zygote daddy

seriously, are people still doing the suv thing?

While I whittle away my spare time (that not occupied enjoying the verdant Iowa spring) on this here weblog, d.w. has been commiserating with other pregnant women on the message boards of pregnancy.org. An odd, odd place, I must say. I think she enjoys her persona as the weird crunchy one on the boards, the midwife-using, home-birthing, organic-buying femi-Nazi in an online community of women convinced that proper parenting means a world of pastel, baby crack, and SUV's.

It's the SUV thing that blows my mind. Today, three happenings coalesced to get me off my ass and, um, sit my ass back down to do a little blogging.

First, d.w. briefly let me into her strange little world of pregnancy message boards, because she just couldn't keep the "What kind of car do you drive" thread to herself. The original post was written by someone needing to trade up from her 2-door Civic. A reasonable desire, to be sure. But my jaw dropped at the uniformity of the responses. EVERYONE told her to buy an SUC (that's a funny typo. Who knew the "V" was right next to the "C" on the keyboard? Hee hee. I think I'll keep that one). Do people really just automatically think "SUV" when they think "kids"?

How could anyone in their right mind, right when they are about to incur the financial shit storm of a new little'un, say, "Oh, you know, I think we have just too much money in the bank account. Wouldn't it be a kick to pay 90 bucks to fill up the tank? And global warming is happening just too slowly. I mean come on, I'm 'Murkin, dammit! I demand things happen now! Speaking of which, this thing with Iran is taking too damn long. If we all had Hummers, we would have bombed their asses back to the Stone Age long ago!" 

Wait, where was I?

Oh yeah. The second happening today was that oil went up over $75 a barrel. Probably don't need to add a lot more commentary to that one...

The third was an article in today's Chronicle, by a very well-meaning writer wanting to see how well an SUV "returns to its roots" driving -gasp!- off-road. Seeing the headline, I pictured an old wash in Arizona, or maybe some slickrock in Utah. No, apparently this author's idea of an SUV's "roots" are some snow-covered gravel roads in Maine:

This is the kind of territory where, when you stop and shut off the engine, you hear nothing, absolutely nothing. On either side of these silent back paths are tall pine and spruce trees, stark and still. The nearest paved road is about half a mile away, or more. There are a few unoccupied seasonal cabins back through the woods, but otherwise it is utterly quiet. If you run out of gas in this 18-degree weather, with the wind-chill factor at zero, you walk. 

Here is where the mettle of an SUV is proven. Not that everybody is going to replicate this little journey, but it was quite useful. They don't build these things just to run kids to the soccer field or moms to the market. Some are actually made to go off the well-beaten road.

Where, oh where do I start? Dude, a paved road is only a half-mile away. You can't have gone too far. You're talking about a state so rural that many of the surveyed townships don't have names, only a 19th century tier-and-range designation from the General Land Office.

Even ignoring that little tidbit, and the fact that walking around in 18-degree weather (even with a wind chill of zero) is not that big a deal, how exactly do gravel logging roads count as off-road? Maybe I'm missing something here. "Here is where the mettle of an SUV is proven"? Come on.

During my years in Maine, I spent many hours driving on snow-covered gravel roads in a Subaru wagon. Yes, it had all-wheel-drive (which was great), but I never really thought I was "testing its mettle". You know how many Mainers (outside of Kennebunkport and Camden) drive SUV's? Not many. More common to see an old rusted-out Cutlass doing 90 down an icy two lane road. In short, justifying the purchase of an SUV because you occasionally (or even regularly) drive in snow is just silly. And, frankly, it's sad when people have become so divorced from reality that actually driving an SUV in snow becomes news-worthy.

So why the hell do suburbanite parents want SUV's? Minivans have more room, the ZygoteCube gets triple their gas mileage (and is HUGE inside), and a Subaru wagon is WAY better in winter.

As far as I can tell, it's because guys are afraid they'll feel like pussies driving anything else, practicality and responsibility be damned. Seems a pretty high price to pay to coddle emasculated Republican insecurities, if you ask me.

I'm sorry, I just could not keep all this bottled up. After all, my hatchling is going to have to deal with the consequences.

a little humor early in the week

I can't take credit for this one. Thank the fine people at Married to the sea.

changing the world, one tomato at a time

Alice Waters had an interesting op-ed piece in the Times today, calling for healthful eating to become part of school curricula, just as physical education became part of the curriculum a half century ago. Says Waters,

At [Berkeley's Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School] today, 1,000 children are involved in growing, preparing and sharing fresh food. These food-related activities are woven into the entire curriculum. Math classes measure garden beds. Science classes study drainage and soil erosion. History classes learn about pre-Columbian civilizations while grinding corn.

We're not forcing them to eat their vegetables; we're teaching them about the botany and history of those vegetables. We're not scaring them with the health consequences of their eating habits; we're engaging them in interactive education that brings them into a new relationship with food. Nothing less will change their behavior.

[W]hen a healthy lunch is a part of a class that all children have to take, for credit — and when they can follow food from the garden to the kitchen to the table, doing much of the work themselves — something amazing happens. The students want to taste everything. They get lured in by foods that are beautiful, that taste and smell good, that appeal to their senses. When children grow and prepare good, healthy food themselves, they want to eat it, and, what's more, they like this way of learning.

We need a revolution, a delicious revolution, that will induce children — in a pleasurable way — to think critically about what they eat. The study of food, and school lunch, should become part of the core curriculum for all students from kindergarten through high school. Such a move will take significant investment and the kind of resolve that this country showed a half-century ago. It will be costly, but if we don't pay now, the health care bill later will be astronomical.

Along this same vein, I'd also like to direct your attention to Slow Food, a great international organization seeking nothing less than to redefine modern society's relationship with food and food production. Another one to look at is the American Community Gardening Association, which is dedicated to the synergistic goals of food security, community vitality, and urban ecological health.

Just thought you should know.

 

 

one more reason the danes should be in charge

I saw this over at Daddy Types this morning. The Danes have done it again. Created the most perfectly wonderful, elegant, beautiful transportation device ever conceived. And I want one. No, several. In different colors.

A well-spent 2,500 euros, in my humble opinion.

But seriously. Can you picture it? Everyone ditching their Hummers and Suburbans for some REAL kid-friendly transportation? No smog. No parking hassles. No $4 gas.  Probably not convenient for San Francisco, but what about the vast middle of the country? Of course, a tandem would be REALLY cool, but you take what you can get.

Idealistic? Maybe, but there are some pretty stodgy Danes out there, and I'm sure a few of them bike to work.

time for a little pragmatism

After my last post, I got to thinking about something Megan over at integritty introduced me to: recycled modular carpeting. I know, I know. Not that humorous or exciting, but hear me out.

Such an awesome idea for a kid's room (or an entire house, for that matter). The most prominent company is probably Interface, but other companies do it as well (e.g. Millikan, designweave). Unfortunately, the vast majority of these companies' business is in commercial and industrial settings, but the residential market seems like a natural extension.

Because the carpet comes in tiles, worn ones can be removed and recycled periodically without having to replace the entire room. This benefits both the consumer and the environment; the long-term cost is much lower (like 50%), and all replaced tiles are recycled into more carpet.

It is totally awesome that environmentally and socially responsible design has become so mainstream. It really gives one hope, you know?

So there you go. Recycled carpet: very cool stuff.

Update, 6:09pm on 13 December: Megan posted a comment with a link to FLOR, Interface's consumer product. Thanks, Megan!