Let Us Now Spit Upon The Earth - By Mark Morford

[kpete]

Let Us Now Spit Upon The Earth
You can do it the old way, or you can do it like Bush -- with smirks, mountain bikes and oil
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist

Friday, April 28, 2006
.............
Bush on Earth Day. It's like Satan talking up the joys of Easter. It's like Paris Hilton chatting about treading the planet with humility and grace. It's like Jerry Falwell gushing about his love of "Brokeback Mountain," Eli Lilly extolling the virtues of meditation and green tea. It is, in a word, embarrassing. Humiliating. Intellectually bludgeoning. And hypocritical in a way, and at a depth, that is as nauseating to stomach as the testosterone levels at a Duke lacrosse frat party.

This much we know: Bush is, it has been widely noted, the worst environmental president in modern America history. He has done more to eliminate protections and pollute the air, sell off national forests, whore the waterways, drill for oil and eviscerate pollution regulation than any president on the books. His environmental record is abysmal, shameful, and includes installing two of the worst secretaries of the interior in history, the abominable Gale Norton and now her male counterpart Dirk Kempthorne, who have turned around and reduced protections and sold off more forestland to private concerns -- oil, timber, coal, you name it -- since the Harding administration.
........
Hypocrisy is, verily, the American national pastime. It is part of our national character. But there is a point where hypocrisy takes a turn toward the abusive, toward the spiritually debilitating. It becomes less like livable hypocrisy and more like a mental condition, a barely functional psychosis.

And right now, we are, it seems, living smack in the middle of a decade of just such madness, led by a bumbling and confused, tepid little devil himself, happily biking through the trees as the forest groans.

more at:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2006/04/28/notes042806.DTL&hw=mark+morford&sn=001&sc=1000

[bryant69]

1. Seems like spitting on the earth the old way

would be less damaging than the bush way of "smirks, mountian bikes, and oil."

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[TomInTib]

2. Morford is a true treasure. k&r

I hope people read this. I have posted many of Mark's columns and they average about 3 reads.

We are so fortunate that he writes for our local (SF Chronicle)

[jeanarrett]

6. I always read the links to his column--when I catch them

He is a damn fine writer and hilarious to boot!

[zeemike]

3. Amen to that

Nothing further needs to be said.

[Mandate My Ass]

4. Excellent, as usual

<snip>

It was Earth Day weekend. The president talked about how mountain biking helped him "settle his soul" and "burn off excess energy when you're living life to its fullest," which apparently means blindly running your nation into a bloody flaming wall at full speed like a drunk NASCAR driver on Ambien. He talked about how he enjoyed mountain biking because it had such minimal impact on the pristine, wild surroundings. Shockingly, lightning did not strike him dead on the spot....

This is perhaps the most frightening thing about the Bush visit, about him having the nerve, the sheer vulgar gall to discuss the quality of his soul while biking through a natural habitat his administration so violently works to defile. It is this: He actually meant it. Bush was probably genuinely heartfelt about enjoying his ride through our troubled trees. He thinks he is attuned and connected. He thinks nature is nifty and calming. And, simply put, there is no more dangerous a leader on the face of the earth who, in every policy and every law and every action, abuses and distorts and molests the world around him, and yet who can turn on an ideological dime and calmly glorify that very thing which he helps destroy.

</snip>

[kenny blankenship]

5. We beat it, fair 'n square!

why shouldn't we spit on it? Haven't we shown it every other form of contempt, and much worse than spitting?

[redqueen]

7. We certainly have.

What have we done to the earth? What have we done to our fair sister?

People love to mock Jim Morrison, but those lines stick with me.