“Football combines the two worst features of American life. It is violence punctuated by committee meetings.” —George F. Will

If you do bother, you will set an example for other people. If enough other people bother, each one influencing yet another in a chain reaction of behavioral change, markets for all manner of green products and alternative technologies will prosper and expand. (Just look at the market for hybrid cars.) Consciousness will be raised, perhaps even changed: new moral imperatives and new taboos might take root in the culture. Driving an S.U.V. or eating a 24-ounce steak or illuminating your McMansion like an airport runway at night might come to be regarded as outrages to human conscience. Not having things might become cooler than having them. - Michael Pollan in his NYT Magazine article Why Bother?

Ireland... a land of high divorce rates, teenage pregnancies, and ....happy people!

How so? Read this fascinating article about how this country of 310,000-odd people has succeeded in creating an utopian-sounding society, despite being beset with would be seen by most other societies as myriad problems. And to think it was one of the poorest nations in Europe at the start of the 20th century.

How did it manage this? By being very practical.

It is a largely pagan country, as the natives like to see it, unburdened by the taboos that generate so much distress elsewhere. That means they are practical people.

Link via a post at India Uncut.