It's spring again...Oh Yeah?
Bensblurb #541 4/22/10
It’s spring again, oh yeah?
Ah yes, it’s so good to see spring again. My aging azaleas are again beautiful and everywhere the saps are rising.
So it’s probably just natural that aggravations new and old pop out of the fertile soil of Virginia’s fruitful environment, right on schedule. Perhaps our genes also make us seasonally restless. Love springs eternal, etc., especially about now. And sometimes things around us crop up to confound our customary notions of how things should be.
For instance, lots of folks who think we truly must do something to deter the world’s climate from changing further must have been unhappy to hear about that giant volcano's eruption in Iceland the other day, just in time to becloud Earch Day celebrations. Proves that nature indeed can be perverse despite us mere mortals. And how about the recent earthquakes? Watch out, California. You may sink physically as well as financially.
One effect of Iceland’s eruption, some say, is that it portends an even bigger one blowing nearby and perhaps some very cold winters in our future. Don’t ask me why. Scientists can maybe explain it. But, like the plans to cool the climate, that’s not the same thing as doing something about it.
True, the Environmental Protection Agency does want by edict to limit carbon dioxide production--a fool’s errand, I’d say, since everyone belches it with every breath. (A coming belch next week: another Senate climate bill.)
Such notions make a lot of people antsy, even crabby. They think it’s not just nature, but everyone’s fault, even us here in Stafford County, including mankind universally. (Note: “mankind” is a traditional term and doesn’t imply sexism by this aging writer.)
So the hotbreaths go around claiming for instance that we must stop using plastic bags, or else. And eat foods grown only in manure. And put up windmills and solar panels. Whatever floats your boat, friends, have at it with gusto. It’s that time of year.
I would venture the guess, though, that someday my heirs will look back on today’s huge windmills and laugh at the folly, just as we do now over the backyard bomb shelters of fond memory.
Nevertheless, there was a lot of gusto recently at Stafford’s Courthouse when grass-roots sentiments blossomed. The Tea Party there attracted lots of friendly types whose only gripe was the federal government. It’s entirely too big and powerful. And we’re going to do something about it...
I sympathize with those feelings. But in some ways it’s like trying to do something about carbon dioxide. But in this case we’re dealing with another kind of danger equally toxic--lawyers.
Don’t get me started down that path. But as a recent e-mailing put it: DON'T VOTE FOR LAWYERS!
It went on: “Could this be the reason we don't see tort reform in the health care bill?...Perhaps it’s why so many physicians are conservatives or Republicans...Every Democrat presidential nominee since 1984 went to law school...Who was the last Republican president who was a lawyer? Gerald Ford...The United States has 5% of the world's population and 66% of the world's lawyers...then you realize who is responsible for our medical and product costs being so high.”
...And why global warming remains such a hot topic.
It’s spring again, oh yeah?
Ah yes, it’s so good to see spring again. My aging azaleas are again beautiful and everywhere the saps are rising.
So it’s probably just natural that aggravations new and old pop out of the fertile soil of Virginia’s fruitful environment, right on schedule. Perhaps our genes also make us seasonally restless. Love springs eternal, etc., especially about now. And sometimes things around us crop up to confound our customary notions of how things should be.
For instance, lots of folks who think we truly must do something to deter the world’s climate from changing further must have been unhappy to hear about that giant volcano's eruption in Iceland the other day, just in time to becloud Earch Day celebrations. Proves that nature indeed can be perverse despite us mere mortals. And how about the recent earthquakes? Watch out, California. You may sink physically as well as financially.
One effect of Iceland’s eruption, some say, is that it portends an even bigger one blowing nearby and perhaps some very cold winters in our future. Don’t ask me why. Scientists can maybe explain it. But, like the plans to cool the climate, that’s not the same thing as doing something about it.
True, the Environmental Protection Agency does want by edict to limit carbon dioxide production--a fool’s errand, I’d say, since everyone belches it with every breath. (A coming belch next week: another Senate climate bill.)
Such notions make a lot of people antsy, even crabby. They think it’s not just nature, but everyone’s fault, even us here in Stafford County, including mankind universally. (Note: “mankind” is a traditional term and doesn’t imply sexism by this aging writer.)
So the hotbreaths go around claiming for instance that we must stop using plastic bags, or else. And eat foods grown only in manure. And put up windmills and solar panels. Whatever floats your boat, friends, have at it with gusto. It’s that time of year.
I would venture the guess, though, that someday my heirs will look back on today’s huge windmills and laugh at the folly, just as we do now over the backyard bomb shelters of fond memory.
Nevertheless, there was a lot of gusto recently at Stafford’s Courthouse when grass-roots sentiments blossomed. The Tea Party there attracted lots of friendly types whose only gripe was the federal government. It’s entirely too big and powerful. And we’re going to do something about it...
I sympathize with those feelings. But in some ways it’s like trying to do something about carbon dioxide. But in this case we’re dealing with another kind of danger equally toxic--lawyers.
Don’t get me started down that path. But as a recent e-mailing put it: DON'T VOTE FOR LAWYERS!
It went on: “Could this be the reason we don't see tort reform in the health care bill?...Perhaps it’s why so many physicians are conservatives or Republicans...Every Democrat presidential nominee since 1984 went to law school...Who was the last Republican president who was a lawyer? Gerald Ford...The United States has 5% of the world's population and 66% of the world's lawyers...then you realize who is responsible for our medical and product costs being so high.”
...And why global warming remains such a hot topic.
posted by Ben Blankenship at
10:13 AM
