October 24, 2014
Suzan Glickman
The Sun Sentinel
500 E. Broward Blvd #900
Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33394

RE: The correlation between changing climate and Sophistry as put forward by you in your “The sky is falling” op-ed in today’s unlinkable Sun Sentinel.

Ms Glickman,

“I know that my redeemer liveth”
Thank you

A pre-dawn m ncacophony of tautologies, non sequiturs, wing-nut moon bat folderol, Mammon and filthy lucre, and for a classic modern American Liberal ending. “It’s for the children”. Barf bag alert.

First, I must thank you for the ice water dunking from you, an ohmadahn who, doubtless, thinks manual labor, the undocumented border crossing dreamer, someone who in times primeval was known as an illegal alien, is the dude who mows the lawn and trims the hedges of your aggressively air conditioned house.

Did I go one assumption too far in my description of you? I don’t think so. I used your op-ed as the paradigm for my unfair and unbalanced tract.

If I read your screed correctly you have knowledge of bribery involving lobbyists and elected officials and regulators. You must bring these suspicions immediately to the nearest United States Attorney’s office. It is your civic duty and responsibility.

Since I am not sure if you object to all money being spent on lobbying I must tell you that NARAL spends millions of dollars trying to influence legislators. Ditto various teachers’ unions, dog track owners, hospitals, cement haulers, anti-bullying cabals, librarians, and swamp defenders. Of course, if you operate under the rule that while all money in politics is evil some money in politics is more evil than other moneys in politics then your high dudgeon is limited to bad guys only.

Sometimes it’s tough to know who the bad guys are.

You say that since Governor Scott “has investments in more than two dozen oil and gas ventures” he is beholden, probably criminally, to the fossil fuel despoilers who have raised loot and pillage to a new art form.

I don’t know this to be true but if you have a bag filled with goodies covering this you must call Eric Holder collect and demand immediate action. Since he is not investigating 4 Americans being murdered in Benghazi or the IRS taking a dump on the Constitution his crack A-Team has some free time.

Meanwhile, Logic would dictate that you immediately beginning lobbying for every pension plan in Florida, each and every one, to begin divesting themselves of any company involved in any part of the fossil fuel business.

That should make you feel warm and fuzzy right away.

As a substitute I can find you some deeply discounted Solyndra bonds to help you when you enter your golden years.

As to Climate Change…

1900, 1925, 1935, 1938 gave us hurricanes that have not been equaled in this country since then. Since these all happened before gas guzzling, ice berg melting, polar bear drowning SUVs appeared can you tell me how this happened? Please limit yourself to declarative sentences.

The 1930s gave us a drought in the mid-West that was of biblical proportions. Where did that come from since the “usual suspects”, carbon footprints, plastic, the Koch Brothers, inter alia, had not yet appeared on the public stage?

Krakatoa in 1883. Repeated snow falls in Boston in the summer of 1821. I think we can rule out fracking as a suspect since the word would have sounded like it came from Avernus. How did they happen?

I’ll try to be gentle. The last Ice Age ended because of the blessings of Global Warming. Honest. You could look it up.

That is one of the reasons I wear a ball cap saying

PROUD GLOBAL WARMER.

The 1821 summer of snow in Boston, Krakatoa in 1883. Do you think “fracking” caused them?

“He [Governor Scott] might not be a scientist but he should listen to them.”

What you are really saying is that some really, really smart people, having made appropriate sacrifices to the proper Gods, have “settled the science” and spoken ex cathedra on the subject of climate change. As such, further discussion of the subject is fruitless and prima facie proof of bible toting, knuckle dragging oafs. Not only are they wrong but they are evil incarnate and must be driven from the public arena like the Salem Witches.

To that I say bullshit.

You do a great dishonor to your “for the children” crusade.

For 25 centuries Western man has died to keep its legacy intact. Part of said legacy is the scientific method, critical inquiry, and reasoned discourse.

In “Lawrence of Arabia” Peter O’Toole, of late and happy memory, defiantly snarls that “nothing is written until it is written”.

You say that –A- there is nothing more to be written and –B-the books are closed and –C- everybody must turn in their pencils so they may be used for fuel when the other books are burned..

No so.

Ptolemy, and deo gratias for Google, ruled the “settled science” of astronomy for a millennium and a half. 1,500 years. Somebody said “but still it moves” and he was gone in an instant.

If Miami is about to disappear under 30 fathoms of melting ice bergs – I am sorry for the peripatetic polar bears. Perhaps an infomercial asking for $19 a month will help them relocate. Perhaps $38 a month will get them to stop eating baby seals and adopt a vegan life style – why did an acre of waterfront property on Biscayne Bay just change hands for $100,000,000? That’s one hundred million dollars. The 1% may be mean, nasty, brutish, and insensitive to the community’s greater needs but that doesn’t make them stupid. Wealthy people surround themselves with smart people whose sole job is to keep them wealthy. Letting a polluting hedge fund Robber Baron lose $100, 000, 000 is not the way to increase their undertaxed bonuses.

Alas, duty calls.

Wearing my PROUD GLOBAL WARMER hat, tilted at a jaunty angle that scrams “Why are there more horses’ asses than horses’ heads?”, I am off to check my manatee traps. The baby sows make for great sushi, particularly with some lightly braised arugula, endive, chard, and kale. You won’t notice how hot and sticky the weather is.

I say that because, and I almost hate to be the one to tell you, but when you turn your A/C to the “Who says you can’t wear cashmere in Broward” setting the power coming out of the wire comes from burning dirty coal. Not quite half of the electricity produced in this country comes from power plants that burn coal. Half of that power goes to A/C. Modern American Liberals, particularly the loony ones who caterwaul about the need to think globally and act locally are not amused when this inconvenient truth is revealed to them.

Now that you know that you have no choice but to turn off you’re A/C.

You will, won’t you?

If not, why not?

After all, “It’s for the children”, isn’t it?





Kevin Smith




PS – If I were to say “Good! Like Nedick’s” would it date me? Are you related to Marty Glickman?