(A collage of 200,000 packs of cigarettes - the number of deaths from smoking caused every six months in the United States).
Think about a straw. Straws appear everywhere. Regardless of where you are in the world, you will very likely encounter a straw. Restaurants dish them out like currency. Box loads of them. Insane numbers of these things are produced every second on this planet. All so that we can suck our sugar-drinks out of a chemically engineered, plastic tube thing that could survive a nuclear winter. But are straws really necessary marvels in our lives?
I mean think about it. They stress and warp the curvature of your teeth. They’re mainly produced in Chinese manufacturing facilities that are less sanitary than the bottom of your foot. In fact, the only reason straws were invented in the first place was so that the ancient Sumerians could avoid the lumpy fermentation byproducts of their homemade brewskies. Because nobody wants to get shit-faced sucking down this stuff.
The artist says, “I am appalled by these scenes, yet another side of me is drawn into them with an entrancing sense of awe and fascination. The immense scale of our consumption can appear desolate, macabre, oddly comical, and ironic, even darkly beautiful for me; the consistent feature is staggering complexity.” Sounds like a pervert to me.
A tapestry of 38,000 shipping containers. The number processed through American ports every twelve hours.
11,000 contrails/jet streams. The number of U.S. flights that originate every eight hours
28,000 42-gallon barrels of oil. The amount consumed in the United States every two minutes.
1,000,000 plastic cups. The amount used every six hours on U.S. commercial flights.
32,000 Barbie dolls. The number of breast augmentations performed monthly in the United States.
320,000 light bulbs. The number of kilowatt hours of electricity wasted every minute in America due to inefficient residential energy use.
'Cans Seurat'. 106,000 aluminum soda cans. The amount consumed and discarded every thirty seconds in the United States.
Dang. That’s serious. :::Slurps Coke:::
While I definitely understand the point of your post (it is a valid one) I do think straws serve a purpose and I don't think they spend enough time in contact with your teeth to warp them. I mean, they're flimsy plastic after all. I use them because (like your wife) I am chemically addicted to iced tea with extra lemon. The lemon is acidic and really bad for your teeth and the tea has a tendency to stain teeth. I use a straw to avoid deterioration and discoloration because the straw allows the dangerous deliciousness to bypass my teeth on the way to making me a happy and fulfilled person. Also, ice avalanches on the face are shocking and unpleasant. Thoughts?
ReplyDeleteIt's a lose-lose situation. By using a straw you save your teeth some stress (though by using a toothpaste with fluoride and whitening agents twice daily you greatly decrease the risk of deterioration and discoloration) but straw use does increase facial wrinkling, in patterns similar to that of a smoker (think of those little lines protruding around old ladies' lips acting like reservoirs for smeared lipstick). Also, not all dentists agree that drinking out of a straw is significantly better for your teeth than just regular old sipping. Here's what one dentists has to say about it: http://askthedentist.com/drinking-sugary-drinks-through-straws/
ReplyDeleteBasically, we're going to grow uglier no matter how we choose to drink our tea.