Would It Kill You To Get Out Of Your Office Once In A While?

The City of San Diego, like many others, is considering a ban on plastic grocery bags. At Catholic Charities, we've now got this sign.

That's brilliant. Because we won't have easy access to bags, we're now forcing the homeless and poor to bring their own. If they were that organized and thought that far in advance, they wouldn't be poor and homeless in the first place.

Aside: A friend of mine came and worked with me recently. After we served a particularly scruffy homeless dude, I said to my friend sarcastically, "You see, all he has to do to access ObamaCare is click over the website, enter in his email address and navigate a few simple screens!"

I recently read The Idealist, a book about Jeffrey Sachs' attempt to eliminate extreme poverty. Using plans cooked up at Columbia University and about $120M in donations he and his proteges embarked on an ambitious campaign in Africa. It failed because it expected everyone to behave like a Columbia grad student.

Lather, rinse, repeat. Because a bunch of Prius-driving ecowarriors demand we get rid of plastic bags, we're going to be forced to ... I don't know what. Spend what little money we have to buy our own bags to distribute? Spend tons on cloth bags that the schizophrenics and disorganized among out clients will lose? Use paper bags which will disintegrate as the cold items condense water and soak the paper?

It seemed like such a good idea in the faculty lounge.