Green

I couldn't have timed my vacation better. I left behind cold weather and trees that were still mostly barren, and returned today to summer-like weather and trees that have leafed out. One major difference between life here and in SoCal is the ability to do outdoor activities year-round. Here, I've come to appreciate the warm weather, as it enables me to do things I can't do at other times of the year. Driving to work this morning, I looked at all the green trees lining the highway and thought about all the fun times coming this summer: camping, inner-tubing, bike riding, hiking and much more. I miss being able to do these things year-round, but I enjoy them all the more now.

Disgust

Appalling. Shameful. Disgusting. That's what I think of NBC News and all the other news organizations spewing out the audio, video and photographs of the Virginia Tech shooter. The pain that the killer inflicted is not enough. Now the news media spits in the faces of the victims and their families by broadcasting this animal's rants, just like he wanted them to do. The lack of respect, the utter greed disgusts me. The impression I get is the news organizations as rabid zombies, hunching over the bodies of the dead and peering out with soulless eyes, faces covered in blood as they feed on the victims of this tragedy.

I blame the news media for contributing to America's culture of violence, which bred this killer in the first place. Let a mass murderer spew his vitriol on the air waves, show executions and dead bodies, prattle on incessantly about body counts in Iraq, but God forbid we see one nipple on television. Something is rotten when a culture finds nudity and sexual content so offensive, but allows all manner of violence to play out on its television and movie screens. In this way, at least, America really is the bloodthirsty, amoral cesspool that much of the rest of the world considers it.
 

Barbecued

The global warming debate between my father and I may have heated up a bit, but we can both agree on the absurdity of Belgium's efforts to curb greenhouse gasses by taxing people who want to barbecue.

No, I am not kidding. I posted this on April 3, not April 1.

Beginning this summer, residents of Wallonia, Belgium, will have to pay €20 (or about $26) each time they throw something on the barbie. How will the Belgian authorities enforce this, you ask? With helicopter patrols using heat-detecting equipment, of course! C'mon, it's not like a helicopter emits more greenhouse gasses than a well-done hamburger.