It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Monday, April 18th and, as is my usual routine on the drive into work each morning,I was flipping back and forth between The Bear and Chez. I dislike both stations and personally think both are symptomatic of the modern world\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s aspirations to mediocrity\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t help but think of, and mourn along with, Tom Petty\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Last DJ\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. Unfortunately, they are my only two real choices\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6unless I want to listen to AM talk radio, which wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be such a bad thing, I suppose. But I digress!<\/p>\n
I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve noticed that the Doc and Woody show have a special grudge against all things environmental. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve heard many slurs against us \u00e2\u20ac\u0153tree-huggers\u00e2\u20ac\u009d from these mopes but, due to my failing memory, I can only quote this week\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s shot at us with any degree of accuracy. I think it went something like, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6Now, I would never want to be considered one of those environmentalists\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in a tone that places environmentalists somewhere between pond scum and Brussels sprouts. Now, I tend to pick my battles carefully, but slagging environmentalists is a good start to getting a rise out of me. However, I shrug this one off, as I so often do. I am neither a rocker of boats nor a pisser in of cornflakes.<\/p>\n
So, fast forward to Friday, April 22nd \u00e2\u20ac\u201c its Earth Day; the day we celebrate this big blue marble that has nurtured and protected life for several hundred million years; and at roughly 4.5 billion years old she wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t doing too bad for a middle-aged, cosmic spheroid. That is until we, in all our cancerous glory, hauled our asses outta the primordial goo and screwed everything up. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a day when the wolf holds out the olive branch to the rabbit\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6and really means it. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s even a day when companies like Dow Chemicals and DuPont stop pumping staggering volumes of some of the most virulent wastes known to man into our earth, air and water\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6Ok, perhaps that one was just wishful thinking. But you get my point\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6if you don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t I can go on ad nauseam<\/em> if you want.<\/p>\n What was I saying? OH YA!<\/p>\n So, today I was listening to The Bear and Stuntman Stu announces that in celebration of Earthday (his words, not mine), they are arranging to have a bunch of Monster Trucks, one powered by a jet engine, come down to the station and rev their engines in an orgy of anti-Earthdayism.<\/p>\n I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m stunned, and not just the usual amount either. Really<\/em> stunned. How can people with such blatant malice snub their noses at all those socially and environmentally responsible people out there who care whether or not the world that sustains us sickens and dies? Where does this apathy or antipathy come from? Do these people like living in a killing-jar environment? Now, I have to admit here and now that I was only half listening to Stu \u00e2\u20ac\u201c there is, afterall, only so much banality intermixed with tediously repetitive attempts at humor I can take. Maybe he was joking. Regardless, the sentiment was there.<\/p>\n Now, you may be asking yourself, what do I care what a few people who are barely above the criteria for working at Burger King\u00c2\u00ae on a government sponsored work placement program for those with special needs are saying? My concern is this: no matter how irresponsible and mentally challenged the views of these particular public personalities are, no matter how flippant or unintentional, people are still listening. And of those people who listen many are bandwagon jumpers who don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t do any thinking for themselves either through laziness or naivety. These people will somehow equate the opinions of those DJ\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s with popular opinion, thus degrading the desperate situation our environment is in today. I can hardly blame some people for being na\u00c3\u00afve; I mean we all are sometimes, right? And, well, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m hardly one to hurl stones about laziness as those who know me will attest.<\/p>\n I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know what to do about this. I mean there isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t really anything, is there? I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even know why I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m writing this other than to vent. I guess people, public personalities or otherwise, will always speak outta their asses to varying degrees of regularity. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a fact of life, I suppose. I think basically it just chaps my ass when ignorance is overwritten with more ignorance in the guise of popular opinion or knowledge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Monday, April 18th and, as is my usual routine on the drive into work each morning,I was flipping back and forth between The Bear and Chez. I dislike both stations and personally think both are symptomatic of the modern … Continue reading