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HOUR OF HORSEPOWER
Earth Hour’s finest moment:
Organizers of the Singapore Grand Prix have chosen Earth Hour to debut megawatt-using streetlights that will be used to illuminate F1’s first night race later this year.
The lights (300 times more powerful than normal street lights) are being tested today when much of the world is turning their lights off for one hour to symbolically bring attention to the growing environmental crisis.
UPDATE. Earth Hour sadness:
It’s sad, how the streetlights didn’t go out, and how my family kept the lights on even though I tried to convince them. I get tired easily, never keeping up an argument. They turned them off at 8:30, and we ate dinner like that. We could have at least had dinner earlier. Well, I burst, and of course, went to do that in my room, where it could actually have a good dark comparison. Then I started to listen to a song that got me thinking about the situation I was in. I had turned on the waterworks and didn’t even know why until I actually thought about it.
I knew, because it was out of disappointment to my family and the city, so it was not dark for Earth Hour. It was very disappointing. And then, it was how I could not help, them, us. I felt helpless… I still am helpless. I also saw failure in myself, constantly.
But according to someone who doesn’t believe in measurement, the night was a triumph:
Earth Hour spokesman Charlie Stevens branded the night a success, regardless of the result on meter boards.
“We are really happy with the result, but Earth Hour wasn’t ever going to be about the (electricity) results.”
No. It’s about a little emo girl, crying in her room.
UPDATE II. In related news ...
Doomsday cult members leave cave hideout
Clanging symbolically again. Singapore’s clanger.
Posted by stackja1945 on 2008 03 29 at 10:32 PM • permalinkI still am helpless. I also saw failure in myself, constantly
What you need is a good shot of
scotchreality and a good bonfire and BBQ.Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2008 03 29 at 10:38 PM • permalinkThis whole “what a symbolic success” thing reminds me of a person I knew who, during his juvenile years, walked around the back roads of England with a friend, having tasted Nepalese Temple Balls, talking of how this felt how it would be once the revolution arrived.
Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2008 03 29 at 10:42 PM • permalinkIf that little girl’s parents really cared they would have bought her a blindfold.
Posted by SwinishCapitalist on 2008 03 29 at 10:44 PM • permalinkI also saw failure in myself, constantly. And, if I closed my eyes, I could see something very disturbing.
It was bright flashes of light, even though it was pitch black around me. The light I saw were like the headlights of a car…I got brighter, and the flashes made it seem like an old fashioned movie. It was going to crash. The car was going to crash. Into me. It scares me when there are visions like this. But it’s not like I can do anything about it…
Oy veh. Save it for your therapist.
#8-
So, she was having FLASHBACKS during Earth Hour?!?!
How selfish of her, increasing her carbon footprint during global warming’s holiest hour!
Posted by Tex Lovera on 2008 03 29 at 11:18 PM • permalinkI knew, because it was out of disappointment to my family and the city, so it was not dark for Earth Hour. It was very disappointing. And then, it was how I could not help, them, us. I felt helpless… I still am helpless. I also saw failure in myself, constantly
Sheesh kid, don’t beat yourself up because you can’t save the world.
I almost feel sorry for the poor little tyke. She’s been made to believe the fate of the planet rests in her hands.
Completely and utterly off topic (so ignore me if you all want to) but can anyone recommend a couple of books to me? I was thinking about something on (a) the history of the US in the 1980s and (b) something on the Reagan administration. Ideally, something from our perspective, if you catch my drift.
Thanks guys.
Posted by Renegade Lawyer on 2008 03 29 at 11:29 PM • permalinkThe night was certainly a success at the all-chandeliered Langham’s hotel in Auckland where diners were treated to carbon-zero wine served under the gentle light of non-toxic chemical-free New Zealand made soy candles.
Then they fired up those chandeliers again and half the New Zealand electricity grid was no doubt directed back into Langham’s meter box.
Hypocrisy, anyone?
#10 Renegade Lawyer, not exactly what your looking for, but I recommend Standing Next to History: An Agent’s Life Inside the Secret Service by Joe Petro. He protected Reagan and Pope John Paul II, among others.
Posted by flying pigs over mecca on 2008 03 30 at 12:35 AM • permalinkYou probably don’t want Haynes Johnson’s ‘Sleepwalking through History,’ but it might do you good.
On the other topic: That cave must be rank.
Posted by Harry Eagar on 2008 03 30 at 02:23 AM • permalinkI also saw failure in myself, constantly.
Well, the first step is always admittance, so there may be hope yet…..
Posted by akornzombie on 2008 03 30 at 02:31 AM • permalinkthe flashes made it seem like an old fashioned movie.
I’ve seen plenty of old-fashioned movies. In fact, I saw them when they were new-fashioned. No flashes that I can recall. Has she been drinking something?
Posted by walterplinge on 2008 03 30 at 03:12 AM • permalinkLou Cannon’s biography or Reagan is still the gold standard. It was written mostly before the fall of the Berlin Wall, though, so it missed the biggest story of the Reagan years.
Posted by Ernst Blofeld on 2008 03 30 at 04:07 AM • permalinkLittle emo girl, crying in her room, seems to have deleted her blog now.
I hope she’s just done it to stop electron pollution, and not because The World let her down so badly over Earth Hour…
Posted by spot_the_dog on 2008 03 30 at 04:42 AM • permalink22,
Evonne Barry in the heraldsun link reports:‘Up to 2000 people went to Federation Square to witness buildings such Flinders St Station, the Eureka Towers Skydeck and the Rialto Towers switch off lights to raise awareness of global warming’
‘Up to’ is a phrase commonly used when advertising dodgy products, like ‘lifetime guarantee’.
Little emo girl, don’t delete yourself! You have a brain, you just need a few years experience to know who’s lying. We’ve all been there.
Posted by dean martin on 2008 03 30 at 05:09 AM • permalinkI wonder if burglaries increased anywhere in Australia during “Earth Hour”?
At least in Singapore the crooks (assuming there are crooks in Singapore) would have stayed away from the area where the new lights were being tested.
Did areas of Sydney and Melbourne where “Earth Hour” nutters are likely to reside fare as well as residents living near Singapore’s street circuit?
Many thanks for the suggestions, #s 13, 15 and 20 - I’ll check them out. Truth be told, my query came from flicking through PJ O’Rourke’s Holidays in Hell for the nth time and watching the top 50 music videos of the 80s on Vh1 this morning. I had a yen to set the bits of things I know about that decade in a wider context.
Much obliged y’all!
Posted by Renegade Lawyer on 2008 03 30 at 08:38 AM • permalink“It’s sad, how the streetlights didn’t go out, and how my family kept the lights on even though I tried to convince them. I get tired easily, never keeping up an argument. They turned them off at 8:30, and we ate dinner like that. We could have at least had dinner earlier. Well, I burst, and of course, went to do that in my room, where it could actually have a good dark comparison. Then I started to listen to a song that got me thinking about the situation I was in. I had turned on the waterworks and didn’t even know why until I actually thought about it.
I knew, because it was out of disappointment to my family and the city, so it was not dark for Earth Hour. It was very disappointing. And then, it was how I could not help, them, us. I felt helpless… I still am helpless. I also saw failure in myself, constantly.”
This sounds like Lisa from a Simpsons episode…
Posted by JJM Ballantyne on 2008 03 30 at 08:45 AM • permalinkLooks like little emo girl has hidden her blog away behind a login screen. Did some of you fellows try to cheer her up with comments? Emos hate that.
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2008 03 30 at 10:20 AM • permalinkWhile the emo girl crying in her room is funny, I do feel a little bad for her.
Buck up girl, at least you’re right about being helpless. You can be proud of that.
Not letting it get to you will bring you one step closer to successfully living in the real world.
Stop trying to give what you want, and they don’t, to other people and focus on doing what you want for yourself. You’ll likely see better results in the people around you too, through influence and modeling rather than emotive argument and coercion.
RL, Clancy’s Red Rabbit is a fun novel set then.
On the non-recent history, non-fiction fiction side; I highly Recommend Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s The Black Swan.
The idea is pretty much the same as Fooled by Randomness, but a far more interesting book and investigation (I got the point of FbR right away, got bored, and put it down after about 50 pages. I loved TBS and was disappointed when I finished and didn’t have any more to read.).
I’m also reading Greenspan’s autobiography, The Age of Turbulence. It’s long, but well written and pretty good. Covers the last half century from a very broad perspective.
I celebrated Earth Hour the way I always do this time of year—order a delivery pizza and watch the NCAAs. Although this year, in honor of Earth hour, I made sure to turn on a few extra lights and the pizza was a “bake at home” variety (whereby a fresh uncooked pizza is delivered to your house by someone whose out of tune car is waiting in the street).
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You have to love Chinese pragmatism; ‘well, we work hard in order to be comfortable. Who works hard to be in darkness?’