Thursday, May 03, 2007

Good Alcohol and Unconventional Greens

But there is still a lot of spirit, in every sense, out there to combat those who would control our every move. Brit blogger Raedwald muses on anti- drinking activists who would not allow us to teach our children to drink sanely (Peculiar? Odious? Would that not have jailed Libby and I for many joyous evenings in your youth?):

"... The French would snort, the Spanish giggle and the Italians shrug. Even the Germans would blow a little Teutonic toot through pursed lips.

"And now another thought has flicked through my mind. If the meddling witch from Alcohol Concern who spoke on R4's 'Today' earlier was mashed, fermented and distilled, aged in an oak cask with wormwood and scorpion tails, and bottled, what would the taste be? Bitter, no doubt. A hidden spiteful sting, perhaps not unpleasant if well diluted. A few drops then, in a Paris goblet, well swilled round to coat the glass, before half a gill of good Plymouth Gin is added. That would be perfect."

Meanwhile, the inimitable Michael Blowhard has a a long post on contrarian "non- Gore" environmentalism, everything from free- market types to bioregionalists, anarchists, Slow Food, and even Ducks Unlimited. Read The Whole Thing plus links, please, for alternatives to top- down Statist command and control.

A quote:

"I've spent bunches of time exploring the eco-world, and I can testify that eco-people and eco-orgs come in all kinds of flavors. There are people who really like ducks and trees lots better than humans, for instance. (I feel that way myself sometimes.) There are one-issue people -- people who are doing what they can to protect manatees, or coral, or local forests. (God bless 'em.) There are far-out radicals who want the midwest to be declared a grass-and-buffalo preserve, and who argue that we need to create nature-corridors to reconnect the "natural" parts of the country. (They make remarkably convincing arguments for this, IMHO. Plus I often simply like the bioregional eco-anarchy people a whole lot.) And there are people like Bjorn Lomborg, who's eco but realistic. (I think he's great too, if not the final word on anything.)"

3 comments:

mdmnm said...

Love the Blowhard post.
I've talked to friends a couple of times this week about the green scene and my frustration with all the effort being put into global warming. I'm afraid that, much like the population explosion hasn't resulted in mass starvation and global cooling didn't result in a new ice age, the lack of a short term apocalypse due to global cooling will hurt all environmentalists (if it does result in an apocalypse, I'll be busy with other concerns. When failure to buy carbon offsets and drive Priuii don't save the world, every environmental initiative loses ground. Meanwhile, so much progress has been made and so much more could be done. Look at all the good from the Clean Water Act and consider all the good that could come from expanding it a bit. For that matter, for a bigger initiative Al Gore could address some of the severely stressed oceanic fish stocks, many of which would require international cooperation to be allowed to recover.
I suppose this accurately marks me as one of the Nature Conservancy/DU crowd.

Lastly, re: drinking, my folks permitted my sibling and I the occasional glass of wine with no resulting alcoholism.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, a lot of greens seem hysterically joyful about global warming's recent celebrity just because it boosts their own relevance again, after so many years of being ignored.

And even some non-greens seem to be jumping on this bandwagon as a handy political vehicle.

I think traditional conservation outfits have more credibility because their results can be seen. The only problem here is that some of the best conservation work is done on private property and we're in danger of losing our inclusive, public hunting heritage to an elitist, European type of private preserve hunting.

Odious said...

Really excellent evenings! This is exactly the sort of shower-adjusting nonsense that drives me mad.