oct. vent magazine

OCTOBER 2009

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05 Wiffle Ball

06 Conquering the PokeSphere

09 Chad’s McColumn

10 All Hallowed Owensboro

12 C.Y.P.

14 A Mother’s Cure

16 Lighter Living

18 Coupons

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VENT Magazine is proud to print in Owensboro with

hen you play wiffle ball in your backyard with your brother and the neighborhood goons, you probably don’t have to worry

about being arrested or getting hit by a car. That’s not the case when you play with the Damn Penguins, Owensboro’s traveling, national wiffle ball team.

Ranked first in the nation out of 385,000 teams, the Damn Penguins practice their championship skills around 3 a.m. in Papa John’s parking lot after work.

The four main team members, Jeff Hawn, Andy Jack-son, Jeremy “Worm” Goins and Kyle Reed all work the night shift at Papa John’s. Hawn, president of the Kentucky Wiffle Ball Alliance said, “We’ve got all our measurements there and it’s convenient.”

The team used to practice at Kentucky Wesleyan Col-lege’s baseball field until they were run off. One of the stu-dents at KWC vouched for the team to let them practice, but he graduated. “And he didn’t leave a note,” Hawn said.

Practicing in Papa John’s adds some excitement to the game, though.

“Kyle got arrested once and Worm almost did,” Hawn said.

Playing in the street also scored the team some press when they accidentally hit a moving car with a fly ball. One of the Messenger-Inquirer’s journalists owned the car and wrote an article about the team. After that, the popularity of competitive wiffle ball grew in the city.

Hawn said there are now 15 teams in Owensboro. Cur-rently, the Damn Penguins is the only team that travels na-tionally.

The team has been to Ohio, Tennessee, Missouri, Illinois and Indiana. “We’re planning on going to Las Vegas and Connecticut next year,” Hawn said.

The national tournament will take place in Seymour, Ind. on Oct. 24. Before that, the Damn Penguins will compete in a tournament in Owensboro and in the state tournament, which will be held in Owensboro this year.

“That’s getting ready to change big time,” Hawn said. “Next year, we will have four tournaments ourselves as well as the other tournaments.”

This year, the Damn Penguins received a sponsorship from Eastern Little League so they have an insured baseball field to host tournaments and play games.

The Damn Penguins are also sponsored by Papa John’s, McDonald’s and the Glenmary Sisters.

However, if a group wanted to start a team, the cost is low, Hawn said. The main cost is entry fees into tourna-

ments and jerseys. The tournament entry fees range from $50 to around $100 per team.

Team sizes range from four to six players. And there are leagues for just men and co-ed teams.

Hawn said the Damn Penguins primarily play all men leagues, “but a couple times a year, we play co-ed to make the women happy.”

Tournament winners can win from $500 to $5,000 de-pending on the tournament.

Anyone from age 11 to 77 can play. The Damn Penguins range from 27 years old to 40.

“We don’t have any 11-year-olds,” Hawn said. “Usually they’re pretty good whenever they play. We played in Ohio against 15-year-olds and they were unbelievable.”

Games are typically played on Saturdays, Hawn said. “It’s hard to schedule because everybody works.”

With more than 385,000 teams in the nation, competitive wiffle ball has taken off. “We’re a little behind the curve,” Hawn said. “Everywhere else, wiffle ball is huge. We’re about six years behind. Indianapolis has about 100,000 players.”

Hawn said Reed, a California native, grew up playing wiffle ball on the beach every weekend. “He’s never even played baseball,” Hawn said. “He can just hit the crap out of that thing, though. He’s not even an athlete. There are quite a few good players . . . a lot of big old fat guys that can hit the crap out of the ball.”

Wiffle ball rules are essentially the same as baseball. However, wiffle ball plays the pitcher’s hand rule: Rather than throwing the ball to first base to get the batter out, the players throw the ball to the pitcher before the batter reach-es first. There is no umpire in wiffle ball, just a strike zone box behind the batter.

The field is a little shorter, too. “The bases are short so it’s not like you’re really doing

much,” Hawn said. “We just get out there and have fun. I have to stretch so I don’t tear things now because I’m get-ting old.”

Hawn is 33 and was nominated to the Wiffle Ball Hall of Fame this year.

Contact Hawn for more information or to start a team of your own, (270) 315-9917 or [email protected].

By Kitty Kizer

VENTMAGAZINE OCTOBER 2009 | SOLUTION #10 05.

06. VENTMAGAZINE OCTOBER 2009 | SOLUTION #10

t’s time to rework your perception of Pokemon. Jayson “Dirty Harrizard” Harry, 22, born to Mormon parents in Glendale, Ariz., is a current

Owensboro resident, ranked 5th in the nation. He’s tall, dark, quiet and an imposing figure in the Pokemon world.

He’s fresh from the Pokemon World Tournament battlegrounds making it to the top 16 single elimina-tion bracket and losing two games in five minutes, he’s anything but bitter.

“I’m almost exclusively there (Pokemon World Tournament) for the friends,” Harry said. “It’s what draws me the most.”

The day before the tournament, Harry arrived back home in Glendale and drove with his sister and father overnight to San Diego. After a near cross country trav-el, most would call it a night, but not Harry. Arriving at approximately 4 a.m., Harry saw some friends in the hotel lobby and started playing cards.

“All morning we saw people from all across the country coming in, I had enough sleep on the plane and drive . . . it was just too exciting to sleep through,” he

said. In the predawn hours, Harry and fam-

ily arrived too early to check in, so they decided to park the car at the

marina and walk through the sleeping town admiring the architecture.

The first event of the day was the last chance qualifying round for players not ranked high

enough to make it into the main event. “My sister com-peted in this last chance, but did badly,” Harry said.

Before the main event, Pokemon players were daz-zled with the opening ceremonies . . . kinda.

“This year it was really dorky and disappointing,” Harry said.

Normally, David Schwimmer and the event organ-izer come out, but not this year. Instead, “Nick” and “Tracey” two actors posing as Pokemon players were fake and overly enthusiastic.

After seven, 40-minute rounds Harry found himself in the top 32 cut for the following day. That night Jay-son celebrated his mild victory playing poker in a hotel with friends and a bathtub full of alcohol and beer pong.

“Yes, Pokemon players party . . . and we play normal poker, not Pokemon poker,” Harry said.

Saturday, Harry faced Sebastian, ranked 3rd in the Canadian nationals. “I knew I couldn’t beat his deck and I wasn’t prepared,” Harry said. He lost two games in five minutes and was eliminated from the single elimination competition.

He admits that he could have won if he had gotten lucky, but he just didn’t have the deck. Harry stayed in the convention center watching for a few hours and packed it up with the family and went down to a beach on the Tijuana border.

“It was so funny. On the U.S. side, the beach was deserted, but on the Mexico side the place looked like a huge party,” Harry said.

Although Harry didn’t leave California with as big of a scholarship as he did from the nationals competi-tion, he’s not depressed about it. “The worst part is the postworld depression,” he said.

Postworld depression defines the feeling that a player experiences after leaving the epicenter of the Pokemon world sur-rounded by friends and returning to his daily routine.

If you yearn to be a resident of the Pokemon world, seek out information at Pokebeach.com and Pokegym.net. May-be one day you’ll face Dirty Harrizard or just meet great people in the PokeSphere.

By Casey Aud

By Chad McCollam


It’s hard to pinpoint the exact moment when I knew I’d failed as a legendary figure. Maybe it was when my daughter, Payton, gave me one of the most bewildered looks I’d ever seen. Or perhaps it was when I saw the tooth, the first tooth she had ever pulled from her mouth by herself, in the palm of her trembling hand.

Either way I knew I had really screwed up.

We were both staring at each other, speechless. There were tears forming in her eyes, and I kind of wished I could flap my tooth fairy wings and fly away, soar beneath the pillow I’d forgotten to look under the night before.

But, I knew I couldn’t run off, couldn’t fly away, couldn’t hide. On the contrary, moments like the one I was facing required me to be as still as a boulder, focused. My daughter and I were eye to eye, and she needed answers. It was my job to make sure I came up with the right ones. The ones that were encouraging, supporting, uplifting, and inspir-ing. The ones that would stick in her subconscious and allow her to feel calm and confident when she became a parent, and it was her turn to supply critical responses.

My first inclination was to admit that the tooth fairy had always perplexed me. Ever since I was a kid and David from a couple of houses down the street had found a 20 dollar bill on his mattress on the same morning I’d lifted my pillow and found a buck fifty in quarters in a crumb-filled sandwich bag.

My mom had explained that there were multiple tooth fairies and that my friend and I must be served by different ones. Well I was young, but I could do the math. I would’ve had to found a pair of pliers and yanked out over a dozen of my not-so-pearly- whites before the money from my broke, cookie eating fairy could hope to equal the cash David got from one of his cavity laden treasures. How was that fair?

The second thought that came to my mind was to tell the truth. Pay-ton was probably only a year or so away from confronting me about it anyway. But, then I remembered another exasperated expression I had witnessed on Christmas morning when I was just a boy. My sister had walked down the stairs on Christmas Eve and found my mom and dad wrapping presents and putting the bike she had asked for together. My sister looked like a defeated child on the Lord’s birthday. She definitely wasn’t ready for the truth.

Sometimes I wonder if parents should ever pretend there are legen-dary figures in the first place. I mean the whole idea that a bunny hops into your house on Easter is pretty ridiculous. And maybe the look of devastation on my sister’s poor little face all those years ago hadn’t materialized from the fact that she had found out the truth, but instead had manifested from the realization that the two people she trusted most

in the world had been lying to her for seven years.

I know there will certainly be bigger decisions to make in regards to raising my daughter, but for me all of them are big. If there is one thing in my life that I want to get right it is being a father.

I didn’t want this to be the day that the little blonde with the big hazel eyes and even bigger heart found out the truth prema-turely, or the moment when she felt like a victim of a seven year con.

My mom always told me that the first thought was probably the right one. So, I hugged my daughter really tight, put a humongous smile on my face, and started to share the outstanding news. “You are so lucky, Sweet-ness. When I was a kid the same thing happened to one of my best friends, David. The tooth fairy forgot to get his tooth one night, so he put it back under his pillow the next night, and I don’t know if the tooth fairy felt embarrassed or what, but when David woke up the next day there was a $20 bill under his pillow.”

My angel’s frown disappeared. She hopped away, letting out one of those melt-your-heart giggles of innocence that somehow seem to be impossible to produce the moment we grow up and know too much. And, despite the fact that I only had a couple of dollars in my wallet, I knew that in my daughter’s eyes I still had the chance to be legendary.


By Katie Beyke


Halloween is a time for scary movies, jack-o-lanterns and trick-or-treating, but this year, Owensboro is host to two different celebrations of the spookiest night of the year, the Voices of Elmwood and Haunts of Owensboro Ghost Tours.

A Collaboration of the Theater Workshop of Owensboro, the Dav-iess County Library and the Owensboro Museum of Science and His-tory, Voices of Elmwood combines a traditional haunted hayride with a series of historical monologues detailing the lives of ten people bur-ied in Elmwood Cemetery.

“This is a totally local endeavor,” said Todd Reynolds, director of Voices of Elmwood. “Local people choose the subjects, research their lives, develop scripts, act, direct, costume . . . in short, produce an event of ten, short one-act plays.”

Reynolds, a thirty-three year veteran of TWO as well as the pro-gramming coordinator and science education director of the museum, said that this production is unique among historical cemetery tours. Most tours have docents or actors who tell the audience facts about a person’s life. Voices, however, features local actors and actresses por-traying historical figures and detailing their personalities along with the stories of their extraordinary lives.

“The people we showcase have two things in common,” Reynolds said. “They’re all interesting, and they’re all buried here.” Among the Elmwood inhabitants being portrayed this year are a senator, a night watchman on a fishing boat and a Civil War veteran.

Reynolds said that many of the volunteers, especially the actors, developed a personal connection with the individuals depicted during last year’s production. “After a while, they kind of felt like family.”

One actor in particular, Pablo Gallastegui, became especially at-tached to the man he portrayed: Robert Coons, a dirigible military man. According to Reynolds, Gallastegui conducted his own research for the part as well as took his mother to visit Coons’ grave when she visited from Argentina.

Anne Welsh, a writer, actress and costume designer for Voices, said that she, too, felt a personal connection to her character, a milliner who lived in Owensboro during the 1800’s. “We do very similar things in our work,” Welsh said. “I do connect with her.”

Brett Mills, a writer and stage manager, said that he tries to facili-tate the connection between the character and the audience, as well as the characters and the actors, by writing the person instead of writing about the person. “There’s history, and I insist that my characteriza-tions ring true with the facts of the person’s life, but its voice that makes the connection with the audience,” he said.

This October will mark the second Halloween that Elmwood Cem-etery has been host to this unusual Halloween tradition. Last year’s tour was a big success according to Reynolds, although he said that they didn’t know what kind of reception to expect. “Frankly, we didn’t

know if ten people would show up,” he said. “It proved popular be-yond our wildest expectations.”

The hayride ended up selling out before the first wagon left on the second night of the performance. Because of this, Reynolds said that the production will be expanding to two weekends instead of one this year. Also, one Saturday matinee performance will be held in the mu-seum for those who want to enjoy the entertainment without the cem-etery atmosphere.

The hour-long hayride will run from 6 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. on Oct. 23, 24, 30 and 31 as well as 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday Oct. 24 at Elmwood Cemetery and 31 at the Owensboro Museum of Science and History.

Tickets are $10 and can be purchased in advance at the museum front desk at 270-687-2732.

The cast and crew of Voices of Elmwood aren’t the only people cel-ebrating Halloween in an informative as well as fun way this October. David Wolfe, a student at Brescia University, will be hosting a walk-ing tour of Owensboro every weekend of October.

Wolfe started The Haunts of Owensboro two years ago after re-searching the unique and spooky history of the city. “There are all these great ghost stories that no one’s ever heard,” he said.

Wolfe had been looking for a business opportunity that would let him combine his passion for history as well as his love of storytelling. While in Savannah, Ga., he went on a ghost tour and felt that it was just what Owensboro needed.

Since then, Wolfe has been hosting his tours year-round. He said that he has had as many as seventy and as few as two or three people on any weekend, though the summer months and October tend to be his busiest seasons.

Wolfe said he has recently begun working closely with TWO, giv-ing tours of the building on nights when there isn’t a show in progress. “It’s a big seller,” he said. “It’s boomed the business big time.”

Later this year, Wolfe plans to begin a hearse-tour of the city along with the walking tour. Though it would be more expensive to pay for the maintenance of the specially-designed vehicle, the tours will be longer and include more of the haunted sights of Owensboro.

Tours run Fridays and Saturdays by reservation only for $15 (cash only) per pedestrian. To contact Wolfe, visit www.hauntsofowens-boro.com or call 270-313-5596.


Are you under 40 years of age and feel unrepresented? Does the phrase, “There is never anything to do in Owensboro” come up too often in conversation? Do you feel your frustrations go unanswered?

Well, what you may not know is that there are over 100 in-dividuals that share your plight and are in a position to change it. Led by chair Adam Hancock and co-chair Brian Wilborn, the Chamber Young Professionals are doing everything they can to transform Owensboro into the city you’ve always wanted. There’s just one problem . . . you haven’t gotten involved yet.

“We’re not just professionals,” Hancock said, “and the only requirement is that you are under age 40.”

Hancock said that two-thirds of the membership slots for Emerge Owensboro are reserved for CYP members. Emerge Owensboro is a joint program of the Chamber of Commerce and Economic Development Corporation to build future communi-ty leaders. This year’s class boasts 30 new members. “Being a member greatly increases your networking abilities and you have to stay connected in a town this small,” Hancock said.

CYP is always looking to increase membership and broaden its diversity. The majority of members are male and CYP would like to see an equal representation of both sexes. What Hancock and the CYP want to change is the stigma surrounding their or-ganization. Don’t expect a reunion of high school buddies who ran student government and were athletes and cheerleaders. Han-cock hopes to reinvent the perception of the organization. “Peo-ple don’t realize we’re special events, meetings and philanthropy. We are young and we have a voice.” Hancock said.

Hancock who stayed in town for his degree and Higginbotham who moved back after attending Eastern Kentucky University have embraced the community of their youth and like many par-ents, want the youth to stay in Owensboro.

“I think Owensboro is a great place to live especially if you don’t want it to be like Louisville or Lexington,” Hancock said.

And he’s right. Owensboro has a unique opportunity to devel-op and grow with the $80 million master plan, but it desperately needs input from the generation that will be making decisions furthering the phases following.

Another major concern for the organization is the “There’s never anything to do in Owensboro” mentality. This conundrum is the special events focus of CYP, headed by Higginbotham, who is gearing up for the October soirée, Lady in Red.

“Lady in Red is an opportunity to bring young people together in a semiformal event. Guys, bring a date,” Higginbotham said.

Essentially, CYP has planned this soon-to-become annual event in order to give Owensboro something fun to do. Proceeds will help fund more events geared toward giving back to the community.

Lady in Red will be catered by several, mainly local sponsors as well as Cabot Creamery of Wisconsin, which became involved by viewing the event on the Web site.

“Everyone involved has donated their services because they want to see this event succeed,” Hancock said.

CYP is continuing to explore ideas for the event, such as a possible red carpet and photo sessions for attendants that have got their hair did and want to show it off. Lady in Red takes place at the Science and History Museum Oct. 17 from 7:30 p.m. to 11 p.m. Tickets are $15. Visit www.cypowensboro.com or contact Higginbotham at 270-685-8051 or Laura Adams Alexander at the Chamber. Only 300 tickets are available.

Come out, dress up and be a part of something new not just for the night but for an organization that wants to keep this town alive and interesting.

By Casey Aud

www.danhauers.com



eth Satterly was dressing for her husband’s birthday party when she found the lump, a tiny wad of cells invading her breast, flooding her mind with questions and fears.

She was only 33 years old.

She had two young sons, age three and six.

And the reality of her mortality was becoming increasingly clearer, but only for a moment. She had children to raise, a husband’s birthday to celebrate and a family to entertain.

To avoid spoiling the birthday party, Satterly didn’t tell her husband about the lump until the next day, Thanksgiving.

“Needless to say,” she said, “that Thanksgiving was not all that great.”

Satterly suffered from one of the most common cancers among women, breast cancer; one in four cancers diagnosed among women in the U.S. is breast cancer. The National Cancer Institute estimated that in January 2004, there were 2.4 million women alive with a his-tory of breast cancer.

“Everyone thought I was too young,” she said. “The doctor said, ‘I think it’s just a cyst and will probably go away but to be on the safe side, we’ll schedule a mammogram.’”

But after a mammogram and an ultrasound, the doctor suggested a core needle biopsy.

“The next day, I called for the results and found out I had breast cancer,” she said.

Only three weeks had passed from the day she found the lump to that day.

“My oldest son was in the van with me when I found out,” she said. “He’s very smart. He said, ‘You have cancer don’t you?’ And I said, ‘Yes, I do. Do you know what that means?’ He said, ‘No, I hear it on TV but they always use words that are too big for me to understand.’ And I thought, thank heaven. The one time in the child’s life it’s too hard for him to understand, this is the right time.”

Unlike many breast cancer patients, Satterly was only in her early 30s. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) esti-mates that only .43 percent of women in their 30s will be diagnosed with breast cancer in the next 10 years.

Ruth Connor, coordinator of Mammograms for Life at OMHS, said, “The best protection is early detection. (Women who have found a lump) need to go get it checked out rather than waiting because there are a few types of breast cancer that grow very quickly.”

Mammograms for Life is an Owensboro organization that pays for mammograms for women in financial need — women in low income

levels, or (a more recent addition) women without health insurance or women with health insurance but high deductibles. The program helps women in the Owensboro and Daviess County areas, including six counties and the surrounding areas.

“The only thing we have going for us is to find it early,” Connor said. “We still don’t know what causes it. We’re still shooting in the dark in some ways.”

According to the CDC, Breast Cancer is the seventh most com-mon cause of death among women, but caught early, breast cancer is curable.

Connor, a breast cancer survivor, relates to Satterly as she also was diagnosed with breast cancer when she was 33 years old. She has been cancer-free for 20 years.

“The first thing you think about is, Am I going to be around to raise this child?” she said. “Your family is just distraught because they think you’re not going to make it. At 33, even then, that is pretty young to get breast cancer.”

“I was initially upset,” Satterly said. “It’s the unknown that scared me. And there were so many unknowns until I had my surgery.”

But she couldn’t show that, at least not in front of her boys.

“I tried to keep a real positive outlook on things,” she said. “My youngest was three and my oldest was six. You have to for your kids. You have to be positive.”

But how can you be positive about cancer with children?

“We believe in being very honest with them,” she said. “We always have been. So we just sat down with them and we just explained that these things were going to happen. But the doctors were going to take care of Momma.”

The natural intuition of the children, though, meant Satterly and her husband would have to do more than explain the facts.

“We tried to keep life as normal as possible,” she said, “which was hard to do sometimes when your hair is falling out in clumps.”

Satterly and her husband involved their sons in the process and tried to put a cool spin on some of the characteristically devastating side effects of chemotherapy, such as losing hair.

“When I picked them up from school,” she said, “I let him pull hand-fuls of my hair out. I let them take scissors to it and cut it, and then we shaved my hair, and then we had pizza and chocolate cake. It was cool and it was fine.”

The couple took the children to the plastic surgeon’s office when Satterly had her reconstructive surgery. The nurses let the oldest son play with a breast implant. He even tossed it back and forth like a football with the nurse while in the waiting room.

A Mother’s CureBy Matt Weafer


“I had to say, ‘When they put them in me, I’m not going to have a zipper where we can take them out and play with them whenever we want,” Satterly said. “He said, ‘Oh, OK. Do you think she’ll give me one to take home?’”

When Satterly had her port inserted for her treatments, she ex-plained to her sons that the port was her “robot part,” she said. “That was cool. Mom had a robot part.”

But it wasn’t all cool. The day or two before she had to leave for each treatment, Satterly said she had a “pity party” in which she gave into her fears and her discomfort and she wallowed.

Satterly was fortunate to not suffer as much from the chemo-therapy, though.

“I didn’t get sick with the chemo,” she said. “I had really good medi-cine. I had mouth sores that were absolutely awful, and I had acid reflux which was not a great thing.”

Her discomfort came from the shot she received to boost her white blood cell count.

“The shot was awful,” she said. “Two days later, I would have pain in my jaw, across my back, across my shoulders, and it would last for three days. So that was the really hard part.”

But none of that was as hard as the reconstruction she’s currently undergoing. Satterly chose to have a bilateral mastectomy and breast implants.

“It’s a lot easier to grow them the first time around,” she said.

Satterly has an 87 percent chance of not seeing the cancer return in the next five years. Since her cancer was estrogen and progesterone positive, Satterly will have to take a preventive medicine to keep the cancer from attaching and returning.

But her oldest son is still nervous. During the treatment, Satterly said, he seemed OK, “but he’s eight now, so I don’t know if maybe he gets, ‘Yeah, it could have been a lot worse. Yeah, Mom could have been a lot sicker and died.’ But this summer, I started having physical therapy on my knee. I just have bad knees. But he thought I had cancer in my knees.”

The Satterly family has adopted a motto: “Things happen for a rea-son, just believe.”

“Through having breast cancer I’ve met really wonderful people,” she said. “I’ve had opportunities to do things like this and tell people, I was 33. It wasn’t supposed to happen. I just enjoy life more.

During treatment, Satterly attended LifeSpring Cancer Support Group through OMHS, and there she learned to ask for help when she needed it.

“That was really hard for me,” she said. But she quoted the director

of the program, Jamie Walther: “If you don’t ask for help and don’t let people help you, you’re denying them the opportunity to feel good and help other people.”

While no one will say that having cancer was a pleasant experience, Satterly admits a lot of good emerged from that ugly package.

“I never would have wanted to have cancer,” she said. “But at the same time, I’ve improved as a person. I don’t stress out about things anymore. I just enjoy life more. If I don’t want to do something I just don’t do it because I know that life is short.”

Mammograms for Life

Free mammograms for any age woman in the area. A doctor’s order is required.

Contact Ruth Connor at 270-314-0105.

LifeSpring Cancer Support Group

Group support for any cancer patient or survivor.

Contact Jamie Walther at 270-688-4878.

A Mother’s Cure

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On Nov. 18, 1992, more than 1,700 members of national, regional and international science academies, including 104 Nobel Laureates signed a warning to the world:

“Human beings and the natural world are on a collision course. Human activities inflict harsh and often irreversible damage on the environment and on critical resources. If not checked, many of our current practices put at serious risk the future that we wish for human society and the plant and animal kingdoms, and may so alter the living world that it will be un-able to sustain life in the manner that we know. Fundamental changes are urgent if we are to avoid the collision our present course will bring about.”

What a load of crap — a scare tactic, no doubt from self-involved users only interested in pontificating outdated ideals geared toward the subjuga-tion of the human race into fearful, closed-minded guinea pigs that will believe anything they see on TV.

There’s a common misconception that humans negatively impact the environment; that cutting down forests, dumping garbage into oceans, treating soil with poisonous chemicals, dusting houses with carcinogens and lopping off mountain tops for precious stones to fuel machines to build our society is a bad thing.

We are a great society with billions of hands and feet to build even big-ger, to burn more, do more, buy more, use more, waste more, want more, eat more.

The warning said that “one person in five lives in absolute poverty without enough to eat, and one in ten suffers serious malnutrition.”

This is America — the big, the bad, the bold, the one great country. We have more than enough to eat. Look around you. How many starving people do you see?

Look at all the food in grocery aisles; all the food sent back to the kitchen in restaurants to be tossed in the trash; all the food we pick off our plates because we don’t like the way it looks, smells or feels; all the food rotting in your refrigerator. We obviously have more than enough. If things were really as bad as these “scientists” say, then why is it so easy to buy a burger for less than a dollar? Why are there so many people over-weight? Clearly we don’t have a food shortage.

“Acting on this recognition is not altruism,” the warning states, “but enlightened self-interest: whether industrialized or not, we all have but one lifeboat. No nation can escape from injury when global biological sys-tems are damaged. No nation can escape from conflicts over increasingly scarce resources. In addition, environmental and economic instabilities will cause mass migrations with incalculable consequences for developed and undeveloped nations alike.”

This warning reads like a plotline for a cheesy apocalyptic movie, star-ring Dennis Quaid. Mass migrations from one country to the next — a crock of nonsense.

That would be like a bunch of Canadians moving into the States, steal-ing our jobs, flooding our public schools and sucking up all the public resources.

We are America, the land of the free, the home of the brave — one country with the inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happi-

ness. We could just put up a giant stone wall with armed guards and block all these intruders from stealing our inalienable rights.

“Tropical rain forests, as well as tropical and temperate dry forests, are being destroyed rapidly,” the warning says. “At present rates, some criti-cal forest types will be gone in a few years and most of the tropical rain forest will be gone before the end of the next century. With them will go large numbers of plant and animal species.”

So, rainforests are the natural habitat of 50 percent of the world’s wild-life. It’s not like that wildlife is really beneficial to the planet, at least not like humans. God invented humans because he needed plastic. What have a couple tropical birds done other than inspire a popular cereal brand’s cartoon character?

Toucan Sam is not equivalent to plastic. Sorry, PETA.Besides, rainforests are good for the economy. They provide beautiful

mahogany wood floors for us to walk our designer shoes across. And I know those designer shoes were probably made in a sweatshop in some small village in Asia or the Middle East somewhere by a 12-year-old boy, who is only paid 8 cents a day and only gets one bathroom break a week and blah blah blah. I’m fairly certain he needed a job. And I don’t mind paying over $100 for them. They look good on me.

And without depleting rainforests, we wouldn’t have 25 percent of western pharmaceuticals. I happily pay a couple hundred dollars a month for my family’s prescriptions while a pharmaceutical company pillages third world nations for natural resources. It’s a capitalist world: first come, first serve.

“Developing nations must realize that environmental damage is one of the gravest threats they face,” the warning states, “and that attempts to blunt it will be overwhelmed if their populations go unchecked. The great-est peril is to become trapped in spirals of environmental decline, poverty, and unrest, leading to social, economic and environmental collapse.”

I believe the Earth is a natural filter for human ignorance and scientists like these with their over-analyzed, under-researched garbage will wake up and realize one day that it’s OK to not recycle. It’s OK to waste a little food. It’s OK to buy clothes and products from companies that use sweat-shops. It’s OK to drive our cars and not ride bikes.

In fact, it wouldn’t hurt us if we embraced our industrial talents a little more. Why not go ahead and chop all the trees down? We would have so much wood and fossil fuels sitting around we wouldn’t have to worry about mining for coal for a year or two. I don’t doubt that engineers could create air purifiers large enough for each city. If we go ahead and just fill in all the rivers with concrete, we won’t have to worry about polluted rivers. And, hey, we just created a whole lot of highways and incidentally a lot of jobs, therefore less poverty, less starvation.

We have the tools in our hands already. What are we waiting for?

“World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity,” was written by the former chair of the Union of Concerned Scientists, the late Henry Kendall, Nobel Prize winner and American particle physicist. Visit www.ucsusa.org for the full warning.


By Matt Weafer

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