Butter Side Down

One of the hot new words of 2006, according to an article in today’s Wall Street Journal, was “pretexting.”

Pretexting, the article pointed out, was the term certain individuals at Hewlett-Packard used to describe “the practice of calling telephone companies to obtain people’s phone records, generally under the pretext of claiming to be those individuals.”

I thought we already had a simple verb to describe that behavior: lying.

Let me check… yes, I think I’m onto something here… Webster’s says:

Main Entry: lie
Function: verb
1: to make an untrue statement with intent to deceive
2: to create a false or misleading impression
transitive verb : to bring about by telling lies (lied his way out of trouble). “Lie” is the blunt term, imputing dishonesty (lied about where he had been).

That’s what I recall being taught.

Here’s an idea for CEOS, executives and managers who want to clean up corrupt corporate cultures in the United States: explain your company’s actions in words every five-year-old understands.

Want to bet that “pretexting” isn’t on the kindergarten vocabulary list?

Ah, the UN and their programs. The latest is the “Billion Tree Campaign,” part of their “Plant for the Planet” initiative.

Instead of pledging to do our environmental duty, couldn’t we just buy trees with some of the stolen money from the UN’s “Oil for Food” program, the money that seems to have wandered far afield from its proper designation?

The Billion Tree Campaign is (I’m sure) well intentioned, but I heard about it from a source that sternly implied: This Is A Good Thing. “Painters and poets throughout the millennia have explored the aesthetic beauty of trees in great detail, and in the past few centuries, humans have become intimately aware of how trees form the foundation of many natural systems.”

Indeed. The noble tree.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m as green an elephant as they come. I’m quite fond of trees, admired many, been awed by some and spent numerous peaceful moments sitting beneath my favorite shady giants. This sort of banner waving eco-intelligentsia, however, makes me queasy. Trees are crops. Especially maple trees. Mmm-mmm-mmm - maple syrup. Which comes from the delightful hardwood sugar maples, not those weeds of the Acer species called silver maples. Those wicked black-hearted imitations of real trees are inclined to drop large portions of themselves on one’s fragile abode at any hint of wind.

But I digress.

Recently, I was instructed to hug a tree for half an hour, then write a little essay on what I learned from the experience. This was part of an exercise designed to ‘grow’ my awareness of environmental stewardship.

*insert hysterical laughter*

The only time I’ve come close to hugging a tree, or ever will, was in my college years, after imbibing a considerable amount of Yukon Jack followed by a chaser of greasy fries.

Now, that inspires an idea: how about a tree tax? For every bottle of booze or beer sold, apply a one-cent tree tax and use the collected revenue to buy and plant trees.

We’d reforest the world.