AMERICA CELEBRATED EARTH DAY BY BRIEFLY THINKING "OH YEAH, IT'S EARTH DAY"

Another Earth Day (Wednesday April 22nd) has come and gone, and with it, a record number of Americans who chose to celebrate the holiday by remembering it for a few seconds at some point during the day. I was one of those people. Scratch that. I was in fact one of those people who didn't even realize it was Earth Day until it had come and gone, which is why I wound up blogging 'the GAYthering Storm' on the 22nd and then blogged 'THE PARTY OF YAWEH APPOINTS RUSH THE NEW MOSES' yesterday on the 23rd. So here I am quite belatedly blogging about Earth Day on Friday April 25th, now that Earth Day, as they say, is but a memory, although I personally have no memory of it at all.

And now, for the purposes of satire, let's imagine that Jordan Brown, a random person who organized Earth Day, is touting the success of this year's Earth Day holiday, especially after only 13 total Americans celebrated the "confusing debacle" that was Earth Hour 2009.

"With Earth Hour, we tried to get people to turn out the lights for one hour," he said, reminding The World According To Me that I totally meant to do that too, but at 8:30 PM on Saturday March 28, Buffy and I were halfway through watching a show we'd DVR'd and we lost track of time. Besides 8:30 to 9:30 PM is a weird time slot/hour. Why not hold Earth Hour from 8:00 to 9:00 Saturday AM instead ? My lights are most definitely out at that hour.

"The beauty of Earth Day, on the other hand," Jordan Brown continued, "is that nobody really has to do anything. Mother Earth just needs you to have Her in your thoughts."

"I didn't know it was Earth Day until I read it in the paper on the train," said Earth Day enthusiast Richard Stamps. "I thought, 'Huh.' "

Stamps says that he then threw the paper on the ground outside the train station, where a homeless man later urinated on it.

By the day's end, an estimated 98% of Americans knew it was Earth Day, with nearly 1% of those choosing to change their pollution habits, if only for one day.

"I actually just left my car running all day," said San Diego resident Sandra Waster. "That way, I could purchase more fossil fuels, which Mother Earth has in relative abundance. It was just my way of honoring what our planet has to offer Americans."

A recent poll conducted by Lord Pollington demonstrated that Earth Day is largely only celebrated in the United States, despite applying to the entire planet. Sub-Saharan Africa was notably deficient in Earth Day festivities, with most of the population choosing instead to make war, become pirates or contract AIDS. Some engaged in all three activities simultaneously, instead of celebrating Earth Day.

Organizer Jordan Brown says plans are in the works to try and bring Earth Day to the rest of the planet, including flying a helicopter over small African villages and shouting "EARTH DAY" through a large megaphone.

Despite the general enjoyment the holiday afforded to all of America, however, some lawmakers expressed concerns that celebrating a holiday that is "not specific to America" may pave the way for communism and world government.

"Call me crazy," said Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY), "but if we start lumping in traditional American holidays like Christmas and Easter with something like Earth Day, it's a slippery slope to Cinco de Mayo -- an illegal immigrant holiday -- and then suddenly we're all celebrating Lenin's birthday. It's just too dangerous."

Other nations aside, the U.S. continues to vaguely acknowledge Earth Day every year, and with oil consumption up, carbon dioxide emissions increased, and general pestilence ravaging most of the world, Jordan Brown doesn't see this changing any time soon.

"Even if people are running their washers with extra hot water or throwing away non-biodegradable trash while they're thinking about Earth Day, at least they're thinking," he said. "And that's at least 60% of the battle."

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