I live in a small industrial town called Emeryville. With just over 8,000 people, most outsiders don't even know that it exists. But it feels huge! If I spit north, I'll hit Berkeley. If I spit south, Oakland. If I spit west, San Francisco. We are sandwiched between those huge cities with no indication of a change in city borders (besides that giant bridge that separates me from S.F.). People just driving through would have no idea that it was there, they would just think it was part of Oakland. That's why I still feel like I live in the big city. In fact, to people who don't live around here, I just tell them I live in Oakland when they ask. To people who live very far away and aren't even sure where Oakland is, I just tell them I live in San Francisco. Very rarely will I ever just tell people that I'm from Berkeley, and this is why:
Berkeley (or as I call it, Berzerkeley) is the hippy-est, most tree-huggingest, granola-eatingest, pot-smokingest town in the world. I went to downtown Berk today to do some t-shirt browsing, and I was getting a second hand high from marijuana smoke. In Berkeley protesting is not only a sport, it's a lifestyle. I think they also hold the record in the "Most peaceful protests turned violent" category. People there will protest ANYTHING. It's a cloudy day today . . . protest! And, quite often, their protests are not thought out very thoroughly. Their protests are embarrassingly counterproductive, and the only point they prove is that their idea has not developed past infancy. No joke; people actually LIVED IN TREES for YEARS when the city wanted to bulldoze them to build a rec center. I'm not so much dumbfounded at the fact that people actually lived in trees to protest than by the fact that the city didn't pull them out, and instead allowed them to throw a tantrum, and waste years of their life doing nothing worth doing. When the city finally threw them out, they were forced to get a life which means getting a job. Could you imagine sitting in an interview after that? It would go something like this:
"I noticed that there is a 2 year break in your job history. Why is that?"
"Oh, yeah, I was living in a tree."
I did see something today in Berzerkeley that I thought was hilarious. But first some background; Berkeley is extremely liberal and that's an understatement. If I even hinted that I was a conservative while walking the streets there, I would be lynched. However, today I saw a man begging for money. He was holding a sign that read "If you voted for Obama, you owe me some change." I just had to say outloud, "Sorry, I didn't vote for Obama." Now, I'm not completely heartless. I would give the man some money, if I had some myself. But, last I checked, most homeless people don't accept debit cards. Anyway, after I stated, outloud, in Berkeley, that I didn't vote for their great deliverer of all things Bush, Obama, I immediately realized my folly and feared for my life. But no one gave me more than a harsh glance. Granted, I don't think very many people actually heard me, but I started to think, "Are people, even Berzerkeley people, realizing that Obama's promises of change are hollow?" When it comes down to it, I really doubt that Berkeleyers would ever cease to live up to their melodramatic liberal reputation, even if it was blatantly harebrained to the rest of the nation to do so.
Anyway, I promised that I wouldn't dwell too much on political things, so I want to change gears and talk about something much more hilarious. The other day I overheard a conversation between a meat eater and a vegetarian (no, this is not the beginning of a joke). The vegetarian was saying that he chose to be a vegetarian so that he could protest farms and beef factories that emit large amounts of pollution into the air from machinery, factories, etc. He stated that, "Believe it or not, the most pollution from cow farms comes from cow flatulence." Now, I don't think that I believe that, but if that guy really believes that it's true, then his protestation is completely misdirected. Swing and a miss. Lo and behold, he was from Berkeley, so he couldn't help himself from protesting something so asenine. I know that there are some vegetarians who are reading this, and let me just stop the proverbial foot from entering my mouth; if you chose to be a vegetarian because you felt it was healthier and/or an overall better diet for you, then more power to you. I have nothing against that. But, if you're a vegetarian because you are protesting cow farts, let me tell you what's wrong with what you are doing:
Well, I set this up like I'm about to give a long explanation. On the contrary, just let me conclude with the words that I heard from the rest of this compelling conversation. The meat eater said, "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard." Veggy-man got defensive and replied, "Well, what are YOU doing to help the ozone?!" Meat eater said EXACTLY what I was thinking," Well, I'm eating the cows! Less cows, less cow farts." Der! I mean, what was going through that guy's head (and other people's heads, too, I'm sure)? "Cows are polluting our air, so I'm going to stop eating them!" Did he think that they would fart less if they weren't so paranoid? All he's doing is allowing another cow to see another day and pollute our air with badly digested hay stank. That's like saying, "I'm going to save my money by living off a credit card for the next 2 years." All he's doing is exacerbating (that's right, I said "exacerbating") the problem, which for all I know is a fabricated problem anyway. And I know that he wouldn't condone a forced extinction on cows, because another weird quirck about most Berkeleyers is that they seem to value the life of animals more than the life of humans. I know, I don't get it either. But now, my question is: How much of the Earth's pollution is caused from human flatulence?
