Nag! Nag! Nag!

RANT #1:

It's hot all over but I live in Texas and it's a tad hotter than usual this summer. Today, as I write this, it's 105 degrees outside. The usual solution to unpleasantly high temperatures is to run inside and turn up the AC but, in part, the reason for this unusually intemperate heat is.... the AC itself.

It doesn't take a genius to realize that we burn a lot of fossil fuels and put a lot of CO2 in the air in order to stay cool. The AC system in our cars require extra energy to operate and its convenience and comfort encourages us to drive farther and more often than in a vehicle sans a personal cooling system.

Being able to simply refrigerate the meat we eat also requires massive amounts of energy and has resulted in a meat-production industry that provides food that's not only bad for us but is the source of much of the methane that's causing climate change and much of the phosphates that are poisoning our soils and water supplies.

A world without refrigerated air would be, oddly enough, cooler, though how much cooler would require research and analytical skills far beyond the ken of one cranky little Texas cartoonist. But without doubt, countless generations of our antecedents somehow managed to struggle though past, steamy summers sans Frigidaired environments.

Since the invention of refrigerated air this country has invested heavily in actively-cooled homes instead of passively-cooled (and heated) homes and we're now in a kind of death spiral. You know what I mean. It's hotter than usual outside so we crank the AC down a touch, using more energy, increasing the problem, making it hotter, so we crank the AC down another notch, ad infinitum.

Americans need to learn to live with ventilation and perspiration if they want to help our species survive. But, to be frank, the vast proponderance of our countrymen are more interested in personal self-interest than in the best interest for all. Especially if they're sporting scarlet chapeaus and AR-15s.

I'm not talking out of my glorious, firm and rounded derriere either. I, myself, have not used my central air in almost seven years. It can be done and without undue suffering.

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RANT #2:

A good friend of mine has a 20-year-old Volkswagen Jetta. I've written about it before, complaining about the cheap plastic parts strewn throughout the engine compartment and their slow disintegration.

This weekend I noticed that the hose from the master cylinder to the clutch slave was bulging under pressure. A bad sign, unless you're the type of person who enjoys breaking down on the side of the road.

I checked the local parts stores for a replacement. They didn't stock them. I checked Amazon. Nope. I found one on eBay but it was used, cost $100 and they wanted $70 to ship it.  I checked Volkswagen's own web site for the part. They don't offer it any longer.

WHAT?! IT'S ONLY A 20-YEAR-OLD CAR! YOU GOTTA BE FUCKING KIDDING ME!!!

(I drive a 58-year-old Mustang. I can still get parts.)

I finally found a source for the hose in Lithuania (I am not making this up). The price is semi-reasonably high and it'll take a month to arrive in the mails but it'll do. It ensures that the horse will still be capable of fighting the war even the nail is dangerously loose.

Two middle fingers up, VW. Way up.

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RANT #3:

A surprising Canadian study revealed that, when you factor in everything that goes into the various manufacture of shopping bags, the ubiquitous grocery store variety comes out on top in terms of the environment. Go read it for yourself.

With that in mind, what we can do to minimize their obvious deleterious effect on the landscape is to conscientiously squeeze every useful drop out of those bags by using and reusing them until they're finally ready to be trashed or recycled.

I took several of these bags and folded each of them into a tiny packet no bigger or thicker that a credit card, then set them aside for the next time I go shopping. I know advice like this generally goes nowhere because we're Americans and ain't nobody gonna tells us what to do, but just think about it. Hokay?

=Lefty=