FREE THOUGHTS

OPINIONS WE
COULDN'T KEEP
TO OURSELVES




Street of Greed

The American Dream. Something about a nice big house in the 'burbs with a white picket fence and a neatly trimmed lawn and a couple of kids and a car or two in the driveway. Isn't that how it goes?

If you are homeless you dream of being housed. If you rent, you dream of buying a nice little house. If you own a nice little house you dream of something bigger. And if you own a bigger house, you dream of an "exclusive" home somewhere out away from all that crime, right?
Intertwined in the whole mythology of the American Dream are the beliefs that bigger is always better and that, given the means, most of us would surely want to buy a stately mansion on the outskirts of the big, bad city.
This summer's "Street of Dreams" home tour in Woodinville embodied these elements, and more. In a planned community of enormous custom homes with three-car garages, hand-carved front doors, brass outdoor lighting fixtures and meticulously landscaped yards, starry-eyed visitors were able to come and stroll about and dream of the day that they too might be able to sit on the back porch of their estate and look out upon the man-made lake and stream while watching their equally fortunate neighbors play golf on the 18-hole course beyond their backyard.
The Street of Dreams. The epitome of the American Dream. If you work hard and play your cards right maybe, just maybe, you could be one of those lucky ones whose dreams really do come true.

Barf. More like it, you could afford one of these homes only if you're some vastly overpaid executive, a recent lottery winner or you were born into far too much wealth. There are 79 "estate sites" to choose from, with fewer than 20 of the homes completed. For the penny-pinchers, you can get into the neighborhood for a mere $459,000. For those with a few more dollars to spare, the really nice houses will run you about $859,000. And if you're a golf fan, don't forget your country club initiation fee. You can get a family membership for the low, low price of $18,000 and monthly dues of $190, or a single membership for a mere $12,000 and monthly dues of $150. If you hurry, the country club has a special limited offer - no dues until 1995!!
If this is the American Dream, then some people need to be slapped awake. This is not something that any decent human being should aspire to. Anyone who lives here already or can afford to move into this neighborhood is making far too much money. I don't care what they do for a living or how stressful their job is or how much they improved their company's bottom line last year. They are overpaid.
The whole premise of the Street of Dreams is a crock of shit. These are not neighborhoods that people should dream of living in. They are wastes of resources. How many planned communities of "executive" homes creeping toward the Cascades will it take before these overprivileged people see the connection between their enormous homes and the clearcuts that surround them?
I have my own Street of Dreams. It doesn't include three-car garages and golf courses. It is a neighborhood of modest but unique energy-efficient homes. A neighborhood where people actually talk to each other and share resources. We should dream. But we should dream up new ways of living, alternatives to the wasteful ways that we house ourselves now. Alternatives like the Winslow Cohousing community on Bainbridge Island, where there are separate living areas, but shared dining facilities. Or like the community in Idaho that built an entire street of homes on foundations built of old tires filled with dirt.
I thought these were supposed to be the frugal '90s. I thought people were beginning to realize that our resources truly are finite and that it is time to scale down. Communities such as this one in Woodinville should be denounced for what they are: playgrounds for the super-rich to arrogantly display their wealth.

-Mike Blain

illustration by John Ambrosavage



Don't Blame the Earth's Environmental Problems on My Vagina

Feeling pressured to be even more environmentally aware and politically correct than I care to be, I decided to check out those reusable cotton menstrual pads and panties I've been hearing all the fuss about.

Fuss is right. Seventy-five bucks will by me all the Moon Goddess go-with-the-flow Love Your Mother eco-marketing misinformation I can stomach.
Of course, that $75 is a one-time investment which is supposed to last me for up to four years. The accompanying brochure states that the 'organic weave' napkins will last me that long. Frankly, I don't believe it. Let's face it- how many of us have a garment we've owned and worn five days in a row every month for the past four years? Let alone a garment we've bled upon? Unlikely.
The brochure further claims that women's disposable tampons first came on the scene because women were 'living in a culture that shamed women and young girls for menstruating.' Wrong again. Women began using tampons not because they were easy to hide (although this was a definite advantage), but because they allowed women freedom to engage in activities they had until then been unable to while wearing bloody, soggy pads (swimming, horse back riding, wearing white, sitting outdoors without attracting a fly swarm, etc.).
There are those eco-fems who would accuse me of being a female misogynist, but nothing could be further from the truth. I will not use these new environmentally friendly products because I am a feminist and I believe women have not come the past 25 years to return to use gobs of 'recyclable' cloth for their menstrual needs. Personally, I don't LIKE being bloody and sticky between the legs. I abhor the feel of stiff, crusty blood caked on my pubes. I've had the stuff run down my leg in public. I don't have the standard 8-inch gap at the top of my legs like most lovelies, so wearing pads are doubly uncomfortable for me. It's GROSS; I don't care what the in-tune Moon-Mother-Goddess harpies say.
It really bothers me that, once again, women are pressured into saving the world. It was messed up way before I got here and will be that way long after I'm gone. We cut down trees to make toilet paper to wipe butts with it, but I don't see anyone pressuring society to find an ecologically alternative. Furthermore, these reusable menstrual pads and products are still made out of cotton, which is one of the most environmentally destructive crops on the face of the earth.
I have an idea: instead of shelling out 75 hard-earned dollars on a blatant marketing ploy, I will take my used tampons, rinse 'em out, bleach 'em in the sun with lemon juice, stain 'em in organic berry juice, tie 'em together and make lovely quilts and throw rugs. Hopefully that puts to rest the oxymoron of feminist humor.
I tire of the sacrificial cross that's being put upon my back. I do not recycle aluminum because I use no aluminum products (recycling aluminum causes tons of toxic sludge that still has to be disposed of). I throw out less than one small plastic grocery bag of garbage per week. I reuse my envelopes. Most of the time, I eat so low on the food chain that I'm practically filtering plankton. I buy in bulk. I buy recycled paper. I buy the Sunday paper only so I don't have to toss six others every week. I own no car. I either walk, bum a ride with a friend who's going somewhere anyway, or use public transportation.
I think this world owes me the luxury of a few bloodied cotton bullets, primarily because I choose to have no children. I can think of no greater compromise of the earth's survival than having children.
I would think the millions of tons of barrels of toxic and radioactive waste would be a greater concern than some cotton balls, but I guess you can't sell a woman a feminine hygiene product through guilt with the toxic waste problem. Pity.
The lesson to be learned from all this is that female-owned companies can rip you off just as bad as can a male-owned one.
Build a better tampon. Start a women's collective to grow and harvest organically raised alternative fiber crops in Third World countries. Better yet, work to legalize the hemp plant. Just get off my ass and stop trying to guilt me into wearing 'reusable' pads between my legs for the good of the world. Go rag on somebody else. I just ain't buyin'.

-Andrea Helm



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Contents on this page were published in the September , 1993 edition of the Washington Free Press.
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