If You Only Had A Brain

I once spent time with a woman who lives on my street. We pretended to be friends but never were, mostly because she was incapable of discussing anything real. So we skimmed the surface, getting together for dinner with our husbands when we would all follow her strict rules forbidding talk of politics, world events, race, gender diversity and anything else that would expose her ignorance about them all.

One day she came for lunch with some other ladies. I served iced tea with lemon, placing a straw into each glass. The aforementioned woman literally shrieked in horror, saying she was "shocked" by my action. I had no idea what she meant. Turns out it was my using plastic straws. "Don't you know they are killing the environment? How could you?"

She had heard that somewhere, probably on CNN, her only news source. I  explained that the four plastic straws we were using in my kitchen would end up in my trash and be incinerated and not choke any seagulls, or whatever she was worried about, but she simply could not grasp that. To her we were picnicking on the seashore and leaving our straws in the sand where they would float out to sea. "Don't you know about the plastic island near Hawaii?" she cried, visibly upset. Apparently all plastic straws end up there. 

 Lack of clear thinking, or thinking at all, has become a huge problem in America and is responsible for the deep chasm that exists between our two warring political parties. According to health physicist Steven Jerkins writing online, "The war on plastic straws is just the latest virtue signaling issue that is a meaningless diversion from the real issue of ocean dumping of garbage."

Hopefully, scientific advances will eventually allow for brain transplants, and people like Mary can one day enjoy the benefits of thinking for herself.