Two interesting pieces about the Environmental Movement - is it a post-Enlightenment Pagan Religion, or is it fact-based? And whose "facts"? You will find no-one more conservation-minded than the Bird Dog, but when gummint gets involved, it becomes more about image and symbol than substance - to get our gullible votes, of course. Gummint and science don't mix - and when they do, politics wins. Consider bottle-recycling - what a joke! - cheap feeling of false virtue, but useless. The Bird Dog happens to believe that the real conservation issue in the US is urban/suburban sprawl, but how do you balance people's desires and freedom with land-protection, other than by buying the land up? Easier just to bitch about oil in Alaska - again, cheap and easy feeling of virtue, but meaningless. And of course it is far away ! (Good conservation news - we saw three Bald Eagles yesterday next to the Bear Mountain Bridge. Hudson Highlands - cool. Does anyone remember Dylan's "Talkin' Bear Mountain Picnic Blues"? Quite humorous.)
Well, the Bird Dog was on top of this story too - is this a story about envy and class-warfare, or a story about animal lovers? If about animal lovers, they had better be vegetarians, or they have no credibility with me. But, finally, a cause for which Civil Disobedience makes sense ( if only Gandhi could see this - he'd have a good laugh):
Wonderful piece by Michael Dirda on Love - the scribblers really went all-out for Valentine's Day this year - see previous recent posts on Love - my theory is that these dudes use their columns as mass-mailing Valentine Cards to all of their cute girlfriends - using erudition as seduction. Been there.
