In homage to Earth Day, just use it again
As the orbit of this column comes nearest to Earth Day, I’m cheering on re purposed MATERIALS.
A few days ago, that company sent happy word that it was offering for sale truckloads of guardrail timbers, pallets of stacked rubber playground tiles and packages of 150 linen-like purple dinner napkins. Also for sale, steel and plastic barrels, several of which, the company noted, have been sold to a parachute manufacturer who fills them with water and drops them out of airplanes to test large parachutes.
But there was also sad word: An inventory of used sailboat sails was no longer available because, said its seller, “Another person in my department arranged for a dumpster and threw out all the old sails.”
The website explains the company’s purpose: “Taking a byproduct or waste stream such as a retired street sweeper brush and giving it a second life as a backscratcher for horses or cattle.” I love that description so much that my plan is to repurpose it as my job description for next year’s Chronicle employee evaluation form.
Former Republican Rep. Pete McCloskey, who co-chaired the first Earth Day in 1970 and also co-sponsored the Endangered Species Act in 1973, was to attend Mayor Ed Lee’s invitation-only Earth Day breakfast on Thursday, April 20, at City Hall.
McCloskey spent his 89th birthday, Sept. 29, protesting the Dakota Access pipeline at Standing Rock, his wife holding an envelope of $1,000 cash in case he needed bail.
P.S. Julian Grant notes that the White House is celebrating Flat Earth Day by promoting environmental deregulation, debunking the science of global warming and advocating drilling, drilling, drilling.
P.P.S. Jonathan Martinsen heard the forecast — more accurate than most — on NPR: “Unsettled weather will be settling in tomorrow.”
I rise today not for the national anthem (which nobody is playing or singing near my work station) but in defense of President Donald Trump, much maligned because his wife had to poke him to remind him to put his hand over his heart when the anthem was playing at the Easter Egg Roll.
First of all, he had important things on his mind: Having recently authorized the dropping of the Mother of All Bombs, he was probably contemplating what he’d do for a Father’s Day follow-up; he’d so enjoyed having his chocolate cake while deciding to bomb Syria, so maybe he was wondering whether any cake was left; or what about the deductible in his presidential dental plan?
Googling up the rules for this handover-heart business revealed that according to titles 4 and 36 of the U.S. Code, one is supposed to execute the claw-over-core maneuver when the U.S. flag is raised or lowered, or carried past in review or parade, or when reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, or when the national anthem is played. (The statutes don’t mention penalties for violating these protocols, but Colin Kaepernick did run into a fair amount of criticism for his expression of dissent.)
Anyway, although presidential etiquette has raised many eyebrows — see Donald leave Melania in the dust as he bounds up the White House steps — it’s possible this breach is permissible, even to harsh critics. In 2008, when then-presidential candidate Barack Obama was criticized for not holding his hand over his heart, he said he’d been “taught by my grandfather that you put your hand over your heart during the pledge, but during ‘The Star-Spangled Banner,’ you sing!” Perhaps the president was singing to himself. “Here Comes Peter Cottontail”? “Rolling in the Deep”? “If I Ruled the World”?
I slept in, but Lee Houskeeper says that this year’s count of people at the Tuesday, April 18, commemoration ceremonies at Lotta’s Fountain was bigger than last year’s. There were, however, no supervisors on hand, says Houskeeper, and he and Mayor Lee, both of whom can be described as un-tall, had a real challenge hurling the wreath up to its traditional resting place midway up the structure. “This is where we really miss Scott Wiener,” observed Houskeeper.
“Because there weren’t cell phone cameras 2,000 years ago to take selfies of Jesus.” Dad to child, overheard at the San Francisco Zoo by Adda Dada