Idea of the Year: Plutonium Suppositories

The ever growing pile of garbage at the Puerto Rico dump is a reminder that with the blessings of progress comes the burden of pollution.

Which isn’t to say, however, that we’d be better off in a world without pollution. If we had zero pollution, then we’d have no cars, no electricity, no manufacturing, no nothing.

The pollution angle was in vogue when I was incarcerated in public school. We’d see movies about the curses of industrialization, and endure lectures on how the planet earth was going to somehow vanish because evil businessmen insisted on manufacturing cars, clothes, medicine, and all the rest of the goodies that make life worth living.

I noted that none of my teachers were concerned enough about pollution not to pollute, mind you. They drove cars. They bought and consumed the goods produced by industry. They ate. They farted.

No, it was far easier to live in suburbia and gripe about pollution than it was not to pollute.

And I don’t recall any of them relocating to the middle of the Amazon rain forest to enjoy the blessings of living in pristine and unpolluted environments. All of my teachers were weak and witless, and I had my doubts that any of them could survive the rigors of a three day long camping trip, let alone an entire life in the utopian, pristine natural settings that they loved to talk about so much.

No, it was far more comfortable to live in suburbia and preach about pristine rain forests than it was to actually live in the Amazon.

Still, somehow they managed to maintain their air of righteous superiority about pollution. They were such perfect, sensitive, non-polluting, gentle creatures turned loose in such a rotten, dirty, soiled world. Oh, the poor things….

Naturally, they had a Plan. The Plan always worked like this: The perfect, sensitive, non- polluting, gentle creatures would dictate economic policies to the rotten, dirty, soiled people.

But just who are the rotten, dirty, soiled people? That’s easy: they’re everyone who is not one of the perfect, sensitive, non-polluting, gentle creatures.

You see, the perfect, sensitive, non-polluting, gentle creatures keep scrupulous track of who is one of them, and who isn’t.

In fact, part of being a perfect, sensitive, non-polluting, gentle creature is being hyper-aware of who is like you, and who isn’t, because it is further testimony to your sensitivity, showing that you have the cuddly soul of a Kuala bear and you must be on constant guard against the Meanies of the world.

The world has a lot of problems, and pollution is certainly one of them–I lived in Los Angeles for years, and I put smog right up there with rap music as public enemy #1.

And when it comes to nuclear waste, I think we should bury plutonium in the backyards of the politicians who brought us this evil curse. Or, better yet, give each of them their ration in suppository form.

In the final analysis, though, merely complaining and preaching about pollution isn’t going to solve anything. Pollution is intertwined with the economics of industrialization. Analyzing the problem is more complicated than merely whining about pollution.