News & Politics

How Stimulating!

After months of anticipation, the Internal Revenue Service has deposited my economic stimulus check. My hard earned money rightfully returned to me so I can spend it somewhere in a dwindling economy. I am using the money in the most Reagonomic way possible. Reagon continually pitched the trickle down effect of his economic policy in the 80s. Well, get a load of my take on the trickle down effect in a post NAFTA world…

As the unofficial start to summer comes upon us with Memorial Day, I am heading to Mexico for a grand holiday vacation. Where is my economic stimulus check going? To Mexico to lie in the sand and drink margaritas!

Such irony that if the Republicans had this money in their federal budget, they’d build a huge fence along our Mexican border. Wait…that’s in the works. Well, they’d make it bigger and stronger. I am smarter than that. The Feds are giving me money to spend, so why not spend it IN Mexico to help provide economic stimulus in our neighbor’s land. I’ll give that economy a little kick and that will keep one more family in Mexico, rather than splitting them up and forcing a member to fight through the desert and the super Republican border fence! That’s what I call economic stimulus.

However, always one for equality, I am flying an American airline so there will be some of that stimulus check used within the US economy. I’m stimulating the ever so flacid aviation sector! How stimulating!

What are you going to stimulate?

 

April 22nd, 2008 is Earth Day

As a product of the infamous age of Captain Planet, things like reducing, reusing and recycling have been important to me. When I was about 10 years old, I watched an episode of Captain Planet that discussed the destruction of rainforests to raise cattle, producing bountiful beef products for all. I stopped eating beef as my effort to save the rainforest! I was going to change the world by not eating a hamburger or a steak. Little did my young mind know that beef at the local supermarket was most likely coming from Texas and not the precious rainforests of South America.

Years passed and it finally hit me that the shoes I loved wearing, along with its matching belt and bracelet, were all leather; therefore, made of cow. I still do not eat beef, but I love my leather shoes. I love my leather belts and I’m not giving up my leather watchbands or bracelets.

The moral of the story is that we live in a world of modern convenience. We also live in a world that is dying because of it. When living day to day life, tweaking some random habits to help fight global warming and reducing your carbon footprint can be easy and you don’t have to give up EVERYTHING. 

1) Instead of drying all of your laundry, dry only your towels and sheets. Air dry your clothes.

2) If you have to drive a car, focus on fuel efficiency. If you want a big car, but have no use for a big car in reality, be like the Europeans and select a small car.

3) Walk a mile or two instead of driving. Yes, you get excercise, but more importantly you become more engaged in the environment you live in; the sites, the sounds, the smells. Engage yourself.

In other words, you don’t have to give up your favorite leather shoes, just stop eating beef.