.  Does anyone else get angry, and I mean really ANGRY when you see a shiny pick-up truck or SUV (that has clearly never seen a day of heavy hauling) with a “Support the Troops” sticker planted 12 inches above the exhaust pipe that churns out, literally, TONS of CO2 every year?

May 15th: The Sheep (and Oil Companies) Will Have Their Day

Apparently the social network websites are crawling with calls to boycott gasoline on May 15th.  As it turns out, environmentalism and sticking it to “the man” are still sexy and people will be doing their part to be sexy.  For a day.

The idea that if the entire nation, or even all of North America decides not buy gasoline on the 15th the oil companies and gas station owners will “choke” on the reserve and be forced to lower gas prices. Sounds good, right? I will probably participate in this event without even realizing it.  I buy gas at a rate of about three times a month, so the odds of me buying gas on the 15th are already fairly low. This will likely be the case with most people.  However, some people will hit a quarter tank on the 14th and decide not to tempt fate and fill up on the 14th.  Some people will chance it, and fill up on the 16th.  Regardless, the gas will still be used and the money will still be spent.  It’s just a matter of the day before or the day after the “gas-out.”  There is no reduction in usage or consumption – people will still drive on the 15th, heat their homes, and fly airplanes on the 15th.  A one-day boycott will have effect on long-term or even short-term gas prices.  The best case scenario would be a few cent decline on the 16th to rid of the “excess.”

More likely though, the surge of people purchasing on the 14th will result in higher gas prices on the 14th, then the sudden drop out on the 15th will make prices fall a few cents below par. Of course, no one will buy gas on the 15th to enjoy the brief $3.05 prices (down from $3.09).  Then, on the 16th, people will buy again and prices will probably go up a few cents to $3.12 or so.  So in reality, people will be spending more money on gas than if they just bought as normal and let the price stay stable at 3.09.  Not that a few cents really matters when it’s already over $3.

The only way to successfully boycott gasoline is to simply consume less.  A very, very minimal start for the 15th could be to walk that day, or bike, or get around in some fashion that doesn’t use any gasoline.  Better yet, we could consume just a little bit less every single day instead of consuming none on one day of the year.  So next time you want to drive to the bank or the grocery store or to whatever minor errand you are running, think about this…

• If 10% of Americans aged 18 or more walked/biked/whatever-ed a half a mile every week instead of driving, we would save over 29 million gallons of gas per year.
• If we did it every day, it could be over 203 gallons a year.
• If half of Americans 18 or over did it, it would save over a billion gallons a year.
• If 3/4 of 18+ Americans did it for a mile each day, it would save 3.05 billion (3,045,000,000) gallons a year.

So get out there and walk.