Got Lists? The True Meaning of Duh
So, I’m looking through my blog posts and considering changing the design when suddenly it hits me: Where the heck are the LISTS? You can’t have a blog without lists or it just isn’t a blog. We need TOP TEN!! So, I have to get the serious ones off my chest first. Later we’ll progress to inanity and absurdity.
This is a list of ideas that I think about often (I know, scary, you’ll see!) that really were supposed to be the topics for this blog. Hence the DUH part of the name. Without further ado, this list is the DUH list. As in, why haven’t we done these things? Cause — duh! — we so need to!
- Seek to reduce populations worldwide.
Why? Almost every major problem we face today, other than war which seems to be endemic to our species, has overpopulation as its root cause. Global warming, food distribution problems, resource wars (Iraq). I read recently that 100 years ago, we had only 1.65 billion people on the planet. Now only 100 years later, we have 6.7 billion. Eeeek! Here’s a groovy site
called World Mapper with an animation (kind of slow!) of a world map that changes shape to show proportionality for things like carbon emissions, prevalence of HIV, undernourished children, public health spending , etc. - Invent electric pod cars that don’t pollute.
I cannot believe that in a country that drives innovation as hard as ours does that we do not have a massive choice of electric vehicles powered by solar available to consumers. Where’s my pod vehicle people?! I want my pod to expand with more pods to hold my kids and my groceries. I want my pod to have a titanium frame so I can feel comfortable driving the cute little pod next to that neighbor of mine in the Cadillac ESCALADE
drinking her latte and talking on her cell phone. I want my pod to hook into some massive long distance rail system that even allows me to take my pod on trips. To Tahoe. To New York. Wherever, because then I’ll be able to unhook from the rail system and drive the rest of the way on roads. Guess who’s working on inventing a solar-powered electric car? Did you guess Toyota? Ford? Nope. It’s Dyson, the vacuum cleaner company. Cool. I can drive in into my house and clean my floors! - Poll citizens directly to influence federal spending.
Democracy my butt!! I don’t feel like I have any influence whatsoever on how the federal government spends that massive pot of money. Furthermore, I’m pissed at how they do spend it. (War? I don’t want to pay for killing people and bossing other countries around!) When was the last time my government asked me how I’d like my contribution to the federal budget spent? Oh, I’m supposed to pass that along to my local representative? Riiiiiigggghhhht. (See previous post.) That’s gonna make a huge difference cause my pockets are really deep. Oh wait, no they’re not. Dang. Can we have some secured polling here, people? Has no one heard of teh Internets?!
And that, in a nutshell, is the beginning of the duh list.
New Pages –> Books and Music!
Hey y’all! I’ve added two new sections to the blog: one page on music I’m listening to, and one page on books from my library. These pages don’t allow comments, which is really a bummer since I would love to hear what you are listening to and reading! If you feel like sharing, send me email and I’ll add it to the pages manually. K? K!
Am I Too Bought-In to Obama?
Okay, so it’s been a depressing past eight years. No explanation required there. But now I’m really feeling hopeful ~ just like Obama promised! I think I’m losing some of my cynicism. I’m really feeling like the next president, President Obama, will make substantive changes. There’s been plenty written, and documented, about the Bush administration’s fear-mongering and horrid bumbling in all areas including international affairs and environmental policy. Now I’m wondering if it’s possible for one man to turn all that around, to recreate the United States. All that PAC money, so tempting. All those lobbyists, so persistent, so overwhelming. All those expectations and demands that we follow tradition, even if the traditional way has been a failure. Will Obama really negotiate directly with all of those scary, threatening, axis of evil entities?
I hope he does. I hope we can get to a place where we realize that the world is full of people who want the same things we do. Not cheap oil. Not 4,000 square-foot houses, but peace and contentment. A life of spiritual fulfillment, enough food, healthy babies, and community. 
Security that these basics won’t disappear. The US has a split personality: half generous, freedom-loving big brother who helps nations reach their potential, and half overbearing, hypocritical, gluttonous beast. I’m hoping we can get back to good.
[In keeping with the Pope theme around here, I couldn't resist the fabulous POPE imitation Obama poster! haha!]
Funny Wiener Email Redux!
Amazing how quickly my bulk mail fills with these beauties! Lord knows, we’re all searching for perfection. For women it’s those few pounds around the hips. For men it appears to be wiener improvement. Which is about as easy to attain as losing those last few pounds. Read on for the key to immeasurable happiness!
Scott McClellan Can’t Hold a Candle to Some of My Bosses
Oh, Scott. You poor guy. You’ve poured your heart and soul (if you have one) into your book bemoaning your very high-paying, high-profile job that you performed without a squeak of protest for a bad, bad boss. It seems you’ve taken advantage of low poll numbers to make some coin. Fact is, you were part of the problem, weren’t you? You were part of the administration the got us into a PRE-EMPTIVE war in Iraq. You remained silent, and now you want to point out just how bad all ‘those’ people were? Well, I have news for you! You think George W. Bush was a bad boss? P-chah! You never had to work with DONUT BOY!! Or the 300-pound wiccan princess we called THE SNAVE!! These people were truly frightening!
Let’s start with Donut Boy, shall we? Did he pay well? Did he respect other people? Did he swallow his massive, bulging mouthful of donut before talking? Hmmm. No, no, and no. Did he make sexually explicit comments when he was in your office and no one could hear? WHILE EATING DONUTS?! Hmmm. I bet George did not. And to make matters worse, Donut Boy was arrogant and stinking rich. Because he’d been one of the founders of a very successful company and they’d paid him a lot of stock to leave. [Note the attractive man eating a donut in this photo does not resemble the real donut boy in any way. I've spared you!]
And Scott, you cannot imagine the joy and pleasure of working for the Snave. Snave was excessively concerned about commas and their proper usage. Snave was a large woman, which in itself is not a problem at all, but she was a large woman who groaned loudly, grew her armpit hair, and passed gas. In my cubicle. IN MY CUBICLE PEOPLE, AS IN — NO WHERE TO RUN! Did George Bush ever do this? Now that I think of it, maybe he did! But let’s get back to Snave… She had a boyfriend, a wiccan boyfriend who wore a wiccan cape, weighed at least 200 pounds less than her, and in all ways resembled the hobbit Pippin. Including the bare feet. Little furry bare feet padding down the industrial-carpeted hallway, hood up, searching for the giantess that was his woman. The worst part? I COULDN’T STOP MYSELF FROM IMAGINING THEM IN BED! Ew.
I’m no fan of George Bush, but Scott? Do you really think he was worth a book deal? I’ve got you beat by a mile!
[You know you're dying to tell us about your worst boss... Put it in the comments!]
Green Guilt and Eco Indulgences
Catholic people are famous for the guilt they suffer. According to Wikipedia, Catholic guilt is defined as
the feeling of remorse, self-doubt, or personal responsibility that results when a Catholic or Lapsed Catholic engages in sinful acts.
There’s an identical syndrome for all of us who try daily to live green sustainable lives: Green Guilt. Green guilt is the feeling of remorse, self-doubt, and personal responsibility that results when a human living in a suburb contemplates their participation in global warming. Sometimes panic ensures, as in, “Oh god. We have GOT to dump the SUV. And I didn’t notice the grapes I bought were grown in CHILE! Why didn’t I buy them at the farmer’s market?!?! Oh god. I’m such a failure! I can just FEEL my carbon footprint GROWING!”
And since all forms of guilt translate into a market, we have eco-indulgences for sale: carbon offsets. Do these indulgences really 
guarantee us a place in green heaven? I’m not so sure. We can continue to pursue our same lifestyle so long as we pay to help build wind power installations? Hmmm. I don’t know. I’m skeptical. Al Gore, the Savonarola of our day, lives in a mansion that purportedly consumes as much as twice the amount of electricity and gas in one month as an average American household consumes in a year. If Al Gore bought carbon offsets, would we forgive him for being such an egregious hypocrite?
In our everyday lives we have to reconcile driving the SUV packed full of kids, or groceries, or sometimes nothing but the driver, against our feeling that we don’t want to make things worse. We want to give our children and grandchildren a clean beautiful planet. We don’t want to buy any more plastic. (But even Trader Joes wraps the veggies in plastic!) Sometimes it feels impossible to gain any ground. It’s always summed up as a “lifestyle” choice, but this doesn’t begin to address the deep changes we’ll need to make to improve our relationship to nature. In the meantime, we’ll live with the many ironies of trying to be green, of not quite making it, and feeling those guilty pangs.
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