On Earth Hour, Workchoices and Baby Boomers

One fundamental problem we have in our society is that we allow smarter people to design and make stuff for dumber people. To a Sony engineer with an IQ the size of a small planetoid, having 12 menus and 46 buttons on a remote and the ability for a TV to broadcast in English, Japanese and Esperanto… possibly simultaneously is a REAAALLY cool idea.. but they don’t get out much.

However, for the rest of us, this adds to the burden of our cruel western, middle class life. We go to work to pay off TVs we can’t pay off unless we become CEO in 2015 when the bill finally comes. Then you’d come home buggered from work trying to prove you are CEO material (again, if we weren’t so dumb we’d realise that working too hard is NOT one way to become a CEO). So, exhausted, we sit and try to watch the telly… well, documentaries on SBS at least, because we can’t operate our TVs enough to pick up any other channel. Then we slouch off to bed with this numb nagging guilt that we have just produced two tonnes of CO2 with our 56 inch plasma playing SBS.

Let’s pause and spare a thought for Earth Hour. Oh.. I love it when humanity joins together in unity and solidarity and oneness of purpose and love and, well khaftans mostly and agree to switch stuff off for an hour. Man, that inspires me. Like… like.. like Workchoices ads or those really gruesome don’t-drive-too-fast-ads I guess.

No, it’s great, It shows that we still have some baby boomers employed in mass media and not chugging around Australia in motorhomes with witty environmental stickers like “make love not war” on the bumpers. Yeah, OK you could argue that this particular slogan is really about war, not the environment but, you know, agent orange and napalm and all the diesel fuel getting the troops around and well, they do get breaks you know, it is called R&R. I learnt my modern history from MASH (and my ancient history from Asterix the Gaul).

What I want to know is why in MASH they always flew to Seoul or Tokyo for their R&R? All that diesel fuel. They could have really affordable holidays locally in pretty cheap bombed out villages and they’d be helping the environment too!

Another bumper sticker I see a lot is “No Dam” . (laugh) .Yeah, I get it. Well, kind of. No Dam what? Good one. When I came back from Hong Kong I used to see “Not happy, John” on a lot of cars, mostly government vehicles, now that I think about it. Anyway, I don’t know who John is, but man, try some Prozac or Zoloft.. THAT would make you happier. Don’t drive around being unhappy. Just stop and take some PBS sponsored medication.

No, don’t get me wrong, Xers  will testify that we DO care about solidarity. It’s just semantics and how you define solidarity. For us, we think that solidarity is important. Look, when your little baby daughter’s poo changes from liquidarity to solidarity, THAT brings a tear to a Dad’s eye…. Mostly the smell really but nevertheless important. Just different generations, I guess.

A lovely lady on the radio was talking about Earth Hour. Well, I say “lovely lady” on the benefit of the doubt that she was actually a lovely lady and not the complete numpty she sounded like. Her idea was that we should all sit around in silence, with all the power off and candles all around and just breathe in the universe and the wonder and the awe… yeah and all the flamin’ CO2 from the bloody candles!!!! Wasn’t she listening in her science classes????!