its time to get creative

I enjoyed this reading the most of everything we have read thus far. I think it was a combination of both her writing style and content. After reading the book though, I felt overwhelmed, frustrated and helpless. She touched on some of the topics we discussed in ICS 125 like borders. With the map project we had to explain how we use borders to create our own personal maps. Nordstrom describes borders as physical lines monitored by armed forces. I think these two types are borders are a lot more similar than most would think. The borders described in Global Outlaws were just as imagined as the ones on my map; they were imagined by those in control of the trade routes, monitored by men with guns.

After we discussed the book as a class, Marcy had us break into groups to do an exercise. She instructed us to pick an issue that Nordstrom talked about in her book. We had to identify the problem, describe it, and talk about the actors who gain/lose in the situation. This alone was a frustrating task. Nordstrom exposed so many different problems of today’s society that it was difficult to pin point one specific issue. Finally, my group decided we wanted to tackle the regulation of goods. We narrowed this down further to the regulation of goods at shipping ports. We identified the actors: producers, ports, countries agencies, customs, consumers, laborers… and the list went on. Next Marcy asked us to propose a solution to the problem. And so the frustration continued. Our group had struggled to pick the issue and now we were supposed to try to solve it? Isn’t this what the UN does? If they haven’t already solved this problem, how are we supposed to? My creative idea was to develop a large electronic scanner to install in the ocean. In my head I pictured a giant X-ray machine that a boat would sail through to be scanned and searched in a matter of seconds. I came to my senses and realized this was neither rational nor plausible. But it made me realize how frustrated I really was because these are real issues and we could not come up with any real solution that seemed remotely plausible. We talked about taxes and fines for people who break the law, but the image of the little Angolan boy Okidi, selling cigarettes made us think about how this would effect people who had benefited form these illegal actions. What would happen those illegally imported cigarettes didn’t make it to Okidi. Would he not have money to get food? Would he have to go another day in hunger? Would the benefits outweigh the costs, and who would really be paying for the wrong doings. Uhg, this is way to depressing and complicated and makes me not even want to think about it anymore. ….

Maybe we are looking for the answers in the wrong places. We (the students of ICS 200S) are the future masterminds of the world and we are going to be responsible for finding the solutions. Maybe we need to think outside of the box. Maybe a giant X-ray machine in the middle of the ocean isn’t such a crazy idea! I’m just sayin’….