Once every few weeks, while reading my digital edition of The New York Times, I dip into the reader comments sections. I know, I know, what's wrong with me? Why descend into that sewer of partisan bickering and cherry-picked misinformation? Well, maybe in the NYT Comments section can be found the true, ragged pulse of America...who knows. Anyway, some of the comments are actually quite bracing and witty. Such as this one, attached on November 9, 2019, at 11:01 a.m. to an op-ed warning about the dangers of climate change:
Samantha
Elk Cove 5h ago
The planet changes. Wow, what a revelation. A planet "experts" say is billions of years old is irreversibly "changed" due to one species' proclivities for a mere 150 years? Is THAT the posit? Or rather, is it another of this species' proclivities -- herd behavior -- at work in the "scientific community"? Tell you what, concerned persons -- when the one percent adjust THEIR lifestyles to that of the rest of us, and that includes the Hollywood swells, the Windsor whiners, the loudmouths on daytime inculcation shows -- we'll start listening. Until then, the birdcage needs lining.
3 Replies 3 Recommend
I get it, Samantha. It is a little hard to believe that we can screw up our massive planet so massively in such a geologically short period of time. And people do run in herds, it's true. Kudos, too, for the old-timey reference to lining the birdcage with your copy of The New York Times. Reduce, reuse, recycle -- Sustainable Sam, you are.
Hey, do you really keep a bird in a cage? A tweety little parakeet? I see you as a spinster receptionist at a struggling insurance agency in Elk Cove...wait a second, Elk Cove is a meadow near Mount Hood in Oregon. As a town, it only exists in a fictional sense -- specifically, in the 1987 film Overboard starring Goldie Hawn and her husband Kurt Russell. Samantha, for all your railing against "Hollywood swells" have you dreamed yourself into a corny, slightly creepy '80s rom-com in which a rich heiress gets amnesia and is kidnapped by a slob carpenter who convinces her they're husband and wife?
Sheesh, talk about denial.
Samantha
Elk Cove 5h ago
The planet changes. Wow, what a revelation. A planet "experts" say is billions of years old is irreversibly "changed" due to one species' proclivities for a mere 150 years? Is THAT the posit? Or rather, is it another of this species' proclivities -- herd behavior -- at work in the "scientific community"? Tell you what, concerned persons -- when the one percent adjust THEIR lifestyles to that of the rest of us, and that includes the Hollywood swells, the Windsor whiners, the loudmouths on daytime inculcation shows -- we'll start listening. Until then, the birdcage needs lining.
3 Replies 3 Recommend
I get it, Samantha. It is a little hard to believe that we can screw up our massive planet so massively in such a geologically short period of time. And people do run in herds, it's true. Kudos, too, for the old-timey reference to lining the birdcage with your copy of The New York Times. Reduce, reuse, recycle -- Sustainable Sam, you are.
Hey, do you really keep a bird in a cage? A tweety little parakeet? I see you as a spinster receptionist at a struggling insurance agency in Elk Cove...wait a second, Elk Cove is a meadow near Mount Hood in Oregon. As a town, it only exists in a fictional sense -- specifically, in the 1987 film Overboard starring Goldie Hawn and her husband Kurt Russell. Samantha, for all your railing against "Hollywood swells" have you dreamed yourself into a corny, slightly creepy '80s rom-com in which a rich heiress gets amnesia and is kidnapped by a slob carpenter who convinces her they're husband and wife?
Sheesh, talk about denial.
Today, I did it again. Stuck my toe into the swirling pool of commentary attached to a NYT article about a new, depressing UN report. This one details the world's failure, four years after the Paris Accords, to make any progress in reducing emissions of greenhouse gases. One comment, noteworthy for its despair, floated up:
N
NYC 3h ago
It’s all too late. Something should have been done in the 1970s when global warming emerged as a problem. Eating vegan, using reusable bags, and driving an electric car will do absolutely nothing. Fossil fuels are indirectly used to produce all of the above.
1 Reply 15 Recommend
N, that's some attitude you got there. By the way, what does N stand for? No, nyet, nunca, nein? Negative Norbert? Perhaps you should leave the grimy confines of your megalopolis and travel upstate to an apple farm. Breathe the cleaner air, step in a methane-emitting cow flop, watch a few birds that aren't pigeons. And, please, read the rousing rejoinder that your comment elicits from Rose of Seattle. Patiently, she explains how being vegan, reusing bags and driving electric cars reduce a person's carbon footprint. We're not looking for perfection here, N.
Rose also recommends that you read something called "Planetary Hospice." Hmm, that doesn't sound very rosy. Perhaps you guys aren't so different after all. I see a movie, Planet Overboard. The wacky adventures of a burnt-out New Yorker who comes down with amnesia on a camping trip to Elk Cove and is kidnapped by a sweetheart from Seattle who convinces him to eat sprouts, tote a NPR tote bag and drive her Nissan Leaf with a smile -- even though mankind has entered its hospice stage.
I'd watch that, wouldn't you?
N
NYC 3h ago
It’s all too late. Something should have been done in the 1970s when global warming emerged as a problem. Eating vegan, using reusable bags, and driving an electric car will do absolutely nothing. Fossil fuels are indirectly used to produce all of the above.
1 Reply 15 Recommend
N, that's some attitude you got there. By the way, what does N stand for? No, nyet, nunca, nein? Negative Norbert? Perhaps you should leave the grimy confines of your megalopolis and travel upstate to an apple farm. Breathe the cleaner air, step in a methane-emitting cow flop, watch a few birds that aren't pigeons. And, please, read the rousing rejoinder that your comment elicits from Rose of Seattle. Patiently, she explains how being vegan, reusing bags and driving electric cars reduce a person's carbon footprint. We're not looking for perfection here, N.
Rose also recommends that you read something called "Planetary Hospice." Hmm, that doesn't sound very rosy. Perhaps you guys aren't so different after all. I see a movie, Planet Overboard. The wacky adventures of a burnt-out New Yorker who comes down with amnesia on a camping trip to Elk Cove and is kidnapped by a sweetheart from Seattle who convinces him to eat sprouts, tote a NPR tote bag and drive her Nissan Leaf with a smile -- even though mankind has entered its hospice stage.
I'd watch that, wouldn't you?