Tomorrow is the fortnight anniversary of Culver City’s slightly selective, effectively phony plastic bag ban, and I just have received a comforting email.
My youngest environmental correspondent reports that 13,000 fish have returned to life in the Pacific since Dec. 28. Explanation: They no longer are forced to gnaw on tasteless plastic for breakfast. Cheerios only hereafter for the fishy troops so they don’t choke, cough, cough, on putrid plastic and swim prematurely into the watery hereafter.
These underemployed, truly amateur detectives of the environment usually are well intended. They mature into tiresome, one-note pests who are as annoying as frozen mashed potatoes. Arguably they can be as dangerous as a tot with a loaded firearm. Having made few dents in their lives, they seek to save the world by morphing into human horseflies.
You swat at them simultaneously with both hands.
They could not act sillier if they dashed into the middle of a street at midnight and hollered “zero,” an unintentional tribute to their impulsive IQs.
Sunday at the Market
My favorite small-market entrepreneur was grinning last Sunday morning when, devilishly, he handed me a plastic bag from a fat stock he secretly has stashed.
He was busily scolding Southern California’s vast flock of busybodies, often sweet people, the meandering environmental enthusiasts who cry out to their betters, “Seduce me! Seduce me!”
“Consider the hypocrisy of this silly plastic bag ban,” said Marty, the market owner, gesticulating as he spoke. Marty suggested that the environmental gods who formulated the plastic policy carefully chose their victims.
Casting themselves as sinless do-gooders, the environmental gods singled out for commercial death politically powerless entrepreneurs who became well-off in the plastics industry.
“But look around here at all of the grocery goods that will forever be encased in plastic,” Marty said in a louder tone, sweeping his right arm in a giant arc, from the pastry on the counter, down numerous rows and across uncounted shelves.
“The preserved plastic,” he claimed, “is made by Procter & Gamble and other big boys. They are safe from the environmental gods – even though the plastic they manufacture goes to the same alleged destinations, waterways, although no one ever has seen a speck of evidence.
“But, ya know, banning some plastic makes the environmental gods who parade around our streets and parks feel good about themselves. That satisfies their life’s goals.”
