Disposable America World
History seen through the drinking straw. “The defining characteristic of the straw is the emptiness inside it. This is the stuff of tragedy, and of America. American industrialism, the creation of urban life, changing gender relations, public-health reform, suburbia and its hamburger-loving teens, better living through plastics, and the financialization of the economy: The straw was there for all these things — rolled out of extrusion machines, dispensed, bent, dropped into the abyss” (3,440 words)
