Posts Tagged ‘Opinion’
Kilroy Says… the Earth Fairy left a tree under my pillow!

I planted a tree yesterday. In the cold wind and drizzling rain. Not because I wanted to. Because I had to.

I didn’t have to do it because I believe all this Earth Day nonsense. Nope, my kid brought the tree home from school. So nice of them to give those out during the week, rather than a Friday before the weekend when people have the time for such things.

So there I was, in the cold and rain, getting mud on my boots, picking a spot in our yard to plant our root-balled stick. My daughter had to watch from a window of the house, because it was just too cold and rainy for me to let her tromp around in the mud also.

The whole experience echoes my thoughts on Earth Day quite nicely.

Earth Day is a farce.

Not the idea behind it, the way people "celebrate" it.

Earth Day is supposed to be a day to "inspire awareness and appreciation for the Earth’s environment." That appreciation bit is probably what inspires folks to try and make the Earth a better place. But like most things the left-leaning, tree-hugging, hippy crowd does, they’ve got it all messed up.

Pollution is probably the worst thing affecting the Earth’s environment today. It’s so bad that as Survivorman Les Stroud commented on an episode of his wonderful show, there’s almost nowhere left on the planet that you can’t find man’s garbage. I’m not harping about this because I believe in (manmade) Global Warming. I don’t like seeing garbage. I don’t like stepping in it, I don’t like having to walk around it.

Call me crazy, but when I go outside, I want to breathe fresh air, and see cleanliness. After all, weather is the Earth’s mechanism for cleaning itself.

But what do the hippies do on Earth Day? They plant trees. That’d be great if you could walk to the store to get those trees. But most people drive. They take an extra trip, belching out carbon monoxide that pollutes the air, so they can put a stick in the ground that won’t do much to contribute to fresh air for years.

If we really wanted to cut back on pollution in appreciation for the Earth, we’d all take the day off and sleep in. No school buses taking kids to school. No cars jammed on the expressway shuttling people to busy offices where they consume electricity that has to be generated primarily from coal-burning power plants. No television broadcasts, save for the news, thereby encouraging people to conserve electricity.

We could go a step further. We could skip baths, cutting back on the water that has to be treated from our sewers. We could all sleep in, reducing our own activities, thereby triggering a whole chain reaction of reductions in consumption and pollution.

But what would really help?

We could eat all the cows.

Cows are filthy animals. They fart out voluminous amounts of methane that the Global Warming Melting Cult would have us believe is responsible for a rise in world temperatures. If that were true, we would need to cut back on the cows. Now.

The problem is, cows aren’t going to get slaughtered if there’s no call for their meat. They’ll just be allowed to roam around, grazing, pooping and farting 'till their heart’s content. Getting plump and juicy.

If we really wanted to save the Earth, we’d all eat as much beef as possible on Earth Day. It’d be a Beeforama. Eggs and Steak for breakfast. Burgers for lunch. Steaks for dinner. This massive jump in beef consumption would clean out the supermarkets. The call would go out for replacement meat. More stinky cows would meet their end. In the slaughterhouse.

I know what some of you will say- that I’m creating pollution by cooking those cows. That my carbon footprint will grow to Sasquatchian proportions as I enjoy the savory flavor of some good barbecue. Will it? What about the fact I won’t be going anywhere but outback to the grill and picnic table? No carbon monoxide exhaust from the car. No electricity being used on air conditioning, lights, or TV. Just a day-long picnic of cheeseburgery goodness in the clean air of my backyard.

You want to save the Earth today? Fire up the charcoal grill and start making some burger and steaks. Invite over all your vegetarian friends and tell them it’s time they stopped shirking their duty and helped the planet. It’s time we take back our world from the bloated bovine hoard!

One bite at a time.

Editor's Note: You can read more pithy commentary on Earth Day by clicking here.

 
Musings From The Old Man: Part 1

Let’s start by establishing a few points of reference. I am a 64 year old white guy. I am a conservative republican from the Goldwater era. I am an unapologetic Vietnam Marine vet. I am the flag-waving, card-carrying front of the “baby-boom” parade. I am a now-focused, reality-based, career adult educator from the world of financial services. Do you have the picture? So let’s talk some politics!

It’s all about the money – always has been, always will be. But before we get to that, we have some current events to deal with. Can we just get over the election of Barack Obama? I didn’t vote for him either, and yes, he has the most liberal voting record in the senate, but he is not the anti-Christ. The Republic I have fought for and love will not collapse because he and the chief justice stumbled through the presidential oath together. He is young, smart, well-educated, internet-savvy, and a first-rate public speaker, and he’ll need every one of those skills – and then some – to get through the next 4 years.

Was the inauguration, with all the solemn pandering of the liberal press (and the near- deification by the entertainment and civil rights communities) just a whole lot over the top? Sure it was, but let ‘em have their day – they won it. And just maybe, when the confetti is all swept up, we can finally lay to rest all the slobbering, self-flagellation of quotas, tokens and affirmative action, once and for all. After they get done gushing, “I never thought I’d see the day…” black folks will have to quickly wake up to the reality that a black man has been elected president, so it’s about time for them to quit taking handouts while despising the hand that feeds. They need to just get off their collective backsides, get out the door, get an education, and scrap for a job just like the rest of us.

If you need an image to put yesterday's events into perspective (so you don’t stomp the new discount wide-screen Christmas gift to death), just visualize the inauguration as a “re-make” of Mel Brooks’ classic movie, “Blazing Saddles,” with Barack in Cleavon Little’s role, as he rides into Rock Ridge to assume the duties as the new, black sheriff. Remember the line, as he strides up to the podium? “Let me just whip this out!” There, now doesn’t a good laugh make you feel better? More to follow from the Old Man…

(Editor's note: you can find part two of this series here).