Reply #184: The beef is at every level of the lifestyle.

[UdoKier]

It's not just the countless unnecessary miles travelled in the unnecessarily gas-guzzling SUV, it's the increased amount of trash produced by the drive-thru fast-food joints, the obesity caused by the same, as well as the sit-down chain restaurants where one serving has enough food to feed 2 or 3 people,

It's heating and air-conditioning 3 or 4000 square feet of house that are essentially empty all day. It's that you can't get anything that's not made by a huge corporation or shop anyplace that isn't a huge chain.

Christ, I could go on and on...

I married a "minority" too, and I agree on that one - so what?

I was a minority in Japan, and I developed a real appreciation for cities where transit is readily available anywhere, and people of every economic class live in close proximity to one another. I loved that everyone pumps their used bath water into the washer to wash the clothes, that nobody uses a clothes dryer, that every trash can on the street has a place for aluminum, a place for plastic, a place for paper. There is a real effort to preserve the environment there, whereas most Americans just pay it lip service.