Humor Post #115 from the world’s Awesomest & Crankiest Curmudgeon’s Middle School and YA Blog –

Whew, I’ve had a kind of rough time since I put out that BOOKS ARE EVIL post. See I was arguing that Kindles and iPads made more sense for kids than paper books. You can go back and read it if you want. Some people agreed with me, but some got kind of mad at me. I guess I need a thicker skin. Now how do I grow one of those and if I do, will I look more like an elephant?

That was supposed to be a joke. Pretty bad, huh? Okay, you don’t have to agree so loudly.

But I am willing to admit one big problem with our tablets that I didn’t know much about when I wrote that article. They all seem to be made in China or some country in Asia where workers make like, if they’re lucky, a dollar a day. That’s bad. And I checked out some of my books and they’re all printed in the USA. So I’m ready to say we should be willing to pay a bit more for tablets if they could be made here. But then I figured out something else. Most everything we buy that’s not food comes from Asia. And our food is mostly picked by workers from Mexico and Central America. And I’m not exaggerating. Look at my house. I mean we have a Samsung television and an Hitachi TV. Asia. Our refrigerator and washer/dryer are all LG. Asia.

Then I went through my clothes. Guess how many brands were made in the USA. Guess. No, I really mean Guess. My Guess shirt was practically the only thing I could find made in the USA. I have New Balance sneaks made in China, shirts made in Pakistan, Korea, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, India. And I just saw on the news tonight about a clothes factory in Bangladesh where they have girls as young as 12 working there and another building fell down a month or two ago nearby and over 1000 people died. Over 1000 and they were all making clothes!! Imagine if something like that happened here. I think it would take up quite a bit of news time, don’t you? And tonight they showed the labels of the clothes those people in Bangladesh were making. The labels said ASICs and Wrangler and WalMart. (I’m sure there were other brands at other factories, but that’s what they showed tonight.)

So I gotta say it. And I’ll say it in a poem. Natch.

TABLETS AND OTHER STUFF WE NEED AND LIKE A LOT
by Dr. Crankenfuss

I don’t understand it,
What can I say?
Almost nothing I own’s
Made in the US of A.

My shoes come from Vietnam or China,
Calvin Klein’s made in Hong Kong,
Almost the only thing I have not from the far East
Is a polyester shirt from Oman.

India, Korea, Pakistan,
Don’t matter if it’s for a woman or a man,
I don’t know what happened to all the US workers,
Must be they’re all frying fast food burgers.

So I guess to be fair I should give up my iPad,
Its workers are exploited and somehow that’s my bad,
I could read paper books printed here I suppose
But shouldn’t I also learn to live without clothes?

Just sayin’.

From Your Dude with the ‘Tude (who’s still learning, ya know),
Dr. Crankenfuss
P.S. And thanks to everybody who gave me your ideas here or at LinkedIn, Facebook, and GoodReads. It’s cool to get mail from you.