3/4/2005
Eco-Drama Queens
Over the last day, I've collected some interesting data on the Kaktovik Inupiat and Gwich'in tribes as well as the Porcupine Caribou (the heard that drilling on the coast of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge would affect).
Some interesting stuff, but as I was going through the material, it struck me that this could take the discussion in the wrong direction. This is not about a "Save the Caribou" campaign. I am of course sympathetic to the notion of saving the caribou, it's just that the issue is bigger than that.
Drilling in a pristine wilderness to support some mouth breather's penchant for SUV's is profane. It is literally a crime against nature. It is blasphemous. As Teddy Roosevelt so eloquently put it, it's about:
"What nature once so bountifully supplied and man so thoughtlessly destroyed."I'm also aware that anti-environment Republicans have a powerful weapon in this discussion: name calling. Anyone who brings up an environmental concern will be labelled a "tree hugger." (Let me hear you do the Dean scream, tree-hugger.)
It's important to have some kind of epithet to hurl back. My suggestion is: Eco-Drama Queen.
Here's my logic. On these controversial issues the Republicans tend to have dramatic, risky, radical solutions. The Democrats tend to have subtle, analytical, numerically-correct solutions. To make an analogy, if the Democrats are like Basil Rathbone in Hound of the Baskervilles, the Republicans are more like Mel Gibson in Lethal Weapon. If the Democrats are Mozart, then the Republicans would be KISS.
Now, I couldn't find a really good definition of "drama queen" on the web, but this description is apt:
Their lives are like soap operas and their friends are always tired. NEVER date [ed: or vote for] a drama queen.If I had to define eco-drama queen, I'd put it like this:
A man or woman who embodies the environmental sensitivity of a train wreck in motion constantly seeking its next victim. file under: ANWR
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