When watching the Freeganism clips in class I thought about a job I had in high school. I worked at a small independently owned grocery store. I worked in the deli and bakery section for years and at the end of the day, any baked goods - particularly buns - were bagged up and donated to a local food bank. I always felt good about that. I find it fascinating that when we bagged up the buns we used a clear plastic bag, but when it was garbage it was a green garbage bag and it automatically made it gross. The colour of the bag was the only thing different! Weirddd.
When the grocery store was bought out by Sobey’s the donations ended. Why all of a sudden were those buns not good enough anymore? While I don’t agree with the concept of throwing out perfectly good products, I do not agree with going through the garbage to pick out food to eat. It’s completely psychological but as soon as it is in that green bag, yuck.
Individual’s who practice freeganism may have a point in collecting and eating food that grocery stores have disposed of, but I think the real problem are the grocery stores and their habits of throwing out perfectly good food or at least not donating them to people who could really use the help. Why can’t grocery stores be more helpful within their communities.
However if this were to happen, what would the freeganists do?
I feel like I am getting old or something, but I just do not understand twitter. Twitter is EVERYWHERE nowadays… everybody has twitter and insists that other people stalk them. In the metro newspaper there are celebrity “tweets”… cause I really need to know what gem of an idea is coming from Hollywood on my way to school. I guess I don’t know how to use it or something but is it really that revolutionary? Stating an opinion or an idea, something they have heard recently or just what they are thinking at that very moment. I would like to think that twitter is helpful in globalization and aiding with social change… but all I have heard that comes up on twitter is something as mundane as how sad everyone is that Kim Kardashian broke up with her husband #boring.
Last night I made the mistake of watching Contagion.
What a terrifying movie about the rate at which a virus spreads. Not only does it discuss the fear of virus (which trust me, it was scary because of it’s “too close to home” feel) it also discusses the speed at which things can become a global epidemic. I can tell you that I don’t remember feeling too threatened during SARS or H1N1… I never get my flu shot; I don’t think I’m immune to these viral threats, but I also don’t think that I will get them either (kiss of death, I know - knock on wood). However this film took the fear of global threat to a higher level. Barely anyone is immune to this virus and it turns into madness. Globally.
The world is so large, but also so small. The film shows just how small the world can be with the spread of this virus, and how almost anything anywhere can easily come closer to home. Which can also cause another epidemic - fear. And as the poster says, nothing spreads like fear.
I guess I had never really thought about waste in this way before. Now, I know about waste and garbage in the sense of all the stuff I throw out, and what should be recycled and what not (why is Styrofoam now recyclable? That concerns my as to why now it is?) . And I know about the landfill problems but I had never even thought about the problems of e-waste. I think it’s because when I think about my computer and the “trash-can”, I “throw” something away… and poof, it no longer exists. Therefore my ignorant thinking was that, computers don’t create that much waste.
Boy, I was wrong. And even when I did think about computer components that no longer work and what happens to them, I suppose my personal experience with having a boyfriend who refuses to throw away any computer item because he may need/fix/use it again didn’t help my thinking that there wasn’t much waste in the electronic world. It’s not like I have a call-to-action for this blog, because really, I have no idea what to do/say about the problem. I just wanted to point out that this lecture got me thinking about what really happens when my computer is now considered to be a piece of crap - it becomes a part of an environmental nightmare.
I was reading Leandra’s post regarding the social media bubble and I could not agree more. I have been in the customer service industry for years - grocery store cashier to now working at a car dealership as reception/cash and can I tell you how aggravating it is when customers completely ignore you? I understand that sometimes you get phone calls while you are in the middle of something, but why is it okay to answer it when you are obviously already interacting with someone? Even worse, as Leandra mentioned, is when there is ZERO interaction, you can’t even smile to attempt to apologize or at least acknowledge that you are picking the phone or reading an e-mail instead of talking to the person whose presence you are actually in. I think my favourite moments are when someone starts talking to me and I respond only to realize that they have a Bluetooth headpiece; oh, right, I’m an idiot - you don’t want to actually talk to the person who is bagging your groceries or giving you your car keys. I guess I need to be less touchy about it, but I know that I don’t want people to hear my person business when I’m on the phone in public and I always take my headphones out if someone is interacting with me, or I’m going to interact with them. I wish people were less self-absorbed and realize that other people are worth communicating with, even if it’s just a smile of acknowledgement.
When I read the anecdote at the beginning of Chapter 6 in Intersections regarding Mark Allen’s commentary about the “Voices in the Air”, all I could think about was the TTC. He recounts his first relationship with the automated voice of the Subway system in New York and how he believed the voice was that of the concrete walls, one that helped everyone within the system.
The TTC had implemented automated stop announcements years ago that become commonplace to me, but it wasn’t until an automated male voice started to announce delays on the subway that it really became evident that automated is not always better. I cannot tell you how annoying it was to have him announce a delay on the Yonge-University-Spadina line. I thought maybe it was me who was so annoyed with his pronunciation of Spadina station… Spa-dee-na Station. Ugh! SPA-DYE-NA! I guess spelling doesn’t help with pronouncing to automated devices. Phonetically imputing information I guess is the way to go if you want automation… Eventually they did correct this (I’m assuming with phonetic input) but I like to mention that I was not the only one who had a problem with this… it appeared in numerous papers and the TTC released a statement saying that they would fix it due to mass amounts of complaints. I feel almost redeemed. If language represents the connection to a community of human beings, make sure that the automated language is the same as what the community understands…
Technology that focuses on individual interactions highlight their capabilities of connecting individuals no matter what their location. No longer is a home phone even necessary, your cellphone can do it all! Yet the more advanced technology has become in creating ways to connect people, the more capable we are to use it as a scapegoat. Text-messaging, call-waiting, caller I.D., these features have all helped to aid us in choosing whether to actually be accessible wherever we are. Your phone rings, you check to see who it is before picking up: Do I feel like talking to them right now?; Ugh, not now. A text-message vibrates in your pocket from your friend with something that you can’t be bothered with right now and you claim later that you never received it: My service sucks; I was on the train; It must not have gone through. Whether or not you have done this, I know I have (I’m sorry if that makes me a horrible person) but sometimes it’s better to not be reachable. So why do we focus SO much on being able to be reached at all possible times, if in fact, we don’t always want to be reached?
Advertisements for cellphones/smartphones/tablets all boast about portability and the ability to talk to anyone at any time. Is this because apparently leaving a message at home on the answering machine is no longer acceptable? How dare you not return my call/text-message/Facebook comment within 5 minutes of me sending it. Are all these advancements in being able to reach someone (and especially with Blackberry Messenger that actually tells you when a person READS your message) making life easier, or making people more impatient, anal, and crazy? Is this really worth it? We all need to relax and remember that sometimes we have things going on in our lives that result in less than immediate responses. We need to learn to be more patient and then maybe we wouldn’t need to make excuses for why we didn’t respond to your message within 5 milliseconds from when you sent it.
(I’d like to point out that I am a hypocrite. I am so impatient. Technology has ruined me)
