The army patrols the building. There's so much oppression, the union workers are followed into the toilet. One worker who committed suicide blamed Coca-Cola for his death.
Some one told me that Gap makes their clothes in the USA now, after the uproar over sweatshops a few years ago. Still, you can never even be sure by looking at the tag. It might say, "Made in the US," but they might use parts manufactured in Honduras, or the Phillipines.
Perhaps more people should boycott the corporations with larger annual budgets than GDPs of many third-world countries. I sound like a fool talking down capitalism and corporatism, but I don't want to leave the next generation more difficult problems than my generation is about to inherit.
I will think on this, and look to Plato and Aristotle this evening. Something gives me the feeling that they wrote what they did for humanity at its worst, to be understood only after people had seen the worst that there is to see in us. I have already changed my mind about so very much, and I've been here three weeks tomorrow. I hope the answers I am looking for lie in the great works of 2500 years ago.
23
I had a pretty crummy Tuesday.
I had so little to do, but did none of it.
I guess I got away with a free day, so I won't get another one. I suppose I can do that once a term, but I don't think I like it very much.
23
I am now at Antioch. I live in Yellow Springs, Ohio.
In the past nine days, I have:
That's the short list. I miss Rapid City, and home, but I am so glad to be here. It is a very strange place, with very strange people everywhere. Yellow Springs is a small town, much smaller than Rapid City, and it is populated by some of the strangest characters I have ever seen, and that's not even starting to talk about the college students. There's a man I met in the hardware store, his long beard and strange hat made him look like a wizard, and he wanted to tell me a poem that he wrote about the garden tools. He must have been sixty or seventy, his body was full of tattoos and piercings, and I think his name was Charles. He kept saying, "sooooooooz!!" in a really high pitched voice, and I hope to see him again. I want to ask him about the world. I bet he has some great stories.
The students are great fun and very interesting. I am hourly involved in a conversation on some weighty topic that interests me intensely. There are such intelligent people here, from all walks of life, and they are all living in harmony. In spite of that, I think that I am at an advantage over many of the first-year students, as I have lived on my own for quite a while, and I have learned quite a few things that can only be learned through experience. There are quite a few things I wish I could teach people, but it would be inappropriate to bring them up.
I like living with such young hallmates, but it can get a bit grating. I suppose I can only hope they learn from the mistakes that I see them making. Many of them are interested in only smoking pot all day if they could. Some of them are so happy to be away from mum and dad that they are going mad every night spending all the money they saved this summer on pot and mushrooms. I get a kick out of telling people, "No, I don't smoke pot," because the reaction is always different. I was pressured to take mushrooms last night, but thought to myself, "I will be here for another four years, there will be better nights to take mushrooms."
I did have a thought I shared with many people last night, after a few beers: "I don't just owe money to this school. I owe my life to it.
