Wicked Unreal
The Seattle Times has a new quarterly magazine called “Footprint,” and the cover of the June 28 edition touts “7 Cool Ideas to Change Our Wicked Ways.” Um, wicked?
Ha ha! Isn’t it cute how wicked we all are! Wink-wink, all those enviros are so uptight, such a drag with all their preaching about imminent ecosystem collapse and whatnot, so let’s have a little fun, get all ironic like the cool kids over at the Stranger and come right out and call ourselves “wicked” even though we know that most people will see that as overwrought, and so then will not be inclined take anything we’re saying too seriously, but hey, that’s OK, cause this is a “happy green” publication and we wouldn’t want to get anyone too upset or concerned.
It’s as if they were writing a headline about the decadence of eating too much chocolate.
Doubly annoying is that the book they’re referring to was published by Sightline, who produce some of the most thoughtful and important work on sustainability in the Pacific Northwest, and who I have no doubt are cringing heavily at the choice of words in the Footprints headline.
Also in the same paper is a story about George Carlin, and of course the Seattle Times would never print Carlin’s famous seven words you can never say on TV, even though the focus of the piece was on Carlin’s talent for deconstructing words.
The thread connecting the two above topics is thin, but there is more to it than the number seven. I’ll leave it at this: we need to get real.