Ostritch Girl
I want to go and see An Inconvenient Truth, but I haven’t been able to bring myself to do it.
Okay, what I really want is to HAVE SEEN it.
I want to know what is in the movie; I want to be able to discuss it intelligently with my friends.. but I’m afraid to actually sit through it. I know I’ll walk out crying, with one more horrible, heavy truth lying cold on my heart.
I’ve considered buying a ticket- just to show my support, and then going home to ask a friend for the half-page synopsis. If I could only believe that my $10.00 contribution to the success of the film might still, somehow, save us all from Global Warming.
In recent months, I’ve begun reverting to the old ways- devolving into the Ostritch Girl I was raised up to be. When I was a little girl, I hated when my Dad watched the news.
I didn’t want to know about the wars going on in other countries or the people who lost their homes in the big storm. I was not interested in police shootouts or drug raids.
I couldn’t fix my Dad’s depression or my grandmother’s frailty; I couldn’t find Dad a steady job or provide a place where we all could live and never have to move. My own problems had already shown me how small and powerless I was.
I just wanted to read my Black Stallion books and imagine that everything could be solved with a child’s patience and a long, bareback ride.
I understand why someone would rather watch American Idol than listen to the truth about what the U.S. is doing to innocent people at Guantanamo Bay.
I understand why it’s more appealing to mow the lawn than to have a serious discussion about the proper balance between national security and individual liberties.
I understand that it was bad enough to watch the devastation of Hurricane Katrina and our government’s disastrous inabilty to respond- but how are we all supposed to digest the additional insult of the 2 billion in tax dollars that have been blown on waste and fraud in the rebuilding effort?
And the bad news just keeps coming.
- Trans fats may cause diabetes.
- Bird flu has been transmitted from human to human here in the U.S.
- Tuna is no longer safe for pregant women.
- I’m STILL the only person in my family who has health insurance.
- The suicide rate in New Orleans has tripled.
- There are many, many reasons to believe our elections are being cheated.
- The phone and cable companies are trying to kill my blog and all it’s little friends.
- Every day we find that another of our elected officials is actually a criminal.
- The President has issued 100’s of “signing statements” indicating in each one that he finds himself to be above legally enacted U.S. laws.
- The East Coast is flooding.
- Oil prices keep going up.
- People keep dying in Iraq.
…and the hurricane season is here, and the levees are not repaired.
It’s enough to make me want to stick my head in the sand.
Or into a children’s book.
