Capitalism: A Love Story response

Last week in class we watched Michael Moore’s movie ‘Capitalism: A Love Story’. This movie was a documentary based off the financial crisis the United States suffered in the late 2000’s. Basically he informed us how major corporations dominate the lower 97% of people, then clearly painted the picture that those corporations can take away whatever they want from the hard working middle class. The rich have everything and the poor have nothing.

The movie started to feel very personal, because my family experienced some of the same things a lot of people and our country were experiencing, primarily the house foreclosures. In 2007 my father pulled out a small loan our house to help pay for medical expenses for my handicapped brother Ian. He was certain that he would be able to pay off the loan, because he made $40,000 a year at the time. Unaware of the impossible percentages on top of what he had to payback, he never broke even on this loan and eventually defaulted on house payments.

I did not realize how the rest of the country was experiencing the same situation my family was. My father ended up losing his job, and in attempt to save our house he cashed out his IRA’s and 401K, leaving him with nothing for his retirement;  all that effort was for nothing, because he still lost the house he worked so hard to keep.   

It stirred up a whole lot of frustration knowing that big banks got away with practically murder and left hundreds of thousands of people out of their homes and millions of people taken advantaged of through the big bail out. Mainly it gave me another dose of being powerless over situations like this.    

Mainly this movie gave me another dose of being truly powerless over situations like this such as the American people suffering from our government’s poor choices and decision making.

I hope America can Learn from past mistakes and take better care of our hard working middle class citizens.

Aggressive Driving

Most of us know it when we see it, but National Highway Traffic Saftey Admininstration (NHTSA), defines aggressive driving as occurring when "an individual commits a combination of moving traffic offenses so as to endanger other persons or property". Drivers who engage in aggressive driving tend to let their stress or frustration out on the other motorists. In 2009 the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety reported that, “[a] total of 119,475 people were killed in crashes involving potentially-aggressive actions".

119,000 people died from road rage in 2009? Wow, those numbers are staggering!  

Today I was on my way home from the store and this car flew by me, cut me off and almost swerved into the side walk. All in a matter of seconds I noticed that the driver was using the cell phone while committing this heinous act of careless driving. I felt a bit of rage stir inside me, took a breath and let it go, so I can keep my driving ‘safe’ to the other commuters around me.

Road rage can be a common factor for almost every person driving, had I been in the wrong state of mind, I probably would of chased them down and shook my fist at them with the “your my number one fan” gesture on my finger. ;)

So here are my words of wisdom to my fellow drivers out there: Remember that we are powerless over the actions of others but we have complete power of our own actions while driving.

I don’t always drive a car, but when I do I drive safe my friends!

Don’t Trash Arizona

Why do people do litter? This is a question I constantly ask myself. When I look around and see litter in on sidewalks, in flowerbeds, by the sewage gutters, or even worst outside of an empty trash can, I can’t help but cringe inside. When I drive down a main road and see a bunch of litter along the sides the embankments, I ask the question, "Why the person or people did not leave this litter in their car's until they have stopped or arrived at their destination, then throw it away properly?" Perhaps people learn how to be careless by watching others throw their trash where it doesn’t belong. It is a question that will forever baffle me.

Some of the blame could be blamed on that the local city councils, whom do not provide enough trash bins around local surrounding areas such as, in-between bus stops. I feel that even if the city took action in providing more trashcans people would still fail to comply with using them. I believe this because I have seen trash accumulated around a perfectly empty trash can at a bus bench. I find this quite depressing knowing that someone could be that lazy as to not throw their trash in a bin which is less than 5 feet away.

Photo By: Rachel Wetle 2012

 

I was on the website www.DontTrashAZ.com and did a little research on how much litter is actually accumulated on our highways. I was very astonished to find out that close to 150,000 bags are collected annually, that total doesn’t even account for other bags being collected on a city level.  

This problem hits taxpayers in the pockets, because the trash doesn’t magically disappear, someone has to clean it up and unfortunately they won’t do this job for free. So please if you know someone who litters or just littered ask them to do their part and put it where it belongs, in a trashcan.

While I was on the website I took the pledge to do my part with not littering, if you would like to join me please use this direct link to the pledge: http://donttrashaz.com/secure-your-load/pledge-2 

"Some believe that one small piece of trash won't matter, but those small pieces have added up to a giant problem" www.DontTrashAZ.com

Respectfully,

Rachel W.