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…

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…

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!

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…

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…