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Happy Arbor Day, You Hippies

Matthew May 11th, 2007

My wife recently graduated with her Masters degree and I have a suspicion that her school gave out her information to a lot of companies because she is now receiving a fusillade of new junk mail, including one very interesting piece from the Sierra Club, asking us for money.

She threw the letter out, but I intercepted it, checked inside and, sure enough, there was a pre-paid envelope.

The Sierra Club will get their envelope back, but instead of a check, they'll receive this letter…

Dear Sierra Club,

From the trees that formed Lincoln's boyhood log cabin, to the trees whose sap flavors delicious Log Cabin syrup, dead trees made– and make– this country great.

Dead trees are used to make homes, furniture, and paper products (including the paper used to make the mailer you sent and your monthly magazine Sierra).

And while we're in the neighborhood, let's not forget about dead plants. Dead plants make America great, too. The cotton plant gives us clothes to wear. The potato and the oil of vegetables merge to give us delicious potato chips.

If you think about it, when you sit there in the bleachers watching a baseball game (bats = wood), wearing your favorite team jersey (t-shirt = cotton), drinking your beer (beer = wheat and hops) or soft drink (from a paper cup = trees), you're not so much enjoying America's favorite pastime as much as you are enjoying the rich life afforded by dead trees and plants.

And yet, as different as our worldviews are, I think you would agree with all of the above.

Similarly, I agree that our natural resources are precious gifts that demand responsible stewardship. Kill as many trees and plants as necessary to help the human race keep running; leave the rest of them so we have air to breathe and something pretty to look at. In fact, no matter how zealous a tree hugger you are, if you can agree that people should come first, then we can have a reasoned conversation. And even if you can't agree to that, we don't have to be enemies (but don't hold your breath for an invite to my next cookout).

No, you and I are not enemies to each other. The real enemies are enemies, not to us specifically, but to progress and common sense debate. These are the radical factions who commandeer the conversation with incendiary rhetoric. Just like the "˜God Hates Fags' yahoos disgust Christians, I'm sure you're turned off by eco-anarchists like Earth First and groups of their ilk that give environmentalism a bad name.

So to all my hippie brother and sisters, I say shine on, you crazy diamonds.

And let's work together to protect our most endangered natural resource: common ground.

[end ping]

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12 Responses to “Happy Arbor Day, You Hippies”

Chemical Erik May 11th, 2007

If you're more interested in protecting the environment than influencing politics, I recommend the Rocky Mountain Elks Foundation

If you like dead plants - try gasoline!
(sorry, I work in the oil industry)

Not to be confused, I love all my hippy friends out here in California. No matter how wrong they may be about how to take care of the environment.

greg from canada May 11th, 2007

I just send junk back to these companies in their pre paid envelopes. I know MBNA, Master Card, and American Express have all enjoyed my instructions from various pieces of furniture from Ikea and my far side page a day calendar pages. Not to mention anything else I can find to fatten up the envelopes. The environment is one thing, but we must keep the US and Canadian postal service workers employed. Email has hit them hard, lets do our part and come together and a community and use those often thrown away prepaid envelopes, fill them with our junk, and send them back to these companies to put dinner on the table for a postal employee.

Mike May 11th, 2007

You guys are great, i'm gonna have to be more caring toward the postal employees and keep them busy. Great idea.

señor jefe May 15th, 2007

I am sooo ashamed! After reading your sensitive, poignant and thoughtful comments Matt, I realize the selfish manner in which I have been living my life.

For years, I have simply ripped up or shredded all those pesky junk mail credit card offers, political advertisements, and ministerial financial requests… all with a curse under my breath (christian cursing, of course), and frustration in my heart. I have been missing out on the joy you speak of here.

Thank you, thank you thank you. It is with great anticipation that I consider my next trip to the Post Office.

(I'm sure I'll spend the rest of the day thinking up stupid stuff to return in those envelopes…)

George McFly February 8th, 2008

Poop.

Yep.

Poop.

Zippy February 8th, 2008

Uh, George? Care to elaborate or that it?

cathleen April 2nd, 2008

Great idea sending those prepaid envelopes back to the companies. More mail certainly will help the post workers.
May I suggest, instead of stuffing the envelopes with junk, stuff them with the Gospel. Think of all the people we can reach this way with little effort and no cost. Think about those people sitting at their desks doing the drudgery of opening all those envelopes and then they open one with the Good News. And the best part could be - if you tell all your friends, your family, your church family to do the same, perhaps they will get tired of getting our mail back and stop sending it out.

Chemical Erik April 2nd, 2008

I can't get a bible in one of those little envelopes. Perhaps you know of an ulta mega super-dooper compact edition?
Of course, given how most people react to junk mail, perhaps we ought to be sending them atheist liturature. Then they'd be so irritated with atheists, they'd go to a church simply out of spite!:)

greg from canada April 2nd, 2008

You might be able to get one of those mini new testaments in the envelope… :)

claire April 2nd, 2008

For several years I've sent back the credit card offers with a polite note scrawled onto the form: "no thank you, please do not send any more offers". I rarely get them any more. I think it would be helpful to you if you included your information with all the other stuff, so they can take you off of their lists.

greg from canada April 2nd, 2008

Practical, but they dont get the joy of seeing by discarded dilbert calendar pages or my ikea instructions :)

claire April 2nd, 2008

oh, by all means include those too! …. just make sure they know, also, whose name to delete from their lists

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