Rethink the Environment, Now

Anyone who's been following news on the climate conference in Copenhagen and actually believes that this is where it's gotta happen must surely be feeling more than a twinge of despair by now. For one, politics forbids the rich countries from coming out and admitting that they do not, in fact, give a fuck about a bunch of poverty-stricken undeveloped nations that are just, let's face it, impeding the modern lifestyle.

Honestly, I don't think that any amount of climate conferences, belligerent and tense or otherwise, will make a significant policy difference. Especially since the U.S. is so large and spread out, no single national decision can cover the unique circumstances of every climate and state economy, so we're already screwed there.

More importantly, though, is the way we use preexisting concepts to deal with global warming and environmentalism and all that jazz.

So, if you've been doing your duty and buying all sorts of environmentally friendly products, you've probably seen by now that a big thing they love to mention is the use of vegetable based dyes. And they're even good at making it sound progressive, tossing in terms like 'footprint' and 'carbon'! But about the only thing more primitive than vegetable dye is insect dye. What the hell did you think people did before factories?

Basically, "progress" needs to go to hell. We need to give up on the notion that the more labs we get trying to solve a problem, the better it is. Instead, we should turn to preextisting solutions and use modern science to adapt them into more large-scale solutions. Why are composting, or reusing, or reducing such modern words? Because most people don't bother looking to the past for answers.

Also, notice that the 'balance of power' between China and the U.S. has come up a few times in the talks--although unfortunately information is limited--well, they're not our military or Cold War relic equals, what are they then? Economic equals.

Instead of trying to turn this into a purely state-oriented problem, countries should turn more of the responsibility onto the polluters. The face of the future is "corporate," and if we don't make them accountable now, what are we going to do later when we're so dependent that we cannot protest anything they decide?

Abstinence

Alrighty, who here remembers their middle school sex ed class?

I actually had it twice, in both sixth and seventh grade. The former has the one funny story before tenth grade from any of this, and yeah it's good enough that I'll save it for in-person times.

But at neither time was abstinence on the curriculum. At the time it was kind of a 'no shit' deal...if you don't have sex, you don't get STDs or babies! Nooooo shit!

So I'm not actually against teaching it to kids, in part because I'm convinced that they have the same cap on total IQ points as my generation, and that the greater amount of them means they're all stupider. Stupid enough to not say no before eighteen, even (okay, sex at sixteen, maybe, but I'm going by biology, which dictates that giving birth is unsafe before eighteen).

However....

The people who insist on abstinence education, being a bunch of asshats, have turned into a massive right-wing Christian farce.

1. My sister brought this assignment home that basically translated to a thinly veiled threat. "If you aren't abstinent, you won't have a future!" No, seriously. She was told to put her life goals down, and then describe how being abstinent would help her achieve them. Guess what? Having sex does not, in fact, mean you're going to fail college, so all she could put down for all of them was that she'd have the time for it! The implication being, well, that you'd be too busy constantly fucking too get anything done.

2. They also said that it was okay to have sex after marriage. What if you're gay? And what about divorces? Also, other implication: a child born out of wedlock is a miiiiistake!

3. They haven't learned about sex yet. Basically, a classroom full of the same tweenies who think Disney is awesome and maybe Twilight too is being preconditioned to see sex as bad, or shameful, or gods know what else, before even finding out how, um, it actually works.


So yeah. Thanks, assholes, for making abstinence into your little Christian moral playhouse. Why can't it be taught as an alternative to an insatiable, distracting drive that fucks with your emotions? I mean, how many people have had sex early and then regretted it because it didn't mean they were now in love, but didn't realize that there's kind of a massive gulf between wanting to hump and wanting to live with?

Okay I guess that sounds a little bitter about sex, but honestly, how else can you make abstinence sound like a viable option at all? Damn that pleasure center (I bet if Southern Baptists were allowed to go near science, they'd work on some way to eliminate it..."We," anyone?, so thank God for that).



Totally unrelated: they need to invent the term 'dick flick,' so that "The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day" can be in a category besides totally badass. (No seriously it was fucking awesome, if you just want to see them shoot things and be hilarious assholes for most of it, and are not all hung up on feeeeeeeelings.)

Gay Rights "Poster"

Yes, the Christian church is, in fact, ass-raping the state in this picture. It's clean because I originally wanted to use this idea for a demonstration, and I'd rather not have to make it censored.

But seriously, it really bothers me that a basic civil right (the right to sharing tax benefits and becoming closest kin with someone you love) has to be voted into law, and that the only reason for this is that churches insist it's not okay.

Feel free to reproduce--it's why I bothered with the website in the bottom.