oil.
This doesn’t mean choosing paper is the solution. Both—paper and plastic—emit harmful gases during production. Paper weighs more and, in turn, requires more fuel in its nationwide delivery. And only about 20 percent of paper bags are actually recycled.
Is “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” the answer? Recycling is great, but it encourages overconsumption. Reusing is paramount. And, if you are among the 65 percent of Americans who are overweight, give “reducing” a try too.
Gordon, you really ruined it for everyone. Not only are plastic bags unsightly trash blowing through our neighborhoods, they have been proven detrimental to our environment and will NEVER biodegrade.
BTW, the correct answer to the “paper or plastic” question is: NEITHER! In case you missed the memo, the best thing is to carry a reusable bag. They sell these bags at ALL grocery stores for cheap, so buy some. Or, if you want to splurge, get some cool ones at www.envirosax.com. They look cool, scrunch down to about nothing, hold tons of swag, and last forever. Store them in your car or carry them with you and use them.
№010
Ronald Clark O’Bryan
For making us fear Halloween candy.
Every year, many rumors and myths about candy tampering and poisoning during Halloween time resurface. The delicious dark holiday has been plagued by worries of candy contamination for decades. Parents fear that some madman will poison and distribute candy to unsuspecting boys and girls during their yearly trick-or-treating. There most certainly have been some scares, as well as false accusations. However, rest assured, there have been no “true” cases of random Halloween poisoning.
Nonetheless, someone has used the myth to try to get away with murder…
Okay, so Ronald O’Bryan did not invent the urban legend, but we have to blame someone, and he is about as nasty as someone can get. Long story short, he poisoned his own son with cyanide-laced Pixy Stix and blamed it on an aimless Halloween treat-giver. It turns out O’Bryan was just trying to collect on a large insurance policy he took out on the poor kid. He was found guilty and put to death, appropriately, by lethal injection.
Murder is one thing. Murdering a child is another. But putting the hit on your OWN son? Jokes fail me in this instance.
Another young boy, five years old, supposedly ate cruel counterfeit confections on All Hallows’ Eve. But it turned out that story was just a cover-up. He accidentally poisoned himself with his uncle’s all-too-accessible heroin stash. To throw off the police, the family sprinkled the drug on some candy after the child died. This brings the tally up to zero random psychos giving out tainted goodies on the frightful holiday. Which, statistically speaking, actually makes it safer to take candy from a stranger than from your own family. Nevertheless, parents still spend countless hours checking the safety of their kids’ sweet stash every year for apparently no reason. Some even go to the airport to get the candy X-rayed. It has all been fueled by rumors, assumptions, and assholes like Ronald Clark O’Bryan.
№011
Al Gore
For telling us about global warming.
The world as we know it is coming to an end. By the year 2023, all ocean water will have boiled away. Al Gore tells similarly shocking information regarding global warming in his painfully revealing movie
History tells us, “Don’t shoot the messenger.” But you kind of have to in this case. It’s not like he was handed a letter and read it; he actually did the research and uncovered the facts about global warming. Thanks a lot, Al; it’s your fault we can now fry an egg on the polar ice caps.
Quite frankly, this global warming business isn’t the only way you ruined it for everyone. You could have pushed a LITTLE harder in the 2000 presidential election recount! You could have also made your energy-guzzling home a bit more efficient (it uses about twenty times more energy than the average home and it’s only four times bigger).
And by the way… no, you did NOT invent the Internet.
№012
George Vernon Hudson
For inventing daylight saving time.
Time—a good magazine and a great Pink Floyd song… But let’s get back to George Vernon Hudson and his role in daylight saving time. He first proposed the concept in 1895 in New Zealand. He felt having more daylight in the summer evenings would better our quality of life. But you can Google more about him in the fall since you won’t know what to do with that extra hour you’ll gain. You’ll find he’s the reason we have to reset our clocks and have more traffic accidents in the weeks after the time change.
There’s always so much fuss and flurry about this topic. Should we do it? Should we not? Are we saving energy or just causing headaches? And what about the poor farmers and school buses? I think it’s time for action!
Do we really need daylight anyway? Let’s just get rid of it altogether. I’ll bet Seattle and New York wouldn’t even notice the difference! We’ll just put up football stadium lights everywhere and control the day with a flip of the switch! It’ll be great! Then we wouldn’t be confined to this pesky twenty-four-hour day. We really need thirty- six-hour days anyway. Then we could work fourteen hours, spend much more time with our families, and get a couple extra hours of sleep every night! AND it would cut the ageing process in HALF! It’s genius! The only downside? Playtex will have to update to a thirty-hour bra.
Okay, here’s how we’ll do it—we need to fill up the atmosphere with smoke to eradicate the sunlight. If we legalized marijuana and started six more wildfires in California every year, that should do the trick. Then we’ll have AM, PM, and MM—the “MM,” of course, stands for “much more.” It’s gonna be great: No sunlight means less skin cancer, more time, and NO MORE spring-forward/ fall-backward bullshit. We’ll just let the little hand of our clocks have another go-round every day. Just think, your microwave will always read the correct time! Serenity now.
