10/26/2022 0 Comments Slice it fair![]() ![]() The author of Losing Our Cool, the much-debated and widely acclaimed examination of air-conditioning’s many impacts, here turns his attention to the politically explosive topic of how we share our planet’s resources. And in this provocative and thoughtful book Cox asks: can we limit consumption while assuring everyone a fair share? Any Way You Slice It takes us on a fascinating search for alternative ways of apportioning life’s necessities, from the wartime goal of “fair shares for all” in the 1940s to present-day water rationing in a Mumbai slum, from the bread shops of Cairo to the struggle for fairness in American medicine and carbon rationing on Norfolk Island in the Pacific. Instead, he persuasively argues that how we ration is a crucial issue in our fragile present, an era of dwindling resources and environmental crises. In Any Way You Slice It, Stan Cox shows that fair-shares rationing is not just a quaint practice restricted to World War II memoirs and stories of gas-station lines in the 1970s. As Nobel Prize–winning economist Amartya Sen has said, the results can be “thoroughly unequal and nasty.” Health care expert Henry Aaron has compared mentioning the possibility of rationing to “shouting an obscenity in church.” Yet societies ration food, water, medical care, and fuel all the time, with those who can pay the most getting the most. I felt like I experienced a modern day splitting of the sea! He shoveled and scraped and sweated, while I walked like a queen.Rationing: it’s a word-and idea-that people seem to fear and hate in equal measure. “He proceeded to shovel the sidewalk in front of me, forming a smooth walkway. The guy bowed slightly and told Tante Heidi to follow him. I was kinda scared - what would he do to me? Would he force me into that car of his? But no, he retrieved a shovel from the car’s backseat and plodded over to where I was struggling through the snow.” We argued like that for a coupla minutes, until this fellow put his car in park and got out. “I told him it’s my Sabbath, and I couldn’t possibly ride in a car. The weather conditions were obviously awful. He insisted, claiming he’d drive her to wherever she needed to go. ‘Lady, can I offer you a ride anywhere?’ he asked. “He stopped beside me and rolled down the window. Suddenly, a 4x4 came rumbling down the avenue. ![]() “It took me ten minutes to get down those front stairs!” Within seconds, she was freezing, wet, and exhausted beyond belief. With each step, her legs trod into 30 inches of heavy snow. Resolutely, Tante Heidi stepped out onto the steps. The snow was coming down fast and hard, so city sanitation workers were still huddled in their beds. Overnight, a huge snowstorm had covered the entire city in a heavy white blanket. “One Shabbos morning, I woke up as usual at 7:15 to go the Agudath Yisrael shul for Shacharis and Mussaf,” she began.Īs she approached the exit to her building, she told me, she was greeted by the sight of snowdrifts. She held another identical plate aloft and delicately dug in. Give me a squash soufflé, and I’ll be your friend. It’s okay for the diet, is what she probably said, though I can’t recall her exact words. While waiting for the dance music to restart at a cousin’s wedding, Tante Heidi sidled up to me, impishly proffering a small white ceramic plate bearing a mini custard pie. Recently, though, my view of Tante Heidi - maybe even my worldview - overturned. There was the five-dollar check she gave us as a wedding gift, the ’70s suit she’s been wearing to every event for years, the time she missed the train back home after a vort in Monsey and had to sleep in somebody’s basement, and the Chanukah when she cut apart one roll of colorful yarn and doled out the pieces of string as gifts to all of my grandmother’s grandchildren. Tante Heidi’s financial status is immediately evident. She never married, is in poor health, and has been living alone for many decades in a neglected high-rise, where she shares facilities with all of the residents on her floor. ![]() Tante Heidi isn’t really an aunt, but she’s always been a part of our family. But whenever we spent time with Tante Heidi, I had a hard time swallowing that. My mother had always told me that life was fair - that everyone gets a slice of the pie. ![]()
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