This week I read a breathless article in the newspaper recounting a survey that shows more and more Americans are having doubts about global warming. The writer was clearly upset about the survey and suggested two possible causes for this disastrous swing in public opinion: 1) Republicans have gotten very good at spreading denialist propaganda, and 2) people are too worried about the economy to pay attention to the global-warming activists.
I think there’s another possible explanation. I’d even call it the likely explanation: people have actually stepped outside and noticed it’s friggin’ cold out there. Buried waaaaay deep in last week’s Washington Post was this little gem:
Something happened in Washington on Friday that had not occurred in 138 years of weather history: For the first time since the National Weather Service began compiling daily data here, the high temperature for Oct. 16 was below 50 degrees.
Coldest October 16th in at least 138 years. Boy, that global warming is getting serious, all right. (We also had a record cold day last week here in Tennessee, by the way.)
Naturally, the editors at the Washington Post couldn’t bring themselves to put this story anywhere near the front page — not when the Senate is about to debate a cap-and-tax bill that’s supposed to help us forestall the horrors of global warming. No matter. People tend to notice when they’re freezing their butts off — as they did in the Western states a couple of weeks ago:
An early-season snowstorm blanketed the U.S. West, dumping as much as 20 inches of snow on Wyoming and forcing the postponement of a Major League Baseball playoff game. Record low temperatures were set in at least three states.
Higher elevations in Wyoming had snow accumulations of 20 inches (50 centimeters), while areas around Casper had 10 inches from a storm that swept through yesterday and this morning, said Mike Pigott, a meteorologist with AccuWeather.com in State College, Pennsylvania. Casper normally has an inch and a half of snowfall by this point in October, he said.
“The story here isn’t so much the snow, but the record-smashing cold,” Pigott said in a telephone interview.
Denver posted a record low of 17 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 8 degrees Celsius) this morning, breaking the old mark of 25 degrees, Pigott said. Casper, Wyoming, touched a low of 12 degrees this morning, shattering the old record of 21 degrees, he said.
The downturn in temperatures didn’t begin this year, either. A year ago, London was blanketed with snow in October for the first time since 1922 — just as the House of Commons was set to debate global-warming legislation. What a pickle: the alarmists want to ram fat new taxes disguised as global-warming prevention down our throats, but the freakin’ weather just won’t cooperate.
The drop in temperatures has been so dramatic over the past few years, even the global-warming alarmists at the BBC finally had to admit it’s happening:
According to research conducted by Professor Don Easterbrook from Western Washington University last November, the oceans and global temperatures are correlated. The oceans, he says, have a cycle in which they warm and cool cyclically. The most important one is the Pacific decadal oscillation (PDO). For much of the 1980s and 1990s, it was in a positive cycle, that means warmer than average. And observations have revealed that global temperatures were warm too.
But in the last few years it has been losing its warmth and has recently started to cool down. These cycles in the past have lasted for nearly 30 years. So could global temperatures follow? The global cooling from 1945 to 1977 coincided with one of these cold Pacific cycles. Professor Easterbrook says: “The PDO cool mode has replaced the warm mode in the Pacific Ocean, virtually assuring us of about 30 years of global cooling.”
This is stunning news. Not the stuff about the oceans — I already knew about that — but the willingness of a BBC reporter to note that there was global cooling from 1945 to 1977. In case your history is a little rusty, that would be the era in which the automobile became hugely popular and industrialization grew at a monstrous rate after World War Two.
The same reporter even cited an inconvenient but well-established and verifiable fact: there’s been no global warming whatsoever since 1998. This puts the alarmists in the embarrassing position of trying to convince us that a 21-year warming span that ended a decade ago proves that humans are heating up the planet, but a previous 32-year cooling span and the current 11-year cooling span are both meaningless — even though they occurred while CO2 was rising. I guess at some point, media reporters finally conclude that maintaining a shred of credibility with the public outweighs the need to push an agenda.
Of course, those are just small, recent cycles. Lately I’ve been reading Ian Plimer’s book Heaven and Earth, which is so full of citations, they take up nearly a third of each page. I don’t recommend tackling the book unless you really like jumping into heavy-duty science, but here are some highlights:
The earth has been warming and cooling in cycles pretty much forever.
Nobody knows all the factors that influence the warming and cooling trends, but the computer models based on CO2 concentrations are utter failures. Sunspots and naturally-occurring changes in the oceans seem to be the biggest factors.
During our last warming trend, Mars was also getting warmer. (Gee, that sounds like the sun might have something to do with it.)
The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere has been many times higher than it is today. During some of those high-concentration periods, it was cold, not warm.
A thousand years ago, it was warmer than it is now. (The polar bears survived, in case you’re wondering.) The Vikings formed colonies in Greenland and grew crops that don’t grow there today — it’s too cold. This is just one of several long periods in human history that were warmer than the 20th century.
The cold periods have been the worst for humans. It was long cooling periods, not hot ones, that turned fertile lands into deserts and led to crop failures, famines, rampant diseases, forced migrations, and wars over fertile lands. The warm periods have been relative nirvanas.
Naturally, everyone who still depends on global-warming hysteria for grants or fund-raising is busy cranking out press releases to explain away the recent cooling trend or trooping up onto Capitol Hill to predict disaster — from all that non-existent warming.
I suppose if they’re smart, they’ll check the forecast and try to schedule an appearance on a day when there’s no risk of another record-cold temperature being set.
When I was still living near Los Angeles, a guy who parked in our neighborhood had a bumper sticker on his car that read: DON’T MOVE HERE. Heck, I did him one better. I left for Tennessee.
Now that I’m here, I’ve received a couple of emails and blog comments similar to this: “Tom, welcome to Tennessee. You seem like someone who belongs here. But do us a favor. Don’t tell the people in California how great it is here. We don’t want them all moving here and turning our state into another California.”
I fully understand the fear. California was ruined by big-government leftists, who all seem to share a peculiar trait: they have an amazing inability to recognize the damage they cause. Worse, they always believe the damage was caused by someone else. They’re like the kid who pees in a wading pool, then complains that the water is a weird color and doesn’t smell so good, then blames the lifeguard and finds another pool.
For example, a friend of mine sent me this article from the Los Angeles Times, written by a woman who is mad at California for no longer being a paradise and is leaving for greener pastures. Here are some choice quotes:
For 18 years or so, I can honestly say that I was truly in love with you, but then came your first major transgression: Proposition 13.
Oh sure, you tried to tell me that property taxes were bad for our relationship, but I knew you were lying. Low taxes, you said, would bring us closer together. You wanted to have your cake and eat it too. You said we could build schools and roads and parks without that tax money, but even back then I knew you were in denial.
Newsflash … California didn’t go broke building roads and schools and parks. It went broke building a huge government bureaucracy that allows state workers to retire at age 50 or 55 and draw full pensions – paid for by taxpayers who will continue working at least another 10 years to support the state-government retirees.
Proposition 13 limited property taxes so longtime homeowners wouldn’t be forced to sell their homes when property values in California skyrocketed. It’s insane to force old people to sell their homes to pay their taxes. And despite what Miss Goofy thinks, California has one of the highest tax burdens in the country. A lack of revenue isn’t the problem. Runaway spending is. Property taxes in Tennessee are low, but (amazingly) there’s no shortage of roads, schools and parks here.
We can’t pay our bills, and the phone is ringing off the hook with creditors calling from all over the world. Children across the state are losing healthcare, more than 766,300 Californians lost their jobs in the last year, and we’re at the top of the foreclosure charts. You need to change, and you refuse to admit it.
I realize most leftists have never read a book on economics, but it requires truly stunning ignorance to chide a state for going broke, not spending more on welfare programs, and losing jobs all in one paragraph. Yes, it’s a shame that 766,300 Californians lost their jobs last year. Perhaps that’s because big companies like Nissan (and small companies like mine) finally got tired of California’s punitive taxes and anti-business regulations and decided to relocate to Tennessee.
Newsflash number two … when employers are deciding where to do business, they don’t say to themselves, “Hmmm … I wonder if there’s a state where we could pay through the nose to support a huge bureaucracy … preferably one that requires us to provide health care for illegal aliens and build apartments for the homeless … and if we had to pay workers compensation claims for ‘stress,’ that would be awesome!”
Based on her reasons for being mad at California, it’s clear Miss Goofy is a big-government liberal. That means she voted for exactly the type of economic illiterates who scared away employers and drove the state to the brink of bankruptcy. And now, clueless that she was part of the problem, she’s moving to Washington state, where the economy is healthy.
By the way, Washington, like Tennessee, is business-friendly and has no state income tax. I’ll give you 10-to-1 odds Miss Goofy’s brain isn’t capable of connecting that fact to the healthier job outlook.
So again, I understand the fears of my new neighbors. If enough Miss Goofy types move here, pretty soon they’ll be voting for bigger state government and the higher taxes to pay for it. Then the employers will go away, or at least stop locating here. Then the Miss Goofy types will wake up one day and say, “What the @#$% happened to this state?! Why did it go bankrupt?! To hell with this, I’m leaving!”
With that in mind, here are a few reasons I would urge Californians not to move to Tennessee:
Your driving skills will plummet. The first day after moving in, I was driving in the left lane on a busy road and realized I needed to make a right-hand turn at an upcoming intersection. I put on my signal and prepared to do battle with all the me-first types who would surely attempt to speed up and get past me. I also took the safety off my middle finger and cocked my wrist.
Then a weird thing happened: the drivers behind me slowed down and let me in. It’s happened again since then. If this keeps up, I’ll lose my ability to make NASCAR-worthy maneuvers. If I ever drive in L.A. again, I’ll probably get myself killed … or at least sit in the same spot on the freeway for several hours, waiting for someone visiting from out of state to let me change lanes.
You’ll feel no sense of victory when you finally get a table at a restaurant. When we first arrived we had no internet connection, so I went to a local Panera that offers free WiFi. It was the lunch hour, and I felt myself tensing up as I approached the door. What if all the tables are taken? How long do I want to wait? Do I really need to check my email right now?
But it turned out the place was only half-full. I felt no great satisfaction when I sat down … next to an outlet where I could plug in my laptop. I was also able to look up when I felt like it; no need to avoid eye contact with people glaring at me, wondering when the heck I’d pack up the laptop and leave.
You’ll feel no sense of victory when you get your kid into a good school. I know it’s a lot of fun to apply at several magnet schools, volunteer for committees and schmooze with members of the school board, hoping to earn enough points to get little Johnny or Jane accepted a few years down the line. But really, that’s just wasted effort here. The schools are all good. In fact, when we walked unannounced into our local grade school (ranked 10 out of 10 on state scores) to see how to get our daughter into first grade, the principal came out of her office and gave us a tour, assigned our daughter to a teacher, then took us to meet the teacher.
You will lose your anonymity. A friend of mine who’s lived here for 25 years warned me that everyone I deal with will expect a bit of conversation. And it’s true. When I called the cable company to get set up, I ended up spending three or four minutes discussing “True Blood” with the nice lady who answered the phone. (She thinks Bill the Vampire is hot, by the way.) By the time I left the bank today, I knew the account manager’s husband collects rare knives. And she knows I once received a baseball autographed by Sandy Koufax as a gift and, being a stupid kid, played baseball with it.
You won’t be able to feel righteously indignant when you fill up your tank. Since gasoline taxes here are low, the prices at the pump won’t make you angry at Exxon. Likewise, you won’t be able to hate the auto insurance industry (my rates dropped by half after moving here) or the realty industry (homes and apartments are cheap compared to California).
There are Christian churches all over the place. If you watch a lot of TV shows and movies produced in Hollywood, you know that nearly all Christians are buffoons, killers, or hypocrites. The only people more likely to commit murder, in the opinion of Hollywood script-writers, are rich white businessmen. Since this is a prosperous area with a church on every other corner, it must be full of rich white businessmen who are also Christians. I haven’t checked, but the murder rate here has to be astronomical. (Although I assume the killers have a nice, leisurely chat about collecting knives with their victims before stabbing them.)
You don’t want your family anywhere near these chatty, conservative, anti-tax, well-educated, polite-driving, church-going fiends. Keep your kids in Los Angeles, where they’ll be safe.
Jimmy Moore posted this YouTube video on his blog yesterday. It’s a wonderful reminder of how America came to be an independent nation – which is a miracle in itself, considering that the colonists took on the mightiest military of the day.
Hearing these words spoken aloud is also a reminder of the brilliance of Thomas Jefferson, who is likely the most intelligent man ever to occupy the White House. You could speak to Jefferson, and he could simultaneously write out what you were saying in Greek with his left hand and in Latin with his right.
I’ve heard revisionist historians describe the Founders as “rich guys who didn’t want to pay taxes.” Yeah, right.
Many of the Founders were indeed rich, which means they were thriving under the British system and could’ve lived comfortably and happily without changing anything. They chose otherwise. Some of them spent their entire fortunes on the war and died penniless for their efforts. And of course, had the war failed – which was the most likely outcome – they would’ve all been hanged.
I know my country has flaws. All countries have flaws. But I have no patience for people who claim to love America, yet always seem to focus exclusively on her flaws.
I love my wife. Do I think she’s perfect? Of course not. But when I’m talking about her with other people, I don’t jump at every opportunity to criticize her. I don’t point to other women and say I wish she was more like this one or that one. I don’t blather on and on about mistakes she made as a teenager. And I certainly don’t blame her for problems she didn’t create.
(You think that doesn’t happen among so-called patriots? I once heard one of those “I criticize my country because I love it so much and that’s the truest form of patriotism, blah-blah-blah” types blame America for poverty in Africa – which was colonized by the British and Dutch, and has been the recipient of American generosity for decades – most of it wasted by dictators.)
So as you’re enjoying the fireworks tonight, here are a few good things to keep in mind about your country:
There were no democracies in the modern world until the Revolutionary colonists created one. Their efforts and sacrifices inspired the modern democratic movement.
When President John Adams lost the election of 1800 to Thomas Jefferson, it was perhaps the first time in history that power was transferred to a fierce rival without anyone being killed in the process.
In most countries throughout most of history, your prospects for success were largely determined the day you were born. Class was destiny. America’s emphasis on freedom eventually made success an attainable goal for all people of all backgrounds, which is why millions of people chose to emigrate here. Whatever your opinion of President Obama’s politics, the mere fact that he is the president is a stunning testament to how little class actually matters here. (And if you can think of another country where the people freely elected a member of an ethnic minority as their leader, please let me know.)
Nazism, Fascism and Communism all began in Europe. They were all defeated in Europe thanks largely to the sacrifices of Americans. Without America, more than 200 million Europeans would still be living under the jackboots of dictators. Instead, they are free to criticize us without fear of waking up in a gulag.
Americans give more of their incomes to charity than people from any other country in the world – better than double the percent given by the Brits, who rank number two. I’m talking of course about voluntary giving, which is the only true form of charity … not the “charity” of government programs, in which people vote to give away their neighbor’s income. After the Asian tsunami, our government gave $900 million in relief … but American citizens gave $2 billion.
You are also free to criticize your country without fear of waking up in a gulag. But at least for today, I hope you’ll choose to give it a rest.
Just when you though the United States was finally going to get serious about protecting the planet from an atmospheric buildup of perfectly natural gases, it turns out we’re ignoring one of the biggest threats of all: gassy cows.
When a friend of mine sent me this article, I thought it must be a parody of real news from The Onion. But nope … according to the article by the Associated Press (which they apparently expect us to take seriously), cows produce more greenhouse gases than coal mines and landfills. Here are some quotes:
One contributor to global warming – bigger than coal mines, landfills and sewage treatment plants – is being left out of efforts by the Obama administration and House Democrats to limit greenhouse gas emissions: Cow burps.
Belching from the nation’s 170 million cattle, sheep and pigs produces about one-quarter of the methane released in the U.S. each year, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. That makes the hoofed critters the largest source of the heat-trapping gas.
Heat-trapping gas, hmmm … Considering that animals who burp and fart have been around for millions of years, you’d think this information would prompt intelligent people to wonder if the whole global-warming theory is a lot of cowpie. But that’s not how our friends at the Associated Press reacted. The article is clearly lamenting the fact that Congress is too afraid of the farm lobby to include cow burps and farts in legislation “to limit greenhouse gas emissions.”
But of course, that legislation isn’t really about limiting greenhouse gases; it’s about collecting new taxes in the form of “air pollution” permits. If you have a functioning brain, you ought to be suspicious when natural gases such as methane and carbon dioxide are labeled as “pollutants” – especially when plants and animals have produced the vast majority of those gases since the dawn of time, at least among living creatures.
Normally, politicians can barely contain their excitement when they realize they’ve found something new to tax. If you’re a Monty Python fan, you may recall the sketch in which members of her majesty’s government were trying to figure out how to tax sex. So I believe the Associated Press when it says politicians are sidestepping the gassy-cow issue because they fear the farm lobby. But that misses the point. The intelligent reason not to tax this form of “pollution” is that it’s a deeply, totally, and unbelievably stupid idea.
In fact, the idea is so completely and utterly stupid, greenies and vegetarian activists couldn’t stop themselves from supporting it. The greenies love it because they tend to be scientific illiterates who believe natural gases are imperiling the planet, and the PETA crowd loves it because it punishes people who eat meat.
(If you want a good laugh, check out Penn & Teller’s Bull@#$% episode on environmentalism. They got hundreds of greenies – including supposed experts on the environment – to sign a petition to ban dihydrogen monoxide … otherwise known as H2O … otherwise known as water.)
Well, I have my own proposal to limit greenhouse gases. If we’re going to tax methane, then to be consistent and fair, we need to tax all sources of it – including humans. As anyone who has worked in an emergency room near a college fraternity during initiation week can tell you, humans produce a form of methane that’s not only a greenhouse gas, but highly combustible as well. One flick of a Bic and POOF.
However, some humans produce more cubic feet of methane than others, so the relevant question is: how do we measure the emissions? The cheap and easy way would be to employ some sort of listening device – but that would place a disproportionate share of the tax burden on men, who tend not to be very subtle about these things. My junior year in college, I shared an apartment with three other guys in a cheaply-constructed building. One Sunday, the morning after we’d hosted a kegger, the cranky girl next door accused of us illegally keeping ducks.
Women, on the other hand – and I’m not mentioning any names, because she proofs my blog posts – produce methane that rivals ninja assassins for its ability to sneak up and kill you without being seen or heard. Clearly, we need an equitable form of measurement.
So I’m proposing that some government contractor produce a Toot-O-Meter that would precisely measure human methane output. Then all we’d need is an army of methane officers to follow people around and take readings. We can even sell the idea as another example of “creating green jobs.”
I don’t actually believe governments can create jobs, as I explained here. And as anyone who reads this blog knows, I think high taxes are destructive and man-made global warming is an inconvenient myth, as I explained here. But in this case, I’m supporting the whole ball of wax … the new taxes, the increase in government employment, everything. Why? One word: revenge.
For years, vegetarian wackos such as the Center for Science in the Public Interest have been agitating to slap high taxes on the foods they don’t think we should eat: fatty foods, fast-foods, animal foods, big foods, and pretty much everything else most of us enjoy. They also propose one stupid, expensive regulation after another, without ever concerning themselves with the cost to consumers, who ultimately bear all costs imposed on businesses.
But with my plan, I believe much of the burden and the cost will, at long last, fall largely on the vegetarian activists themselves. To explain why, I must first recount my run-in with a can of vegetarian chili.
Some years ago, I flew from Chicago to Las Vegas for an acting job. It’s not a long flight – at least not under normal circumstances. But this flight seemed to take forever, thanks to the can of vegetarian chili I consumed just before catching a taxi to the airport.
The first belly-rumble began just before the drink cart came around. I asked a flight attendant if they kept any antacids on board. She said sorry, we have Bufferin for headaches, but that’s it.
The next rumble was louder and actually hurt.
By halfway through the flight, I was literally holding onto my aching, bloated guts. Yes, I should’ve visited the restroom, but I couldn’t predict what the result would be. And worse, there was a line. That meant someone would be 1) standing just outside the door, which wasn’t soundproof, and 2) entering the bathroom as I exited. Maybe it’s my Catholic upbringing, but I didn’t want people pointing at me and whispering.
So I clenched my aching guts for the rest of the flight … and while waiting for my bags … and while waiting for a taxi … and while waiting to check in at the hotel … and I was growing ever-more bloated and miserable the whole time. The desk clerk even asked if I was okay.
Finally, in the sanctity of my room, I un-clenched my guts, at which point I produced the longest continuous methane emission of my life. I had to re-hitch my belt twice before it was over. My nether regions grew numb from the prolonged vibration. The planet was unaffected, but the hotel room definitely underwent a climate change. And yes, the ice in the nearby ice bucket became thinner.
The culprit, of course, was the vegetarian chili. It was full of beans – one of the few sources of protein vegetarians can eat without facing a moral crisis.
Based on this experience and a few others from my vegetarian days, I’m pretty sure vegetarians emit more greenhouse gases than the rest of us, and they should bear the cost of all that extra pollution. Since we know they’ll never resort to eating meat instead of beans, we could even design a methane cap-and-trade system.
Revenue benefits aside, this would provide the rest of us with some serious entertainment value. Imagine how much fun it would be to see a bunch of self-righteous PETA wackos gather for a protest in front of a meat-packing plant, then scatter like rats when a Toot Detector van screeches onto the scene.
In fact, I’d volunteer to be a methane officer myself, as long as I was guaranteed to be personally armed with a Toot-O-Meter and assigned to monitor Michael Jacobson of CSPI. I’d love to see his face when his own dietary choices cost him some extra dough.
“How was your lunch, Mr. Jacobson? Yes, I hear the vegetarian burritos are quite good. Would mind stepping over to the curb for a moment, sir? No, no, please remain clothed. Other people are still eating.”
As an added benefit, Jacobson would have to control his excitement upon discovering that yet another food contains saturated fat. Otherwise, when media dutifully assembled to record his outraged comparisons to a stick of butter, the performance would be marred by the sound of my Toot-O-Meter ringing up fresh charges.
The only real problem I see with my proposal is that it would be expensive, burdensome, difficult to implement, inconsistently applied, prone to corruption, and ultimately useless.
Which means it would probably sail through Congress with overwhelming support.
It’s impossible to explain a father’s influence on his son in something as measly as a letter. I could write volumes and still have more to say. So let me just talk about your shoes.
Although more than forty years have passed since I was a little boy, I still remember waiting for you to walk through the front door at night after work. You were HUGE. You wore dark suits and serious business shoes, usually black or brown wingtips, polished to a high shine. You always struck me as being in a bit of a hurry, and when you strode across our wooden floors, those shoes went BOOM-BOOM-BOOM.
I wanted to grow up as soon as I could and wear shoes like yours. Sometimes I would pull a pair of wingtips out of your closet and remove the wooden stretchers – which took some effort for a skinny kid like me – and slip those big shoes over my feet. I’d try walking in them, stepping carefully to avoid tripping. I wasn’t big enough to make them BOOM, but I liked the way they looked.
I knew the wingtips were your working shoes. I didn’t really understand what kind of work you did, but I knew working was how you took care of us. I knew the dark suits and the booming shoes and the daily trips to your office were the reason we lived in a nice house, and also the reason we didn’t look like the shabbily-dressed kids we saw when Mom took us along for her charity work.
Now and then you took Jerry and me to the office on a Saturday when you needed to catch up on some paperwork. We enjoyed those office trips, partly because of the old-fashioned soda dispenser, the kind with rows of metal rails that held the bottles upright by the necks. For a dime – you always seemed to have dimes in your pocket – we could slide a bottle along those rails and out the side to release it. The lid was heavy and you had to hold it up for us. But that was easy for you because you were HUGE.
I liked the way your office smelled … like paper and ink. I liked the starkness of the fluorescent lights. I liked looking at the photo on your wall of someone handing you a plaque and shaking your hand. I knew that whatever you did, you were good at it, good enough that people wanted to shake your hand. When I sat and did math exercises at my desk in school, I pretended I was in my own office, doing important work that would make someone want to shake my hand.
I don’t know exactly when I decided I didn’t want to grow up and be just like you. Certainly by the time I enrolled in college, I knew I’d never be happy wearing dark suits and working in an office. I rejected your advice about majoring in accounting. I explained, somewhat hesitantly, that accounting might appeal to you, but I’d be bored out of my mind.
That’s when I began to realize you didn’t want me to grow up and be just like you, either. When I chose pre-med for my major, you said that’s great, go for it, I’ll support you. When I switched to psychology, you said that’s great, go for it, I’ll support you. When I switched again to journalism as a junior, you said that’s great, go for it, I’ll support you.
I’d like to say you were simply doing what any father would do, but I already knew that wasn’t true. I had a girlfriend whose father disowned her when she switched her major from business to art; without any support from him, she graduated swimming in student-loan debt. In high school I had a classmate who’d been told from birth he was going to be a doctor like his father, period, end of discussion. He flunked organic chemistry in college and committed suicide.
When I had some humorous essays published after college, your golfing buddies told me how much they enjoyed reading them. I was proud to be published, but more proud to know you’d been bragging about me to your friends. When I announced I was going to quit my magazine job and go freelance, you said that’s great, go for it, I’ll support you – after all, you had quit a comfortable corporate job to run your own business and understood the drive to be independent.
And so, in a fit of optimism, I struck out on my own … and fell flat on my face. That’s when I found out what “support” truly means.
It was embarrassing to spend part of my adult life living off loans from you, loans I knew you would never let me repay. It’s still embarrassing when I think about it. But I believe things happen for a reason; and even if they don’t, we can find our own reasons in them.
Unlike Mom, you were never comfortable being affectionate. Until you became a grandpa, it took a couple of tall drinks to pry the words “I love you” from your lips. I knew you loved me, but I didn’t fully understand that you love me, period, no matter what, just like Mom.
I kept expecting one of those loans to come with a lecture attached, firm instructions to wise up, let go of my childish dreams, go get a real job as a sales rep. But that never happened. When you said anything at all, it was along the lines of, “Don’t worry. Do something you love, and be the best at it. Things will get better.” Those years, painful as they were, finally made it clear to me that you didn’t just support me. You supported me.
I’m happy with my life, Dad. It’s been a thrill to play in a band, act in plays, publish humor in magazines, travel the country as a standup comedian, and produce a film. But without you behind me, I wouldn’t have done half of those things. At some point, I would’ve given up.
I once asked another comedian what his parents thought of his act. He said they’d never seen him perform; they didn’t think standup comedy was a respectable career, and they weren’t going to encourage him by showing up. He asked if you and Mom had seen my act. I just said yes; I didn’t think it would be polite to say, “Yes, many times, and they bring their friends.”
You didn’t choose my path, and I didn’t follow in your footsteps. But when I look back, I realize I’ve worn your shoes many times.
When I left a secure job to pursue my own goals, I was wearing your shoes. When I wrote clearly and powerfully, I was wearing your shoes. When I made people laugh out loud with a witty observation, I was wearing your shoes. When I worked and re-worked a programming project to get it exactly right, believing that “good enough” isn’t good enough, I was wearing your shoes. Every time I returned money to someone who accidentally overpaid me, or gave to a charity, or helped someone in distress without expecting anything in return, I was wearing your shoes.
These past few years have not been kind to you, Dad. Cancer, Alzheimer’s and age have diminished your body and your mind. Your quick steps have slowed to a shuffle. I’ve had to hold your arm and help you navigate the single step from the garage into the house so you don’t trip over it. On some days, you don’t recognize Mom and have to ask who she is. I know the next time I visit, you may not know who I am.
But I know who I am. I’m your son. And in my mind, you’ll always be huge … and you’ll always BOOM when you walk.
Clips from news stories published in the past year:
The coldest summer ever? You might be looking at it, weather folks say. Right now the so-called summer of ‘08 is on pace to produce the fewest days ever recorded in which the temperature in Anchorage managed to reach 65 degrees.
This winter has been one of the toughest in decades, with temperatures today reaching as low as -38C in large areas of the Midwest.
Germany marked record low temperatures for the third day in a row on Thursday, with meteorologists measuring a frosty -33.4 degrees Celsius (-28 degrees Fahrenheit) in the Bavarian Alps in the early morning hours.
Flint broke a 95-year-old record early Wednesday morning when the temperature plummeted to a frigid 19 below zero.
Charlottes Pass at 13 degrees below average set a new Australian record for cold today at -13 degress celcius. This sets a new cold record for April for anywhere in Australia.
If it seemed cold to you in Green Bay on Saturday, it was. The high temperature for the day, reached at 9:50 a.m., was 52. That set a record for the lowest high temperature for June 6, according to the National Weather Service office in Ashwaubenon. The old mark was 53, set in 1943.
Last summer was one of the coolest on record. It was followed by one of the coldest winters on record, which in turn was followed by a record-cool spring. May in New Zealand was the coldest on record … but the resorts were delighted, because ski season arrived early. In Michigan, farmers are concerned that frost is killing off their crops – in June.
Faced with these inconvenient truths, several prominent members of the media apologized for having such a girl-crush on Al Gore, promised they’d no longer count U.N. bureaucrats with no scientific background as “scientists” who believe humans are causing global warming, and assured the public they will stop referring to CO2 – one of the most common and natural substances on the planet – as a “pollutant.”
Kidding! Of course that didn’t happen. Good news doesn’t sell newspapers or draw ratings, and good news on the climate doesn’t support the agenda of the media’s favorite political party and the president they openly worship. (I’m assuming they would view a cooling trend as good news, which is itself debatable. Warm weather supports life. Cold weather kills.)
Instead, we are being treated to the same old scare-mongering. I recently bookmarked this article on the MSNBC site, which offers a harrowing vision of what the U.S. could look like in 2100 if we don’t stop global warming: forest fires, hurricanes, droughts, heat waves, beachfront property in the Rockies … oh my!
Well, yeah, the country could end up like that. Or, given the current cooling trend, Americans could end up freezing their asses off while paying through the nose for heating fuel, thanks to all the “cap and trade” schemes designed to stop global warming. Either scenario is possible, and of course the MSNBC article is pure conjecture. But look at the words the writer chose:
We can still turn it around, but here is the world our grandchildren will live in if we don’t.
Pardon me? This is the world our grandchildren will live in?! She doesn’t know that any more than I know they’ll be ice-skating in Miami.
And you wonder, “Is climate disaster already upon us?” Scientists say the answer is “yes.”
Uh, no … some scientists say the answer is “yes.” Some also say the answer is “no,” or at least “we have no idea.” An anti-Kyoto petition states:
“There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate.”
That petition has been signed by 31,000 scientists, including 9,000 with doctorate degrees in atmospheric science, climatology, Earth science, or environmental science. (They apparently forgot to consult with Al Gore before forming their opinions.)
After I read the article online about how the Antarctic ice is getting thicker, I kept my eyes open to see how often the story was picked up by major U.S. newspapers and TV networks. As far as I can tell, it wasn’t – but a story about the ice thinning in the western region of Antarctica was.
A more recent news story warned that CO2 “pollution” is estimated to increase by 40 percent over the next 30 years or so. (Oh my gosh! My kids will have to wave the stuff out of their faces just to see where they’re walking!) The story doesn’t say anything that isn’t true, you understand – that is the official government estimate. But a journalist without an agenda might bother to mention a few facts to provide a little perspective, such as:
It’s an estimate … one that assumes we won’t develop a new means of producing energy in the next 30 years.
If humans increase their CO2 output by 40 percent, that doesn’t mean CO2 concentration in the atmosphere will rise by 40 percent. Humans produce a fraction of the CO2 emitted – about 5%. (Plants and animals contribute more of the “pollutant.” That’s why the greenies are so upset about cow farts.)
Carbon dioxide makes up about .039% of the atmosphere, and is estimated to account for about 2.3% of the total greenhouse effect.
So the real story is that if nothing changes in our energy use, humans will add another 40 percent to the small fraction they emit of a gas that causes a teensy bit of the total greenhouse effect. Is that enough to tip the atmospheric balance, give the earth “a fever,” melt the ice caps, and sink Manhattan? I don’t know. Neither does Al Gore. Neither does whoever wrote the story. But given our record-cold temperatures over the past year, I doubt it.
The scare-mongers will, of course, start coming up with ad-hoc theories to explain the cold weather: It’s an anomaly, you see, so it doesn’t mean anything … Without man-made global warming, it would’ve been even colder, and when this anomaly is over, we’re going to be cooking the planet again … Well, global warming actually causes colder weather … Global warming? Did we say “global warming?” We meant “climate change,” and by gosh, look at the change in climate!
Real scientists have a word for ad-hoc theories: bull@#$%. I learned a lot about ad-hoc theories while researching my documentary Fat Head. Ad-hoc theories are how bad scientists explain results they don’t like. Ad-hoc theories are how the anti-fat hysterics defend the “saturated fat causes heart disease” theory, despite all the evidence against it.
In real science, you propose a hypothesis, then check the data as it comes in to see if it supports the hypothesis. If the data doesn’t support the hypothesis, a real scientist concludes that the hypothesis is probably wrong. (Unfortunately, real scientists are becoming a rare breed in some fields.) The recent cooling trend certainly doesn’t support the theory that human beings are giving the planet a fever.
So what’s causing the cooling trend? Nobody knows for sure. But buried beneath all the noise about man-made global warming, there has long been a competing hypothesis to explain climate change: sun spots. According to this theory, sun spots produce warmer temperatures on earth.
The bad thing about this theory is that it has zero appeal to leftists. You can’t blame American corporations, industrialization, capitalism, greed, the World Bank, Republicans in general or George W. Bush specifically for what happens on the sun. U.N. bureaucrats can’t release position papers on global sun-spot initiatives and feel self-important. Environmental groups can’t raise millions of dollars by promising to fight sun spots.
The good thing about this theory is that it seems to fit the actual data; when scientists compare historical warming and cooling trends (and there have been several of them) to sun-spot activity, there’s a strong correlation. Lots of sun spots, warmer temperatures. Fewer sun spots, cooler temperatures.
And guess what? Sun-spot activity has been declining lately. If the decline continues, we could even be heading into a “little ice age” – the kind Newsweek warned about in 1975 before jumping on the global-warming bandwagon a decade or so later.
Below, I’ve posted YouTube clips of a lecture by one of the many scientists who dispute the idea that we’re warming up the planet. (As far as I know, he doesn’t deny the Holocaust.) But first, here’s my favorite news clip from the previous year:
Snow fell as the House of Commons debated Global Warming yesterday – the first October fall in the metropolis since 1922.
You said after you and Dad retired that you hoped to discover your purpose in life someday. Since you’ve read rather a lot on spiritual topics, you already know that people who’ve had near-death experiences often recount being told to return to their lives, and to remember that the purpose of an earthly life is to love, to learn, and to teach.
If that’s true (and I like to think it is) then you’ve already been living your purpose, even if you’re unaware of it.
When I was attending Illinois State, I met some of your former students, and they all thought you were a marvelous teacher. I could’ve told them that. I’ve been attending the Shirley Naughton School of Moms for five decades. Here’s just some of what I’ve learned:
Pre-preschool: Moms are warm and sweet, and they kiss you a lot because they love you. When you grow up, you will probably marry Mom.
Preschool: Moms don’t like it if you use your crayons to create an artistic expression on the bricks. If you draw on the bricks, Mom will make sure you learn how to remove crayon marks with a toothbrush. She will still love you, though.
Kindergarten: Moms know how to make buttered toast with cinnamon and sugar and hot milk poured on top. This is quite possibly the best breakfast ever invented.
First Grade: If you don’t wear your scarf and hat, you’ll get an earache. Moms warn you about these things because they love you.
Second Grade: If you get an earache, it’s okay to wake up Mom in the middle of the night and tell her about it. She’ll hug you and kiss you so you’ll feel better. The next day, she’ll take you to the doctor. He’ll put oily stuff in your ears. And you should’ve worn your scarf and hat.
Third Grade: Moms know how to take an ordinary can of Spaghetti-Os and turn it into the best lunch ever invented. They do this by mixing in pieces of hot dogs. It’s a lot of work, but they do it anyway because they love you.
Fourth Grade: Really good Moms become den mothers for a bunch of Cub Scouts. They teach you techniques for creating modern art, such as gluing split peas to a jelly glass and spray-painting the whole thing gold. You can give these masterpieces to your grandparents.
Fifth Grade: Moms don’t like slugs. If you find a slug on the sidewalk, you definitely should not put it on the kitchen counter shortly before Mom walks in to cook. Hearing your mother scream isn’t as much fun as you might think. If you do put a slug on the kitchen counter, Mom will still love you.
Sixth Grade: If you learn a new song at school, Mom would like to hear you sing it. If you sing really well, your Mom will say so. If you don’t sing really well, she’ll say you do anyway. You probably shouldn’t judge your talents based on what Mom says.
Seventh Grade: If they are surprised, Moms can forget what their own kids look like. If you forget your homework, you probably should not let yourself into the house through the garage door and surprise Mom coming out of the bathroom. In this situation, Moms often mistake their kids for axe murderers. If you do grow up and become an axe murderer, your Mom will still love you and tell people you’re just confused.
Eighth Grade: Moms love dogs. They also love hamsters and guinea pigs. If you want any of these animals for pets, you should go straight to Mom.
Ninth Grade: If you make Mom angry enough, she’ll spank you. This isn’t much of a concern, however, because it doesn’t hurt. Also, it will probably only happen two or three times in your entire life.
Tenth Grade: Good Moms love your friends and feed them better meals than they get at home. They also talk to your friends as if they have brains, which is true in most cases. This means your friends will want to spend a lot of time at your house.
Eleventh Grade: Moms are smart! They can go to college and learn about English literature and philosophy. The good news is that if you’ve also been reading literature and philosophy, you can enjoy talking to Mom about those subjects. The bad news is that sometimes you’ll end up talking until 2:00 in the morning and spend the next day feeling tired and not all that philosophical.
Twelfth Grade: If you’re studying literature in school, you should raid Mom’s library and see if she’s already read whatever book you’ve been assigned. If she has, you could almost write a term paper on what you glean from the notes she scribbled in the margins. At the very least, you’ll have some interesting points to raise in class and impress the teacher.
College, First Year: Moms love you and don’t care what you plan to do for a living as long as you’re happy.
College, Second Year: Moms don’t mind if your band practices in the basement. They like hearing the same song fifty or sixty times in one week.
College, Third Year: Moms love you and don’t care what you plan to do for a living as long as you’re happy.
College, Fourth Year: When you come home for weekends and holidays, Moms celebrate by making Beef Bourguignon. This is the best dinner ever invented and only takes a couple of days to whip together.
College, Fifth Year: Moms love you and don’t care what you plan to do for a living as long as you’re happy.
Early Twenties: When your best friend is getting married, Moms will make moussaka for the rehearsal party. This is the second-best dinner ever invented and only takes a couple of days to whip together. The next morning, it’s also the best breakfast ever invented.
Later Twenties: If you write a play, Mom will be reasonably sure you’ve established yourself as a literary genius.
Thirty: Moms don’t care if you can’t find anything to do for a living as long as you’re not completely miserable. Moms will assure you that if you follow your dreams, something good will happen.
Early Thirties: Moms are good to your girlfriends and can even miss them when you decide you didn’t actually mean to get engaged. Some girlfriends will tell you they wish they’d had your Mom instead of theirs.
Mid Thirties: Moms make excellent comedic material. If you can’t make people laugh by talking about your Mom, you’d better find another career to pursue.
Later Thirties: Great Moms make great Grandmas. Contrary to what some little grandsons believe, grandmothers don’t necessarily live in little houses that smell bad, and it can make you feel warm and fuzzy to see how much your nephews like going to grandma’s house.
Forties: Little boys don’t actually grow up and marry their Moms. But when the lucky ones grow up, they do get married and are almost ridiculously happy because they learned how to love and be loved – from Mom.
Happy Mother’s Day, Mom. You really are a marvelous teacher.
“Well, it was tough for awhile, but things are great now, thanks to me. I enacted my own stimulus package, and it’s working wonders around the neighborhood.”
“Stimulus package? What are you talking about?”
“You know … stimulus. I’m pumping an extra $50,000 into the local economy.”
“Geez! I didn’t know you had that much cash sitting around.”
“Don’t be silly. I opened a new credit-card account in your name.”
“What?!”
“Now, don’t try to thank me. This is what wise fathers do.”
“You took out a credit-card in my name? You can’t do that!”
“Sure I can. I’ve got your name, address, social security-”
“But you didn’t even ask me first!”
“I had to act quickly, Son. Our new leaders made it crystal clear that if I didn’t act right now, the entire economy could crash. Times like these call for bold, immediate action. Plus the big-screen TV was only on sale for a couple more days.”
“Wait a minute! Your definition of a stimulus package is to run out and buy something you’ve always wanted and then stick me with the bill?”
“Good lord, no. I’m saving jobs and then sticking with you with the bill. And believe me, it’s working. The guy who sold me the TV was so grateful, he didn’t even pitch the extended warranty.”
“Now, hold on a second, that’s just-”
“My popularity in the neighborhood is off the charts. I’m seriously considering running for city council.”
“I can’t believe you did this. We’ve been saving to buy a house. You’re the one who told me it’s foolish to pay rent month after month, and now-”
“For Pete’s sake, Son, don’t buy a house! That’s what got me into this mess. See, I bought a two-bedroom house I could actually afford, so I had some money left over. But our leaders in Washington convinced me that wasn’t fair, so I bailed out this guy down the street who bought a four-bedroom house at a teaser rate and couldn’t handle the balloon payments. Did my heart good to see him take down that FOR SALE sign. I expect him to say thank-you any day now.”
“You’re telling me you gave money to a moron?”
“No, I think he sells insurance. Plus I gave a few bucks to my banker, my broker, and the guy who runs the local GM dealership. I’m saving a lot of jobs, here, Son. In fact, I even created a brand-new job for a global-warming researcher.”
“There’s already six billion dollars per year spent on global-warming research! What good is one more researcher supposed to do?!”
“Son, you’re not grasping the economics here. It’s all about the new jobs. A couple of weeks ago, this poor sap was unemployed. Now he steps outside every day and decides whether or not it feels warmer to him than it did when he was a kid. Then he writes up a report, and I give him a few thousand dollars. Then he uses that money to buy some new appliances from Sears so they can afford to hire another salesman.”
“Then why don’t you just give the money to Sears?”
“Good grief, Son, I thought you were smart. If I do that, I only create one job. This way, I’m actually creating two jobs. It’s called the ‘multiplier’ effect. FDR knew all about it. That’s how all those New Deal programs lifted us out the Depression.”
“Now, waaaaait a minute! You’ve told me more times than I can count that FDR started all those spending programs in 1933, and we were still in the Depression ten years later, long after a lot of industrial countries were back in full recovery. If anything, all that federal spending prolonged the problem.”
“Well, that’s what I used to think, but our new leaders convinced me that being in debt is the key to prosperity. I mean, look at what happened after the war. Talk about a boom.”
“Of course there was a boom! All of our competition had been blown to bits!”
“Yeah, I thought about that. But the gun control laws out here are pretty strict.”
“So let me get this straight. You now believe that massive spending on credit is good for the economy.”
“Of course I do. All the smart people say so. Heeeey, I’m going to have to re-think all those billions Bush gave to Halliburton. Turns out he was probably stimulating the economy the whole time.”
“Okay, Dad, let me try explaining what’s wrong with this theory: you’re going to run up my credit-card bill so you can give money to your banker, your broker, the GM dealer, the global warming guy, not to mention the moron who bought the house he couldn’t afford, and that’s going to save a lot of jobs.”
“Multiplier effect, yes.”
“But when I have to pay off the credit card, that’s money I won’t be able to spend. I won’t buy able to buy a house, or a car, or a big-screen TV, so I won’t be supporting the people who work in those industries. You’re just making things better for yourself now by making things worse for my generation a few years from now.”
“Well, no, it’s … see … we have to save the economy right now because … uh … hey, listen, it sounds like you’re on your cell phone, and I don’t want run use up your minutes. You’re going to have some big bills to pay, kid. Love you. Bye.”
I got married relatively late in life, and now I have two little girls. As a parent, you look forward to passing on all your accumulated wisdom to your children. It’s a little early for that, but in the meantime, I’ve learned quite a few lessons from them. Here are a few samples:
If something is delicious, eat it without hesitation or guilt – and don’t assume anything isn’t delicious until you’ve plucked it from the floor and tasted it.
If you’re bored, don’t sit around and mope … re-arrange your environment! You can start by dumping all the books on the floor, which will encourage you to begin that alphabetizing project you’ve been putting off.
After a good nap, things that upset you a couple of hours ago won’t seem so bad.
Don’t take glorious sights like a full moon for granted just because they’re common. Bounce up and down, point to it and yell, “Moon! Moon! Moon!” This will help others appreciate it as well.
Chewing on a box of food is almost as much fun as eating the real thing, especially if there’s a picture on it. Cardboard is a low-carbohydrate food, plus you’ll burn a few calories gnawing on it.
If you try over and over and over, you’ll go places and get your hands on things the bigger and smarter people swore you couldn’t.
When you get hurt, cry with gusto for about two minutes, then forget the whole thing and move on to something else.
Anything in your environment can be a toy if you decide it is. Boxes, paper towels, shoe strings, feminine napkins, entire rolls of toilet paper – they can all provide hours of entertainment with a little imagination. (And if you’re relatively dexterous, you can stick the napkins to your chin and tell people you’re growing a beard.
When you talk about the people you love, focus on the positive. For example, “I like leaning on Daddy’s belly, because it’s big and soft like a pillow.”
When you hear a song you like, wave your arms, stomp your feet, and shake your booty with abandon. If other people laugh at you, that’s their problem.
When you’re hurt, the people who really love you will hug and kiss you, even if you don’t smell very good at the time.
If no one’s kissed you lately – even though you smell fabulous – you can always kiss your reflection in the mirror. You can also talk to the mirror when other people don’t understand what you’re saying.
If the people you live with are always hogging the remote, hide it from them. Under the sofa is a good spot.
If you spread a few cashews around when you have more than you need, they’ll turn up later in unexpected places, and this will make you happy.
When you give advice, use clear examples. If your little sister is chewing on her hair, you could say something like, “Don’t chew on your hair! You’ll go bald like Daddy!”
A fancy vocabulary is overrated. A short sentence with simple words can often say everything that needs saying.
Whenever you try something new, there’s a good chance you’ll fall down and bump your head. But even a baby knows that’s no reason to quit.
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