[Coral-List] Sexy scientists

[Adriana Salazar]

  Being reading some of the posts on resilience and what followed – sexy scientists included. So, my thoughts on the matter. Warning: this might been said by someone else before
 I haven’t read all messages.
   
  To add to the impossible task we already have.
   
  Think about Fashion. It was fashionable to wear fur, and then it came this famous add of Briggite Bardot or some other sexy famous actress (Hey! I can’t remember, it was before my time), with a lovely seal pup. And the add was against wearing furs, ‘cause all those nice puppies were getting killed (along with a lot other animals, going fast to extinction). So, that fashion was replaced for the wear-fake-furs-show-you-care fashion.
   
  White bread was on fashion; “black” bread was cheaper. Now, whole grain bread, and seven-grains bread and the like are more expensive than white bread. Its fashionable to be “healthy”. Fair skinned was beauty – now, a “healthy” tan is what is fashionable (despite the fact that it gets you skin cancer).
   
  Fashion is related to status. High status people were white (they did not work on the sun all day), eat white bread (white was better than black, obviously, because blacks and browns were slaves and servants, whites were owners), and covered themselves in furs (the nicer the fur, the more expensive it was = higher status).
   
  Driving a SUV is fashionable. People of the first world drive SUV’s, while us, poor jerks living in the border (Mex-US) drive second hand “gabacho” cars (used cars from USA, way cheaper than trying to get yourself a new car). So, everyone dreams of buying a new SUV (have you seen the 2006 RAV4 by toyota? Have you any idea how much a new one costs in Mexico?). And those that have the money drive those cars (just watch the news, the high level politicians are followed by bodyguards on big SUV’s , regardless the fact that they only drive around in the city, and that there is only two or at most three body guards on each car – they could fit on a pointer city, couldn’t they?).
   
  So, it is a question of fashion, and fashion is related to status, and status is related to power and money (and fame), and the first world has most of those that that are powerful, rich, and famous.
   
  Some people out there study fashions. Perhaps we should ask them how to make more fashionable those habits that do the less damage to environments. But I don’t see car pooling becoming fashionable because I don’t see high level politicians or entrepreneurs sharing a same car, not even if it’s a limo. Actors and actresses, some of them are crazy, so you might get them to do it. 
   
  So, increasing awareness is all right, but it should be awareness about more than just environment; it should include social/ economic considerations also, to actually fit on everyday life and expectations of people. To influence those expectations. Because, right now, there is a lot of humans on the beach, getting themselves a nice tan along with a higher probability of skin cancer, and there is a lot of people idiotically indebting themselves for life in order to buy a new SUV, and be “better” than the next door neighbor.
   
  Adriana Salazar
  Mexico


M. en C. Adriana Salazar 
ayucyuan at yahoo.com.mx
   

		
---------------------------------
  Do You Yahoo!? La mejor conexión a Internet y 2GB extra a tu correo por $100 al mes. http://net.yahoo.com.mx