Destroy All Cars
all Cars
To James and Misha
“Every generation needs a new revolution.”
-Thomas Jefferson
APPENDIX 2: THOUGHTS ON ASSHOLISM BY JAMES HOFF
APPENDIX 3: THE ART OF THE COLLEGE APPLICATION: THE PERSONAL ESSAY BY JAMES HOFF
1
James Hoff
Junior AP English
Mr. Cogweiller
ASSIGNMENT:
four-page persuasive essay
We stand at the edge. We stand at the brink. We have come to a final point in history. Greenhouse gases are heating our oceans, choking our atmosphere, changing our entire planet. Toxins and pollutants threaten not only our lives, but all life on earth. If action is not taken, all will be lost!
We can no longer chip away at the edges of our problem with meaningless “feel good” solutions. Recycling, buying “green” products, Take the Bus to Work Day-none of these will save our atmosphere or slow down the disastrous heating effects of air pollution. Organic salad bars are not going to refreeze the North Pole. Instead we must fearlessly strike at the root of the problem.
We must destroy all cars.
We must destroy all cars for what they do.
We must destroy all cars for what they stand for.
We must destroy all cars to break the mind-set that makes it impossible to see beyond our own most immediate and selfish needs.
We must destroy all cars because if we don't, they will destroy us!
A world without cars is possible. But how can we imagine such a thing the way we live now?
The car is a primitive machine. It is not complicated. You put gas in it and poison comes out. It's pretty damn simple.
Is it a good idea to start your car in your garage and sit beside it, reading the paper, while your garage fills up with exhaust? No. Then why would that be a good idea on a global level?
I am sick of cars idling in my school parking lot. I am sick of the endless river of them that forms every morning on the main road by my house. I am sick of sitting on the bus and watching them packed all around me, ninety percent of them containing A SINGLE INDIVIDUAL. I am sick of that one woman sitting there in her cocoon of false safety, with her Poland Spring water and her Healthy Choice granola bar, polluting the world outside while inside, in her air-conditioned insulation pod, she deludes herself into thinking that drinking fake mineral water and eating fake candy bars is going to purify her body. I reject that person. I reject the falsity of this belief system.
I understand that people are lame and they cannot do without a luxury item once they possess it. I denounce their lameness.
I understand that people are weak and cannot walk to the mall once they have driven there. I denounce their weakness.
I understand that it is the nature of Consumer Americans to constantly drive their vehicles to different stores so they can buy endless amounts of useless crap. I denounce their simplicity of mind.
I understand that our entire economy is based on the production and consumption of USELESS CRAP. I denounce it all: TARGET, WAL-MART, ROSS DRESS FOR LESS, SEARS, MACY'S, KMART, MERVYNS. It is crap! All of it! Crap!
Young people, students, future citizens and leaders, I ask you to CLEARLY SEE where our present course is taking us. The automobile is the foundation upon which our unsustainable lifestyle is based. They must be DESTROYED. All of them. Even the cute ones. Even the little Mini Cooper that Daddy bought you for your birthday, Ashley.
Cars keep the present political system in place. They keep lower-class people going to war. They keep upperclass people in their mansions and their private jets.
By sitting in our gas-guzzling minivans in traffic, moving at three miles an hour, burning fuel pointlessly, we are keeping the whole car-based social system afloat. Every day OIL COMPANIES make BILLIONS of dollars because we lazy-ass Americans cannot ride a bike to school or work.
The End
Got a C+ on my essay. Typical. Cogweiller said it was too emotional and not supported by facts. Also he says calling people names is not an effective way to sway them to your point of view.
He wrote in the margin:
lazy-ass
ed
Americans.
Ha ha.
Sadie Kinnell wrote her paper about recycling and of course got an A. Cogweiller read hers out loud to his other class. That's what Gabe told me. I am not in Sadie Kinnell's AP English section, thank god.
Today at lunch, I saw Sadie Kinnell waiting in the food line. She's still hanging out with the annoying guy she supposedly broke up with, Will Greer. They were talking in line. It's unclear if they are officially broken up or not.
Sadie Kinnell was my girlfriend sophomore year. It was a complicated relationship. We fought a lot. We agreed about some things, though. She agrees that the destruction of the planet is bad. (Congratulations, Sadie!) However, we differ on what to do about it. For instance, she thinks “raising awareness” is a good strategy. Or wearing colorful bracelets that support causes like Forgiving Third World Debt or Helping the Refugees. She also started an Activist Club at our school, which is full of annoying do-gooder types. She's a priss, is what it boils down to. She gets really good grades and she'll probably go to an excellent college. But she couldn't kiss worth a crap. I don't even know why I'm talking about her now. She is meaningless.
Cogweiller says I can try again on the paper if I want a better grade. He says to use specific examples and to introduce a personal perspective.
James Hoff
Junior AP English
Mr. Cogweiller
MAKEUP ASSIGNMENT:
four-page persuasive essay
We have a problem at our school. That problem is cars.
Every day when our school lets out, dozens of cars crowd into our school driveway. The line goes around the school and onto the highway and almost causes accidents. Then, for up to an hour, this caravan of oversize SUVs, Luxury Pickups, and Minivans idles in the driveway of our school, smothering us with exhaust and toxic emissions. Some of these vehicles are so large, their exhaust pipes are nearly at the same height as our freshmen's faces.
Breathe it in, boys and girls!
And this is at a school where if you took one puff of a cigarette, you would be expelled for lifeâ¦
My friend Gabe's mom picks him up in a Ford Expedition that sits so high up you need a smaller car to stand on in order to get into it. I asked him once what kind of gas mileage it gets. He didn't know. I told him to ask his mom, but she didn't know either. He said they fill it
up once a week. It costs over a hundred dollars. His mom doesn't even look. I asked if his mom could at least turn the engine off while she's waiting. But Gabe says she can't turn it off because she gets too cold in the winter and she likes to keep the heat on. Or when it's summer, she gets too hot. She has to have climate control.
I'm like, I hope so. She's gonna need it WHEN WE ARE ALL FRYING FROM THE EFFECTS OF GLOBAL WARMING BECAUSE PEOPLE LIKE HER CAN'T TURN OFF THEIR STUPID CARS.
As a young person, I think about environmental issues a lot. The main thing I think about is HOW WE ARE GREEDILY AND RECKLESSLY DESTROYING OUR PLANET. We are filling it with poison and waste because we are so lazy we cannot stop WALLOWING IN OUR CONSUMER AMERICAN CULTURE LONG ENOUGH TO STOP AND THINK ABOUT WHAT WE ARE DOING. People like Gabe's motherâwho is perfectly nice, by the wayâcannot imagine life without all the petty luxuries of the moment. She drives around, wasting gas, wasting everything she comes in contact with,
consuming
at a ridiculous rate, all because she has never had reason to stop and consider her lifestyle. She is a CONSUMER AMERICAN. She drives a car that gets THIRTEEN MILES TO THE GALLON. She goes to the mall EVERY DAY to buy USELESS CRAP, because that's
all she knows to do. That's what the TV tells her to do. That's what the other moms do.
I am
so
not going to live here when I grow up. As soon as I graduate, I am MOVING TO OSLO. I went there once when I was thirteen. People there are much smarter than here. They don't even
have
Ford Expeditions. They're too big to fit on their roads.
The End
Went to see Cogweiller in his office. All that extra work, and all I got was a B-.
Cogweiller says that a “dramatic pose” is not as effective as “clear arguments and cogent rhetoric.”
He thinks it's all a joke, that I'm goofing around, that I don't really mean what I'm saying.
Old people don't care what happens. They're done with the planet. They had their fun.
Cogs wanted to know what was up with all the capitalizations. I said, “That means I'm yelling.”
He said, “Who are you yelling at?”
I said, “The world.”
Cold and gloomy today. Dark when you leave for school, dark when you get home. And the sky is always gray. And then it rains all night.
This is not good for you, according to what we learned in biology last year about how lack of sunlight alters your mood and makes you depressed. Portland, Oregon, is one of the darkest places, too. It's a wonder we don't all kill ourselves.
Oh, wait, we already are.
In study hall today, Blaire Atwater decided to have a little fun with me. She winked at her friend and then asked me why I cut the elbows out of my sweater. I told her that it makes the sweater look old, and that old sweaters are cooler than new sweaters. She was like, “I don't see why.”
I said, “You wouldn't.”
Then Mrs. Harris got mad and said I would have to leave study hall if I couldn't shut up. I was like, why don't you make
her
shut up? But Mrs. Harris thinks of me as a troublemaker more than CONSUMER AMERICAN Blaire Atwater. So I was identified as the at-fault person.
More idiocy regarding my sweater: A teacher stopped me in the hall and asked me if my parents know that I deface my clothing. That's the word he used,
deface.
That's not even the right word.
That's nothing compared to the big display we had in the front of school celebrating our “Aid to Victims of the Hurricane,” where they misspelled the words
separate
and
indomitable,
and used the word
effect
wrong. School is not a place to learn to spell. It is a place to learn to shop.
And no sooner did I escape my illiterate teacher than I ran right into Will Greer. He avoided looking at me as always. What must it be like to be Sadie's second boyfriend? Sloppy seconds. Second in command. Second place. He seems to like it. He'll settle for it anyway. He'll take what he can get.
And then not ten minutes later I saw Sadie herself, and several of the Activist Club members in the library. They were all gathered around the back table, discussing something, making posters it looked like, though I couldn't see what they said. “Free the Chipmunks” or something.
What a bunch of dorks.
James Hoff
Junior AP English
Mr. Cogweiller
ASSIGNMENT:
four-page essay on a person who has influenced you
Sadie Kinnell is an activist who believes in working within the system. She believes in community action, working in groups, and getting people “on board.” One example of her approach is that she thinks voting is a good way to change things. Of course we can't vote because we're in high school, but she accepts that. She says, “Why should we get to vote before we're eighteen and fully informed on the issues?”
I do not believe that anyone is fully informed on the issues. I don't think the system is set up to allow you to fully understand anything. I will not bore you with details, but take wars, for example. Does anyone ever fully understand why we are in them?
More issues I have with Sadie Kinnell:
1.
Sadie Kinnell dresses terribly and thinks she is justified in doing so. She often said I was trying to shock people with my thrift-store clothes, which is kind of true, but what did she want me to do, go to Nordstrom and buy a Polo shirt? No, thank you.
2.
The way we broke up was ridiculous, with her lecturing me on my attitude and my “nihilistic” worldview. That is so uncool.
3.
Equally ridiculous: the fact that she was in
Willamette Week
as a “Person of Note.” This happened because she helped the City Commissioner's Office raise money for a bike path along the river. It was so typical of Sadie. Looks good. Sounds good. Everyone loves a nice bike path. Everyone loves puppies, too. Meanwhile, polar bears are drowning because there is no ice and it's 122 degrees in India. What is a bike path going to do about that? Answer: nothing.
4.
Sadie Kinnell is what people think of as “the solution.” I have news for you: All Sadie Kinnell is going to do is shake hands with people and smile a lot and clean up little parks so that children can play in them safely. We don't need more parks for children. We need less cars. Less people. Less development. And we need it all lessened NOW.
5.
The reality of what's happening to our planet isâ¦wellâ¦the reality is unthinkable. That's why nobody thinks about it. Sadie sure doesn't.
6.
Sadie Kinnell claims she did not like Will Greer when she broke up with me. I find this hard to believe. They were always talking in chem, according to my
friend Gabe. Gabe even said he felt there was “something going on” between them. Personallyâthough I still consider Will to be annoyingâI am not terribly offended by this. Sadie and I were having serious problems. Sadie thought I should go on antidepressants. When she said that, I knew it was over. She was no longer seeing me for who I was. I do not need antidepressants.
7.
Still, it is important to note that Sadie recommended medication. The world is in serious danger, and the solution? Pills. Drugs to make you not think about it. In CONSUMER AMERICA, thinking about things is as bad as not buying useless crap. It is counterproductive. Mental accuracy is a bad thing. Reality is meaningless. If you see clearly, if you express yourself clearly, you become the problem.
Your bad attitude is not helping.