i take no responsbility for these words, except for writing them...
Take your tv set to an appropriate elevation and let it experience the thrill of gravitational attraction. The sound of splintering tube, the sparks of sputtering transitors, the smell of smoldering plastic, the wailing of lost Nielson ratings.... Only when you turn off the box will your mind turn on. Break away from the numbing grey-blue light. It stunts you.
A manifesto for human rights aimed at the warthogs that rule the airlines.
I drive fast not for machismo but because I would rather get where I am going, and get out of the damned car. This earth has too many sun blazed canyons, aspen clothed mountains, bouncing trout streams, cold beers, and beautiful women, to waste it sitting inside Henry Ford's box. The only car I will go slow in is my hearse.
At this moment somewhere in this grand ole country a gross contest is taking place. The gathered crowd stomps and cheers as their champions attempt to gorge as much of some sort of food-substance, be it hotdogs, pizza, pie, anchovies, within a fixed sliver of time. Humans must be the only species on this planet that will ingest more than is necessary for survival. And worse, take pleasure in the act.
It is this same carnival atmosphere that surrounds the perverse consumption of the very land upon which we live. Hordes of dung beetles are ingesting the landscape, like a turbocharged hyperactive PackMan. On amphetamines. Like a mob of termites in a lumber yard. The best description was provided when edward abbey eloquated the oft-quoten "Growth for the sake of growth is the idealogy of a cancer cell." As clear as these simple words sound, we not only tolerate the spread of cancer, we not only encourage it, we stand around and clap and cheer on our roving cancerous spread.
The news that our city had moved up a notch in the population rankings was greeted by unanimous praise. "Development!" "Growth!" "Progress!" "Prosperity!"
The terminology is convoluted. Is the land in such dis-repair, duress, that it must be "developed" and "improved"? And we all hail the mighty "consumer" which drives all that we call modern society. The word derives from the root sumere, or "to take up" with the primary definition "to destroy or expend by use." The disease of consumption is known in pathology as a disease that includes a progressive wasting of the body.
Disney Desert? Clearcut the natural vegetation and replace it with a sterile microset of the real desert. Squeezed in to the median strip of a 5 lane speedway. Amidst a sea of raked pink crushed gravel. Teddy bear chollo are not as Landscaping-Correct as Saguro and Palo Verde. At the entrance to many Master Planned Communities, we should hang one of those signs one finds in a hotel room bathroom: "Sanitized For Your Protection". Of course scorpions, coyotes, sage brush, snakes are not welcome either.
Despite our great technological advances we have not learned squat about living in harmony with our surroundings. Rather we continualy strive only to conquer it.
Cancer grows on. Keep stomping and cheering for that malignant home team.