Hey everybody, it’s Earth Day!! HAPPY EARTH DAY!!! The best thing about holidays is that the kids enjoy them so much. Take this 14 year-old interviewed in Tucson about what his teachers have shared about this joyous celebration:
Aquiles Alvarez, 14, said he worries that people aren’t taking their commitment to the Earth seriously enough. “If people drive a car, it causes pollution. If they use chemicals to clean their houses, they’re causing pollution. If they use a lawn mower or a gas-powered weed eater to clean their yard, they’re causing pollution.”
And how about this sixth grader’s Earth Day arts & crafts project:
“I think maybe we should stop polluting our water and maybe we should stop wasting water,” concluded Ricky Chavez, a sixth-grader at DeGrazia Elementary School who won a first-place prize among middle schoolers for his science project on groundwater contamination. Chavez and his best friend, Travis Windle, poured blue-tinted water and cooking oil into milk jugs filled with sand or gravel to see what would trickle through into the “groundwater.” His project showed 10 times more contamination in the gravel mixture than in the sandy mixture, but he wouldn’t have been willing to drink the end result of either of them.
Evidently, schools are now teaching the two ‘R’s and the two ‘A’s:ReadingwRitingArithmeticActivismWhatever happened to wax paper over leaves and rubbing them with crayons or ‘Give a Hoot, Don’t Pollute’? Who are these teachers? No wonder our kids are commiting suicide. Can our kids go one day in the public school system without feeling guilty for living in a wealthy nation or having opposable thumbs?Evidently, unlike Administrative Professionals Day next Wednesday (we could keep calling it Secretaries Day, but we changed the name instead of giving them a raise), you can’t just buy the Earth flowers and take her out to Chili’s for lunch and expect her to forget about all the terrible things you’ve done. C’mon, the Earth being a supposed living breathing entity surely knows we all have our stapler throwing moments now and again.No, Earth Day is not a celebration. The first event was observed by twenty million Americans in 1970, most of them students. The event, spearheaded by Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson and Harvard University student Denis (rhymes with Dennis) Hayes, involved teach-ins, inspired by the ones used during the Vietnam War, addressing decades of environmental pollution.I suppose we won’t have a Solar System Day until someone thinks we’re destroying it.In essence, isn’t that what we have these ‘Days’ for anyway? To try and get out of the doghouse with our secretaries, sweethearts, mothers, fathers, deities, et al and make ourselves feel better about being the bastards we are?I would normally observe Earth Day, but I’m too spent from Tax Day earlier this month. I sent a nice note but I don’t think it helped. I think they were expecting a check.