Joe Kraynak

Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution–and How It Can Renew America

I haven’t read the book, but I watched Thomas L. Friedman on Meet the Press last Sunday. Based solely on what I heard during the interview, I can’t believe that this book is a number 1 bestseller.

Why? Because I remember hearing this same sort of thing back in 2000.

In fact, if Friedman had a paper bag over his head, I would’ve sworn it was Al Gore. One of Gore’s central themes during his 2000 presidential campaign was to use global warming as a way to stimulate economic growth through the development of green technologies.

If you’ve read the book (or you happen to be Thomas L. Friedman, not Al Gore pretending to be Thomas L. Friedman or vice versa), please let me know what you think. Maybe you can convince me that it’s worth reading. Friedman certainly didn’t convince me through his appearance on Meet the Press.

Fast Becoming a Minority in America

In a recent article entitled “U.S. to Grow Grayer, More Diverse,” Washington Post Staff Writer N.C. Aizenman calls attention to the fact that according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates, “minorities will be majority by 2042.”

I don’t know what to think of this. In a way, I became a minority as soon as I moved out of my heavily Polish neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side in 1978. I quickly became one of the few students of Polish-Ruthenian heritage attending Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. (I did meet one other Pole from “Da Region.”) When I moved to Indianapolis, Indiana in 1984, I felt even more like a minority. In my 20 years of living in Indianapolis, I met only a half dozen Poles (none of whom was very Pole-ish) and not a single Ruthenian. And Crawfordsville, Indiana? Fugget-about-it… I have yet to meet anyone who’s even sampled a perogi.

Personally, I enjoy my minority status. It makes me feel special. When I mention perogi or kapusta, I feel like a traveler from some long-forgotten land. When I speak the few words or phrases I know of Polish, like dziekuje (pronounced jen-ku-ya, meaning thank you) or idz do domu i spac (pronounced eez-dough-dome-oh-spotch meaning go home and go to bed), I feel bilingual. I don’t even mind the fact that people commonly mispronounce my name as Kray-nee-ack (Ruthenian, not Polish), although for the life of me, I can’t imagine how they came up with that mispronunciation.

As a minority, I can blame everything on the majority. After all, if the Polish-Ruthenians were running this country, we’d all have high-paying jobs, low taxes, the best schools in the world, free universal health care, and other perks too numerous to mention. And since my ancestors arrived long after “The White Man” stole the land from the Native Americans and some time after slavery was abolished in the United States, I feel none of the guilt that the majority of Americans often suffer.

So, when I read about “becoming” a minority in America by 2042, it really doesn’t bother me. I’m already there… and loving it.