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Saving the Planet and Other Complaints

"If you take step X, you too can help save the planet!" "By contributing to cause Y, you'll enable us to save our precious planet!" And so it goes. Really? Will we be able to save the planet? Is the planet truly in danger? Is it going to crack apart and float away? Oh, you mean climate change is endangering the planet. Is it? Will the planet simply vanish with the rising of worldwide temperatures? What if I told you that 99% of all species that ever existed are EXTINCT? This happened before the advent of the automobile and probably most of it before the development of agriculture even. So what is it you are trying to save exactly? Save the hyperbole and do something real, grow your own food, know the plants and animals in your own ecosystem, of which you are a part, and start there. Plant native plants. Hunt and fish within limits. Buy less stuff. These are achievable goals rather than shelling out $5 for a rainforest you will never visit. Demand that we stop farming out our logging to countries where clear cutting makes good short-term business sense. Eat seasonally. This will save your neighborhood at least.

Shifting gears: It's Feb-roo-ary, dammit, not Feb-yew-ary, just like the name is Cost-co, not Cos-co. Clean your ears out once in a while, learn to enunciate. And please, please, put down that apostrophe, you're going to hurt yourself. Just because there's an S, doesn't mean you always add the apostrophe. Listen to your English teacher for once, will ya?

Comments

Scot said…
Hey, interesting points, but try some logical organization sometime, willya?
Anonymous said…
Feb-yew-ary is one of my pet peeves, too. That little r shouldn't be so easily missed.

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Worth Quoting

There are but three social arrangements which can replace Capitalism: Slavery, Socialism, and Property.                                                                                                 --Hilaire Belloc                                                                                                The Servile State

Good reads of 2009

I haven't made a list like this in a while, and I believe I discussed most of these on the blog as I finished them, but I thought I'd make a handy short-hand list for you and me. These are only in the order I read them and do not indicate any preference. The Open Door * Frederica Mathewes-Green The Children of Hurin * J.R.R. Tolkien The Omnivore's Dilemma * Michael Pollan Agrarianism and the Good Society: Land, Culture, Conflict, and Hope * Eric T. Freyfogle Wonderful Fool * Shusaku Endo Up the Rouge: Paddling Detroit's Hidden River * Joel Thurtell and Patricia Beck Johnny Cash and the Great American Contradiction: Christianity and the Battle for the Soul of a Nation * Rodney Clapp (I started the following in December, but I haven't finished them--so far they are excellent: Love and Hate in Jamestown * David A. Price and The Picture of Dorian Gray * Oscar Wilde) Try one of these--let me know.

Gaudete, dammit!

     I was not at my home church for mass this morning (not that I feel like I have a home church since becoming Popish), but nevertheless my mood was buoyant.  After all, how could it not be.  Here we were standing as brothers and sisters commemorating one of the top five greatest events in the history of reality: the Incarnation.  Yet looking out and listening to the participation of my Roman brothers and sisters, one would think that something less than mundane had happened.  Something BORING, even.  We gathered to remember the God of the universe condescending to take on human dress and all we can do is half-heartedly sing and mumble ancient creeds that people died for?  I remained buoyant despite the lack of mutual awe.      Annie Dillard said waggishly that when people go to church they ought to be wearing crash helmets.  Do they really know who or what they are summoning?  Something more terrible, merciful, and real than the Great and Powerful Oz for certain.  Lest my Protestan