From: cmdq144@chpc.utexas.edu (Earl Edwin Rutenber)
Subject: Re: Save the Planet and the Economy at the Same time!
Organization: The University of Texas System - CHPC
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 92 23:11:41 GMT

At various times, Mike Vandeman (mjvande@pbhye.PacBell.COM) has written:

   They made their bed. Choose to live near work & transit, as I did, &
   you have no problem.

and

   You have no other alternative? I don't believe that. Why don't you
   live near transit or your job?

Mike,

  I live about 14 miles from my job. I do so for several reasons.

(1) I hate living in the city. I have a little girl to raise who doesn't
need to grow up in some urban slime pit. I like to grow things. I like
to keep animals. I like to have wildlife in my back yard (even though
that tends to be mutually exclusive with growing things). As to my
environmental destructiveness, you should have seen my place when I moved
into it - scorched earth! Some planting (natives, of course), some fertilizer
(organic, of course) and a hell of a lot of hard work and _my_ corner of the
environment looks a lot more like the original than it did before. Yeah, I
bought my wife a really nice truck. Yeah,it burns more gas than I'd care to
see. So what? I'd like to see what your fellow citizens do when you decide to
bring half a ton of manure home with you on your rapid transit ride.

(2) Where do you propose I live? What do you think lies between me and my
place of employment? The forest primeval? _Other people_ live there. "Excuse
me, sir. Would you mind blowing your brains out so I can take your domicile?
It's closer to my place of employment than my current home."

(3) Why should you place such limitations on what I can do for a living?
"Hmm - I see you have a PhD. Good. 13 years experience? Good. Publications?
Good. Ohh.. you're not willing to raise your family amidst crack houses, drive
by shootings, carjackings, hookers on the streetcorners and junkies lying on
the sidewalk in the middle of some concrete wasteland with pigeons, rats and
roaches as the only wildlife? Well, I'm sorry sir, but you're disqualified from
being a biochemist. Perhaps you can eke out a living chopping cedar." 

I realize this is a flame, but compared to the colliding egos found so
frequently on this newsgroup I think it's pretty minor. If you want to change
the usage of automobiles, perhaps you should seek ways to change the _need_
for automobiles instead of attacking people who merely try to get by as best
they can. When you lay rapid transit tracks from my house to my lab, to the
feed store, to the grocery, to my church, to my kid's school and to my wife's
office (they're not in the same direction) give me a call. Until then, I'll
continue to drive my aging econobox and my wife will continue to drive her
truck.

Mike

    _______________________________________________________________________
   | Dr. Michael P. Ready                     | READY@UTBC01.CM.UTEXAS.EDU |
   | Clayton Foundation Biochemical Institute | Phone: (512)471-3625       |
   | University of Texas                      | FAX:   (512)471-8696       |
   | Austin, Texas 78737                      |                            |
   |__________________________________________|____________________________|
   |   "A liberal is a man who leaves the room when the fight begins."     |
   |                                                       -Heywood Broun  |
   |_______________________________________________________________________|
  
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