in the innocent, oh-so-innocent, east.............

My student asked me: Why don't you have a car?

---You are a teacher after all.

And I was stunned,

speechless,

almost embarrassed.

Thoughts tumbled through my mind,

and I suppressed annoyance at the simplicity of the question.

And, so,

I began to explain the expenses involved in owning a car.

Instead of saying that I don't want to be a contributor to climate destruction,

which is what I think.

Instead of saying that I cannot understand how anyone today can innocently

ask such a question.

But later I thought,

that this was so terribly capitalist:

seeking individual solutions for a social problem,

because there is money to make public transport comfortable,

to make buses or trams or trains frequent,

and un-crowded.

And I also thought of the remark Chomsky once made,

that smoking cigarettes is,

today,

in the USA,

the prerogative of those who work in the offices of the universities,

while students are largely tobacco-free.

And I saw my student had something in common with

an office worker in the Land of the Free,

standing outside in the cold,

working hard to ingest enough of the drug,

before she returned to her boring job.


We are all trying to squeeze something out of life,

but,

in the meantime,

we are being squeezed,

twisted,

brought into line,

the life wrung out of us every day.