Friday, June 25, 2010

Hippie Nostalgia

Anyone that Googles “hippie” will find a plethora of web sites that claim to be hippie-oriented. Most of them are trash and only want to sell clothing. The rest, though, are strikingly nostalgic of the 1960s, the golden era of hippiedom where the counterculture really stuck it to The Man. (Well, not really, but it sure was fun to pretend!) The point is, there’s a whole lot of hippies reminiscing about the good old days of cheap weed, free love, good music and a sense of wonderment and possibility. One wonders where these folks are these days. As we noted in a previous post, many of the original hippies are now in positions of power and influence, having traded in their tie-dye for button downs. Others are slowly eking out an existence selling pottery and homemade apple butter at northwest farmers markets. Still others, though - and probably the majority - are working middle range jobs in some shitty office somewhere, earning a decent but in-no-way-earth-shattering wage, and dealing with a bulging midsection and a receding hairline. These former hippies still profess many of the same values they did while young, but with a catch: they have modified their original values to suit their current reality. Thus, a formerly staunch environmental advocate drives an SUV, because gee, they just really need all that space. A formerly fist-pounding social justice advocate now agrees with people who complain about the “damn Mexicans” because, well, they’re ruining property values in the neighborhood. The former LSD fanatic now chastises his son for smoking weed.  It reminds me of an old hippie refrain...Meet the new boss, Same as the old boss.

Hippies Discussing The Money Wrench Gang

Hippie 1: “Dude, that’s so cool! They just totally trashed that bulldozer! I wish I could do something like that!”
Hippie 2: “Yeah, and they burned down all those billboards! Man, those cats really love nature…”
Hippie 1: “Yeah, I heard it was based on a true story…I’d like to shake that dude’s hand...”
Hippie 2: “What, that one dude, Hayduke? The one who’s always throwing his beer cans out the window and stuff?”
Hippie 1: “Huh? Umm…that’s not cool…”
Hippie 2: “Yeah, but it was a STATEMENT, dude…”
Hippie 1: “Oh…cool.”

Alternative Schools


Hippies are generally supportive of “alternative schools,” those places where errant teenage hippies go when regular school doesn’t work out for them. These schools don’t teach the usual reading, writing and arithmetic. Instead, they teach performing arts, and drawing, and sculpture and the like, giving the students a different skill set more in line with their interests. Unfortunately, these students, upon graduation, are ill prepared for life in the real world, where the ability to understand what you read, and write clearly and concisely, are highly valued. In addition, the skills that these students DO learn - drawing, dancing, playing bongos and such - are not really in high demand and generally don’t pay anything. Thus, the occupational choices available to alternative school graduates are pretty much limited to panhandling and the production of veggie burritos.

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Punch-a-Hippie Day

BREAKING NEWS: WASHINGTON - Today President Obama declared June 30 to be “National Punch-a-Hippie Day” in honor of his administration’s moratorium on offshore drilling following the massive oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico.

“As many Presidents have said before, the buck stops here,” Mr. Obama said, in taking full responsibility for the moratorium, which will put thousands out of work in Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana.

“While I cannot erase the harm that has been done, I can provide this one small gesture: On June 30, frustrated - and unemployed - citizens of the Gulf states may take out their anger on the nearest hippie-dippy environmentalist they come across. Go ahead, give ‘em a whack! We will not prosecute you!”

Naturally, national environmental groups criticized the president for his comments, arguing that it wasn’t their fault and that singling hippies out for retribution amounted to discrimination.

“While stopping offshore drilling has long been a goal of our organization, the President’s moratorium policy was developed and implemented without any consultation with us,” said James Buttercup, executive director of Hippies Against Oil.

“To condone violence upon our kind is not only irresponsible, but may well be the political death knell for this President,” Buttercup added.

David Axelrod, Mr. Obama’s chief political advisor, said much of the Gulf oil disaster could rightly be laid at the feet of organizations such as Buttercup’s, which have lobbied long and hard against drilling on land and in shallower waters, where emergency response capabilities would have made it much easier to contain a spill of this magnitude.

“I think, clearly, if the hippies had simply let the oil companies drill in ANWR, we wouldn’t be facing this situation today,” said Axelrod.

“Literally everyone else involved in this - BP, the White House, the MMS - has acknowledged their culpability and accepted responsibility for their roles in this fiasco,” Axelrod said. “It’s now time for the environmental lobby to do the same.”

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Golf Courses

Hippies hate golf courses, and the game of golf in general. They hate the courses because they require tons of water and chemicals to keep the grass green and free of unwanted pests. As well, they say, golf course construction destroys natural areas that would otherwise play host to tons of critters and native wildlife. They hate the game of golf for different reasons, namely that it is a sport principally enjoyed by the moneyed class and, especially, the good-ole-boy network of corporate executives, politicians and other power brokers that has made positive social change so difficult to attain in myriad areas. Well, they might have a point on that last bit. But as for the environmental stuff, I dunno. Hippies seem to like their big urban parks, with nicely mown lawns and pruned hedges and trimmed trees and groomed walking paths. Really, just take out the tee box from the local golf links and it would look just like Portland’s Laurelhurst Park. And I never hear the hippies complaining about Laurelhurst Park…

420

Hippies love the specific time of 4:20 in the afternoon, and go to elaborate efforts to ensure that at that exact moment, they are smoking weed. Why? Honestly, I dunno. I think it has something to do with the codes that law enforcement uses to identify certain types of drug-related crimes, or something.. But I might be wrong. The point is, the numbers–420–have become a sort of “hip” or “underground” codeword for smoking marijuana. All through the streets of Portland, hippies give a sly heads-up to other hippies as the hour and minute approach, deftly skipping off into the park to join in on a group dope session. They light up “phat” doobies and pass them around, nodding their heads to the background Bob Marley and say things like, “Dude…420!” They even celebrate April 20th in like fashion, since, you know, that’s, like, 420 on a calendar, dude. Down in Santa Cruz (a slightly less hip version of Portland) all the university students get together on April 20 at 4:20 in the afternoon and smoke dope together in the quad, evidently with the full knowledge and acquiescence of law enforcement and campus officials. It’s really gotten out of control. Next thing you know, we’ll have police actually escorting bags and bags of dope into the quad and hand-delivering it to the young and idiotic dopehead hippie mongrels. Where does the madness end!!!???!!!

Addicted to Oil

Hippies the world over are crying foul over the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The pollution will destroy wildlife for decades in the region, they say. The spill–the worst environmental disaster in the nation’s history–offers a clear glimpse of the dangers we face due to our addiction to oil, they say. It is, after all, a complete vindication of what the hippies have said for decades…oil is dirty! Extracting it is harmful to the environment! It can’t be done “in an environmentally responsible way” as oil execs have long argued! Well, guess what? Those hippies will need to make some serious changes if the oil stops flowing. Let’s have a look at some of the products that hippies use and/or consume that are derived from oil:

· Plastic water pipes.

· Bean bags.

· Lava lamps.

· CDs.

· iPods and iPhones.

· Snowboards and skis.

· Ziplock baggies (for their weed).

· Airplane fuel (for their trips abroad to “find themselves”).

· The plastic containers that hold hummus, baba ganoush, tabouli, tofu, and just about every other food stuff that hippies eat.

· Nalgene water bottles.

· Backpacks.

· Flip flops.

· Birkenstocks.

· Condoms.

· Tatoo ink.

The list goes on and on. If hippies really want to wean the country off oil, they should put their money where their mouth is and give all this shit up!

Backyard Chickens

Northwest hippies love the concept of keeping hens as pets and harvesting the eggs they produce. Sure, such “farm fresh” eggs taste better than the mass-produced ones, and if they are coming from your own hens, they’re cheap, too. But for some reason, regular folks pooh-pooh the idea of allowing city dwellers to keep hens in their backyards. These opponents cite the foul odors that often accompany chicken roosts, primarily caused by the loads and loads of chicken shit that pile up as lazy hippies fail to clean the roosts promptly and adequately. Unfortunately, due to their lack of personal hygiene, hippies are unable to distinguish their own stench from that of their chickens, and inevitably reply, “What odor? I don’t smell anything…”

Six Packs

Hippies hate those little plastic thingies that hold six packs of beer or soda together. I don’t know what they are called, but those plastic thingies represent a mortal threat to various wildlife, according to hippies, so they must be destroyed. Hippies all over the Northwest spend entire days busily cutting up those little plastic thingies, making sure that there are no intact holes remaining that might ensnare the mouth/beak/muzzle/gills/whatever of any living creature. Which, apparently, happens when the discarded little plastic thingies end up in the streams/lakes/rivers/oceans of the world. Which, apparently, is just a guaranteed given. What I want to know is, if these little plastic thingies are such a threat, and are almost certainly guaranteed to end up in the streams/lakes/rivers/oceans of the world, why would any self-respecting hippie ever buy a can of beer or soda, thus contributing to the problem? Cuz it seems I see them everywhere, sipping thirst-quenching beverages out of aluminum cans while sporting tie-dye shirts and Birkenstocks and toting their drums around Portland. Hmm…

Bean Bags

Hippies love bean bag chairs, and will often have two or three of them strategically placed in their bedrooms. They find bean bags offer the perfect conduit for lazily slacking away the day. They are cushy, mushy, squishy, and easily moldable to whatever body type and physical shape or position the user has. This makes them ideal for laying on/sitting on while stoned on psychotropic substances, as such drug users often have difficulty maintaining correct posture and positioning in standard chairs, couches or other pieces of furniture. And they come in a wide variety of colors and patterns which, when combined with black lights, provide hours of entertainment for doped out hippies.

Black Lights and Lava Lamps

Aside from a water pipe, there are two accessories that you will find in just about every hippie’s home: a lava lamp and a black light. Both originated back in the 60’s, and were developed for one specific purpose: to “trip out on” while under the influence of mind-altering substances. The lava lamp makes little blobs of goo float up and down through a flask of oil situated over a light bulb. The black light imparts a purplish haze throughout the room that allows certain colors to become enhanced, while other colors remain dark. Both are considered groovy when high. There are lots of posters depicting hippie-era musical acts – like Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, the Doors, the Beatles, and so on – specifically designed to be viewed under a black light. Combined with the oddly-shaped goo blobs in the lava lamp, the black light provides stoned out hippies with hours of entertainment, as they stare intently at the posters and goo blobs, finding “hidden” shapes and messages planted there by hippies of old who, most certainly, were high when they created them. Of course, when the dope wears off, the messages and shapes are gone, leading the hippies to wonder, Were they ever really there? What a conundrum!

Water Pipes

Hippies have a special place in their hearts for water pipes. Known more commonly as bongs, water pipes facilitate the smoking of marijuana, sending the smoke through a chamber of water so that it is smoother and less harsh for the smoker’s lungs. The water, it is said, also removes some impurities and particulates from the smoke that are bad for the lungs. Thus, the water pipe is the instrument of choice for potheads, and they put much thought into choosing the right one. Typically, hippies purchase their water pipes at what’s known as a “head shop.” These places sell water pipes, regular pipes, rolling papers and all sorts of hippie accessories, like lava lamps, black lights, incense and Led Zeppelin posters. But they are very careful to note that such pipes and smoking devices are “for tobacco use only!” I don’t know exactly what the law is, but apparently it’s illegal to sell paraphernalia for the purposes of using drugs, so they pretend that their customers are going to smoke good old tobacco in these water pipes. Of course, tobacco is the furthest thing from the mind of the stoned out hippie who wanders in to one of these places. He can hardly suppress his giggles when he marvels at the rows and rows of ornate water pipes – made of hand-blown glass, or ceramics, or composite plastic, or even aluminum – and then notices the signs admonishing customers to refrain from referring to the inventory as “bongs.” They’re water pipes, after all!!! And they’re for smoking tobacco!!! Nothing nefarious going on here, officer!!!

Beads

Hippies love beads, and make a point of wearing beaded necklaces pretty much everywhere they go. Hippie chicks typically wear two or three beaded necklaces at a time, as well as beaded bracelets, anklets and maybe even beaded earrings. Hippie dudes, on the other hand, usually just wear a beaded necklace, most likely one made by his current or former hippie chick girlfriend. The exact cause of the hippies’ affinity for beads is unknown…maybe it has to do with India or something. But it does serve a higher purpose of sorts…hippies comprise the primary customer base for bead stores, keeping those folks in business despite an utterly unsound business model that would otherwise lead to failure, and financial devastation for the owners.

Debt

Hippies decry debt, and will do just about anything to avoid it. They feel strongly about this. They believe that owing money to someone else is a form of slavery…just another way in which The Man keeps the people under his mighty thumb. Thus, hippies tend not to own houses, use credit cards, or even borrow money to pay for college. While the rest of us see the advantages of taking on strategic debt – for example, student loans that enable us to earn degrees which lead to higher pay – hippies see only the short term bondage that comes with owing someone money. Granted, indebtedness does tend to hinder one’s freedom…one must work or otherwise come up with the money, month after month, to make the payments. And flying off to Ecuador – or Costa Rica or Peru or Indonesia or whatnot – on a moment’s whim does not lend itself to timely payments of mortgages. Thus, in a hippie’s eyes, the question of taking on debt, for whatever reason, becomes a choice between getting a real job, or continuing a lifestyle devoid of responsibility. As we know, the hippies tend to choose the latter.

Hot Springs

Hippies love going to hot springs and letting their hair down a bit while the soothing warm waters melt away the stress of a hard hippie day. The Northwest is filled with such hot springs, which are typically accessible by road or a short hike through the woods. Once there, most hippies prefer to get in naked. And once naked, most hippies tend to want to get their groove on, especially if no one else is around. Think about that next time you and your family want to get in and enjoy nature’s warmth…

Legal Pot

Hippies are all for the legalization of marijuana, and have worked stridently for decades to force the issue on voters. They have long made the case that pot has medicinal properties and that it should be allowed to be used by ill patients as they see fit. They have also long made the case that marijuana has so many industrial uses – rope, paper, clothing, oil, etc. – that it should be legal to grow it for those purposes as well. And of course, they have long contended that recreational use of pot should be legal because, just like alcohol, it’s a way for people to unwind and relax. On this point, they have all kinds of studies and statistics showing that alcohol – a legal drug – has far more negative health effects than pot, and exacts a far greater toll on society in general.

Well, guess what? In the Pacific Northwest, their arguments have gained ground in recent years, and in California, Oregon and Washington, medical marijuana is legal. Further, California is staring down the barrel of full legalization in an upcoming ballot measure that seems to have majority support. The hippies should be full of glee, yes? Shouting from the rooftops full of vindication for a fight that has gone on for decades! But are they? Well, not all of them. You see, the hippies that actually grow pot don’t want it to be legal. They are scared shitless at the moment, especially those in famed Humboldt County. Full legalization will destroy them, they say, because if just anybody could grow it, the state would see a huge oversupply of weed, bringing the costs down, while concurrently imposing taxes upon growers who, for decades, have worked under the table. It’s a double whammy, for sure. Thus, Humboldt County hippies – long stalwart proponents of legalization – are banding together to keep this innocuous weed from becoming legal. They have bumper stickers and signs in cafes stating “Save Humboldt County: Keep Pot Illegal.” It seems economics – making a killing on growing and selling an illegal substance – trumps all else in hippie land.

How’s that for hypocrisy?

Hating Cops

Hippies hate cops and law enforcement of all types. They feel persecuted by lawmen who search their hippie-mobiles for drugs and paraphernalia and, if they find it, write them tickets for possession of weed. It’s a hatred that goes back decades when the hippies of the 60’s got in physical conflicts with police officers across the land who would just as soon beat a long-haired with a billy club as they would help him cross the street. But these days, the situation has changed somewhat. Cops don’t crack hippie skulls anymore, they just search their vehicles. They generally take it easy on hippies, but when they do find something, they have to do something about it. This is yet another area that hippies just don’t seem to grasp the key concepts. The job of law enforcement is to catch criminals, and like it or not, hippies carrying dope around for recreational use ARE criminals. Why be mad at the cop? He’s just doing his job, man! (…to which the hippie inevitably replies, “yeah, so were the Nazi soldiers at Auschwitz!”)

Bacon

Hippies love bacon. Sure, many hippies are vegetarian, and some even vegan, but in the bottom of their hearts, they love bacon. And why not? It’s greasy, smoky, yummy fun. It’s the key ingredient in so many wonderful dishes, such as bacon cheeseburgers, bacon and eggs, bacon gravy, and bacon-wrapped bacon, among others. It’s the perfect camping food, as well. Many times, tree-sitting hippies will actually come down from their perches when they sniff the scent of smoky bacon sizzling over a campfire nearby. Urban hippies intentionally site their drum circles near breakfast cafes in hopes of catching the aroma as it wafts by. It is the meat product that has the highest success rate in converting tofu-loving vegetarians into carnivorous beasts, and is especially effective on particularly hungry hippies. So next time you are out camping, be sure to check the area for tree-sitters and other hippies…cuz they just might come down and swipe your vittles.

Kentucky Fried Chicken

Hippies hate Kentucky Fried Chicken, and they hate it with a passion. I think it has something to do with the way in which KFC and its suppliers treat the chickens that are ultimately served up in the restaurants…they raise them in tiny cages and don’t feed them good, or something like that. Oh, and the workers at the chicken farms use the sick little chicks like soccer balls, kicking them around the yard on lunch breaks. Whatever. It is striking that they get so uppity about a few yardbirds being whacked around, yet don’t give a hoot about Wilbur and the other cuddly pigs on the local farm that get slaughtered for the hippies’ enjoyment of bacon. Hypocrites!

Yerba Mate

Hippies love yerba mate, a tea-like beverage originating from South America that contains caffeine and some other stuff that its proponents say make it better for you than regular coffee. Whatever. It tastes terrible, smells awful and really should be avoided at all costs. Sucking on bark from a tree in Portland’s Laurelhurst Park would be infinitely more pleasant. But it is a popular local drink in such countries as Bolivia, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and Brazil and thus, with such a diverse and “ethnic” background, Northwest hippies of course embrace it fully.

Yoga

Hippies enjoy doing yoga, which involves a series of stretches and physical poses that is supposed to be good for the mind and body…good for the body by exercising different muscles and muscle groups, and good for the mind by providing a calming and, supposedly, enlightening period in which one can venture into “inner space” and achieve spiritual healing and invigoration. Really, it’s just an excuse to wear leotards and roll around on the floor.

Hackey Sack

Hippies don’t go in for sports all that much. They don’t follow soccer, or football, or basketball, or even baseball, the official national pastime. But they do enjoy hackey sack, which involves a group of hippies – typically male – bouncing a small bean bag around in a circle, trying not to let the sack hit the ground. It differs from traditional sports in that there are no “sides” or teams per se…everyone in the group is working together for a common cause, and there is no winner or loser. ..except the schmuck who fails and lets the sack hit the ground. That guy usually gets his ass kicked…

Smoking

Regardless of their penchant for healthy, natural living, many hippie chicks smoke. But in order to avoid the banality and “conformism” that accompanies typical cigarette smoking, hippie chicks smoke different stuff…primarily, beedies and clove cigarettes. Beedies are small, filter-less flavored cigarettes originating from India. They are rolled in a tendu leaf, instead of paper, and tied together with a small string. Cloves, on the other hand, are more familiar with American audiences, although they originate from Indonesia. They include a mixture of clove spices and tobacco, and are often rolled in sheet tobacco instead of paper. Both types of cigarettes release pungent and generally unappealing odors, but hippie chicks would rather smoke these than regular cigarettes because, well, they’re “ethnic.” And as we all know, hippies love anything ethnic…carcinogenic or not.

Cesar Chavez

Hippies love Cesar Chavez and consider him to be an inspirational figure for the social justice movement. Surely, he was an accomplished man, founding the United Farm Workers labor union and galvanizing support for worker’s rights in the agricultural community. But why are Northwest hippies so enamored with this guy? I mean, they want to name a road after this guy in Portland? It’s not like he invented the wheel or anything…all he did was make grapes more expensive.

Religion and Nature

Hippies generally decry organized religion, believing instead that spirituality needs no structure or dogma to be relevant and helpful to those who practice it. They prefer to develop their own relationship with a higher power, which for hippies generally means nature, or Gaia, the mother of all things natural. Nature worship, for what it’s worth, doesn’t place any restrictions on humans insofar as morals go. The only precept in nature worship is to treat the earth and its inhabitants well, with respect and all that. Yet, as we have discussed on previous posts, hippies do all kinds of terrible things to nature, such as: freaking out animals with their dope smoking and their drum circles, pillaging the rainforest in search of patchouli, polluting the air with Subarus, utilizing roads cut through pristine forests, withholding vital nutrients from landfills, eating threatened or endangered species, allowing the slaughter of vast crops of plantlife in order to make fuel, allowing the senseless deaths of critters great and small through protection of dangerous carnivorous animals, chopping down perfectly good trees to make plush, three-ply toilet paper, and discharging dangerous chemicals through their urine that eventually cause genetic mutations in fish and other aquatic life. I don’t know what the nature worshiping version of hell is, but clearly hippies are going there, lickity split…

War

Hippies hate war, as a concept. They tend to protest the use of military force, a practice that got its start back in the 1960s in reaction to the Vietnam War, and extended to the first and second Iraq wars of the 1990s and 2000s. Generally, they believe that it is not ethical for this country to kill and maim the people of another country in the name of “national interests,” which are nearly always political in nature. Indeed, hippies are very distrustful of politicians’ reasons for going to war, and they almost always see some sort of evil, underhanded “true” reason behind it. For example, they believed that the first Iraq war was about oil, and that the second Iraq war was about domestic politics, with Bush needing something to propel his reelection campaign. Good thing neither of those wars were really about what the hippies feared they were about. Otherwise, they might be on to something….

Forests

Hippies love spending their down time in the forest, where they admire nature’s beauty, take stock of their lives, and generally sit around and do not much of anything. True, trees are pretty and the various natural critters milling about in the forest are fun to watch. But hippies take this one step further: They “bond” with nature in such ways. They claim to gain insight into how “connected” we all are to one another, to the trees and forest, to the streams that meander through them, and to nature as a whole. Well, that’s all well and good. But then they do the unthinkable: they smoke dope. They roll doobies and smoke their weed right there in the middle of the forest, releasing pungent secondhand smoke to fill the lungs of countless poor forest critters. As far as the critters are concerned, the only time there’s smoke in the woods, it means there’s a fire. And if there’s a fire, they should flee, quickly. Thus, whenever hippies light up their blunts, they inadvertently frighten away the very nature that they came to the forest to see. Silly hippies!

Hummus

Hippies love hummus and can reliably be expected to have a tub of it in their fridge at any given moment. Hummus, in case you are not familiar with it, is basically ground up garbanzo beans mixed in with garlic and other flavorings. For some reason, hippies believe this substance is really tasty and appropriate for dipping bread, pitas and other foodstuffs into it. For regular folks, though, it’s simply a grainy, bland glop of goop that gives you bad breath if consumed, reflecting a fundamental problem with hippies’ approach to food: Just because it’s from another country does NOT mean it’s good to eat.

Finding Oneself

Hippies love “finding” themselves and tend to take a lot of time doing it. To regular folks, these efforts to “find” themselves look an awful lot like wasting time and avoiding responsibility with an ever-growing list of personal diversions. But to the hippies, it’s “exploration and evaluation of finding one’s place in the universe.” Such efforts typically involve traveling to developing nations and eking out an existence, often thanks to funding and other support from mom and dad. For example, moving to India to “study” another culture and religion, or working on a farm co-op in South America for a few months, in order to gain a greater understanding of the plight faced by the world’s poor, all the while getting a nice and tidy few hundred bucks deposited into their bank accounts each month from the ‘rents. Or simply bumming around with a backpack and a Lonely Planet travel guide to X region, thanks in large part to the around-the-world plane ticket bought for them by grandma. While these things may be fun, and possibly even exciting, they aren’t really ways of “finding” oneself because, after all is said and done, these same hippies tend to “find” themselves back in the Pacific Northwest, smoking someone else’s dope and eating their parents’ organic hummus, while they contemplate turning 30 and wonder where all the time went.

Work

Hippies generally disdain work, but if they do work, it’s inevitably under the table. You see, hippies can’t be bothered to pay taxes, or Social Security or Medicare…that’s for losers and conformist members of “the establishment.” Instead, they seek positions that will allow them to bring in some dough without the big, bad government hearing about it. Like part-time flower pickers, or manning the kiosk at the local farmer’s market. One of the best is a waiter/waitress gig at a small café or hippie food shop. Such places have such high turnover – due to the hiring of unreliable hippies – that the owners usually don’t bother filling out paperwork for their employees, which is the perfect setup for hippies: Not only do they get out of paying taxes on their hourly wages, but they get tips, too, which are virtually tax-free anyway due to rampant underreporting industry-wide. Of course, spending a lifetime working for peanuts and paying nothing into Social Security means no retirement income for these folks, but who cares? They hope they die before they get old!

Long Hair

Hippies love long hair… on men, on women, on children. You never see a short-haired hippie, anywhere. Why? Cuz hair is natural beauty, man! It’s an expression of their personality, man! It’s how they commune with nature, man! Even Jesus had long hair, man! Get off their backs!!! Of course, one could argue that if they had shorter hair, they wouldn’t need to use as much shampoo or water to wash their hair, thus saving resources and polluting less…but guess what? Hippies DON’T wash their hair, man!!!!

Hippie Art

Hippies love art, and in most cases, they consider themselves to be artists of some sort. Whether their “art” is watercolors or sculpture or poems or drawing or pottery, the typical hippie believes that he or she has an artistic talent that must be shared with the world. They hang their watercolor paintings on the walls of their homes, they serve hummus and pita chips on their freshly glazed pottery, they recite their unique poems to small crowds of other hippies, they display their black-and-white drawings on the bulletin boards in their favorite hippie hang outs. Of course, if they were actually any good at any of these things, they would get paid good sums of hard currency for them. But alas, the typical piece of hippie art has little value in the real world, and can at best command a veggie burrito in exchange. This doesn’t deter the hippies from trying, though…they are a resilient bunch!

Barefoot in the Park

Hippies love to go barefoot, especially in public places that would otherwise demand footwear. They enjoy donning nothing but their bare soles while toodling about downtown, on trains and buses, in the grocery store, and in other public spaces of Portland and other Northwest hippie enclaves. They proudly display their dirty, graying feet and toes while sitting on tye-dye blankets and strumming cheap guitars while singing Joni Mitchell songs and cooking tabouli on a camp stove in the park. They speak excitedly about the calluses that build up on the bottoms of their hardened feet, picking at them like war wounds that have yet to heal completely. Yet, the reasons behind this lifestyle choice escape me. Do they think shoes are bad for the environment? Is it another one of those “natural is better” things? Are they simply preparing themselves for a fast-approaching world in which footwear is in short supply? If so, where do they come by this knowledge? These are the questions that keep me awake at night…

Communal Living

Hippies enjoy living with other hippies. The original hippies of the 60’s often chose to live on communes where they shared food and living quarters with other like-mined souls, while today’s hippies tend to live in small apartments with five or six to a room, sleeping on couches and chairs and floors as space allows. These modern hippies, like their predecessors, don’t require much privacy in their domestic lives, as just about everything they do is done together as a group…from forming drum circles to panhandling, selling burritos at the park to manufacturing an array of tye-dye scarves to sell in the streets, they operate as a cohesive whole, pooling individual talents to achieve a common goal. Thus, back in the apartment, there’s nothing to hide and therefore, no reason for privacy. That is, except when they’re pooping. Even hippies shy away from pooping in front of others…

Subarus and Snowsports

While most hippies don’t own cars, preferring instead to walk, bike or utilize public transportation to get to their destinations, those that do own a car inevitably purchase a Subaru. True, previous generations of hippies relied on the ubiquitous VW Bus, but this generation needs more oomph. They believe that the Outback and the Forester offer superior all wheel drive traction much needed in the Pacific Northwest, while still retaining a decent miles per gallon rating. Of course, these hippies wouldn’t really need all wheel drive if they didn’t participate in such bourgeois activities as snowboarding, skiing and snowshoeing. Nope, these hippies could get by with a Hyundai Accent, which gets far better MPG than a Subaru. But no, they gotta get their groove on up on the slopes. It seems the environment takes a back seat to snowsports for these hippies…too bad, really, since the excess fossil fuels spewed by their Subaru’s are actually raising temperatures in the mountains, which will eventually mean less snow and worse skiing conditions down the line. But alas, that’s for future hippies to worry about…

Dam Breaching

Hippies decry artificial dams and are a great supporter of efforts to breach dams in the Pacific Northwest. Their reasoning goes something like this: Dams make it difficult for salmon to get downstream while young, and upstream while mature, leading to ever dwindling populations of wild salmon. Their solution – dam breaching – means tearing down dams that often are used to produce hydroelectric power, one the most “clean” sources of power around. It is startling that hippies advocate such a position, seeing as the lost power would ultimately be replaced by fossil-fuel burning sources (which contribute to global warming, which raises sea levels, which will kill millions in Bangladesh.) But what is even more startling is the amount of salmon the average hippie eats annually. These guys love it on their bagels (a hippie favorite), smoked and mixed in with some cream cheese, or simply grilled on cedar planks on a barbeque. It is estimated that each Northwest hippie eats close to his/her total weight in salmon each year. If they would simply switch to, say, tuna, there would be no need for dam breaching in the first place! Silly hippies…

Alternative Medicine

Hippies love alternative medicine, a field that includes such practices as acupuncture, reflexology, and any number of herbal fasting routines that supposedly rid the body of evil toxins that build up in our systems and cause all kinds of havoc. Indeed, herbs are held in high esteem in the common hippie household, and are used to treat almost any physical or mental ailment. However, many of the herbal treatments hippies apply cause rather inopportune side effects. For example, a common herbal fasting routine, aimed at cleansing the gall bladder, causes extreme diarrhea for days on end. Extreme, in this instance, means rice-water stools every fifteen minutes. Really. Every fifteen minutes for three or four days, these herbal-fasting hippies are gushing brown water out of their asses, all in the hopes of cleansing their gall bladders, an organ of which most hippies don’t even really know the functions. They just read about it in some hippie journal, about so and so who had taken the herbal treatment and found whats-its and whoz-ats in their poop. Of course, whats-its and whoz-ats are “bad” so the treatment must work, right? Well, guess what? No one ever really figured out what those whats-its and whoz-ats are, let alone if they are “bad”, so as far as anyone can tell, hippies are giving themselves the trots for no apparent reason. And possibly removing beneficial bits and pieces out of their bodies in the process. Silly hippies…

Dread Natty Dread

Hippies dig dreadlocks. It’s true. Dreadlocks – essentially, long sticky knots of hair that are so tangled up that even God couldn’t get them straight – are seen as the mark of true commitment to the hippie cause. After all, the longer the dreads, the longer the hippie has bucked authority and societal mores. The longer the hippie has been avoiding the materialistic drudgery of the modern world. The longer he or she has been Taking on The Man. Dreadlocks originated in Jamaica as part of the Rastafarian religion – really, just a sham of an excuse for smoking prodigious amounts of marijuana – but quickly became a part of the Northwest hippie culture, even though the Northwest hippie doesn’t really follow Rastafarian ways – except the weed-smoking. Nope, hippie dreadlocks in the Northwest are just another example of a wealthy culture co-opting – and bastardizing – the ways of a poorer culture. It happens all the time, and is often referred to as the “American-ization” of something. Like Mexican food in the Northwest…it resembles nothing like true Mexican food, it’s been modified to please our very non-Mexican palates. Ironically, hippies usually hate the American-ization of other cultures, preferring instead “authentic” cultural experiences. But in the case of dreadlocks, I guess they make an exception.

Southeast Asia

Hippies love Southeast Asia, and frequently travel to places like Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia to get their kicks. Ostensibly, hippies enjoy the culture and natural beauty of such areas…the beaches of Bali, the jungles of Malaysia, the Buddhist temples of Thailand. Of course, when traveling to these places, hippies can’t help but notice the party scene, which typically involves copious amounts of marijuana, occasionally mushrooms, and definitely cheap alcohol. As well as a rather astounding lack of law enforcement when it comes to public intoxication and recreational drug use. Oh, and a rather sexually-charged environment where other traveling hippies meet up and have relations with each other without the usual social norms kicking in that would necessitate, for example, getting to know a person before copulating with them. Nope, hippies’ love for Southeast Asia has nothing to do with these things…they really just go there for the Buddhist temples. Really.

Buying Local

When it comes to food, hippies love the concept of “buying local,” a term that refers to purchasing locally-made products. This ranges from fruits and vegetables to dairy, eggs, and meat and poultry. The idea is that by purchasing from local companies that manufacture these products, you are reducing your “carbon footprint” because the items don’t have to be transported over vast distances to get to your store or retail outlet. Another benefit, the hippies argue, is that it helps create economic vitality and vibrancy in the local community, as small local producers and manufacturers can effectively compete against giant multinational companies located thousands of miles away, and these local producers then spend their money at other local shops, and on and on down the line, keeping that money in the community. The problem, though, is that some geographic areas simply aren’t positioned well enough to support certain types of products – for example, bananas don’t grow well in Eastern Oregon, and rice doesn’t grow well in Alaska. So what’s a person to do? Change their diet? Eat ONLY foods that can be grown in your local climate? I dunno, but it sounds kinda like….Socialism!!!! Ahhhhhhh! Socialism!!!! Noooooo!!!! Ahhhhhhhh!!!!!

Woody Harrelson

Hippies love Woody Harrelson, presumably because he’s a pothead that hates on Christmas. You might remember, Woody made a comment many years ago on some late night TV show where he disparaged the idea of buying Christmas trees. Something like, “Why do we need to kill living things to celebrate the birth of Jesus?” Well, I’ll tell you why, Woody: Christ WANTS us to kill things. It’s in the Bible, look it up, man. Oh, and by the way, that doobie you’re smoking? It too was once a “living thing.” So the real question is, Woody, why do YOU have to kill living things just to relax and look at banana trees while listening to Native African bongos playing gently in the background? Huh???? Why!!!

Biodiesel

Hippies are fully behind the biodiesel movement, wherein diesel fuel is produced from various biomass sources and/or through the recycling of cooking oils and such. They say that biodiesel is better than traditional diesel because it is primarily derived from plant life, a renewable resource, as opposed to the finite fossil fuel known as crude oil that is the motherstock of traditional diesel. Thus, a big push to purchase diesel vehicles and/or convert standard engines to diesel. But what about the plants and trees and shrubs and whatnot that go into making biodiesel? Hippies, it seems, don’t care if their transportation needs serve as a catalyst for the slaughter of acres of switchgrass, or sugar cane, or whatever else goes into biodiesel. Nope, hippies don’t care about that at all….

Tatoos

Hippies love tattoos, especially ones that depict some aspect of the natural world, or pagan god of nature or environment. A common tattoo for hippie chicks is a flower, or chain of flowers, while hippie dudes prefer marijuana leaves, mushrooms, or other drug references. But hippies don’t seem to understand that this penchant for tattoos goes against the very nature of “natural,” a key component of hippie philosophy. Hippies love natural foods, natural hair growth, natural medicines, protection of nature, and otherwise anything that has the term “natural” in it. Yet, injecting an ink under your skin to permanently memorialize your devotion to weed is about as unnatural as you can get. No one is born with tattoos…unless you consider birth marks to be tattoos. It is unnatural, alien, and even somewhat “industrial” to have yourself branded in such a way. Oh irony…

Tie-Dye

Hippies love tie-dye clothing. They wear tie-dye T-shirts, pants, socks, purses and backpacks, coats, sweaters, shoes, hats, scarves, and pretty much everything else they wear and/or don and/or carry with them on their exploits through time and space. Now, considering its popularity, you’d think hippies think tie-dye is “pretty” or something. You’d be wrong. The real reason they love tie-dye so much is that, when they are all hopped up on dope or mushrooms or jimson weed and their brains aren’t working properly, if they are ever asked what color shirt or hat or skirt they have on, they can just say, “It’s Tie-dye, man!” Their rods and cones needn’t be brought back to reality.

A Milk of a Different Flavor

Hippies comprise the entire market for non-dairy “milk” items. I’m sure you’ve seen it: “Almond milk” and “Soy milk” and all sorts of other concoctions that really have no business calling themselves “milk.” When questioned about what’s really in “almond milk” they don’t really know…they just think it’s some liquid that comes from squishing almonds into paste and adding water or something. To them, that’s a whole lot better than milking a cow for nourishment, because, after all, milking cows is WRONG! That’s right, hippies think milking cows is WRONG! But have they ever seen a cow that’s full of milk, and how much said cow is just DYING to get that milk out of her? It’s almost too much to bear, seeing a cow like that with a ready-to-burst milk bag, or sack, or whatever the hell it’s called. They are so uncomfortable, they can hardly chew cud. To think hippies would leave that cow in torment is beyond belief…it’s downright despicable!

Geographically Bound

Hippies, in general, love the West coast and hate the East coast (except Vermont). They can’t survive in New York, or Jersey, or Philly, or Boston, or DC, or Atlanta, or Jacksonville, or even Miami, which is probably the most hippie-friendly place along the Atlantic. Nope, the natural habitat for hippies extends roughly from Santa Cruz to Seattle, and from the Pacific coast eastward to the Berkeley foothills in Cali and the Cascades in Oregon and Washington. Further south is SoCal, where it’s still lawful to execute hippies on sight; further north is Canada, which is too cold for hippie clothes; further east is too rural (where will they get their almond milk?); and further west is, well, too wet. So really, the geographic range for hippies is fairly limited, kinda like those damn pandas in China (who for some reason can’t figure out that things other than bamboo are edible.) The point is, hippies aren’t really all that evolved, as far as humans go. Pretty much every other human subpopulation can thrive in a wide variety of geographic locations. They might not necessarily LIKE to live in central Florida (who would?) but Alaskan Inuit could, in fact, survive there. Not hippies, though. They almost universally shrivel and die outside their precious Northwest habitat. Anyone wanting a truly unique and entertaining thesis subject might want to study this phenomenon.

Drum Circles

Hippies love drum circles and playing bongos and African drums in public spaces. These drum circles can erupt virtually anywhere that hippies congregate, and can last upwards of five or six hours, depending on the attendees’ supply of pot. In other areas of the country (i.e. outside of the Northwest) such confabs are often discouraged because the “music” is considered noise pollution, having been linked to the deaths of various wildlife, such as birds and squirrels and such which, apparently, leap from trees to the concrete below in an effort to escape the monotonous percussion. In the Northwest, however, hippies don’t care about those critters, and the drumming just keeps on going…

Diversity

Hippies love ethnic diversity in all areas of life, because they believe it makes them seem cultured and sophisticated to those around them. What better way to show your worldliness than to gobble down some Vietnamese or Thai food while sporting an all-hemp African peasant shirt and reading a book written by a prominent Latin American author? But this is a fraud. While at home, they are as white as Northern Idaho, eating Pop-Tarts and wearing basketball jerseys and tube socks while reading the New York Times.

Strange Names

Hippies love to give their children unorthodox names, a practice that began several decades ago with the “Flower children” of the 60’s and 70’s. Back then, hippies named their kids Sunbeam and Moon and Star and Leaf and similar nature-inspired monikers. These days, however, hippies tend to prefer the names of popular automobiles. They don’t see the irony of saddling their future earth-loving, fossil fuel hating progeny with names like (Dodge) Dakota, or (Toyota) Tundra, or (Mitsubishi) Eclipse, or(Geo) Storm, or (Jeep) Liberty. Odd indeed…

Saving the Whales

Hippies are animal-loving folks and, as such, support wildlife preservation and conservation efforts. They get especially excited about efforts to “save” certain species facing extinction. Sometimes, the situation for these threatened creatures is so dire that the normally pacifist hippies take up arms in defense of them, such as the crazy fat bearded dude on that Whale Wars TV program on Animal Planet. That guy – I think his name is Paul Watson, but it might as well be Walrus – thinks it’s OK to send his young hippie crew out in tiny inflatable dinghies to try and stop massive Japanese whalers from harpooning their target. The thing is, they fail. Even if they every now and again are successful in delaying the Japanese fleet’s catch, the fleet nonetheless fills its quota, year after year. Why does that young hippie crew stay on, knowing full well that their efforts are futile? Bragging rights, that’s all. They get the right, in perpetuity, to tell yarns about how they “took on the whale killers” back in the day. Their friends will all be impressed, at least the first dozen times they hear the tales. Their children will have cause to be proud of their mothers and fathers. But in the end, the only whales those kids will see will be the ones at SeaWorld.

Reproductive Rights

Hippies were at the forefront of the fight for reproductive rights for women. While seemingly laudable, it helps to look at the motives behind their involvement here. Primarily, wanton promiscuous sex. You see, hippies dig getting their groove on with people they don’t really know all that well. Hippie chicks and hippie dudes look past the moral codes that restricted sexual behavior back in the day, and prefer to have the freedom to get funky with anyone, anytime. That necessitates birth control, since many hippies don’t want kids dragging them down and curtailing their free-wheeling lifestyle. Which means that the hippies’ support of reproductive rights was and is primarily selfish in nature…not quite so laudable now, is it? Selfish hippies…

Fighting the Man

Hippies have a long history of “Taking on The Man.” The Man, for what it’s worth, represents the evil nexus between government, corporate and institutional structures that are responsible for keeping the status quo in society, or as the hippies say it, “keeping a brother down. “ The only problem is, this is 2010, and The Man, as it were, is now run by the first generation of hippies – those from the 60’s and 70’s who currently occupy leadership positions in government, business and academia. Thus, modern day hippies are fighting simply older versions of themselves. Clearly, something happens to hippies as they age. They may have started out as cutting edge activists taunting the status quo, but they end up doing TV commercials for financial advisory services for aging boomers looking at retirement. It makes perfect sense that today’s hippies will change as well, slowly morphing into The Man, and that their children will end up taking them on come 20 or 30 years. Thus the endless cycle of hippie-upon-hippie violence…when will it stop!

Groovin' to the Tunes

Hippies love music and listen to it almost everywhere they go. With their I-Pods and/or I-Phones plugged into their ears, they navigate urban environments, taking buses, riding bikes, or simply walking to their destinations with the latest groovy tunes blaring down their ear canals. While at home, they have their I-Macs plugged in, tuned to the coolest online music provider, ready to go at a moment’s notice. In their cars (if they have one) they have their favorite CD playing, or their I-Pod/I-Phone plugged in to the MP3 portal, laying down their favorite tracks. In fact, if one were to come across a hippie in the Costa Rican rainforest, it is almost assured that said hippie will have a musical device ready to whip out and entertain the natives they hope to encounter. Of course, all of these devices – the I-Phone, I-Pod, I-Mac and whatever else they use to pipe in the tunes – all are powered by fossil-fuel spewing, nonrenewable energy sources, which as we all should know contributes to global warming, which the hippies claim they will do anything to combat. Anything, it seems, except giving up their near-24 hour music fest they apparently can’t live without. What hypocrites!

Humboldt County

Hippies love northern California, especially Humboldt County. Ostensibly, it’s because of Humboldt’s relaxed attitude and progressive politics and the natural beauty of the surrounding redwood forests. But really, it’s the weed. You never see a hippie returning home to Portland from Humboldt carting back with them some pictures of trees or political pamphlets or anything like that. Just weed. And maybe some Larrupin’s Mustard Dill sauce, which apparently you can’t buy outside of Humboldt County, which provides a great excuse for driving down there, as opposed to saying, “I’m going to buy some weed.”

Road Rules

Hippies hate logging roads, and were a vocal support contingent when President Clinton implemented the Roadless Rule that banned new logging road construction in the nation’s wilderness areas. Yet, hippies are some of the heaviest users of the nation’s logging roads. They love to go camping and backpacking and snowshoeing and all that, and the best spots to go are often accessible only because of roads that were initially developed for logging. Just think how many new and exciting camping spots would be accessible if more roads were constructed! Damn hippies…

Organic Farming

Hippies like to eat organic food, because organic farming doesn’t use pesticides, herbicides or any other cides, all of which, they claim, are bad for the environment and bad for humans. But, if it weren’t for those very same herbicides, the world would be overpopulated with bugs, and whatever feeds on bugs, like mice and bats. Who needs more freakin’ bats? Not I…

Bikes are Bad

Hippies love bicycles. They ride them everywhere in Portland, and whenever a collision occurs between auto and bicycle, the auto gets blamed, no matter what. Anyhow, the theory is that bicycling reduces your carbon footprint because you don’t use any carbon-based energy to ride a bike. But, unfortunately, physics sheds some light on this fallacy of a theory. Because, the person peddling the bike uses energy he or she gleaned from eating food. Which means that the person eats more, in order to power that bicycle. Which means more resources being used to do it. Resources like water, fertilizers, and gasoline to grow and transport that food to market. Which means more carbon emissions, leading to rising sea levels, which are killing millions in Bangladesh. Thus, bicycle riders are killing millions in Bangladesh! Where’s the outrage!?!

Public Parks

Hippies love public parks. Parks give hippies a place to congregate, hang out, smoke dope and do tai chi. They also provide “green space” which hippies claim is very important to have in urban areas, for reasons I don’t quite understand. The thing is, the vast majority of public park land is covered in grass. And that grass must be mowed. And the mowers are almost universally gas-powered mowers. Which means that public parks are a significant source of greenhouse gas emissions, which lead to global warming, which leads to rising sea levels, which means, again, the deaths of millions in Bangladesh. Why won’t the hippies just lay off Bangladesh?!

Wildlife Conservation

Hippies love wildlife conservation and recovery efforts for endangered or threatened wildlife species. They championed government efforts to re-introduce wolves in Yellowstone and other mountainous areas of the Intermountain Northwest. They have long supported the special protections allotted to alligators in the Florida Everglades. But what about the countless dogs and cats that are killed each year by Florida gators? What about the hundreds or even thousands of cute little forest critters that are eaten each year by the wolves? I guess hippies don’t care about them much…

Composting

Hippies love composting, a process by which they take organic materials, like food scraps, rotting vegetables and landscape debris, and turn it into nutrient-rich soil to be used in gardens and such. The idea is that those materials are put to better use in the garden than in a landfill. The thing is, landfills are basically big giant compost heaps. Sure, there are other, non-organic things that go into a landfill, but all in all, they function pretty similarly to a backyard composter. Over time, the materials in a landfill decompose and turn into soil. Did the hippies ever consider that, by depriving the landfill of such “healthy” organic materials, they are inadvertently lowering the future quality of the soil that landfill will one day provide for starving populations? Huh? Did they ever think of that? I thought not.

Patchouli and the Rainforest

Hippies love water conservation. So much so, that they intentionally skip showers, trying to wash themselves only every few days or so. To counteract the natural odor that accompanies poor personal hygiene, hippies wear lots of patchouli-scented perfume. But few hippies realize that patchouli is derived from a rare Amazonian wildflower, and that vast armies of Brazilians are employed to rape the rainforest in search of this flower. In fact, according to reliable sources, more rainforest acreage is destroyed each year from patchouli harvesting than road building and agricultural land clearing. Hmmm…if only hippies would shower!

The Big Lebowski

Hippies love The Big Lebowski. Why? Well, let’s count the reasons: He smokes weed, listens to whale songs while taking a bath, has poor personal grooming habits, walks around in his pajamas all day, shirks responsibility at every step, doesn’t work, speaks in non-sequiturs, and otherwise avoids the Big Bummer that is life in modern society. Yes indeed, hippies can relate. Besides, he is also frequently seen with a skinny and fragile loner – somewhat akin to a hippie’s dog – as well as a large, angry fat man -which equates, in hippie land, to the “big boned” bearded lesbian that every hippie circle has.

Saving the Trees

Hippies like to save trees. They even have a profession known as tree-sitting, wherein said hippies climb trees and hang out, doing nothing for a few weeks (which isn’t really a stretch, considering their daily routines). The point is to stop, or at least slow down, logging of the nation’s forests. But if you’ve ever been in a hippie’s home, you’ll notice they have the softest, plushest toilet paper money can buy, instead of, say, the cheapo single ply stuff that does the same thing using half the resources. I guess they don’t mind logging the toilet paper trees…

Illiteracy

Hippies love books. Well, not really. They love to think they love books. And they love to let other people think they love books. But really, they don’t. Because, believe it or not, most hippies can’t read. That’s why they love foreign films. They can’t read the subtitles, so they pretty much make up the lines in their heads as the movie plays. That way, when they get out of the theater after the show, they will have a totally different interpretation of the movie and its greater meaning. Which makes them look ethereal and intellectual, when in actuality, they are simply illiterate.

Televisions

I saw a bumper sticker on a hippie car in Portland that said, “Destroy Your TV.” Evidently, this hippie doesn’t care about the toxic compounds in the TV that will be sent to the landfill, the toxics which will leach into the groundwater, which will be consumed by unsuspecting citizens of Portland or some other town some other day, long off into the future. Nope, this hippie doesn’t care about those things.

Doggy Bags

Hippies love dogs, and can reliably be found walking them, or sitting with them in the park while singing a Simon and Garfunkel song and asking for spare change. But hippies hate dog poop, and can reliably be found leaving said poop on the grass for others to walk on. Sometimes, they place a leaf over the poop, sometimes they don’t. One thing they never do, though, is pick it up with one of those plastic poop bags, because hippies hate plastic bags, seeing as they’re bad for the environment and such. For me, I’d rather see that plastic poop bag in a landfill, than see the poop on my shoes.

Coffee Blues

Hippies love coffee and consume outrageous amounts of it. I don’t know why, maybe it gives them a clearer head when shopping for hookahs and psychedelic Led Zeppelin posters. At any rate, consuming coffee is bad for the environment, a fact that most hippies are unaware of. You see, coffee is a diuretic, which means it makes you have to pee. And when you do pee after drinking coffee, you expel caffeine in your urine. That caffeine eventually makes its way into local streams, where fish live. The fish “breathe” that same caffeine when they take water in through their gills. Caffeine does strange things to fish, most of which are bad. Like causing sterility, hormonal changes and such. No wonder fish are dying out?! If only the hippies cared…

Beef is Good

People say that raising cattle is harmful to the environment, especially in places like Brazil, which keeps mowing down rainforest to expand agriculturally. Well guess what? Beef tastes good. If Jesus was here, he’d eat at McDonalds and be Lovin’ It. Why are the hippies always hating on Jesus?