Specificity

This was posted on the blog of one of my favorite local CSAs:

"We're borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the planet. Every bit of that's got to change."
~Al Gore

And while I appreciate that Al is working on keeping his statements more sound-byte friendly, the writer in me sees my high school creative writing teacher's red pen alongside the statement. "Vague!" she'd write.

In memory of Sally Perez then, I'm going to take a stab at expanding that.

We are borrowing money from China to buy oil from terrorist-funding states in the Persian Gulf to fuel cars built from Chinese steel by Japanese companies in some of the poorest communities in the US where they can avoid paying for health care and pensions. We're going to drive those cars to the local department of some multinational corporation to ring up confined animal operation meat; a mix of corn, soybeans, and pesticides in attractive plastic packaging; and goods that are copied from American designs by folks who have no interest in paying the inventors; putting it all on our credit cards. Then we're going to go back to our air-conditioned houses, turn on our coal-powered entertainment center, and wonder what the hell's wrong with other people.