SHARED IGNORANGE

So I'm struggling a bit here with this whole green thing. Maybe I'm the one who's crazy, but I'm thinking more and more that Global Warming is at worst and hoax, and at best a ploy to make money by the likes of Al "It-looks-like-I-smeared-Vaseline-all-over-my-face" Gore and his whatever organization. Don't get me wrong, I think we should take care of the environment, and we should do what we can to preserve the beauty and functionality of the earth for future generations. However, I also would like to think that I have enough common sense and appreciation for God's creation to make that decision in my own life. And further more, while I realize that mankind can have a significant impact on the environment, I struggle to believe that we can cause a shift in climate. Last time I checked, God was in control of that! So I'd like to just be an individual who has an equal appreciation for what I can and cannot do for the world around me.

BUT NO!

Enter NBC and "Green Week". So I haven't been home to watch TV until last night. It started with the nightly news (whose obvious goal is just to tick me off) and their special report on something environmental. Pardon me for not knowing what the report was because I was doing the dishes...but I heard enough to know it was about global warming. Well then we started watching The Biggest Loser (did I just type that.....I mean.....I don't personally like the show....it's Karen....and we compromise with our TV watching....leave me alone). At every commercial break they were giving us tips like "recycle" or "plant a tree". Really? Really? We can recycle, or plant trees to help the environment? No way! Then all of their workouts had to be done without electricity...so they would conserve energy. And to top it all off, they gave the contestants special green shirts with a giant "RECYCLE" symbol on the back.

But that wasn't the worst of it. After I suffer through The Biggest Loser, we then watch Law & Order. Usually a good show, though I rarely agree with their political commentary that is prevalent throughout the show. It was in the middle of a show, that one of the characters is carrying around a pizza box....just walking around with it, when another character shouts out "Hey, you know you need to recycle that pizza box!"

Talk about gratuitous. This whole NBC Green Week mess really gets under my skin. I honestly can't figure it out. Do they really think that they are being oh-so-noble in shoving this down our throats. I find it terribly hard to believe that they are really trying to make a difference. It seems much more likely to me that they are trying to guilt us into changing our lifestyle in such a way that we have to spend money on "Green" items (or heaven forbid on carbon credits!!). In the process, the one pushing this little agenda get rich, but the environment, due to conditions that have been in place since the dawn of man, continues to change, until we realize that "OH the ice caps are now getting bigger.....ICE AGE ICE AGE beware of the ICE AGE" In which case, the tide turns and we now need to do something else to stop ruining the environment.....does this sound familiar. Hey here's an idea NBC, STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT!

Here's my questions. Have I just been listening to Rush Limbaugh a bit to much lately, or is the global warming thing a big-to-do-about-absolutely-nothing? I don't want to call it a scam, but OK....ITS A SCAM! It's just not adding up to me! And listen, I realize that I have every right to turn NBC off, and just not watch it, which is sounding more and more appealing each day, but that's not really my point. My point is that at some time there has to be a voice that is as loud as my liberal TVs voice. My biggest problem is not that NBC is spewing trash about global-shmobal warming. It's that there isn't on TV station that is calling into question the validity of this stuff or that is at least willing to present an alternative. I mean, right or wrong, let's see the potential other side of the equation. Perhaps the Earth is deteriorating. Perhaps it has always been. Or perhaps it is a part of a cycle. We have droughts and we have floods. We have summer and winter. We have bumper crops some years, and some years we get briars. Some days are good, some days are bad. Instead we continue to hear this annoying alarm sound that is apparently intended to send everyone in a panic. I suppose I'll go back to my Utopian world, where media is unbiased, and where action is based on researched fact.

If you have an opinion about this subject, I'd love to hear it!

The title of the post is the title of Stephen Colbert's new book, which for any of you that are reading and wondering what to get me for Christmas....this would be a great gift!

I want to take a brief moment to discuss a minor political issue. Now I can guess what you're thinking..."oh Matt please don't go off on the fact that Al Gore and his organization won the Nobel Prize this past weekend for combating a global condition THAT DOESN'T EXIST AND IS MERELY A PLOT TO MAKE MONEY". That'll have to be a topic for another day. Today I want to discuss another issue spurned by something I recently watched on TV. Before I officially begin, I want to first admit that I am sorely undereducated when it comes to politics. There are some big-ticket issues that I know about, and I have a firm stance about several issues that I feel I, by virtue of my faith in Christ, automatically believe. But please be fore-warned that correct political jargon will not be exercised in this post!

Now, what spurned this little pseudo-political blog? Well I just happened to catch a fascinating little interview-turned-debate on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart. I am not really a fan of the show, but I do like The Colbert Report and I just happened to turn over to Comedy Central a half hour early to catch the aforementioned interview. The guest was former President Bush Press Secretary Tony Snow. As with most television media, Jon Stewart has a liberal slant, and an apparent knack for bashing President Bush. Now I gotta pause here and say that I align myself as a conservative. By that I do not mean that I think that the only way you can follow Jesus is to be a Republican, and I don't think that all Christians are Republicans. Furthermore, I don't think that Republicans have it all together, make all the right decisions, or have somehow in their infinite wisdom and unfathomable power hung the moon. No political party is worth that sort of estimation. This, along with other reasons is why I choose to refer to myself as conservative and not Republican. I'd actually much rather not have to pick between two parties, I'd much rather judge by the representative's character and conviction (I know it's a Utopian dream).
I also have to say that I do not think that President Bush is the end-all-be-all. I guess I just don't have any unreal expectations of a leader of the most powerful nation in the world. I think he is a great leader, I think he has made his fair share of great decisions, as well as some bad decisions. I think some of the policies that his administration has put into place have been great, and some have been horrible. I think he has done a fair job of being President given the circumstances of what we have come to know as a Post-911 world. I think that he has the single most important and hardest job in the world, a job which I myself could not do, and he has treated the Presidency with much dignity, vigour, conviction, and (to use his word) resolve as anybody. I would probably even argue that he restored some of the honor that his predecessor destroyed (but then I don't want to go into all that).

So please understand my thoughts of the President are high, but he's not the Savior or anything. But just to be honest, I am some stinking tired of all the left-wing media bashing of President Bush that is crammed down my throat every time I turn on the television or radio. I'm so sick of all of the attacks not just on the President's decision making, but on his personal character. Again, I realize that he hasn't done everything right, but we at least have to admit that he stands by his convictions, and he is doing what he thinks is best for the country in spite of drastic opposition. That takes guts! Soooooo.....enter Tony Snow on the Daily Show. It's something you need to see, perhaps it is on You Tube by now, but Tony Snow is a man who worked closely with the President. So in typical fashion throughout the interview, Jon Stewart jabs at the President, dubbing him a hard head and a failure. However, in as strong of a response as I have ever seen, Snow defends the President calling him a great leader, citing multiple incidents of his leadership, and even calling Stewart's bluff when he cites failures (which were most out-of-context proof-texts). The question I had to ask myself during the interview was "who am I to believe? A guy who gets paid to get on TV and make fun of any Republican bold enough to be thrust into the public eye, or a guy who used to work for the President closely and has nothing to gain from defending the guy?" I gotta be honest, I'm gonna go with the latter!

The problem is that while I feel like Americans have every right in the world to form their own opinion, I feel like most opinion is the opinion because it is popular, spoon fed to us by a terribly biased media (though for the record I think an un-biased media can only exist in my previously mentioned Utopian world!). I can understand disagreeing on issues, things like the War, or educational policies, or on health care. But disagreements amongst our peers at work or church don't lead us to go and publicly humiliate each other. And they shouldn't lead to that in the political world.

OK, so it is about bed-time and I sense that my ramblings are making less and less sense the more I type. Go check out the Daily Show if it is on You Tube (a responsible blogger would have already found it and linked it for you, but alas I am not a responsible blogger.....). It is really fascinating!

More later!