Posts Tagged ‘Azerbaijan’

I can’t help but feel a little sorry for my dad who is serving in the Peace Corps in Azerbaijan currently.

When I served in the Peace Corps, only 8 years ago, I didn’t have access to a telephone, electricity, running water or sanitation systems. While having many of those things wouldn’t have changed my experience much, they are what make my experience unique. While visiting my father in Azerbaijan last year, I realized that cell phones would have changed my experience drastically, negatively.

During our visit (my wife went as well), my father was perpetually calling or texting other PCVs or Azeri friends. He was always in the process of contacting someone or being contacted. From my perspective, the ease of communication kept him too close to other PCVs in his area. It did help him stay contacted with his Azeri friends but I’m sure they would have found him without a phone.

Dad always complains about other PCVs missing text-scheduled rendezvous. Makes sense, you disconnect yourself from others through text. It’s not as if you stood face to face with someone and made plans to get together. While I was in Haiti, we made plans in person months in advance. We made sure we arrived at the occasion unless some Haiti-esque problem struck us down. Often, we would arrive and sit and wait around for hours at the rendezvous point. We would sit and talk with whoever was around, usually Haitian friends of your friend. We did this contently because, after all, we had only set a date for the rendezvous, not a date and an hour.

I can’t help but feel some of the PC experience has been lost by handing out phones to volunteers. Don’t get me started on allowing them to have televisions and DVD players. It’s my understanding that PCVs in Azerbaijan watched DVDs until all hours of the night and woke up every afternoon. In my humble opinion, if you’re going to do that, stay home in the U.S. and waste your own money on worthless movies. I regress.

I think I would recommend to volunteers going into the Peace Corps now to ditch the cell phones except in emergency situations or during working hours. Outside of that, spend your time getting to know the people and try living like they do. That is what Peace Corps is about.

He has recently been pressing the Texan government to ban tobacco smoking in just about every place known to man in the state of Texas. Obviously a part of his personal war on cancer. It’s a continuation of the end of civil liberties. Soon, no longer will private (I did say private) have the right to choose if they will allow their patrons to smoke. Next step, no smoking in your car or house.

I am biased as I am an avid cigar smoker. I also enjoy the occasional cigarette — the kind without all of the chemicals that speed nicotine to your brain. However, I would argue that smoking of a different kind is far more damaging to humans, and the world in general, than tobacco smoking.

While I have no hard statistics, I’m willing to bet that one day or one week of driving an undesirable vehicle (petrol-powered) releases more harmful pollutants into the environment than one year’s worth of tobacco smoking. I have read countless articles from reputable, no-agenda institutions reporting the vast destruction to which the oil industry has subjected our planet. Take a look at the environment impact of oil, and coal for that matter, on Pennsylvania, Nigeria, Azerbaijan, Alaska. It’s ruined entire ecosystems. There are towns in Pennsylvania that are completely dead from coal mines that are burning, yes burning, beneath them.

Why do you not see this as a political issue? Just like big tobacco of many years ago, big oil owns you. They dictate what you read, hear, have access to, how you live, your mode of transportation, your government’s decisions. You happily drive your car everyday while they knowingly and willingly screw you. Big oil is the big tobacco of now. Don’t believe me? Sit in your garage with your car running. Seems stupid doesn’t it? Yet, billions of people around the world (everyone’s garage) everyday drive their cars tens of miles. That’s what I call smoking.

Lance, like many a professional athlete, your intent is good. Yet you lack the breadth of education to focus on the important issues. I agree — ban smoking. But ban the real smoking — oil burning. The future of the human race depends on it — not just cancer survivors.