Dear Mr. Carlin:

Thank you for speaking truth to power, inspiring generations of comedians including me, and for shining a light on the “freak show from the first row.” My father introduced me to comedy through you and I will always be grateful. If brevity is the soul of wit then it surely must be a sign of great sadness. From the two of us to you…Rest In Peace.

Sincerely,

Aaron David Ward

www.aarondavidward.com

www.myspace.com/aarondavidward

A new Harris poll fins recycling and paying bills online top the long list of things people say they’re doing to combat global warming. Somehow taking that container of bottles and cans to the curb and forking over your paycheck to your credit card company in cyberspace fall short of things that will prevent the polar ice caps from melting.

President Bush is urging Congress to allow oil drilling off the coast of California. Just like our government to come up with brilliant plan when gas is nearing $5 a gallon.

A hairy-nosed otter — the world’s rarest otter species and once thought extinct — has a new home in Cambodia where some animals have a better chance of surviving than some people.

Senator John McCain has called for the construction of 45 new nuclear reactors by 2030 which means the atomic industry will make a lot of green while we run the risk of glowing green from exposure to spent nuclear fuel.

He also pledged $2 billion a year in federal funds “to make clean coal a reality” or at least a virtual reality like pretending coal no matter how clean is a “clean” energy source.

Yet San Diego Gas & Electric Co. and its potential partners want to build one of the world’s largest solar power operations in the Southern California desert and surround it with plants that run on wind and underground heat but they face fierce opposition because the plan also calls for a 150-mile, high-voltage transmission line that would cut through pristine parkland to reach the nation’s eighth-largest city. Hey, what do you want? Everything?

The artist who created one of California’s most popular specialty license plates — depicting the tail of a Pacific humpback whale rising out of misty waters — is now demanding 20 percent of any future revenue for his art foundation. Hollywood wants a lot of green but mostly in its pocket.

Honda’s FCX Clarity — which runs on hydrogen and electricity, emits only water — rolled off a Japanese production line this week and is headed to Southern California. Take that Prius owners!

Hysteria about the safety and well being of children seems to have reached epic proportions. The latest example of politicians and citizens consciously and subconsciously promoting attacks on civil liberties in the name of “protecting” children is occurring in Albany, New York.

An Albany Common Councilman has proposed legislation that would require property owners to install window guards in second-story apartments and higher where children ten years of age or younger live.

Thankfully Albany’s Fire Chief and other Common Council members have objected to this proposed law but disappointingly government intrusion into the private market apparently was not on their list of reasons of why they object. Some objected because they questioned government’s ability to enforce the law.

The best window guards children could ever have also happen to feed, clothe, and shelter them; these guards are their parents. And if parents decide to rent an apartment on a second floor or higher then they should take responsibility to purchase window guards or find an apartment on a ground floor where window guards are unnecessary or better yet teach their children to respect physical boundaries. However, to allow government to mandate what private property owners must do amounts to yet another erosion of civil liberties of parents and landlords alike.

As is the case with most laws here in New York State, New York City — a bastion of statism – has already passed a law requiring window guards and so has Boston, Massachusetts, another so-called “liberal” city.

New York City seems to lead the country in government intrusion. It has banned smoking, trans fats, talking on a hand-held cell phone while driving, and apparently common sense and a love of liberty. New York State is the highest taxed state in the country and the New York State Legislature is frequently labeled the most “dysfunctional” in the nation.

From 2000 to 2007, New York State lost about a million residents who fled to other states with lower taxes, smaller government, and less government intrusion.

New York State lawmakers continue to pledge their commitment to “helping upstate New York attract high paying career jobs” and yet they continue to increase taxes and fees. Our notorious ex-governor Eliot Spitzer once compared upstate New York to Appalachia but these days Appalachia is starting to look economically better than upstate New York.

It would be refreshing if a New York lawmaker proposed the repeal of laws that intrude on the private market, erase civil liberties, or grow government.

What New York State really needs are lawmakers willing to guard the window of freedom.

It amazes me celebrities, rock ‘n rollers, hip-hop stars, politicians, lawyers, and media figures think drugs and sex are still dangerous.

You want danger…attend a party where drugs are in abundance and refuse to do them.

You want cool…reject selling your friends, family, and distant relatives’ stories, sins, and strangeness for media coverage of your own career.

You want sex…make love to the partner to whom you’re committed the same way you would a one-night stand.

You want long term cultural, political, religious, emotional, physical, spiritual, and intellectual relevance…find a way to make the lives of your fellow human beings better.

You want to be adored…reject money for the simple sake of money and find a way to improve the human condition.

You want notoriety… do something good.

You want to start a revolution…bring the establishment to its knees by finding a way around it…and ignoring it at the same time.

Twisted comedy for a twisted world filled with environmentally sensitive laughers.

Thanks to humans, the Caribbean monk seal is extinct…and no amount of Gregorian chants will bring it back.

Idling wastes about 4% of a car’s gas but 35% of your income or so it seems.

A first of its kind bond is now linked to carbon credits that make bankers rich but do nothing for the environment.

Drilling of a gas exploration well caused a mud volcano to erupt sending thousands to their Laundromats.

Since the 1960s the Japanese have operated high efficiency bullet trains. Since the 1960s Americans have built bigger more destructive bullets. We may have won the war but Japan won the peace and is greener for it.

The average price for a gallon of gas recently topped $4 while the average price for access to oil is the loss of thousands of American lives and millions of Iraqi lives…where’s the outrage over the latter?

If global warming persists, some scientists believe all of the year-round ice in the Arctic could be gone by as early as 2030 so buy those water skis…soon.

Rising population is bringing Africa close to its ecological limits but the multi-nationals will fix that when they find their new source of cheap labor.

Dear Mike,

If you’re lacking in ideas about how to get your career back on track, here’s a few

No more friendships with boys, plastic surgery, or lip-synching

Sing and dance like on the Bad Tour

Shift musical focus from self to other themes

Land a role in a movie or TV show ala Britney Spears

Show up, perform, and follow through; honor contracts

Sell Neverland and as many other worldly possessions to get out of debt

Develop new dance moves

Stop re-issuing albums and greatest hits packages

Sell new music and lost tracks that never made Thriller, Bad, Dangerous, etc

Use the Internet and World Wide Web to salvage image and career

Link music sales to charity work

Find a good woman and settle down

Rinse, Lather, Repeat

Invent Time Machine, Travel Back To 1984, Rethink Post-Thriller Career

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way–in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”

So begins A Tale of Two Cities, the Charles Dickens classic, which aptly describes what is occurring in New York State and in its neighbor New Hampshire.

As New York lawmakers argue about how to spend 124 billion (yes that’s billion with a “B”) taxpayer dollars making the budget late (it’s due April 1) again for the umpteenth time, pro-liberty activists continue to embrace, promote, and protect Libertarian values through The Free State Project.

From the website http://www.freestateproject.org/ “The Free State Project is an effort to recruit 20,000 liberty-loving people to move to New Hampshire. We are looking for neighborly, productive, tolerant folks from all walks of life, of all ages, creeds, and colors who agree to the political philosophy expressed in our Statement of Intent, that government exists at most to protect people’s rights, and should neither provide for people nor punish them for activities that interfere with no one else.”

Meanwhile New York State faces a 4.5 billion dollar budget deficit. Much like the federal government New York lawmakers have grown accustomed to spending more money than they steal through fees and taxes from New Yorkers.

Of course the mainstream media focuses almost exclusively on the fact that the budget is late not that the budget continues to expand New York’s gargantuan bureaucracy, stifle economic growth, and destroy the ability of New Yorkers to live free unfettered lives.

Reports say the budget cuts funding to homeless shelters, low-income childcare, and medication grants for the mentally ill, which, of course, the mainstream media will suggest is heartless. What is heartless is the state usurping control of the ability of individuals, families, and neighborhoods to help the less fortunate instead of the nameless, faceless, leviathan state.

The budget also increases the tax on cigarettes because smoking is “bad” and must be taxed. The freedom to smoke anywhere in New York State vanished a number of years ago only to be followed by a ban on trans fat.

Benjamin Sarlin writes for the New York Sun, “The proposed tax hike on cigarettes in the state budget would create a “black market gold mine” for smugglers and force New York smokers to pay the highest taxes in the nation, experts warn.”

Of course it would and why shouldn’t it? There’s no need for a “warning.” All those experts must be statists.

James T. Madore and Melissa Mansfield report in Newsday that “The state’s top leaders also appeared near agreement on $1 billion in tax and fee hikes, most notably on cigarettes, medical insurance, and purchases from Internet retailers such as Amazon.com that don’t have a physical presence in the state. Amazon executives promised a court fight to determine whether they could be compelled to collect New York sales tax.”

New York wants to get its hands on all those “lost” Internet sales tax dollars too. The state always wants to crush any Libertarian endeavor. It was only a matter of time before it began to wrap its claws around the technological bastion of Libertarianism, the World Wide Web.

Oh how I look upon my home state of New York with anger, disgust and, frustration and upon New Hampshire with envy. According to Wikipedia…” The state has no general sales tax no personal state income tax (the state does tax, at a 5 percent rate, income from dividends and interest) and the legislature has exercised fiscal restraint. Efforts to diversify the state’s general economy have been ongoing. Additionally, New Hampshire’s lack of a broad-based tax system (aside from the controversial state-wide property tax) has resulted in the state’s local communities having some of the nation’s highest property taxes. (But) Overall, New Hampshire remains ranked 49th among states in combined average state and local tax burden.”

How appropriate New Hampshire license plates proudly display Live Free or Die while New York State is known as the Empire State. New York State has built an empire on the back of its residents but like all empires it will eventually collapse under its own weight. I only hope enough New Yorkers are willing to wait that long and are willing to reconstruct the state based on Libertarian ideals. After all, we are the home of “Lady Liberty.”

A recent post The Trash Man at a Libertarian website surprised me with its apparent anti-libertarian bent. The article attacked comedians who make fun of “religious leaders, religion, great people, the serious and good leaders, and the religious people.” Humor found in those topics was labeled “cheap, profane, and vulgar.”

What a load of bunk! Great comedy finds humor in everything and anything. The best comedians recognize there are no sacred cows. And their ability to make others laugh at “taboo” subjects is a necessary cultural catharsis. One can be a person of faith, a religious person, and a good person and still laugh at what is considered “taboo.”

The author of the article lambastes political comedians, especially Bill Maher, by labeling Maher’s kind of humor “trash.” One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.

The author claims merciless humor’s goal is to arrive at a state of nihilism, a spiritual death that precedes physical death. What a misguided and uniformed view of comedy! Comedy’s goal is to punctuate the falseness of human creation, to elevate the spirit above the pomposity of humanity, and to call attention to the ridiculousness of life we humans impose on each other and experience daily.

To find funny in “taboo” subjects is to make society confront its own prejudices, fears, worries, doubts, disappointments, and to pick apart that which is pompous. If a joke has the ability to destroy someone’s religious faith then perhaps that person’s faith was not as strong as he or she was willing to believe. My faith in God has grown stronger as I have matured while my faith in organized religion — as the only way of achieving some sort of spiritual nirvana — has waned and waned for good reason. I put my faith in God not my faith in man’s flawed attempt to control my view of God.

Comedy like religion is a big tent. There is room in it for all kinds of comedy, which is why George Carlin and Larry the Cable Guy can still have successful careers and their audiences will almost never be comprised of the same people. If the author of the article entitled The Trash Man does not like a certain kind of comedy then ignore it. Exercise the free will God provided you and find comedy and comedians more to your liking.

The minute someone labels humor in “poor taste or in poor judgment or vulgar, profane, or mean,” is the minute that person begins to judge other human beings and judgment is for God and God only to make.

No matter how good any human being is he or she has flaws. We are all sinners. And we all have flaws, which make us funny, vulnerable, and open to ridicule. To place one person above all others is to fail to see the humanity and the imperfection that makes us flawed souls. To laugh is to recognize these flaws.

Laughter relieves pain, laughter reinforces the spiritual, and laughter is a joyful release of pain brought about by other human beings. If it’s true that we are all created in the image and likeness of God then we all have the capacity to be god-like at times. And if that is true, then I urge the author of the article to (a) forgive (b) laugh (c) lighten up. He will live longer. Laughter keeps nihilism at bay and God closer to the forefront of the mind and the heart. Laughter is a shared social experience that brings humanity closer together not farther apart. It is a spiritual high, the best high to be had legally. Instead of labeling what is “acceptable” and “unacceptable” leave people alone to find what they find funny.

Recent editorials concerning environmentalism would have you believe all those concerned with the health and well being of the planet are nothing more than closeted communists or socialists bent on world domination. Neo-cons often dismiss environmentalists as “wackos.” And sometimes libertarians fail to make a distinction between communists/socialists masquerading as environmentalists and libertarians who see conservation as one of the many facets of freedom. Libertarianism and conservation are compatible but libertarianism and modern environmentalism are not.

As a boy I grew up on a farm and helped to raise horses, chickens, and ducks. My parents always insisted we finish leftovers, grew their own vegetables without chemical pesticides, maintained a mulch pile, drove fuel efficient vehicles, and recycled, reused, and reduced waste all without government mandate or intervention.

Reducing personal pollution, safeguarding the planet, and using only what one needs to use are rooted in the American psyche. The Native Americans practiced conservation. Libertarian conservative political philosophy and conservation are compatible despite arguments to the contrary. Modern environmentalism — which relies on government intervention — is at odds with libertarian political philosophy; however, the goals of some environmentalists and libertarians with a bent for conservation are similar. Both want a healthier planet and healthier lives but some environmentalists want to use government force to achieve a “greater good” while libertarians want the market to determine the best approaches to preserving, protecting, and nurturing green growth.

Some, but not all, modern eco-warriors want to order others around; want government to mandate how, when, and where average Americans recycle, reduce, and reuse; and want, expect, and advocate for government intervention in the private market in an effort to protect the environment for the “common good.” Libertarians concerned with the environment and oriented toward conservation want only to protect their own personal property from pollution, soil erosion, overuse, and mistreatment and avoid infringing on the personal property rights of others by avoiding pollution and waste of their land.

Blaming environmentalists for America’s economic decline, dismissing concern for the environment as the product of communists masked as environmentalists, and labeling environmentalists as opponents of libertarian political philosophy are nice Sunday afternoon intellectual exercises but fail to acknowledge the existence of libertarians who strive to reduce their impact on nature as well as the compatibility of libertarianism and conservation.

Freedom, personal property rights, and a lack of government intervention are compatible with conservation, protection of the environment, and a responsible use of nature’s resources. Libertarians who claim to embrace freedom but show wanton disregard for the environment ultimately infringe upon their own freedom as well as the freedom of others.
To pollute one’s own environment is to harm one’s own health and to pollute others personal property is to violate their personal space, freedom, and health. If one wishes to harm oneself then by all means pollute your own land but when that pollution infringes upon the freedom of others to lead healthy lifestyles then the rule of law must prevail.

A conservative use of resources, reducing one’s impact on planet earth, and striving to protect one’s personal property from unnecessary human intrusion voluntarily, serves to protect freedom. Unfortunately in the both the mainstream media and in numerous blogs, the battle between libertarians and environmentalists, neo-cons and environmentalists, and leftists, and rightists vying over who is greener is portrayed ideologically but not practically and often oversimplified.

If only more corporations, companies, groups, and individuals believed in a Libertarian philosophy of personal freedom and embraced their responsibility to avoid harming others are world would be greener and freer.

Green Comedy For The Environmentally Sensitive Laugher

The Bush administration has formally applied to build an underground storage facility for nuclear waste about 80 miles away from Las Vegas. How would you like to gamble with you life?

Two contractors at the now-defunct Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant have been ordered to pay millions to residents claiming it adversely affected their health and property. Weren’t the weapons supposed to do to that to our enemies?

The Head of the United Nations says world food production must rise by 50 percent by 2030 to meet increasing demand. Most of that is probably from the United States on the 600,000-calorie-a-day diet.

Climate change is increasing the risk of U.S. crop failures. Who needs food when we’re drowning?

Rocker Neil Young is converting his 1959 Lincoln Continental convertible into an electric car and possibly a mobile bong.

A new way to make greener asphalt for U.S. highways and byways has been used in Africa and India for decades. As usual America is right on the cutting edge!

City residents produce less carbon than those in the country but their stress footprint is bigger!

The government has imposed new restrictions on some of the biggest-selling rat poisons, citing the danger they pose to children, pets and wildlife. Where’s the Pied Piper when we need him?