They had a computer/electronic equipment recycling day in my town yesterday. I had some junk that wasn’t working anymore, so I packed it in a box and headed down to the DPW. I was a little wary, having once gone to a County toxic junk day where you had to wait in a line with your car for almost a half hour before you could drop your stuff off (which reminded me of the gasoline lines of the late 70’s and early 80’s). But no, this went quickly. No big line; there were only two or three cars ahead of me. It was a very efficient operation, just pull up, hand the stuff over to a couple of guys who help you unload, and pull right out. Easy.

The town hired a group called Advanced Recovery, Inc. to collect and recycle the computer junk. I tried to do a search on Advanced Recovery, but couldn’t find too much. They have a web site that says they have two locations, one in Newark, NJ and one in Tennessee. I assume they are run by a bunch of for-profit capitalists. But nonetheless, I wish them well — so long as they are the real deal. I assume that they re-sell what ever is salvagable and dispose of the rest in an environmentally responsible fashion. Their locations should bring jobs to places that sorely need them. Hopefully they don’t dump electronic stuff having mercury and other toxic waste into some abandoned Appalachian coal mine (most computers and electric gizmos in your home have toxic stuff in them; thus the need for special disposal).

Capitalism can be done in an enlightened, socially beneficial manner. Unfortunately, the free-for-all nature of open market competition usually encourages companies, both big and small, to take shortcuts that often put the public in danger (defective products, cheating on pollution laws, charter bus companies that don’t fix things right and hire cowboy drivers, etc.). I just hope that Advanced Recovery Inc. stays “in the light” and avoids “the dark side” of capitalism. The guys that I saw running the show on Saturday looked like groovy people. Let’s hope that our system still allows such guys to do well by doing good.

One more thing. I read a little about the recent comments on Islam that got Pope Ratzinger (Benedict, whatever) into hot water. In my estimation, the problems that cause this kind of thing are twofold: 1.) both sides (the Islamic leaders and the Vatican) are living in the past. A sense of history is a good thing, but the Pope was quoting a 14th century document about an argument between the Byzantium Emperor and a Persian Islamic scholar. And the Muslim authorities who chastised “Il Papa” pretty much took the side of that long-dead scholar. Everyone here is living in the past. 2.) No one involved in this little affair has as much as a smidgeon of humor about it. I don’t think there’s been a pope who could relax and laugh at a joke since John the 23rd. All of his successors, including the popular John Paul II, just took it all way too seriously. And the Islamic institutions . . . . let’s not even go there.

The Pope was hinting that Islam has a bias, however small, towards jihaddist violence, given the story of Muhammed and his warrior conquests. Yea, there’s something to that. But for many Islamic people today, Islam is mostly an institutional religion that presents the old stories as a metaphor for the fervor that should accompany faith in the Almighty. And Christianity, despite the inherent peacefullness of the story of Christ, has shown over the centuries that it knows how to make war and aggression with the best of them.

For better and for worse, Christianity sited itself in areas of the world that have experienced tremendous economic growth over the past half-millenium. The Islamic lands were once prosperous from being located at the crossroads of trade between Europe, Asia and Africa. But today they’re in a slump. Christian Europe got out of its slump (the Dark Ages) after the faithful finally got restless and defied Church authority, so as to advance. The Islamic world hasn’t quite reached that stage yet. So you have two cranky institutions, the Catholic Church (which once ruled an impoverished kingdom and still hasn’t gotten over being marginalized into a mere “spiritual authority”), and Islam (which still rules a kingdom that was once rich and mighty, and hasn’t gotten over that kingdom’s fall into poverty). Neither of them are in the mood right now for laughing, turning the other cheek, and just getting on with living in modern times.

Let’s just hope that Christians and Muslims learn to laugh a bit more and not take their institutions so seriously. Both religions claim to be God’s true representative on the planet Earth. At least one of them has to be wrong. But most likely, they’re both wrong. Hey, some common ground!