Regional Read is here!

The Regional Read is here! Much has been happening of course. Our EVENT will be held on October 11, 2007 at Utica College and will feature a panel discussion with people from the community giving their perspective on the "flattening" of the world. Among these include Tim Reed from ECR, Utica Boilers; Ben Sitler, Fiber Instrument Sales; Abby Youngblood from Old Path Farm (a local CSA); Dr. Andrew Faber; and John Furman of Citizens in Action. We are also hoping for a couple of additional speakers. The event is to be held at the Utica College Frank E. Gannett Library Concourse from 7:00 to 8:30 pm and will be moderated by Utica College Economics Professor Rick Fenner. It should be a very dynamic discussion. All are welcome to attend! In addition, David Habbel, Professor of Communications at Utica College has been very busy with his thought-provoking posts and questions on the Connections Topic Blog for the Regional Read. Please post your comments there at http://rr2007myconnections.blogspot.com
You can also get to the other blogs and information about the Regional Read at
http://www.midyork.org/regionalread.

We are also pleased that Sherwood Boehlert, our esteemed Congressman who retired recently and is still involved with many of his passions during his illustrious tenure as one of our nations leaders and author, Bill McKibben have agreed to be guest bloggers.

On a personal level, my sons, Frank and Evan both returned last week from their first trips as engineers to China for their respective employers. Their perspectives have been very interesting to listen to and it is hoped they will each share some of their insights during the Regional Read.

I sometimes think that "globalization" as a concept is something that only older Americans feel in a profound way. I wonder if people from my son's generation see it as something that happened over time historically but not in their own lifetime. Afterall, for most of their formative and young adult lives they have had access to the internet and have known what it is to correspond and communicate with people from other countries and travel. They also have never lived in a United States where everything was manufactured here and Walmart prided itself on most of its stock being manufactured in the United States. I vividly remember that "Made in the USA" was a huge part of Walmart's advertising campaign in the 80s and that promotion which banked on loyalty to US manufacturing is in large part what accounted for their meteoric rise to consumer power. Now we are hard pressed to find anything made in the United States in Walmart.

I asked some students this very question at the Bill McKibben lecture at Colgate University last week and some of them agreed that for them the concept of globalization is more of a historical concept that they study, much as the Depression is a historical concept to those of us in our 40s and 50s.

The changes though that are taking place are mind-boggling, though, even for my sons. My one son was astonished to find that for lunch every day in Shanghai he and his colleagues were taken to KFC. In the evening they would eat traditional Chinese meals. My other son experienced difficulty in finding food as he was vegetarian and every single meal he was served had meat in it. He actually asked one of the cooks at a restaurant to grill tofu so that he could have a hot meal. They had never heard of such a thing and every cook in the restaurant came and watched the main cook accomodate this unique request. So it seems that the cultures and expectation of other cultures often meet head on. My one son said that most of the cars used for taxis were Volkwagens in one Chinese city!

When I was growing up, China was a vast mystery to me.