It's complicated...

Hi everybody, I'm posting this blog here today just because I didn't have enough space to answer a colleague of mine on an interesting subject we started. Go here to see the previous thread. http://snipurl.com/6agit


That sounds too black & white. It's much more complicated than that.

This topic, of course, is a very wide and never-ending discussion. Having lived in a few different countries with different systems (democratic and not) in the world, I can sum up that some things are good to regulate (so set the bar or standards and create an equal playing field) and some are not. The wisdom to decide what to regulate, when and what not, is the key.

For instance: Other governments in the world have regulated banking rules much tighter, in order to avoid a fiasco, the US is in now. The US bailout is an excuse, now paid pay the people, screwed up by the private, too loosely regulated, banking companies.

Don't get me wrong. We love free enterprise, free trade and free markets. But none of them are really free. They all have rules. And it's those set of rules the society agrees upon in order to be and get the best out of it. Therefore it shows in what condition a country or society is, when things break down.

How, for example would you evaluate the patriot act? The government stepped in and didn't even ask. The ones that had the power to make the decisions pro or con, didn't even read it, they were sleeping and lazy. Witnesses of the time will concur.

As long as there are humans and their societies, there will be regulations and rules of some sort or else we cannot survive. Anything in the universe has regulations. And rules change as everything changes. The key is to be flexible and adapt and change again in order to flourish and survive. The only constant is change - nothing stays the same. And if you don't have/make a plan, someone else will. So the question is how much can we or do we want to be involved in the process?

You say we shouldn't let our government mess things up. I agree. But our government is "just" our representation we voted for, so we can go about our lives and jobs. Otherwise we'd have to sit there everyday and negotiate. So either we get up there and get gritty ourselves or we shush and take some .... for the compromises we need to make in order to live our lives (in abundance by the way).

Democracy is the most complicated system and usually has a shelf life of 200 years. So I'm glad for every extra day we can speak up and say what we want.

Or can we?

Thanks in advance for having a great conversation.

Ignorance

I'm always speechless when I see someone completely ignoring any common sense toward their environment or other people living in it. Just the other day we had a huge moving truck in Grayhawk Scottsdale blocking the whole street in our community. Not only didn't anyone get in or out. The killer was that the truck driver kept his huge diesel engine running not just for an hour. No, I'm talkin' all day! There was no reasoning with this man: "my wife owns the company. So go ahead and complain." the property management company proved helpless with no leverage whatsoever (what's up with that?) so the truck kept polluting and vibrating all day long. Isn't there a law against this? And here's the kicker. When I asked the trucker why he had to keep it running, he argued: "I gotta keep my little fridge cold for my food you moron. I live here ya know. So get a life."

Wait a minute...did he mean I should get a life or should he get one?

So whenever you feel like hiring an obnoxious and rude moving service, go ahead and give this guy a try.

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Green starts with YOU!

Recycling in communities. This is a frustrating issue. Waste Management keeps showing off how green they are in their TV ads but have a system in place that dates from the 60's. If you want to get ahead you must change and adapt. Cities and companies like WM must help us change things as well. Imagine that there is only one company that will even consider green waste management and recycling in Scottsdale, AZ. Imagine how long it took to change people's minds in our community's HOA to give it a try. Imagine how many people, after the fact, came out of the dark and

 applauded the recycling program. Where were you when we needed your voice and support. It takes more than just words to change habits. It takes your time and actions.
A recycling company like WM, that offers only one antiquated system, that throws everything in one green bin and complains to the people of that community, when there are a few items that "contaminate" the trash (wow, contaminated trash, that's a new one), that they cannot pick up the green bin, they will have to send a "normal" trash truck to pick it up and dump it into landfills, the very thing we're trying to avoid, is not a program that works.

We cannot monitor every individual. We will never have a 100% "uncontaminated" trash, which sounds ridiculous to me anyway; trash, contaminated, how can that be? They should have a system that can handle the contamination. People are people, they will always contaminate to a certain extent. Oh, and did I mention that glass is not a recyclable item to them. So now residents should have how many different bags in their kitchens and garages to separate and make this thing work???

I hope our mayors (Mary Manross), government officials and company owners that "claim" to be green in attitude, realize that if they don't develope and adapt our systems to the real world and provide one that works, the program will fail. They should be eager to get into the glas recycling business as well and have extra bins for that. Either have bins for everything or have many bins for different items. Then the bins could be smaller too.
I keep saying, just pay a four week visit to Germany and copy their system. No rocket science, no reinventing the wheel. Bingo, you will be ahead of the WM pack in no time. I'm also tired of hearing "it can't be done". That only means "we're just too lazy and uninterested to make it happen." We have been flying to the moon and mars for heaven's sake. Then we can solve our trash problems. It's all a matter of will.


America the beautiful? C'mon, we can do better than this.

Have a junk, pollution & trash free day. (Wherever that is)


"Nothing splendid has ever been achieved except by those who dared to believe that something inside of them was superior to circumstance."
- Bruce Barton

Government has responsibility to set energy-efficiency rules