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McCruimmen’s Lament

by David Neal Cremean, a.k.a. Nial McCruimmen

“McCruimmen’s Lament” is the title of an old Irish ballad, one that can be construed as an anti-war song, or, more broadly, a protest song in general. The name Cremean comes from the Irish name McCruimmen, out of Counties Cork and Kerry, with the Cremeans a sept of the McCarthy Clan. As a lament, both this song and the column connect to a prophetic function, prophetic in the main sense of the word, calling society to account, as in the Lamentations of Jeremiah and the tradition of the Jeremiad.

puters, with their high energy demands and their mega-varieties of toxic wastes ranging from batteries to heavy metals to radioactivity and beyond might turn a person’s fngers or whole body an iridescent green but aren’t very user or earth friendly themselves.

We’ve long observed Earth Day on this campus, like so many other good American communities. But to set aside one day a year to emphasize the Earth is an almost empty gesture, even if we do chant “Every day is Earth Day.”

Also among the new concepts employed was “Ride or Walk to Work Day,” that is, as opposed to drive to work or ride to work with someone else driving a vehicle. And by its very name it exposes the gimmick as just another mere “feelgood” observance like so many of our society’s special days. Few movements can claim as many empty gestures as mainstream environmentalism offers, and in-

The Campus Green, or Chilling Verde

I am a teacher at a university somewhere west of the Hundredth Meridian; two years ago, the powers-that-be launched a “Green Campaign.” Among

their goals is an obsession to keep all of us—students, faculty, staff and other riff raff---on the paved campus sidewalks and eliminate an unsightly network of illegal foot paths that have been stamped upon the grassy lawns. The university felt compelled to act.

They began posting signs. The most visible of these signs was placed on the Campus Green, a favorite gathering place for those who would, as Paul Simon once noted, “rather be a forest than a street.”

The signs kept replicating... No, they may not be as offensive as Ed Abbey’s hated ubiquitous billboards that consume our national landscape. They don’t promote Deadwood’s “hot slots” or Wall Drug’s nickel coffee or Mt. Rushmore’s National Parking Lot, or Reptile Gardens and Bear Country, USA. But these campus signs are conceived in that same tradition.

creasingly, campuses are embracing these Orwellian verbal maneuvers.

Our campus does have a windmill, as in one. A small one, one that to my knowledge hasn’t yet even managed to slay one bird. It has not signifcantly reduced our carbon footprint.

Last year we learned that “Sustainabil-ity” is to be a major focus on our campus, too. We heard a great deal about it, all highly positive. Our carefully culled speakers or faculty talking heads, the academic punditry, all said the right things. But no real meaningful ecological sus-tainability can happen in a world of 6.5 people, on its way to 10 billion by 2050.. So what exactly are we trying to sustain? “The American Way of Life”? No nation in history has ever had less to do with creating a “sustainable” human society or “environment.” We brought one “speaker” to campus in our alleged “sustainability

Small, metal signs are displayed in pairs or more, replete with chains limply linked across them to help bar passage. They are written in my school’s colors and even include the school’s mascot logo. The signs beseech us all to “Please Use Sidewalks: Pride and Respect for Mother Nature.”

Even briefy analyzing the sign reveals a good deal about American universities and American values, about appearances rather than realities—and about the devaluation of truth, logic, and common sense, all of which are supposed to be cherished values of higher education.

What does staying off the grass have to do with “school pride.?” Pride in what?—appearance? At its best, appearance is usually only part of reality, and at its worst, it is a false reality.

Ultimately, the green, green grass of our home has nothing to do with Mother Nature. The grass on our campus is non-native to the region and is therefore a noxious weed and disrespectful of Mother Nature. It isn’t even allowed to grow above a certain low level. Our university religiously sprays herbicides on this lawn, and, though we are in a semi-arid region, like all good western institutions, it waters the hell out of the grass, consequently keeping the campus greener than green and utterly free not just of noxious exotics, but “noxious” native fora as well!

Another question that begs to be asked: how can a chain barring my unrestricted movement be congruous with a “Please”?

And fnally, as long as we’re asking hard questions, how do cement sidewalks honor and respect Mother Nature?

I have other sign issues. Recently the university installed parking signs that reserve parking spaces for “low emission” and “high fuel-effciency” vehicles only. It wouldn’t be a completely hollow gesture if the spaces were indeed used by little rice burners. But each time I walked to and on campus, the spaces were flled with gas-guzzlers. Lately the campus cops have gotten tougher, so there is some hope.

And while the campus green signs encourage an environmental ethic, and worries about unsightly foot paths, the university is out dispensing “deer repellant,” particularly in planting areas where bucks rub. Rrecently, the campus used “Liquid Fence,” which smells like “rotten eggs,” which makes sense because Liquid Fence uses “an egg product as its main ingredient.”

We’ve tried, abandoned, and reintroduced recycling on our campus. We recycle the “cash crop” variety of aluminum cans and waste paper. And of course recycling is fraught with its own problems—in the remote American West, where transportation costs are signifcant, recycling may consume more energy output than it saves.

Thinking people are left to wonder what kind of “green” makes sense for this university?

For a couple of years now we’ve been told we are moving to a “paperless campus,” which is inexact hyperbole, since of course we’ll keep using paper to some degree (even beyond the to-be-desired continuation of toilet paper). But a paperless campus or even something semi-nigh-unto it is hardly a greener one. Com-

speaker series”: she was a minor celebrity. She was cute, she was funny, she was entertaining. And she offered only the silly and already outworn platitudes of, essentially, “reduce, reuse, recycle.” And, along with her, the speaking series seems to have mysteriously vanished.

Ultimately, it is almost all cosmetic, positive publicity-oriented, and thus almost entirely invented imagery. And highly cynical to boot; it’s more image-making to make money than it is about ethical or moral concern for poor impoverished and abandoned Single-Mother Nature. As the old margarine commercial

Ultimatelty, the green, green grass of our home has

nothing to do with Mother Nature. The grass on our campus is non-native to the region and is therefore a noxious weed and disrespectful of Mother Nature.

said, “It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature.”

University campuses are supposed to be zones flled with ideas, not truisms, debates not silencings, differences not conformities—in short, education not deaducation. But in America neither the “right” nor the “left” nor the “center” seems willing to really let campuses have an open debate. Most campus greens are swerving dangerously ever-closer toward speech-and act control zones than speech-and act free zones. Green is, of course, also the color of money and the dragons that jealously hoard it. We like to think that our campuses are creating most of our local, state, regional, national, and world leaders. As education and big business blur and blend, it simultaneously resembles Eisenhower’s professed fear of the fascistic military-industrial complex and its own commodifying appropriation of everything “green.”

But here, somewhere in the midst of what was once and long termed “The Great American Desert,” signs of a different sort, signs of hope, have emerged. The grass signs have at least temporarily disappeared, and I hear rumors that small scale monkey wrenching was behind their vanishing. (No, I was not involved in any way.) But there are those of us who try to avoid the herding instinct that sidewalks are designed to produce. Yes, we are guilty of our own civil disobedience, what I like to call “grasspassing.” Call it pathfnding, trailblazing. Call it battling the invasives, the gardened, and the Greenies. One step at a time.

Nial McCruimmen hails from and upon us out of somewhere in the deserts, plains, and mountains of the American West and considers himself dramati-

UNSOLICITED CONTRIBUTIONS to the POINT BLANK page are welcome. However, they may or may not be read by the editor. If they are read and if the editor is interested, he will contact you... cczephyr@gmail.com

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	POINTBLANK McCruimmen’s Lament by David Neal Cremean, a.k.a. Nial McCruimmen “McCruimmen’s Lament” is the title of an old Irish ballad, one that can be construed as an anti-war song, or, more broadly, a protest song in general. The name Cremean comes from the Irish name McCruimmen, out of Counties Cork and Kerry, with the Cremeans a sept of the McCarthy Clan. As a lament, both this song and the column connect to a prophetic function, prophetic in the main sense of the word, calling society to account, as in the Lamentations of Jeremiah and the tradition of the Jeremiad. puters, with their high energy demands and their mega-varieties of toxic wastes ranging from batteries to heavy metals to radioactivity and beyond might turn a person’s fngers or whole body an iridescent green but aren’t very user or earth friendly themselves. We’ve long observed Earth Day on this campus, like so many other good American communities. But to set aside one day a year to emphasize the Earth is an almost empty gesture, even if we do chant “Every day is Earth Day.” Also among the new concepts employed was “Ride or Walk to Work Day,” that is, as opposed to drive to work or ride to work with someone else driving a vehicle. And by its very name it exposes the gimmick as just another mere “feelgood” observance like so many of our society’s special days. Few movements can claim as many empty gestures as mainstream environmentalism offers, and in- The Campus Green, or Chilling Verde I am a teacher at a university somewhere west of the Hundredth Meridian; two years ago, the powers-that-be launched a “Green Campaign.” Among their goals is an obsession to keep all of us—students, faculty, staff and other riff raff---on the paved campus sidewalks and eliminate an unsightly network of illegal foot paths that have been stamped upon the grassy lawns. The university felt compelled to act. They began posting signs. The most visible of these signs was placed on the Campus Green, a favorite gathering place for those who would, as Paul Simon once noted, “rather be a forest than a street.” The signs kept replicating... No, they may not be as offensive as Ed Abbey’s hated ubiquitous billboards that consume our national landscape. They don’t promote Deadwood’s “hot slots” or Wall Drug’s nickel coffee or Mt. Rushmore’s National Parking Lot, or Reptile Gardens and Bear Country, USA. But these campus signs are conceived in that same tradition. creasingly, campuses are embracing these Orwellian verbal maneuvers. Our campus does have a windmill, as in one. A small one, one that to my knowledge hasn’t yet even managed to slay one bird. It has not signifcantly reduced our carbon footprint. Last year we learned that “Sustainabil-ity” is to be a major focus on our campus, too. We heard a great deal about it, all highly positive. Our carefully culled speakers or faculty talking heads, the academic punditry, all said the right things. But no real meaningful ecological sus-tainability can happen in a world of 6.5 people, on its way to 10 billion by 2050.. So what exactly are we trying to sustain? “The American Way of Life”? No nation in history has ever had less to do with creating a “sustainable” human society or “environment.” We brought one “speaker” to campus in our alleged “sustainability Small, metal signs are displayed in pairs or more, replete with chains limply linked across them to help bar passage. They are written in my school’s colors and even include the school’s mascot logo. The signs beseech us all to “Please Use Sidewalks: Pride and Respect for Mother Nature.” Even briefy analyzing the sign reveals a good deal about American universities and American values, about appearances rather than realities—and about the devaluation of truth, logic, and common sense, all of which are supposed to be cherished values of higher education. What does staying off the grass have to do with “school pride.?” Pride in what?—appearance? At its best, appearance is usually only part of reality, and at its worst, it is a false reality. Ultimately, the green, green grass of our home has nothing to do with Mother Nature. The grass on our campus is non-native to the region and is therefore a noxious weed and disrespectful of Mother Nature. It isn’t even allowed to grow above a certain low level. Our university religiously sprays herbicides on this lawn, and, though we are in a semi-arid region, like all good western institutions, it waters the hell out of the grass, consequently keeping the campus greener than green and utterly free not just of noxious exotics, but “noxious” native fora as well! Another question that begs to be asked: how can a chain barring my unrestricted movement be congruous with a “Please”? And fnally, as long as we’re asking hard questions, how do cement sidewalks honor and respect Mother Nature? I have other sign issues. Recently the university installed parking signs that reserve parking spaces for “low emission” and “high fuel-effciency” vehicles only. It wouldn’t be a completely hollow gesture if the spaces were indeed used by little rice burners. But each time I walked to and on campus, the spaces were flled with gas-guzzlers. Lately the campus cops have gotten tougher, so there is some hope. And while the campus green signs encourage an environmental ethic, and worries about unsightly foot paths, the university is out dispensing “deer repellant,” particularly in planting areas where bucks rub. Rrecently, the campus used “Liquid Fence,” which smells like “rotten eggs,” which makes sense because Liquid Fence uses “an egg product as its main ingredient.” We’ve tried, abandoned, and reintroduced recycling on our campus. We recycle the “cash crop” variety of aluminum cans and waste paper. And of course recycling is fraught with its own problems—in the remote American West, where transportation costs are signifcant, recycling may consume more energy output than it saves. Thinking people are left to wonder what kind of “green” makes sense for this university? For a couple of years now we’ve been told we are moving to a “paperless campus,” which is inexact hyperbole, since of course we’ll keep using paper to some degree (even beyond the to-be-desired continuation of toilet paper). But a paperless campus or even something semi-nigh-unto it is hardly a greener one. Com- speaker series”: she was a minor celebrity. She was cute, she was funny, she was entertaining. And she offered only the silly and already outworn platitudes of, essentially, “reduce, reuse, recycle.” And, along with her, the speaking series seems to have mysteriously vanished. Ultimately, it is almost all cosmetic, positive publicity-oriented, and thus almost entirely invented imagery. And highly cynical to boot; it’s more image-making to make money than it is about ethical or moral concern for poor impoverished and abandoned Single-Mother Nature. As the old margarine commercial Ultimatelty, the green, green grass of our home has nothing to do with Mother Nature. The grass on our campus is non-native to the region and is therefore a noxious weed and disrespectful of Mother Nature. said, “It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature.” University campuses are supposed to be zones flled with ideas, not truisms, debates not silencings, differences not conformities—in short, education not deaducation. But in America neither the “right” nor the “left” nor the “center” seems willing to really let campuses have an open debate. Most campus greens are swerving dangerously ever-closer toward speech-and act control zones than speech-and act free zones. Green is, of course, also the color of money and the dragons that jealously hoard it. We like to think that our campuses are creating most of our local, state, regional, national, and world leaders. As education and big business blur and blend, it simultaneously resembles Eisenhower’s professed fear of the fascistic military-industrial complex and its own commodifying appropriation of everything “green.” But here, somewhere in the midst of what was once and long termed “The Great American Desert,” signs of a different sort, signs of hope, have emerged. The grass signs have at least temporarily disappeared, and I hear rumors that small scale monkey wrenching was behind their vanishing. (No, I was not involved in any way.) But there are those of us who try to avoid the herding instinct that sidewalks are designed to produce. Yes, we are guilty of our own civil disobedience, what I like to call “grasspassing.” Call it pathfnding, trailblazing. Call it battling the invasives, the gardened, and the Greenies. One step at a time. Nial McCruimmen hails from and upon us out of somewhere in the deserts, plains, and mountains of the American West and considers himself dramati- UNSOLICITED CONTRIBUTIONS to the POINT BLANK page are welcome. However, they may or may not be read by the editor. If they are read and if the editor is interested, he will contact you... cczephyr@gmail.com

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