Thursday, December 01, 2005

I combat global warming in three steps. So can you.

There's no doubt any more: the world is getting warmer. Except for the parts that are getting colder. And the parts that aren't warming or cooling so much as getting wetter. And then some bits are getting dryer. But there's one thing we can all agree on: the world is getting warmer. As temperatures tick up and the oceans rise, we will soon have to get used to growing pineapples in Alaska and sharing our neighbourhoods with fish.

Clearly this is an unacceptable state of affairs: carpooling with fish, tending the pineapples, and witnessing the nightly news spectacle of Tuvaluans wading to work. In the absence of a concerted efforts by governments to halt this situation, it's up to individuals to take action. But what to do?

You do what I do.

1) Icecubes. As the world warms up, icecubes cool it back down. If everyone carried icecubes in their pockets, the combined coolingness effect would bring temperatures back to optimal levels. Do not carry too many icecubes or place them in the brim of your hat, or you may plunge the world into another Ice Age. What are you thinking? Damn.

2) Petition the lord with prayer. For those of you tired of practical solutions, you can ask the Numinous to lend a hand.* Best results come from praying out loud at work in the lobby. Inviting people to come over for a bowl of popcorn, a joint and a Left Behind marathon is so effective that you may freeze solid, you'll be just that cool.

3) Stools. Not the stools that you sample - I'm talking about the kind you stand on. Although you can stand on any sort of stools. Anyway. If the icecubes and the prayer don't cut it, and the waters begin to rise and the salmon escape their fish farms and come looking for vengeance (and they will), you're going to need that edge to make it in tomorrow's exciting extra-aquatic business environment brave new world. Get proactive and stand on a stool. It'll give you that extra bit of height you need to keep from drowning.

Okay, going to bed now.

*If you follow the Gospel of Thomas, you can ask for a hand in place of a hand.

11 comments:

blackbird said...

I stand on a stool all the time.

Mostly to speak with K as he is very high up.

Anonymous said...

For some reason your stool comment made me picture a stool sampler, like an appetizer platter at a fetishist Applebee's.

I suppose it could also be a really disgusting example of an unmarried frontier-woman's needlework.

I'm sorry that thieves have been stealing ideas and handbags from your family recently. You both have handled it admirably.

Anonymous said...

i'm more afraid of the mind-controlling tuna than the salmon.

and now i hear that tinfoil hats don't work - what am i to do?

palinode said...

Stool Sampler Saturdays at all participating Applebee's locations! Come in today!

palinode said...

Blackbird - you're already one step ahead with your stool training. Next up, icecubes and god.

That all sounds really dirty.

Anonymous said...

I remember back when I was in seminary school a man put forth the proposition you could petition the lord with prayer. Petition the lord with prayer....Petition the lord with prayer.....

YOU CAN NOT PETITION THE LORD WITH PRAYER!!!!!!!!!!!

cue music and I am outta here.

guanilo said...

I have it on authority of the Gospel of Peter that carrying ice cubes around in your pocket is also an effective shield against those awesome helicopter-scorpion-demon things in those Left Behind books (or more accurately, "books"). Like antivirus protection for devils. Kind of like Keanu Reeves, except he had the Spear of Destiny, or something.

palinode said...

And don't forget what the Gospel of Phillip has to say on the subject: "And he... [cold]... (3 pages missing)... disciples sat around the fire [and] asked... cubes {nb. squares or dwellings acc. Bennett qv} are good, but how much better [when] on a stool as well?"

guanilo said...

Fn. 39: The literature is divided on the relation of literary dependence beween Pet. and Phil. For the view that Peter originates in a post-apocalyptic palimpsest of a fifth redaction of Phil, cf. Durkmont (1967a), Haustafel & Grund (1990), LaHaye & Jenkins (1991-94), Smith (1979b), among others. Brown (1969f), Illisimo (1985), and Grund (1985! - cf. Grund's auto-de-fe, 1988b), on the other hand, argue that the Sitz im Leben of the primitive glacial communites tends toward the obverse; Spinoza (1673) already argues that Phil. does not know of Peter, this despite clear literary parallels that want to be interpeted otherwise. If it is generally agreed that the significant lacunae in the famous "fireside stool" discourse of Phil. constitute a deferrment of the question in light of forthcoming evidence, it nonetheless remains a fact that the textual data know of no so-called "Spear of Destiny" that has tended to rule interpretations since the locus classicus in Washington's magisterial study (1932) suggested that such a fetish object might in fact be the guiding literary motif in both Pet. and Phil.

palinode said...

Ah, I love you guys.

palinode said...

Lynn, given what you've written about recently, doesn't prayer actually leave you hot?