nickel and dimed review

I just finished Nickel and Dimed. The book is about a journalist’s sojourn into the working class. For me, it was a reminder that I am not working class. I have college degrees, networks (as small as they may be sometimes), a support system, some money saved up, a car, and a plethora of other variables. The book is a must read for anyone that doesn’t have to live in motel day-by-day or a small apartment on weekly rent.

The book was written ten years ago and you can already tell that it is outdated. There are no 9/11 experiences. When Barbara Ehrenreich wrote this book there was a labor shortage. And of course she was not dealing with a recession. Housing prices have skyrocketed since she wrote the book and I presume rent has as well. There is one other thing that has changed. Universal health care is now trying to make its way into law.

At the end of the book, Ehrenreich talks about how the poor have no longer been discovered, but just the opposite forgotten. And now people no longer feel that the poor are there because they are lazy, drug addicts, and thieves. She states that “disapproval and condescension no longer apply” and that guilt doesn’t go far enough, but it is shame in ourselves that kicks in when we think of the poor.

I don’t think shame is the right emotion here. I think she gives people far too much credit, and I think she wants people instead to feel shame. Just as with slavery, people’s minds were changed: from condescension, to guilt, to shame. Those same steps still need to be taken today for continuing class and racial barriers. Ehrenreich does not give enough credit to the social system in place of the individualistic capitalist society we live in. We still live in a society that says the individual is the key to their own success and there are no systems in place to keep people poor.

Maybe the most constructive aspect of the book is that Ehrenreich shows that even a highly successful women with a Ph.D. can’t really “make it” when she is left in the same predicament as the working poor. Ehrenreich really proves that there needs to be some changes with affordable rent, cost of food, salaries, and healthcare. Until then the rich will continue to ride on the backs of the poor. Whether they feel condescending, guilty, or shameful is up to them.

three cups of tea, education, and the urban city

I recently finished Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson. And it is a must read for everyone. The book is about one man’s journey to bring a school to a poor community in Pakistan. The book is inspiring. It gives life to the people of Pakistan, to Afghanistan, and the Middle East. It gives a hope for peace that is not through war, power, and death, but through a road less traveled.

The book gives an alternative view to the way life has been lived out since 9/11. It’s a view that involves less U.S. taxpayer money, less death, less destruction of towns and villages in Iraq and Afghanistan, and less fear of terrorism.

Just as the U.S. wages war in the Middle East, the country been raging war domestically since it’s conception. Cities such as Detroit, MI and Gary, IN, and in poorer neighborhoods in cities such as Chicago or Boston were not always poor, dangerous, and places to avoid rather than seek. All these cities have history. Many of them can trace the growth of unrest from their beginnings, to the industrial revolution, to events as recent as white flight around the middle of the twentieth century. These places of course are hit hard with violence and theft. Locals who could get out did. The working class and poor just kept on working.

The alternative is education. A radical idea never used before. Education is the same thing that many people, myself included, have thought for years would help inner cities of the United States. Of course here in the U.S., compared to such places as in Three Cups of Tea, there are actually schools – for the most part. The quality and opportunity of education, of course, are vastly different. Most urban schools are given half the money that a suburban school is given. A quick Google search will confirm this. The administration? What administration? If anyone has dealt with bad school administrations in the ‘burbs or rural area – just try a poor urban community. And what about the quality of teachers? All you have to do to figure this out is to go to a teacher’s job fair in Chicago. The lines for the suburbs are out the door. For the North Side expect to wait an hour to speak to a representative from the school. For the South or West side of Chicago: wait time - zero minutes. It’s an area so desperate for good teachers, yet no one wants to work there.

Just as thousands of miles away education is an alternative to war, violence, gangs, and a life of terrorist groups, Three Cups of Tea provides a realistic alternative for those of us eager to make a difference in the U.S.. We don’t have to sentence our cities to a life of poverty, injustice, and violence. There are peaceful options, if we are brave enough to embrace them.

iraq and the middle east: part I

I’m not sure who is winning the war on terrorism. In 2003 the U.S. decided they would enter Iraq and bring “freedom” to the people. Six years later a few thousand U.S. (UK and other countries) soldiers have been killed. And this doesn’t include the ongoing war that is next door in Afghanistan. The number of casualties seem to keep climbing each month despite the claim for change and peace proposed. Hey! And, what about the people of Iraq or Afghanistan?

In the end though, Bush (or maybe better put Cheney and Rove) or the Obama Administration can’t be accused alone for starting a war or continuing a war. Like anything, the blame cannot be put on one person or country, or ideal for that matter. I recently just finished Three Cups of Tea and am in the middle of Power, Faith, and Fantasy (a history of the U.S. and the Middle East). I’ve still got to learn about the U.S. relations with the Middle East, but like anything there is history behind the U.S. relationship with Iraq. For example we can’t really understand racism in the U.S. without understanding how the history of slavery, the Civil War, Jim Crow laws, the Civil Rights era, and all the history in between have affected racism is today.

There is a lot of history with the Middle East. And amazing as it was to me, it is not all that bad. In Power, Faith, and Fantasy author Michae B. Oren does, however, string along a common theme – America’s desire to bring the same freedoms, liberties, democracy, and Westernization that they won in 1776 to the Middle East. In the book it really doesn’t seem that bad. I mean who wouldn’t want freedom, right? Well, in 1900 the freedom sounds a whole lot better than the imperialist ideals that other countries were trying to impose in the Middle East.

It is interesting to learn that oil and power were not always a means for war for the U.S. Even when the U.S. finally entered WWI they never declared war on Turkey. A peaceful means by President Wilson. I can only imagine a different outcome if Roosevelt was still president. As I finish the book I will have a second reflection on the U.S.’ involvement in the Middle East.

still kicking...

Despite my long absence from blogging this blog continues to live on. Next week: my thoughts on the Middle East and hopefully in the near future some posts from a guest blogger. Until I get a job the blogs will continue to be sporadic, but hopefully more frequent than in the past three months.

Random thought of the day: Sitting in a Borders this morning I have come to the realization that Glee has totally ruined Journey’s Don’t Stop Believing. Come on!