Conspiracy

You know any environmentalists?
You know any conspirators?

Etymology.
Environmentalist: mindful of what you live in.
Conspiring: breathing with/together

Living in Portland has driven me to explore my predispositions against environmentalism. As a disclaimer, I feel guilty for the ways I think differently than the majority of those around me. Cite my Catholic upbringing, cite my Midwestern origin, cite what you like. The majority of those around me now seem to value a bird that dies by flying into a window more than most issues.

A flier at school (Lewis & Clark's proprietary law school) seeks to enlist fellow followers to record incidents of birds' kamikaze actions directed towards our law school's beautiful scene-framing windows. Poor birds. When the fight is at our doorstep (or windowsill), we do feel the rumble of battle.

Thousands of miles away, our citizens, or rather former citizens, now our military advocates fight under orders of which we and they do not know the real causes. I recently watched a film entitled "Why We Fight"; the same question I have been asking myself since I became conscious of the meaning of a fight (3rd grade, defending a boy with gills from an obese 2nd grade girl with misplaced aggression; I got sat on). Turns out, in my estimation, that no person fights for any better reason than I have ever fought: for justice, for injustice, for anger, for greed, for misunderstood altruism, for vice or virtue, depends on who's asking or watching.

Save the birds? Save the Muslims? Save the victims? Save the aggressors. From themselves, I argue, those with power should be shielded. In the words of anyone without it, or anyone who has seen its "swiss"ing of cheddar, power corrupts. I was raised with power, though my power was intrinsic, inconceivable to a child, inappropriate to one so young and naive. My power lies on a plateau among Americans. Who reading this has had a single day in their life where food, shelter, unconditional parental love, access to transportation or communication or protection was a viable question? No questions here, ever. Hate me if you like, it wasn't my choice, though I wouldn't forfeit this privilege for anything I've encountered beside it. My childhood was not wealthy, but it was distinctly rich.

So the dinosaurs went extinct 65 million years ago. I like the idea of dinosaurs, of creatures that used to rule and reign over the world and have perished. Romans. My recent research reveals that the extinction event that wiped them out occurred between the Cretaceous and Tertiary eras, which means long, long ago to laymen like me. Meteorites seem to still be the most accepted theory of causation, so I guess not much has changed since I was a kid after all.

Dinosaurs dropped the ball, humans are on their way. "Dinosaur" comes from words meaning "terrible lizard." I wonder what they'll call us. Homo stupidiens?

Long live Earth. Short-lived is humanity.