Ana Menendez, The Miami Herald

April 30, 2008

Ana Menendez

The Miami Herald

One Herald Plaza

Miami, Florida 33132-1693

RE: If you expect me to say “Don’t do it. You’re too young”, I won’t. The only possible conclusion that can be drawn from your column in today’s Miami Herald on sprawl and carbon footprints and icky people intruding on your space is drawn.

Ms. Menendez,

“The vote to expand the Urban Development Boundary was a

travesty. As I drove back against the great tide, I wondered,

is it too late to save us?”

You’re right. It is too late. For you. You can’t be saved. I am staying at the table. Even if the wheel is crooked, even if life is always 6 to 5 against, it is still the only game in town. The cards are dealt. You either play the hand or you don’t. I’m playing.

“What Is To Be Done” is the title of a snappy little tract by Lenin, that noted social activist.

Dostoevsky has one of his characters get right up to the edge of despair. He looks over and finding no other alternative jumps in. He kills himself. Having become a Logical imperative it left him no other choice.

If it is “to late”, is we can’t “save” the environment, if polar bears drown, if we can’t save Tibet, if manatees continue to belly board into whirling propellers, if teenage obesity expands, if Mrs. B. Hussein Obama can’t be “proud” of her country – God but the horror of it all is too much to bear.

If the prospect of Miami being underwater or tomato pickers not being able to get a good retirement program or having too many plastic bags forces you to look behind the curtain may I suggest that you place the open end of a 6 inch barrel large caliber revolver as far into your mouth as you can. You’ll only have to pull the trigger once. I recommend a revolver because even a chick should be able to do it right the first time. Semi-automatic weapons can jam in untrained girlie hands.

While you are selecting your final outfit I’ll be reading William Faulkner’s Nobel Prize Acceptance speech. I’ll pay particular attention to the part about man “prevailing”. I’ll think about Eliot and his thoughts on man “searching for a system so perfect that no one has to be good”. I’ll complete my Nobel Prize winning trifecta by tossing Kipling, the first truly multi-cultural poet, into the mix who said “they denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch. They denied that wishes were horse; they denied that a pig had wings. So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.”

As soon as I read your name in the obituary section I will make a contribution in your name to the National Right to Life Committee. The only condition I impose is that your body be carried to the middle of Alligator Alley by an environmentally sensitive method and that your remains become part of the food chain.

I’ll check the obits first from now on.

PS – Again the question of why nobody ever swims to Cuba is raised. Again it goes unanswered.