Too Much of a Good Thing

Dear Friend,

If you know me personally, which you very likely do if you read this blog--in fact, I'd say that you are quite potentially a creeper if you started reading this blog after finding it somewhere in the digital netherworlds of the Googular realm--you know that I consider The West Wing to be the grand embodiment of everything television can and should be. It's got smart white women talking, smart black women talking, smart white and black women talking to each other about things other than gender, sex and race, smart Republicans, stupid Republicans, and speeches that simultaneously elicit tears, laughter, and longing for a world in which Josiah Bartlet is really President and C.J. Cregg silences enemies of all that is righteous with a a little snappy Sorkinese.

Then there is Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the second-best thing that television producers ever had the good sense to broadcast. High school girls (who care about grades!) and high school boys (who don't care about sports!) take down arrogant vampires and Jabba the Hut lookalikes with a certain irresistible ratio of wit, brawn and cunning that is far too rare in mass media. Plus, Buffy features some very feminist ass-whooping: it's the women who slay and the men who just sort of watch.

Actually, this one Watches.

So, yes, The West Wing and Buffy: two extraordinary pieces of extraordina. But you know how chocolate and lasagna really don't work well together at all? Or how, if you eat too many cookies, all you want to do is sit in a chair, jiggle your legs and groan? I could go on, but all I have are food-related analogies, so instead I'll just get to the point: this is totally unacceptable. Get rid of it, Internet, and while you're at it, take hashtags with you.

Thank you for your consideration.

A Concerned Friend

The Scourge of Humanity

Humanity is afflicted by more than a few scourges, but I have one in particular in mind on this balmy fall afternoon: leaf blowers.

There is something deeply unsettling about leaf blowers. Maybe it's that their very existence is predicated on the WALL-Eesque goal of removing all remnants of nature from human settlement. Yet rakes and hoes, in my opinion, are just fine. No, what's so outrageous about these noisy-ass lawn tools is how unnecessarily and how excessively they pollute our otherwise pleasurable autumn air.

What exactly does the man above hope to accomplish by using a leaf blower? There are no leaves in that photo. All he seems to be doing is displacing some poor earthworms from their homes--oh, yeah, and elevating sea levels, driving polar bears, penguins and other perennial Pixar stars into extinction, flooding New York City, and generally bringing about a secular, human-induced Armageddon.

In conclusion, leaf blowers are the scourge of humanity.