An Inconvenient Following

I am seriously this close to being done with the whole Global Warming movement. I’m sure this will be an unpopular blog. Or who knows, maybe there is a quiet mob out there like me who will echo the sentiment. Who am I kidding though – most likely nobody but my MySpace contingent actually reads this crap anyway so why hold back? I should back up for a second and clarify that it’s not the Global Warming movement in and of itself that has inspired this latest of rants. Anyone who has read my essay “Is the Truth Really That Inconvenient?” knows that I haven’t closed off my ears to the debate entirely… or even a little. I simply have a lot of questions that nobody in the planet-hugger community seems willing or able to answer. Beyond that, I’m frankly suspicious that this whole movement, while it may have started out with good intentions, is being hijacked by disingenuous people more focused on money and power than actually fixing the problem. Where I really grind my axe these days is with two specific groups: A) Loudmouth global warming activists who are painfully (or willfully) ignorant of how global warming actually works; and B) Al Gore groupies. But it’s when you combine these two groups of earthy well wishers that I actually start to become afraid for the next few years.

Let’s start with Group A. All of us probably know at least one person in this group. I’ll set the scenario for you. See if you recognize it. You’re chatting amongst friends or shooting the breeze with somebody on IM when you make the mistake of making an offhand comment about the weather. The people of Group A don’t hesitate a beat before responding, “Well, that’s global warming for you.” It doesn’t matter what your comment is. It’s hot outside. Global warming. It’s cold outside. Global warming. It’s windy. It’s rainy. It’s dry. It’s muggy. Global warming… Okay, let me explain how global warming works. First of all, look at the first word: GLOBAL. You cannot gauge the plight of an entire planet by pointing to a weeklong heat wave in New England, nor is a freak cold snap in April indicative of glaciers melting and the impending ice age. In fact, if you have a week’s worth of unusually hot weather and then a week’s worth of unusually cold weather, as far as the GLOBAL temperature is concerned, nothing has changed. If January is five degrees warmer than usual and July is five degrees colder than usual, in the eyes of the overall climate, everything has balanced itself out. But the people in Group A either don’t understand that or are deliberately ignoring it so they can fuel their own activist fires. To listen to these people rant, you’d swear there was never any such thing as droughts, monsoons or hurricanes before the Industrial Revolution.

I’m going to say this just as clear as I can. Even if we take this “environmental crisis” at face value, the day-to-day effects of global warming are not dramatic enough to be noteworthy. Pointing to floods, tornadoes, heat waves or even glaciers collapsing in slow motion does nothing to prove your point. The things that lend credence to global warming aren’t sensational or visual at all. You know what they are? Numbers. Statistics. Data from all over the world painstakingly compiled into hugely boring tables and graphs that show the GLOBAL temperature rising by fractions of a degree. One quarter of a degree on a boring chart like that is far more damning than ten degrees on a bank thermometer. That is where the inconvenient truth really lies… even if it isn’t as compelling to look at. So please stop invoking global warming every time I decide to make small talk about the weather.

Okay, now for Group B. The Al Gore groupies. These people infuriate me more than Group A, who at least have the luxury of just being ignorant. The Gore groupies are different in that they really do seem to understand the causes behind global warming and are willing to condemn people, countries and corporations for all the damage they’re causing via their actions. Yet when it comes the actions of Al Gore, they turn a blind eye to that inconvenient bit of truth. In his movie, Gore urges everyone to make sacrifices to reduce energy consumption and lessen their carbon footprint on the planet. Yet when Gore’s own energy consumption habits were examined, it turned out that his house consumed nearly twenty times more electricity than the average American home. Twenty times! Add to that the fact that he flew around the country promoting his movie in a private jet and one has to wonder just how seriously Gore takes his own message. These aren’t groundbreaking revelations I’m making here. Pretty much every conservative radio show in the country has used this information against Gore over the last several months. But what continually strikes me as so odd is the way the Goreists consistently absolve their fearless leader of his conduct simply because he is the one getting the message out. “The private jet’s emissions are worth it if it means he can speak at more assemblies,” they urge. What other committed following would say that? If some Christian evangelist traveled the country preaching against, say, homosexuality and then it turned out he had been getting it on with male prostitutes after the show, would his followers say, “Well that’s okay because he’s out there spreading the right message”? Of course not! They would disavow themselves of him and his actions immediately.

The one argument I constantly hear being made in defense of Al Gore and his carbon footprint is that he “buys carbon credits” to offset his pollution. Essentially he pays a certain amount of money to companies with low carbon emissions, or to companies developing renewable energy technologies, or to organizations who do things like plant trees. Something to that effect. I’m exactly not sure how it all works, but the bottom line worth focusing on here is that Gore is validating his sins against the planet by paying money for them. Is it just me or does this all vaguely similar to the medieval Catholic doctrine of “Indulgences” where rich people could pay money to the church who would then give them (no joke) a “pre-emptive license to sin.” If a man knew he was going to have an affair, he would pay a certain amount of money to the diocese, and then his priest, rather than encouraging him to turn from his sinful ways, would simply absolve him of all future adulteries. The inherent hypocrisy wrapped up inside this doctrine was one of the primary triggers for Martin Luther’s grievances and the resulting Protestant Reformation. So why, just because Al Gore has more money than the rest of us, is he allowed to pollute at will? If he's supposed to be at the forefront of this movement, why doesn't he pay out that carbon credit money in addition to reducing his carbon footprint? (And just to be completely forthright here, it’s actually Paramount Pictures, the film’s distributor who pays those credits, not Gore himself.) And why oh why doesn’t Gore’s entourage at least acknowledge the inconsistencies between his doctrine and his daily life and demand that their leader hold himself to higher standard?

This blog has been a long time in coming. It’s been on the tip of my (fingertips?) for months now but without the time to actually sit down and hammer out my thoughts. Then I heard something, actually two things, that finally made me take the time to get this out there. The first thing I heard – which really was reason enough – was a speech made by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at the Live Earth concert on July 7 where he flat out accused people who don’t believe the warnings about global warming to be guilty of “treason.” Treason! As in being a traitor to the country, perhaps the utmost crime somebody can be convicted of. Sadly, Kennedy’s comment was merely the most visible example of a scary trend I see developing in this country, where any opinions on global warming other than the ones espoused by Al Gore and those like him are opinions that are, at best, not valid. And at worst, if Kennedy can be taken at his word, those opinions can apparently make a person subject to anything from censure to death. We’re not there yet. For the time being there are voices who are countering the “Al Gore’s Way or the Highway” mentality. People like Sean Hannity or Glenn Beck who, love ‘em or hate ‘em, do make valid defensible points on the opposing side. The danger could exist however, if and when someone like Al Gore, somebody with his single-minded committedness to global warming, gets into a position of real power and opens up a new round of neo-McCarthyism.

I know that last remark sounds like I’m just being sensationalistic for effect, but I am dead serious. I wouldn’t have believed it myself except for the fact that I was also listening to the audio book version of Bill Bryson’s The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid. The book is a memoir of sorts using Bryson’s childhood as a jumping off point for talking about America in the 1950’s. Bryson spends several minutes (pages?) in one chapter talking about America’s fear of Communism and how that fear was personified and ultimately manipulated by Senator Joseph McCarthy. McCarthy instigated a nationwide witch-hunt for anyone and everyone who might be perceived as collaborating with communists in any way. As Bryson explains, well respected scientists, businessmen, humanitarians and, of course, Hollywood artists were accused of being communists and couldn’t find work simply because they had once had a conversation with somebody who had once written a paper expressing what was narrowly interpreted as sympathy toward the communist party. Lives, careers and reputations were ruined for anyone who was even remotely suspected of advocating philosophies that strayed from the accepted American capitalist ideal.

As I listened to this recording I felt an eerie sense of foreboding over the similarities between then and now. As I said, we are not to that point yet, but the fact that somebody like Robert Kennedy can so openly and so easily accuse others of treason – not a light choice of words by any stretch of the imagination – simply for disagreeing with the most popular views on global warming… The signs are all there. McCarthy played on the country’s fears and people went right along with him, even as he made claim after increasingly ridiculous claim. The fears surrounding global warming are also building and are already being played upon. For the time being it seems to be mostly corporations who are reaping the benefits of those fears, with the sales of hybrid cars, fluorescent light bulbs and whatnot. But as the government changes hands over the next few years, who knows who might come into power and what ridiculous things might they get the country to agree to in the name of global warming? Al Gore claims we have ten years to change “or else.” If the threat is truly that dire, what will believers do to ensure that change? Surely shutting up dissenters à la Joseph McCarthy will be the first step. And then what? America’s fear of communism almost put us into all out nuclear war. What could our fear of global warming push us into?

As I’ve said all along (and I feel compelled to keep restating), I am not denying the claims of the global warming camp outright. But neither will I simply be pushed along by the rising current without asking what I feel are pertinent questions. Blindly agreeing with popular opinion doesn’t help any of us. In fact it could end up causing us to focus our efforts in exactly the wrong areas as projects and programs get green-lighted unchallenged, only to realize the mistake several years too late. At best we could end up wasting money. At worst we could end up taking measures that would alter whole eco-systems, something that, as humans, we’ve never had much success with. Better that we all take the time and ask these questions now. So show your dissent. Challenge others. Don’t let offhand, “Look what global warming is causing” comments go unchallenged. That’s how it starts, but eventually it could become, “Do you now or have you ever owned or operated an SUV?”

I, for my part, am showing my own personal dissent through typically passive-aggressive techniques. Blogs like this for one. And deliberately sarcastic mockery and oh-my-god-is-he-really-serious apathy for another. To that end, I need help designing a few bumper stickers. The prototype slogans are:

BURN MORE COAL!
...because penguins are EVIL!

GLOBAL WARMING:
…because it’s too damn cold out there anyway.

STOP GLOBAL WARMING:
Shut your big fat mouth.

And my personal favorite:

GLACIERS ARE MELTING! …so?

Anybody with graphic design abilities, feel free to collaborate.

John Kerry has NOTHING on these guys

When the fam and I went down to visit my sister in Florida last week, we opted not to fly like most normal people. In an effort to save money on tickets and rental cars – as well to save our sanity from trying to corral two kids and all their usual tote-along crap through an airport – we drove the thousand-plus miles. That however, as they say, is another story and shall be told another time. The trip was far from perfect, yet far from disaster, and all the aggravation was made worth it by one thing, perhaps my most favorite thing about driving through the southern states: Waffle House.

I first discovered Waffle House a few years ago in Louisville, Kentucky while I was working the Kentucky Derby. I had no idea at the time that it was a fifty-year-old franchise. Other than the giant yellow sign out front, it didn’t seem to have any of the usual trappings of a typical chain restaurant. Consisting of a few small booths and one long counter facing into the grill area where waitresses and short order cooks bustle about in full view, the whole place seemed built more around functionality than presentation, giving it the appearance of a small independently owned greasy spoon than anything designed by a corporation. But the food was great, and even better it was cheap! I got myself an “All Star Special” consisting of bacon, eggs, grits, toast, coffee and, of course, a waffle, all for less than ten dollars including tip.

Back at home, my job often had me driving from Philadelphia down to Washington, D.C. and I began to notice that familiar yellow sign on my trips south. It seemed as soon as I crossed the southern Pennsylvania border, otherwise known as the famous Mason/Dixon line, Waffle Houses started popping up at every other exit. I stopped in often and grew to love the place. The food, as I’ve said, is delicious and, for the price, absolutely cannot be beaten. Of course, as they rely heavily on butter and grease for their main components the cuisine is obviously no friend of the heart, but so what? If you want healthy, go get an egg-white omelet at the Wheatgerm Café.

More than their food though, the overall Waffle House atmosphere is what has made me keep coming back over the years. Walking through the front door you get the impression that you’ve crossed a threshold into some truck stop throwback to the 1950’s. But this isn’t just bogus nostalgia. Never for a moment do you get the impression that anything in this place has been designed by some suit in an office building three thousand miles away. There aren’t logos and merchandise plastered on every wall, the food specials don’t have overly cutesy or flamboyant names, and even the jukebox spinning the occasional oldies tune is a basic model (some might even say “cheap”) without glowing pink bubbles or backlit displays.

Most notable at every Waffle House though, is the staff. Seeing as how this is primarily a southern and midwest chain, it hardly seems a coincidence that the staff is generally comprised of people who could be described as “trailer trash.” I know I’m generalizing in the worst way here, but with pretty much zero exceptions across the entire chain, this is not the kind of place you’d go into to ogle the waitresses. Be that as it may, you will never, and I mean never, meet more genuinely nice people working in any restaurant. They’re not operating on the “Ten Key Points of Customer Service” handed down from the company manual or trying to hit certain timing and upselling benchmarks as dictated by their corporate managers. This is simply, purely down home courtesy of the highest caliber. There is never a roll of the eyes or a stressed out huff when you ask for more coffee. You never detect even trace amounts of annoyance when a customer places a complicated order. And when the waitress strikes up a conversation, you never get the impression that they are simply trying to schmooze you over in the hope of earning a bigger tip. I don’t know if Waffle House uses a different style of recruitment or if a certain type of person just naturally gravitates toward this particular establishment, but I have never met a Waffle House employee who wasn’t that perfect combination of friendly, helpful and prompt – everything, in short, that you’d want in a waitress.

Over the course of our long roundtrip to Florida we ate at Waffle House several times. I still order the same thing I did on my first visit, the All Star Special. And I still I love every greasy mouthful of bacon and egg, still savor every buttery sweet bite of waffle, still relish the indescribable texture of grits on toast, and still wash it all down with multiple cups of Waffle House coffee, which in and of itself tastes inexplicably better than the crap they pour at most any other restaurant. As ever, the staff was wonderfully friendly and cordial, even as our children proceeded to make a gigantic mess of our table and the floor around us. We left full, satisfied, nurtured even. But most importantly, we left not broke. We’re home again, officially north of the line and already I long for the day when I’ll be able make the trip south for another warm and friendly helping of quite possibly the most awesome restaurant chain in the world.

Fair enough

Just got back from the final night of the Southampton Days Fair. I noticed that the density of slutted-up underage hooch was much lower this year than last year. Oh don’t get me wrong, there were still a few notable seventeen-year-olds (okay, fourteen-year-olds) walking around who would bring out the statutory rapist in any guy, but for the most part more parents must have put their foot down this year and declared, “You are NOT leaving the house dressed like that, young lady.”

We were able to have a lot more fun at the fair this year. Allison is that crucial year older and that crucial bit taller, which allowed her to go on all the kiddie rides, even the ones we couldn’t go on with her. And she had a blast. I felt a little bad because our friends Jen and Mike came along as well with their year-old son, David and they were treated to a full evening of following us as we followed Allison from ride to ride to ride. But at the end of the night we all got to sit down to a fireworks display that was actually rather impressive for the size town and fair this was.

So all in all a good night, though I did let nostalgia bum me out a bit. Last year when we came to the fair, the evening closed with a guitar man named Ray Owen on the main stage who put on a show for the kids and played all sorts of cool “Americana” folk-rock songs like “City of New Orleans”, "Me and Bobby McGee" and others I can’t seem to remember. Then at the end of the night he asked if there were any requests. I shouted out, “Mister Bojangles.” He told the crowd – consisting mostly of teenagers who impressed me with their appreciation for older music – the backstory of the song and then closed his set with the Jerry Jeff Walker classic. While Ray did play the fair this year as well, he went on earlier in the week on a 6pm slot, right about the time I would have been rushing for the train to leave New York City for the day. So we didn’t get to see him and didn’t get to end the night holding each other as a family and swaying to the sounds of “Mister Bojangles.” But other than that, a good night all around.

One question occurred to me tonight though. I know I’m probably showing my age here, but what the hell is “Hollister”? I saw so many people walking around in t-shirts bearing that word tonight. I mean entire hordes of people (teenagers mostly), sometimes two or three in a group of five, were wearing these shirts. At first I merely assumed it was the name of one of the high schools in the area, but then I realized that a lot of them had the word, “California” printed on it as well. So seriously, what is Hollister? Is it a clothing line, a sporting goods line, the name of the high school from The O.C.? Somebody please help me be hip.