How high is your social-consciousness meter?

I shop at Wal-Mart because it's cheap and I don't make a lot of money. I shop at Target when I want nicer things than Wal-Mart has.

When it comes to food, I try to buy certain things organic and other certain things without partially hydrogenated oils and trans fat. Not because it saves the whales, but because I believe it's healthier for me.

I don't eat red meat or pork. Not because of PETA, but because when I was a kid my parents were horrible cooks and so I became "vegetarian" to avoid eating what they made. The behavior kinda stuck the last 15 years. In a way it creeps me out to eat something that was once alive, but I can get over that if I don't think about it.

If I have the choice I'll get my coffee at the hometown bagel shop next to the Starbucks, but if it's not open, I'll go to Starbucks.

If I have the choice to buy running shoes at the hometown shoe store instead of Famous Footwear, I will. But sometimes price does factor into having that choice or not.

I do read a lot of books and magazine articles that are targeted at raising social consciousness. I want to be informed. And having that knowledge helps me to make better choices when I do have a choice.

I've got my pet issues (ahem, Title IX) that I'm passionate about, and I try to raise the consciousness of those around me.

 

I don't shop at Wal-Mart because people without teeth frighten me. It has nothing to do with social consciousness.

 

Why? They don't bite.

 

I love stretching my food dollar through leftovers, and littering repulses me. But I don't put recyclable products in different bins, and I shop at the closest places I can get what I need. I used to occasionally get groceries at Wal-Mart, but the quality on some things is questionable, and there are too many impulse items compared with the amount of necessities in stock.

 

IJAG,

Send those leftovers my way.

For the most part, when someone accuses another person of not being socially conscious, they're usually just pissed because that person doesn't share their political view. A Wal-Mart shopper may contribute to all manner of charitable causes and/or stand (up) for any number of moral/political issues. That person has just as much of a social conscience as someone who jumps on the anti-Wal-Mart bandwagon.

And Doc, quit posting that damn seal photo (yes, I know what you'll be posting next).

 

I think I've only posted it once. It was JR last time, IIRC.

 

I'm socially conscious in that I am a aware of and reasonably well informed about a wide variety of societal issues.

 

That's an awful, and untrue generalization. Amazing how some of you think nothing of stereotyping some people, but bow up the minute something suggests that there perhaps might be some people of a certain reglious group that would love to convert or kill people of other religious groups -- or people with no religious affiliation.

 

I believe that one of the best things I ever got out of college -- better than whatever journalistic education I picked up along the way -- was an ability to converse with other professionals on a wide range of topics.

Face it, if you took Intro to Sociology, the big things rub off.

Where I have "gone wrong" -- and believe me, I know it's not my greatest trait -- is that I'm most happy when I'm dealing with my day-to-day life.

Wake up. Shower. Play with pets. Do errands. Catch the soap if there's time. Go to work. Try to do my best there. Go home. Watch TV. Rinse and repeat.

That routine ... I can be quite happy doing that the next 16 years.

The "peripherals" ... they are just that to me. And believe me, Frank, if you're still reading, you HAVE made me examine that a little bit. Perhaps I'm self-centered, or perhaps I'm not quite deep enough to spend my time trying to figure out the world's ills.

I just have this feeling that if I did spend more of my time tapping into what's going wrong around this world of ours, I wouldn't smile as often in the course of a day. Maybe that's what I'm trying to say here.

 

Good point, hondo, and you'll be roundly insulted for it.

 

That's when I know I've struck a nerve...and that's when I know I'm right.