I’m tired of people like Jane Fonda telling me that I have to change my modest lifestyle to save Mother Earth.
The 81-year-old actress/activists is leading a series of Friday climate change protests in Washington, D.C. and, of course, gets arrested, just as the script calls for.
She is preaching from the Green Deal bible that is so far to the left even former President Barrack Obama warns is tilted too far to the left.
How does Fonda, who rails against America’s thirst for fossil fuels, get to Washington from Los Angeles for the rallies? Not by bicycle. She takes a huge carbon emission spewing jet liner. Back and forth. At least Greta came to North America by boat.
Unlike so many of the unwashed she preaches to, Fonda, whose net worth is listed at $220 million, lives a lavish lifestyle, out of public view, of course. She lives in a Hollywood 7,200-square-foot mansion. You don’t heat a 7,200-square-foot mansion in California, but you sure need air conditioning for about 10 months of the year. And I doubt if she is using candles to light the place. Doubt if the four-car garage is for her bicycles.
Look, I’m trying to do my part to save the planet. I drive a nine-year-old four-cylinder car that runs on the eco option. (Disclosure: My wife has a new small cross-over). I live in a 1,300-square-foot bungalow. I turn down the heat to 66 at night. Pump it up to 69 in the day time, if we are at home. Seldom run the central air in summer. I’ve switched to energy saving bulbs. Use the clothes line in the summer and a clothes rack in the furnace room in the winter. When need be, I hang clothes and sheets on the treadmill and stationary bicycle. The clothes dryer is 25 years old. I turn it on for a minute every now and then to see if it still works. Most of the time I wash the dishes in the sink rather than run the dish washer. I compost. I recycle. Use cloth bags for my groceries, when I remember to take them out of the trunk. I’ve taken up kayaking rather than burning through a 20-gallon tank of gas on a summer weekend.
Like I said, I’m trying to do my best.
I just don’t like going to protests.
FROM THE VAULT – 1967
City police and the local court system were accused by the Standard-Freeholder of operating a double standard.
In a rare City Page editorial on Nov. 15, 1967 the newspaper took issue with the way police and the court system dealt with the arrest of 17 local teens charged with drinking under age (legal age was 21) after a raid on an east Cornwall house a week earlier.
It was part of a crackdown on under-age drinking.
Police refused to release the names of the 15 who were not juveniles. It also was learned that a public court appearance was circumvented by swiftly parading the accused before the justice of peace in his office. no doubt with parents in tow, where they pleaded guilty and received fines, which might have been the lesser punishment after the call to parents from the police department.
The newspaper pointed to similar cases where city police didn’t hesitate to make names public. The editorial suggested that perhaps it was because they didn’t have the kind of influence needed for “special” treatment by police and the court system.
The day after the editorial, police released the names. However, Justice of the Peace Fred Lepage was “too busy” to talk the media.
The newspaper, citing a legal expert, pointed out that a justice of the peace did not have the jurisdiction to try a case involving the Ontario Liquor Control Act, in a court room let alone in the privacy of his office.
ALSO THIS WEEK IN 1967 – Police closed the investigation into the death of a 32-year-old Montreal nurse whose body was found in an abandoned cheese factory near Alexandria. An autopsy showed that she had committed suicide. Police believed the body had been in the old factory for about three weeks. Her passport showed she was from China. … Stormont MPP Fern Guindon was named by Premier John Robarts to his cabinet as minister without portfolio. … There were no takers when the bankrupt Cornwallis Hotel was put on the auction block. Trustees continued to operate the 115-room hotel. … Cornwall hospitals were not following the smoking ban in many Ontario hospitals. However, patients were encouraged to refrain from lighting up. The hospitals continued to sell tobacco products. … A cash register stolen from Snetsinger’s Hardware in Ingleside was found in a field behind the store. The $100 it contained was missing. … Colonial Coach Bus Line was offering a return trip to Montreal for $3. … Construction of Maxville Manor was under way. … City treasurer Robert Hamilton proposed a surcharge of $20 a year on water/sewage bills to help pay for a new raw sewage plant. Ald. Doug Fawthrop suggested that the public works budgets be cut by $500,000. … Cornwall’s traffic fatality count for the year climbed to eight when a 17-year-old city youth died in Montreal hospital from injuries he received when hit by a car. The 34-year-old driver was charged with impaired driving, dangerous driving and driving without vehicle insurance. … Claude Disotell was named the city’s top minor lacrosse player at the North End Social Club sports banquet.
TRIVIA This company operated a warehouse on Water Street at the foot of Pitt Street from 1914 to 1958.
TRIVIA ANSWER At the stroke of midnight Jan. 1, 1945 Cornwall took on city status.
THIS AND THAT As they say in Texas, who would have thunk it? In this case, a Conservative candidate breaking down a diversity barrier as the local riding’s first openly gay MP. And sweeping the riding in landslide style with a 54% slice of the vote, and winning very conservative Dundas by an even bigger margin. … One of the big U.S. milk companies – Dean Foods – has gone bankrupt, the result of a steady decline in milk consumption that is down 40% since 1975. … George Desjardins, who lost a decades-long battle with MS earlier this month, wore glasses when he played for the Central Junior Hockey League Cornwall Royals (once known as Gordon Refrigeration Royals) but he had no problem finding the back of the net. He played his rookie CJHL season with Hawkesbury before joining the Royals (No. 15) the next season (1964-65). He spent three seasons with the Royals. George and brother Gerry were one of a handful of Royals brother acts over the years.
QUOTED “The only rock I know that stays steady, the only institution I know that works, is the family.” – Lee Iacocca
