April 21, 2008

Happy Earth Day!




My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

By Steve Sailer on 4/21/2008

28 comments:

Anonymous said...

A mocking equivalent of a Cat Classic:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXxcMw5PTDg

4/21/08, 10:21 PM
Anonymous said...

Got to vote for Obama, I guess.

4/21/08, 11:08 PM
TGGP said...

Sodomize intolerance indeed.

Devin Townsend has a song more specifically about (and titled) Earth Day here. It's the best, worst and only Earth Day song I know of.

4/21/08, 11:11 PM
Anonymous said...

An excellent example of self-parody by the liberals. Uh, that was self-parody, wasn't it?

4/22/08, 12:56 AM
Stopped Clock said...

According to the YouTube page this is on, this is a fictional band from within a movie.

Infant Sorrow

4/22/08, 1:38 AM
Anonymous said...

Judd Apatow is one of the most insidious film makers of our time.

Naming a satirical band after a Blake poem is just too deadly accurate.

He must be stopped.

4/22/08, 3:01 AM
KlaosOldanburg said...

_______________
| |
| Sodomize |
| Intolerance |
| |
---------------

. . .

that's just beyond awesome. the thought crossed my mind as well, 'this *is* satire, right?' all that was missing was a coldplay-esque bridge with somebody banging chords on a piano, and a falsetto vocal.

4/22/08, 3:42 AM
Anonymous said...

It sounds even better listening to it in the Slough office with the speakers up to 11.

ks

4/22/08, 5:42 AM
Anonymous said...

I figure that there are enough smart people here that someone could direct me to the correct answer:

Can anyone provide hard documentation or a primary source for the claim that the date of Earth Day was chosen to coincide with Lenin's birthday? This claim is frequently repeated by conservatives, but rarely is documentation provided.

The closest I have seen to good documentation is this article by Lowell Ponte (linked to by Kathy Shaidle today) that quotes John McConnell, attempted organizer of an Earth Day holiday on the vernal equinox, as claiming that the date was changed to coincide with a Lenin's birthday celebration: http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=91AC3FEF-A244-4DBA-9ABE-8D78193D8D7B However, no footnote is provided and even if the attribution is authentic, McConnell might have an axe to grind due to the failure of his own holiday, and I would prefer an independent confirmation.

Wikipedia (not that it is always reliable by any means) attributes the April 22 date to Senator Gaylord Nelson (who seems unlikely to be a Leninist), but is unable to come up with a good reason for why the date was chosen. As far as the Lenin's birthday possibility, it says only that "some suspected" a connection and "the idea... persists in some quarters." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Day

It seems that there might be a good historical detective story here, and I hope someone is able to get to the bottom of it.

4/22/08, 6:31 AM
Justin said...

That is really funny! Thanks for the laughs.

4/22/08, 8:47 AM
Anonymous said...

OK, apparently the plot of Forgetting Sarah Marshall involves a guy dumped by his girlfriend by a British rocker, that's where this video is from.

The lyrics are hilarious, and the video itself is a nice callback to the Verve's Bittersweet Symphony (a guy who's that scrawny and that big a jackass will get his ass kicked within 30 seconds).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-Po8uJeoUw

4/22/08, 9:49 AM
Anonymous said...

the humour of russell brand is lost on yanks

4/22/08, 10:58 AM
Anonymous said...

It's from Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0800039/

4/22/08, 11:26 AM
mnuez said...

That was pretty funny. The English have a way of producing some really cool out-of-the-box music that leaves you looking quizzical and going "WTF?" unfortunately the only sorta music that ever makes it into our mainstream pipes is bland bullshit that (hey I like it but) all really just sounds the same.

thanks for the vid, and again thanks for your awesome writings,

mnuez

4/22/08, 12:09 PM
Anonymous said...

Yep its a parody,and a good one,as it seems almost real. In the movie,this guy plays a rock star for whom a girl dumps her boyfriend. The name "Aldous Snow" seems a prefect one for a guy who is not only pompous,arrogant,conceited and fatheaded..but British to boot!!!

4/22/08, 1:04 PM
Anonymous said...

Update to my own question:

A letter to the editor on the subject by one Paul Kangas, who claims to be a participant in the choice of the April 22 date, can be found here:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/09/30/EDG6PKE3B51.DTL

There are some problems with Kangas's account. The most important is that the Santa Monica oil spill he cites as inspiration for the 1968 event occurred in 1969.

A second problem is that the usual version of the story emphasizes that April 22, 1970 was not only Lenin's birthday but his 100th birthday, whereas the Kangas account claims the whole thing was conceived two years (or one year) earlier.

Third, "greens" as a political name dates only to the late 1970s, casting some doubt on Kangas's description of the event as a red-green alliance (although he may simply be retrojecting modern terminology onto an old event).

Fourth and finally, Kangas appears to be a weirdo of the first degree. There is a Miami-based finanical writer of the some name, but the San Franciscan is the one behind incoherent websites ranting about how everyone should take Vitamin C and selenium, how pennyroyal tea is a useful abortifacient, and how the Bushes killed JFK. (I prefer not to link, but Google his name.) So who knows if he can be trusted on anything or if he's stuck in perpetual acid flashback.

Nonetheless, Kangas's claim is a firsthand account of an Earth Day-Lenin connection, or purports to be one, and therefore a valuable piece of evidence. It seems to be the only such assertion findable through Google.

4/22/08, 2:17 PM
Brent Lane said...

Speaking of Earth Day. . .my family and I attended my city's annual public celebration this past Saturday. As always, the even was at the largest public park in the area, which is generally crowded enough on a beautiful Spring weekend afternoon.

And, for the fifth year running, I took careful note of the demographics of the crowd. Again, they were exactly as I have come to expect: roughly 500 people, about 98% non-Hispanic white. This in an area that is 69% NHW overall (2006 estimate).

I wondered if this was just a local trend, when I found this image through Google, also from this past Saturday:

http://www.houstontx.gov/specialevents/pictures/earthday/earthday1.jpg

Note that this picture was taken at an Earth Day event in Houston, TX - where the 2006 estimated Anglo population is a mere 37%.

Planet Earth can safely be counted in the category of Stuff White People Like.

4/22/08, 2:19 PM
Anonymous said...

We've gotta do something? How about putting contraceptive chemicals in the food aid donated to underdeveloped, needy countries?
Does that sound politically incorrect?

4/22/08, 6:15 PM
Unknown said...

A really fine parody of rock, greenieness, multiculturalism, etc., etc., and the sentimental platitudes with which they warp an already vacuous pop culture. I will refer my friends.

4/22/08, 6:57 PM
Anonymous said...

I think the sign "fight back against violence" gave it away. Otherwise, it sounds like a good Obama theme song... "we got to something, we got to do something, blah blah"

4/22/08, 7:55 PM
Anonymous said...

The picture and comments from Brent Lane remind me of the thread here last week where we talked about the Northern European origins of liberalism. Leftism really is a white thing - at least they're the only ones who take it seriously. (By contrast, 3rd world leftists don't seem to really believe in their ideology - they just use it as a pretext to justify their lust for power, and maybe garner some sympathy and support from leftist whites.)

I wonder if there is a genetic connection. Something for Steve to investigate.

4/22/08, 8:51 PM
Anonymous said...

That was pretty funny. The English have a way of producing some really cool out-of-the-box music that leaves you looking quizzical and going "WTF?" unfortunately the only sorta music that ever makes it into our mainstream pipes is bland bullshit that (hey I like it but) all really just sounds the same.

-mnuez

It's as much a parody of American-inspired glam/grunge rock as anything else.

Ever heard of Mother Love Bone?

http://youtube.com/watch?v=gqTpWmj6-_Q

I worshipped those guys as a boy. Too bad my heroes ODed before I graduated high school.

Pretty ridiculous, and the parody is well-deserved, but there's something worth remembering there nonetheless. At least I hope there is...

4/22/08, 10:28 PM
Anonymous said...

OK, so this reminds me of the old Tom Lehrer song "FOlk Song Army":

We are the Folk Song Army/Every one of us cares/We all hate poverty, war and injustice/Unlike the rest of you squares.

4/22/08, 10:52 PM
Garland said...

For the record, the parody was written by Jason Segel (American, southern Cali).

4/23/08, 12:26 AM
Jim O said...

Trivia: the index card thing is a ripoff off what music video from all the way back in the 1960's? One of the very first music videos, I would wager)

4/23/08, 10:03 AM
Anonymous said...

You must mean the young Bob Dylan in Don't Look Back.

4/23/08, 7:11 PM
Garland said...

>ripoff off what music video from all the way back in the 1960's?

Oh come on. Subterranean Homesick Blues, duh.

4/23/08, 7:45 PM
Anonymous said...

Yes, Russell brand humour is lost on Americans. I understand he's to have a TV program in the US soon, but that version wil be a shadow of his UK show.

It will be ruined like they ruinerd the US version of "The Office."

4/24/08, 6:38 AM

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