Mittwoch, 11. Juni 2008

am I a slouch?

I always thought that I was no slouch. That I was aware and empathetic. Not so, I have come to discover. I read my paper and hear my podcasts and consider myself informed. I know what the gas prices are in middle America and what the milk costs in New York and DC. I know that the nations of the world met over pasta with cream of pumpkin and shrimps. Yet, things still don't touch me in the same way as when it's more obvious.
Naple's trash slash mafia issues recently came to the fore-front of my social-life. At a family-function, my brother-in-law's girlfriend wasn't there because she was working with German trash-removers to figure out how they could get involved there.
Disgustingly more personalized was the petrol-strikes in Europe. I bike, I buy local and heat is included here, so I am not too often aware of gas problems here. Like most other nations, Swiss government taxes upwards of the equivalent of 5 dollars American, to every gallon of gas. (Of course, we buy it by the liter, here, though.) I knew that trucks were blocking ports and highways on the continent, but I wasn't directly effected until my morning grapefruit. I like a grapefruit. I enjoy a grapefruit. I buy grapefruits from either Italy or Spain. Israeli grapefruits don't interest me. Nor so those from South Africa. The world is suffering for hunger and I realize that when I refuse a grapefruit from another continent, my morning is not empty. I was, however keenly aware of the petrol-problems of Europe the other day when I read the produce sign "Grapefruit U.S.A" USA?! This is not my Switzerland! What the hell are they doing shipping grapefruits from the states?
Every morning that I am without a grapefruit I feel like a small and selfish woman. I miss that grapefruit, I do. What the hell? I drink my coffee and eat an apple and think "you lucky bastard. You comfortable weich Ei."
I want to do something. What should I do? How should I mobilize? How do I help. I've never felt more guilty, than I do without my sour puss.

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