Through any given day I am sure, just like me, you are faced with a wide range of ‘unnecessaries.’ From what people are protesting, to what actually rates as ‘news,’ as to any number or pronouncements a celebrity might make or posts they might put up that they deem important. So much of what we see and hear around us is…in a word… unnecessary.
This week two of these specifically came to mind after I read the stories below, unrelated as they are, but surely falling into my unnecessary criteria.
First, we learn from this article Critics call out plastics industry over “fraud of plastic recycling” – CBS News, yet again, how unnecessary recycling is, or maybe I should say, futile. I won’t go into specifics, but like the recent NJ plastic bag ban, we need to dig deeper into what some group of ecologists claim to what is really happening when we attempt to recycle and how this is a band-aid solution for a much bigger problem.
Go ahead, I dare you to read about the findings above, but the one quote that sticks out for me is: “The only thing the plastics industry has actually recycled is their lies over and over again.”
And hey, let’s face it, like all the rumors folks heard about Bill Cosby over the years, we have all known about what’s really happening (actually NOT happening) with recycling, but we just haven’t wanted to face it.
And, happening here in our lovely state, and truly unnecessary as far as I am concerned, but playing to the virtue signaling of our times, a state lawmaker in Trenton has introduced a bill to establish “Menstrual Empowerment Day” in New Jersey (see more details here: NJ lawmaker introduces bill for “Menstrual Empowerment Day” (943thepoint.com)
State Senator Teresa Ruiz of the 29th District is on a quest to introduce a bill to establish a day to put a spotlight on claims poor menstrual hygiene that, “undermines the opportunities, health, and overall social status of millions of women and girls around the world, often preventing them from reaching their full potential.”
Well, nobody is arguing this point (being a man I simply do not have the knowledge to weigh in pro or con to the honorable Senator) but do we need a Menstrual Empowerment Day to flow over us (sorry, I couldn’t help myself).
Ruiz is looking to establish May 17th as the celebrated day, the birthday of Mary Beatrice Davidson Kenner. Born in 1912, Kenner who holds the most patents of any Black woman, earned her first patent in 1957 for the sanitary belt.
Sure, I all too often want to wax satirical over these kinds of stories. But as these two attest, I really need no Swiftian swipe to reveal how unnecessary most of the drama of life is, and surely how unnecassary most of what any state legislature enacts into law or bans is.
See you in the funny papers, Potsie.
