Happy Earth Day 2008! In the two months preceding this special occasion, Mother Nature has gifted St. Louis with floods (plural), earthquakes (plural), and a random snowstorm. Yea… happy earth day…
Following in the footsteps of sushi and Members Only jackets, being “green” is not only the trendy thing to do lately, it is the marketing hook that many companies are fishing with. I propose that instead of trying to prove just how green you are, we mark the day’s festivities by claiming our own environmental color coding system. The Department of Homeland Security notes the threat level of the country by color, and in honor of Earth Day I would like us to embrace our threat to the planet with our own color coding system. What color are you?
Green: You live in a home powered by solar panels and grow your own food. Since you are a vegan, there is no need to jump walk to the grocery store with your recycled canvas sack – everything you need is in your own backyard. You make your own candles from the bee’s wax you collect when you are harvesting honey, and you make your own clothing from the hemp plants growing in that hidden field you hike to. Your SUV smells of french-fries because you have converted it to run off restaurant waste for fuel. It took a lot of ingenuity and hard work to get where you are today, and you probably aren’t reading this because you don’t waste energy by fishing the internet when you could be fishing for dinner.
Blue: You are a low risk to the environment; however you are slightly vulnerable to the marketing ploys of European petroleum companies and other major corporations that only know how to reach your generation using an environmental platform. Not only do you recycle, you exclusively buy products made from recycled materials and sustainable resources. You don’t realize that the plants that process and recycle your biodegradable waste actually create a larger carbon footprint, so you you fill your plastic bin every week and place it on the curb for pick-up (by a separate trash truck that also runs on diesel fuel) or ride your moped to the closet recycling station with your waste in tow. You might buzz to the corner local grocers on your moped or bike to pick up all-natural hand soap to scrub up after working in your container garden where you grow your own tomato’s and spices.
Orange: You know there is something wrong about littering (besides the fine) so you stamp out your cigarettes and put the butts in the ashtray of your mid-sized car. You bring a ceramic coffee mug from your favoriate vacation spot to work to refill your coffee, and bring your own bag to the grocery store because you save ten cents off your grocery bill when you do. You eat organic foods because the people who shop at the organic grocery store are ten pounds or more lighter than those at the corner bag and save, so you figure there must be something to this “environmentalist stuff.” But, you still loathe the scent of patchouli, and drive to the chain coffee shop a few blocks away because you are too hung over from the bon-fire the night before to walk the two blocks.
Purple: There is no doubt, you hate the Earth. You have the largest model SUV on the market today, a pick-up truck that has been grandfathered for licensing without emissions testing, and you drive them around for fun on a Friday night (filling up twice during the evening). After you finish your fast food dinner and fill your super-sized drink with some vodka, you throw your trash out the window and keep cruising. When you moved into your new place, you were given a free recycling bin, but you put that in a trash bag and put it out to the curb the next day. You always ask for plastic bags at the check-out line, and you prefer to buy your groceries from a bulk retailer even though you live alone (throwing out something when it spoils is much easier than not having it at all). You aren’t sure what a carbon footprint is, but you know you will kick the butt of anyone who gets that on your floors made from a rare Chilean wood.
The world is such a diverse place, you might not fall into one particular category. I am like a crayon, a hyphenated color type, probably a blue-orange. What color are you on Earth Day 2008?
During a peacful, perhaps blissful, sleep this morning I was awakened by the rumbling that has everyone rumbling in St. Louis. A 5.2 magnitude earthquake that started all the way over by the Illinois and Indiana border made it’s way to my place and scared the living crap out of me just before five this morning. I sat upright in bed and freaked like I was in a horror film for about a minute before the shaking and banging and grumbling stopped. I buried my head in the covers and hoped the magical infrared beam of the remote could still power the television on even through a thick layer of down and microfiber (which it did).
Mind you, I once had dreamed of living in San Fransisco. After this morning, this dream has revealed it’s self as a latent worst fear. The earthquake has uncovered irreversible (latent until now) damage that I evidently incurred in fourth grade. Some guy predicted that St. Louis was going to be swallowed up between techtonic plates, does anyone remember that? For my fourth grade self, this was terrifying and completely apocolyptic. We had earthquake drills (they made sure to point out that we needed to cover our spinal cord!), lessons about quakes and aftershocks (did you know that the initial quake starts the damage and the aftershocks often cause more?), and I pretty am sure there was some disaster preparation talk all around town that somehow seeped in (I am pretty sure because I remember thinking of building what could be considered a fallout shelter).
No more San Fran for me. I woke up and within moments realized that earthquakes are my biggest fear. Some people are afraid of flying - I am afraid of earthquakes. You are taking a calculated risk when stepping on a plane, how the hell are you supposed to know when the earth is going to start moving your shit around? Anyhow, my dog is now on probation for not offering warning signs like a good animal in nature evidently is supposed to, and I was relegated to running around like I was still afraid of the dark until the sun came out this morning so the Earth is also on probation. I am going to buy stock in styrofoam on Earth Day if it breaks this probation and send another aftershock my way (we had an afterschock of 4.5 shortly after 10 a.m. which sent me running from my deak with tears welling in my eyes).
A pretty cool aftershock is being discussed on the St Louis Bloggers Guild site, where they are reporting that the ‘quake news was broken by local bloggers on Twitter!
**Update: With all of the earthquake trauma I failed to realize that today marks the News-Bitch’s one year anniversary. Any suggestions for a celebratory post?**
Today is Reader Appreciation Day! I was starting to get frustrated because everyone has a day that comes complete with a greeting card and coffee mugs… but so far I have not qualified for said greetings nor said mugs. It is bad enough that I have never won a sweepstakes or contest, but not having a special holiday and all of the ”Happy (fill in the blank) Day” garb…
So when I heard that The Other Mother had instigated a Reader Appreciation Day complete with a nice little graphic, I thought this might be the shot in the arm that “Yuppie/Techy-sans-spawn” types like me need. Who needs a drug-store bought singing card or a pile of fruit designed to look like flowers? Not me? I am happy with a wink and a smile… and I hope you, dear internet, will also find joy in this.
In honor of RAD 2008 I would like to share with you the following awards:
Most Likely to Comment
Annie – with sixty-seven comments I can always count on Annie to liven up a conversation! Thanks for challenging me and other readers and making us look at another side of the issue!
Reader Most Likely to Get All Worked Up
Liz – there have been many occasions when Liz has jumped into the fray and shouted from the top of the bell tower. My favorite comment (or the one that most frightened me?) can be found here.
Favorite Comment
Warren -his comment was submitted via email, but I thought it was so insightful that I asked permission to publish it on the site, couldn’t keep something this good to my self! Plus – I love the idea that some people might think I am a “vampy thing with a cigarette hanging out of [my] mouth.” That just seems so… artistic and edgy.
I would also like to thank the local guys and gals that regularly stop over here, share some beers with me on occasion, and rabble-rouse like no other group of bloggers can.
You guys have left more than just a piece of mind, you are my friends who live in my computer. If I was stronger, I would carry my computer around with me so I could share a nice stroll in the park with you and a few slices of pizza. Mmmm… pizza. You, dear internet, are like a slice of thin crust with black olives… my favoritest!
***Note: this post was supposed to go up Wednesday the 16th of April – however a plug in had hosed my site for 3 days, so it was not posted until Friday the 18th of April*** Special Thanks to Patrick for figuring out the problem and fixing it for me and my technically inept self****
It may be an effect of the crazy weather (seventy and sunny on Thursday then snow on Saturday) that prompts St. Louisans to have such a close relationship to their computer screens, or it might be that the city is lucky to be home for a lot of vocal, independent thinkers. Either way, the result is that an increasingly active blog scene is in the midst of it’s next evolution in our city.
The St. Louis Bloggers Guild is the first organization of it’s kind. And why not? There are guilds to protect and advance the skills of every kind of writer, and thanks to an ambitious and dedicated group of bloggers in ”The Lou,” blogging will no longer be the exception.
There are a different set of standards, tools, and readers in the blogging community and the writers not only regard their art differently but should also expect different guidance and protections when organizing. You can read more about the goals, organizers, and offer your support by visiting the site St Louis Bloggers Guild.
The Washington Post reports that the Supreme Court will be evaluating if child rapists can recieve the death penalty. Criminals convicted of raping an adult are not eligable for the death penalty.
…on Wednesday, the cout will consider wether a person who rapes a child is different.
Convicted child rapists are often times isolated from the rest of the prison population because they are at risk of being killed by other inmates. Has that ever bothered you? What are your thoughts on the death penalty? What types of crimes, if any, are punishable by death – and do you think this is one of them? As stated in the article…
…some child advocacy experts say the unintended consequences of the death penalty miht be a decline in the reporting of sexual assualts by family members, or even an incentive for the rapists to kill the victim.
Does this prediction seem accurate in your opinion? Who is being spared if the court decides against such a penalty? Comments are open, but remember – be respectful.
