Earth Day

Christ. Getting up early, waiting for the only bath Malice will allow me to run, I check the news, noticing that Google says it's Earth day. What's Earth day?
It's actually quite hard to find out what the hell the thing means when you look up the official Earth day sites, but hidden deep below a lot of meaningless twaddle about peace bells, 'Cosmic Quests', global peace blitzes (mixed metaphor, surely?), 'Earth Trustees', and assorted rambling hippie whatnot, I found two details:
1. It's the Vernal Equinox. (Scuse me. I like the other equinoxes more. At least it's not always raining for them.)
2. This manifesto: "All individuals and institutions have a mutual responsibility to act as Trustees of Earth, seeking the choices in ecology, economics and ethics that will eliminate pollution, poverty and violence, foster peaceful progress, awaken the wonder of life, and realize the best potential for the future of the human adventure."
I can't for the life of me see any relationship whatsoever between the two.
So I glanced at the rest of the news, just to see if anyone had 'awakened the wonder of life' ...
4 killed, 148 wounded in Riydah bombingAnd do you know, I can't decide if that lot of horrors make the yoghurt knitter's nonsense that is Earth Day look ever more irrelevant, or a testament to the sad idea that peace is a failed objective these days?
Basra bombings kill nearly 70, including 20 children, violence in Iraq spreads south
Sports Commentator Ron Atkinson makes racist remarks on national tv, gets fired
Mordecahi Vanunu out of jail
Anti Terror Police make more raids
9 Palestinians die in Gaza clash
Shane MacGowan beaten up
Muslim nations in emergency talks
Allegations of kickbacks and bribes in the UN-run oil-for-food programme for Iraq
Turn Off TV Week ~ I'm spending a week living an imaginary life as a couch potato, to see if it's any more fulfilling.
Daily Selection: I might have watched ~
1. 8pm, C5, Diana and the Camera ~ A look at the princess' relationship with the media, in particular how her life has been preserved in photographs. Basically, I'd be looking for the cleavage shots, here. And no, C5 isn't a clear picture. Distorted royal cleavage. Ooo, missus.Verdict: It's not the sort of stuff you'd die unhappy for having missed, is it?
2. 9pm, C5, John Travolta: the Inside Story ~ John Travolta's first major interview for over 20 years, revealing his thoughts on the ups and downs of his turbulent career. I have simple needs. I want X many shots of The Boy in the Bubble, I want real pain to flicker on his face as he admits what shite Look Who's Talking was, and I want crocodile tears whenever he mentions Quentin.
3. 10pm, BBC2, The Alan Clark Diaries ~ Dramatisation of the colourful memoirs of the late Conservative MP. Revelations of Clark's affairs with the Harknesses have hit the tabloid headlines and the media are in a frenzy. Clark yearns to return to the cut and thrust of Parliament, but with his political reputation and health in steady decline, can he realise his dream? I haven't seen any of this series, but being a regular littlest-room-reader of the Spectator, the old Tory duffers of the press are agog at the dramatised depiction of one of their own. I'd want to see if they paint him as a lovable old sex offender, or as a deeply ambivalent old goat.
Updated: Thursday, 22 April 2004 7:03 AM BST
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