NOTE TO BARBRA - Hypocrisy's not very funny, lady

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NOTE TO BARBRA: HYPOCRISY'S NOT VERY FUNNY, LADY

By STEVE DUNLEAVY

April 23, 2001 -- DEAR Barbra Streisand: As you recover from your celebration of Earth Day, I have some sincere and heartfelt requests:

One, turn off the lights in your many mansions; candles are so romantic.

Two, turn off the heat; maybe you have an odd sweater around that can warm your bones.

Three, fire your chauffeur, who drives gas guzzlers. Four, fire your maids who use those vacuum cleaners and machines to wash your clothes.

Five, fire your power-hungry movie company.

And six, sing live without the magic of electronics. Oh, sure, it'll put a few people out of work, but for people who love people, you'll be environmentally correct.

All right, let's be serious. Here is this woman who sends out personal letters railing against George W. Bush to anyone who has a ZIP code. But, quite obviously, she's yet another of these white-bread eco-holics out there where the buses don't run.

I presume two things.

First, she was cheering on the thimble-brains trying to cause chaos in Quebec. And secondly, The New York Times, although I don't know for sure, is one of her liberal bibles.

Let's deal with the first subject. How many of those thimble-brains up there go to expensive colleges, paid for by a foolish father who made money from a power-driven economy?

Now to The New York Times. On Jan. 31, its editorial read, in part:

"Even with improved technologies, Mr. Bush's plan to open the refuge [drilling in Alaska] is as environmentally unsound and intellectually shaky as it was when Ronald Reagan suggested it 20 years ago and when Mr. Bush's father suggested it a decade ago."

Well, what would you expect from the liberal bible that apparently feels comfort every time a workplace is closed down? But hark, let's go to June 2, 1988, when it wrote, in part: "It is hard to see why absolutely pristine preservation of this remote wilderness [the Alaskan preservation area] should take precedence over the nation's energy needs."

This was revealed yesterday by John McLaughlin on NBC, who commented that "the old gray mare ain't what she used to be." Sure, you can change your mind between 1988 and 2001, but don't the editorial writers ever read their own clips?

Rather than sending scarlet letters trashing George Bush, why don't you ask your best buddies Bill Clinton and Al Gore, great champions of the environment, to make a single comment on California's power crisis, which most certainly will drift our way within months?

You see, for Clinton's entire time in office, he certainly did a lot of partying, but produced not even an inkblot that addressed itself to the energy crisis.

Look, despite the fact that Sen. Frank Murkowski (R-Ala.), has said that drilling in the national preserve in Alaska is a highly doable move, George W. Bush has never once said he was going to drill in Alaska. An option? Certainly. But if I was anywhere close to his right or left hand, I'd be saying "Go, George, Go."

The drilling in this giant and beautiful state would take up an area the size of Central Park. Not too much larger than Al Gore's holdings. Bush might not even want it, but the power-starved people in California damn well want it, Republicans and Democrats alike.

My forebears loved the damp, pristine green of their homeland, where on Friday night they could have a pint in the pub. But they loved it even more when they worked at the coal mines of Newcastle, Australia, and got enough money to rent a brick house and afford many pints, every night. Here we have California, the world's sixth-largest economy, with a deadly disease: lack of power. And the virus is spreading nationwide.

Ask the kids in Harlem whether they want a big park with a fishing pond or a business plant where they can get a start on work. Don't hold your breath for the answer.

The next time we have "Earth Day," let's follow it up with "Human Day," where people would rather work than pat a moose or save the Tennessee snail darter, whatever the damn a snail darter is.

-- Anonymous, April 23, 2001


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