We're surrounded, daily, by entreaties to become more "green". "Save the environment" is the clarion call by the experts on television, newspapers, magazines, lectures, and the web. Recycling efforts are all the rage. I'm doing my part, albeit bit-by-bit, to become more environmentally educated. So why, I foolishly ask, do I watch my Waste Management employee, weekly, dump my carefully sorted recyclables into one giant hole in his big, green truck. Can you look me in the eye and tell me that, somewhere down the line, people or machines actually sort my paper/cardboard from the glass/aluminum/plastic 1's and 2's?
Let me move to the ecologically friendly light bulbs. Expensive, to be sure. Can the people who really need to save the money afford to buy these bulbs? And, why, can't someone design them in a shape/style that has less twists and turns. For people with allergies, these dust traps are just that. They are impossible to remove the dust particles from and, they last so long that the dust can collect for years.
Next, let me move to the national political and economic scenes. This "bailout" package is a farce. With little regulation as to how a corporation can spend bailout dollars, the environment will be ripe for more Merrill Lynch boondoggles and taxpayer ripoffs. The former chairman of ML should be, at the very least, ashamed and personally mortified at his own actions.
The legislative confirmation of Timothy Geithner to be our Secretary of the Treasury should be an embarrassment to President Obama and every senator and congressman who voted for Geithner's confirmation. I agree with Connan O'brien's joke that with two of President Obama's nominees to cabinet positions bowing out this week because of unpaid taxes or penalties, the lesson to our young people is this: You had better pay your taxes, because if you don't, the highest job you can ever hope to hold to is Secretary of the United States Treasury.
These things make no sense to me. Do they to you?
Ancora imparo
