Observing Earth Day

All you liberals out there who think the rich Republicans are heartless and insensitive, consider the following: Today is Earth Day, and the hardworking businessmen who advertised in today's New York Times are all over it. Here are some of the ways they suggest the holiday be observed:

A quarter-page ad for Circa Jewels shows a beautiful model holding an enormous diamond flower, signifying the earth, and sporting bright green eye shadow--get it, green. The words "It's Earth Day" are also in green. The copy touts the company's plan to save the planet, wherein you "recycle the diamonds and jewelry you no longer wear. Every diamond we buy from you is one less that has to be mined. Helping the environment has never been more beautiful."

Diamond mining in Sierra Leone

Macy's full-page ad in the A-section of the paper--the cost of which could probably feed a small village for a year--announces an Earth Day Giveaway! If you come in the store and trade in any empty cosmetics item, they will give you a free full-size, limited edition of their moisturizer called A Perfect World (SPF25) by a company called Origins. One of the ingredients is white tea, which shows where their head is at.

Tiffany takes the cake, of course, with a somber all-type message, only an eighth of a page but with a lot of white space so it gets your attention--the kind of dignified and understated and respectful ad you see from brokerage houses when one of their partners dies. It intones that Tiffany & Co. is "passionate about beauty, and about the source of it all, our precious natural resources." And they don't feel that way just on Earth Day but every day--in fact they go so far as to say they are "committed to obtaining the precious materials we need responsibly and without threatening the Earth's special places." To prove it, they invite you to learn more at www.Tiffany.com/sustainability.