>>> Text-Heavy
By staff writer E.E. Southerby
Volume 78 – April 25, 2004
“Printed on 100% Recycled Webspace”
Now Playing: “Narrow Daylight” by Diana Krall
As I'm sure at least three of you are aware, this past Thursday was Earth Day. That's my favorite day of the year, next to Arbor Day, of course. The two have a lot in common in the sense of worshipping trees like some kind of crazy band of druids. I urge you all to celebrate Earth Day by driving around in oversized SUVs large enough to serve as landing strips for military aircraft. If anyone objects and says you're harming the environment respond by calling them a hippie, which is one step away from being a filthy communist. Then back over them with your big tires. Killing hippies is just a small fine now. That's the American way. Here's what happened:
-Remember when you were in elementary school and they forced you to observe Earth Day even though clearly nobody gave a damn? They'd make you paint these horrible looking posters using acrylic paints on non-recycled paper. And the posters always looked the same: This potato shaped blue-green blob in the center (the “Earth”) surrounded by flowers and a heartwarming message like “I (HEART) URTH”. And you thought only your school was “special.”
-By the time you get to high school, everybody's too busy doing drugs and having unprotected sex to care about Earth Day. That never stopped our principal from holding an Earth Day assembly though, in which all the students would be led into the auditorium to hear a presentation on litter. At first it seemed like a welcome diversion from math class, but by hour three of hearing the special guest (who always had a name like “Thumper”) rant about his electric car and how much fun it is living off the grid and never showering, trigonometry didn't seem so bad. I bet they just had those assemblies to keep kids in school. (“Don't drop out kids,” the implied message was. “Or you'll end up like Thumper here.”)
-Now I'm in college, and they're still pimping Earth Day like a 50 cent hooker on a 5 dollar night. Except that now they've got a new message: “Every Day is Earth Day.” This message is proudly displayed by hundreds of members of the school's Green Club, whom I'm sure just live for this time of year. I have two questions for you, Green Club: #1) If every day becomes Earth Day, won't Earth Day become obsolete? #2) If Earth Day becomes obsolete, your reason to exist will disappear as well. You'll have no reason to wake up in the morning. What will you do then? Maybe bathe?
-Quote of the Moment: My friend Mark, on why he doesn't celebrate Earth Day: “I'm sure the hippie Martians don't annoy all the regular Martians about Mars Day.” You'll have to forgive Mark. It's his first day without a helmet.
-Over the last 20 years, there's been a marked increase in the public's awareness of the dangers of global warming, clear-cutting, pollution and acid rain. At the same time, there's also been a noticeable increase in gang activity, date rape and Radiohead fans. Coincidence? Probably.
-Quote of the Moment #2: The other day some Greenpeace people knocked on my door to hand out flyers about saving the trees. I was going to point out the irony, you know about how those flyers are printed on dead trees and all, when they stopped me and said: “Yeah, we know. We've heard that one a hundred times already.” Like it was ME who was annoying THEM.
-I've got to hand it to the Green Party. Every time there's an election they're always out on their bicycles campaigning. They know they're going to lose. Never in the history of democracy has a member of the Green Party been elected for anything, but they just keep on trucking, proverbially speaking (I assume they don't own trucks.) I bet when members of the Green Party die they're right there in hell campaigning to be the next Satan. (“Listen, I know you want to torture these people in a lake of fire. But think about the damage this smoke is doing to the evil woodland creatures in the seventh circle ARGH MY FACE!”)
-Have you ever noticed when you buy a drink from McDonald's they print right on the cup the words “Please Don't Litter” (in Canada, they also print “Respectez L'Environnement, S'il-Vous-Plait” because French people like to make sentences longer). Has this ever stopped anyone from littering? Has there been, in recorded history, a time when someone threw a McDonald's Coke cup on the ground, and then noticed this lettering in 6pt Times New Roman and said “Hey! Maybe McDonald's is right!” and then picked up the cup to put in the nearest trash receptacle? If they really want people to stop throwing those cups on the ground they should write “Littering Causes Cancer.” Hey, it worked with cigarettes, didn't it?
-Off-Topic Corner Resurrected: Do you think shoeboxes would still be shaped the same way if schools stopped forcing kids to make dioramas out of them? Probably.
-I know I've wasted about 10 minutes of your life ranting about all the problems associated with Earth Day, so I just wanted to take this space to clarify my position: I think it's a travesty that people care so little about the environment that we have to rely on a few greasy pot-smoking lunatics to teach us not to waste our planet's precious resources. However, abandoning our cars and ceasing to use paper is hardly the answer. As with all things, a little moderation is important. The creation of Earth Day had the noble goal of trying to raise awareness of the problems facing the environment, but it accomplishes nothing but the breeding of further apathy in the vast majority of people. If you'd like to hear more about my vision of a new Earth Day, just send me an email. I'll be happy to deliver a few thousand pamphlets to your doorstep. And don't worry if you live thousands of miles away from me. I'll be happy to drive.