Garbage Studies

“Andy” has a big brain and is a masochist, so he is getting a PhD.  This entails learning a lot of broad stuff in his field, then learning more than anyone has ever known before about one specific slice of his field, and writing down impressive new thoughts about that minute slice, until someone calls him a Doctor and my parents cry with pride.  Along the way he reads a thousand hundred million books

We have complimentary skill sets.

on obscure, nuanced ideas then tells me about them until I can’t wrap my head around why anyone cares about the  type and depth of feelings that your eyeballs have looking at something and how that affects your holistic the interpretation of the thing itself, and then I go do practical things like ferment carrots and learn how to pick locks.  When the apocalypse comes, we will have very distinct roles to help us survive and restart society. 

But the other night he made passing reference to an academic field that piqued my interest, and it is called Garbage Studies.

(Just let that sink in.  You can be a doctor of the philosophy of the study of garbage.)

Scholarly AF.

So, yeah, sure.  You can learn all kinds of things from garbage, like what a society values (or doesn’t) and eats (or doesn't) and stuff about how they live.  In really old societies, the trash is sometimes all that is left, so you take what you can get. 

So it’s a real thing.  Today, it focuses on cool stuff like reducing waste and efficient recycling.  There’s even a center in Serbia devoted to this, and it has a Kids Garbage Lab, which is also a thing I want to set up in my back yard.  (It will be…different from the one in Serbia.)

Seriously he just wants everyone to leave him alone.

Garbology, a modern phrase that involves trash bags more than midden heaps, was—no kidding, Reader—coined by A.J. Weberman in 1971, when going through Bob Dylan’s trash.  This is true, because I found it on Wikipedia.

So it turns out Romans were big into recycling and repairing, and we know that because of Garbage Studies.  Modern Garbage Studies, when not figuring out the societal meaning of a plastic refuse island floating in the Pacific Ocean that is currently three times as large as France (What does it mean?  It means we are doing it wrong.) can focus on all kinds of things in today's world that are clearly garbage. 

My suggestions are as follows:

Scott Pruitt – They’re already studying him!  11 cases are open so far!  Who spends $43,000 to build a sound proof phone booth in their office?  Definitely someone who respects the trust and power instilled in him!  Certainly not anyone who is doing anything wrong!  Who systematically does all in their power to stop us from NOT killing the world?  Garbage People! 



**UPDATE: Through the power of positive thinking, that schmuck is GONE!!!! Score one point for decency and the environment!  Better late than never, "Stephen"!**

Why you making this about me?

That Slow Driver in the Fast Lane –  Look, slow drivers are fine, live your life.  You’re careful, you’re safe: great!  And slow turners, well, I just assume you’re carrying a full pot of soup in your passenger seat to take to some lonely sick old lady who has outlived her family.  Look at you!  Being such a good person!  The glue that keeps the fabric of society together!  BUT WHY ARE YOU IN THE LEFT LANE, SLOTH TOYOTA?

Hypocritical Progressives – as a subset of hypocrisy in general.  Sloppy lazy internal logic counts too, because even when you’re not malicious, just too lazy to apply your own value system, you’re still screwing up.  But I digress.  (I’m not perfect either but seriously, you gotta try.)

We are not focusing on the hypocrisy of the right.  It is there, but I'm interested in cleaning my own house here.

Who does that?  Don't do that!

When someone spends their lives and their careers specifically touting ideals like equality and fighting for a just society, but then they’re like, “ohyeahbut, I mean, not for me though," you get on this list.  It’s a vegan who won’t even wear leather because the pooooor animals, but then bites the heads off chickens for fun.  

Stop ruining it for the people who do want to create a just society built on the America ideals that people in power were naïve enough to tell us meant something back when we were young and impressionable. 

You suckers told me the dream was real, now you gotta deal with me.

Aggressive Sales People – Look I know everyone is just trying to make their money buy maybe don't tell me what to do?  I know what I want, and what I don't.  I am trying very hard almost all the time to be a decent, kind, reasonable person.  It is a social contract to be decent to each other, but if you break that contract, it is broken.  If someone expects me to carry all the weight for the both of us, we’re all going to be disappointed.
   

NOT Using the Oxford Coma – The Oxford comma is objectively correct.

The American Medical Treatment of Women and Mothers – I am not citing any of this because there is too much to cite.  Google it at the risk of your own tranquility.

Fun fact: did you know that with all the hoops that drug companies have to jump through to get their product approved by the FDA, they don’t have to test their fancy new drugs on women?  And because of that, like 70-80% of the drugs are not tested on women?  So we just don’t know things like, is the dosage the same, does it mess with your hormones, are there other side affects that haven’t been considered?  

Dammit Jim, I'm a doctor
not a...hunh.

And when your doctor is like, this blood  pressure med totally works, they really don’t know if or how that is true for lady-people?  Because apparently they only need to test their crap on real people, not weirdo boob people?

And maternal mortality rates, that is a whole other thing.  For clarity of terms, maternal mortality refers to women who die while pregnant or within 12 months of giving birth.  And sure, some of

This guy knows.

those ladies were hit by a bus, right?  Sure they were.  Which is why we compare rates, not just the incidence of death itself.  And like I mean, Sweden, sure, they’re good at everything, they have super low maternal mortality rates.  Plus they have those meatballs. 

But did you know that moms in Lybia have lower mortality rates than we do here in God’s Country?    Or how about we’re the worst in all developed countries?  We SPEND the most on maternal care.  But our mamas die more! Perhaps I don’t understand what “developed” means.  And—AND, Reader—our rates are on the rise!  Wait, you ask, are everyone’s rates on the rise?  Nope! Just ours!  As everyone else gets it more and more together, we’re like, shut that hospital down!  Medicaid is for pussies!  Women should be championed and revered says Paul Ryan!  But not the mamas!

And get this, get this, this is good: The rates for black mamas are 3 TO 4 TIMES AS HIGH as those of white women!  

And that rate.  

Has not changed.  

In 60 years.   

For context, sixty years ago, Brown v the Board of Education had just happened.  The US had just launched its first space satellite.  Fifty years ago, MLK was murdered.  Forty years ago the first personal computer was introduced. Today we have brain plugins that fix paralysis and surgically implanted learning, but we still let black mothers die.

Hey, but let's focus on what matters!

The reasons for our mama mortality rates involve things like access, poverty, insurance, etc.  Things that policy creates or doesn't, worsens or corrects.  Things that elected officials have everything to do with.



Georgia is the worst in the nation.  

Someone should study this Garbage.

Disney’s Jessie and Bunk’d— I know, I know, Disney really has been doing so much better in recent years.  Tiana was a boss (though, Disney, since you're def reading this, you get the serious side eye for her no good, lay-about, happy-but-lazy prince of color…).  Frozen had a whole plot point about “don’t just marry some dude!”, and true love was about sisterhood not some kiss.  Moana is a gem. 

But their live action kid-targeted sitcoms are the worst.  Jessie is about some super rich family who has adopted kids but are never home so they have a “regular-joe” nanny (named Jessie) who helps them navigate their penthouse condominium lives.  From what I can tell the parents are literally never there, for unclear reasons.  Because it would probably be very difficult to invent an engaging TV show context highly populated with kids who have ostensibly normal-ish lives, and aren't cruising to Milan on a private yacht with no parents.  

Then the kids get older so they move on to a summer camp that just never ends in Bunk’d?

So let’s talk about the kids, shall we?  There is an Indian boy, who has an accent (yay immigrant representation!) and is the most annoying book worm science and math nerd.  Not a cool smart nerd.  A terrible smart nerd.  Like the nerds from Nerds before they get laid, but with racial undertones.  There is also the blonde white girl, and you’ll never believe, Reader, she is spoiled and selfish and only cares about fashion and nail polish and being pretty.  

Except on Disney TV!

Let’s not forget the sassy black girl, or the white boy who gets in trouble because he has poor impulse control and doesn’t think anything through, but never reeeeeally gets in trouble because hey, boys will be boys. On the side, he treats lady people just like you’d expect him to.  At camp, there is an East Asian girl who resents her overbearing tiger mother, and plays violin. 

Also the script is terrible.

This show has no redeeming qualities.

The All Lives Matter Movement—we’re not even talking about it, is how much garbage it is.

Climate Deniers—not to take it back to Scott Pruitt and his mischief of compatriots, but let's go broader to all the people who are like, "but I don't want to believe true facts, so I don't have to" or "but I don't understand how it works and that is like expertise, so me saying it doesn't make sense is like it actually not making sense," or "but God would never let anything bad happen to his children."  I just can't even.  It's science.  Science, y’all.  Quit breaking the world, we’ve seen that movie and no one wants to live there. 

Sailor J – No, I’m kidding Reader, she’s a national treasure; I just wanted to see if you were still paying attention.  Put this woman in your life.

This list could go on forever.  Go Google kittens, or watch this.

Ok but really the Pacific trash island is 3x as big as France now.