Aleksandra the Great’s Exploits

I caught the last half of The Colbert Report last night, and he had on the congressman from Georgia’s eighth district (Lynn Westmoreland, I believe). One of the first things he said was that the eighth was “a good conservative district” and “a good family district.” Okay, so I was already prepared for some humorous responses to Stephen’s questions. But when Stephen asked what could be cut to help ease the deficit and the congressman said, in either complete seriousness or it was the best acting I’ve ever seen, the department of education, I was shocked. Contrast that to lovely Dennis Kucinich, who sadly will probably never get most of his ideas passed let alone become president, who supports tuition-free higher education for kids in state schools. Can you even imagine free college? Wow.

And just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, Stephen brought up the congressman’s efforts to have the Ten Commandments put up in the House building and in the Senate. Stephen asked if he could think of any better place than a public building to put up the Ten Commandments (even my little brother thought immediately of a church), but the congressman said no, they were good things for people to see. And yet as important as they are to him, the congressman only managed to name three. As much as I’ve tried to forget my Christian upbringing, I still remember more than that: don’t take the lord’s name in vain, have no other gods, keep the sabbath holy, honor parents, don’t covent neighbor’s wife (and this excludes the three he named: don’t steal, don’t kill, don’t lie—I guess that counts as not bearing false witness).

I think I heard more people laugh during this “Better Know a District” than I have for almost anything else on The Colbert Report. I kind of hope that that congressman and his family weren’t watching last night.

Inspired, perhaps, by An Inconvenient Truth (and because I’m supposed to be an environmentalist) to become more knowledgeable about environmental issues, I started scanning the articles on truthout’s environmental page. I came across this article about the ads released prior to the “alarmist” film assuring people that green house gases are good.

Against backdrops of a park, a beach and a forest, one ad celebrates the benefits of greenhouse gas-producing fuels.

“The fuels that produce CO2 (carbon dioxide) have freed us from a world of back-breaking labor, lighting up our lives, allowing us to create and move the things we need, the people we love,” the ad runs. “Now some politicians want to label carbon dioxide a pollutant. Imagine if they succeed - what would our lives be like then?”

I almost want to cry. No sensible person is trying to say that we should give up electriciy and return to walking around dark houses with candle lanterns and riding horses to the next farm to pick up some milk in the morning. We can have the same energy we have from the fuels that produce CO2 (nice way to avoid calling them greenhouse gases, because even that name sounds scary) without damaging the environment. Solar power seems an excellent choice considering that, according to another article, the world’s deserts are gradually becoming inhospitable. If people can’t live there, we might as well use the space to collect solar energy.

But I’m still far from knowing as much as I would need to to make an intelligent post. I only wanted to point out those ads, since they weren’t aired in the Philadelphia region. As much as I don’t want to think about it, I’m sure some people believed the ads and think that there are no alternate sources of power to rely on if we can’t use fossil fuels.

I really haven’t forgotten about this blog. Every now and then I feel bad for not updating in so long. The only problem is that there is absolutely nothing worth mentioning on a blog. (While the fact that Carli has abandoned us for the summer is important, I would imagine that anyone who would really care already knows.) What I’ve been doing since I got home, then, includes:

1. Sleeping either far too much or too little, depending on the night, just to keep my sleep-wake schedule on its toes.
2. Seeing people on occasion.
3. Not getting a job yet because I haven’t heard about financial information from Bryn Mawr and I have no experience.
4. Reading Naruto manga/awaiting the release and translation of chapter 310.
5. Getting my green belt, which is pretty exciting. Now I get to learn kata with kicks in them. On the other hand, though, I probably have to spar.
6. Attempting to learn the kanji taught to Japanese school children.
7. Playing FFVII with my little brother.

On the productive side, my room is almost clean. Also, I have been applying to jobs; I’d just much rather work at a bookstore, for example, than at a bank.