Flirty Den Mother

One of my many peeves is littering. But the worst kind of littering, specifically, is cigarette butts. Setting aside the fire hazard of butt flicking, and the disgusting aesthetic of dirty ciggy butts everywhere you walk, there is a real and immediate environmental impact from all of those discarded, chemical soaked filters. An article published in 2009 by The International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health states that, "Discarded cigarette butts are a form of non-biodegradable litter. Carried as runoff from streets to drains, to rivers, and ultimately to the ocean and its beaches, cigarette filters are the single most collected item in international beach cleanups each year. They are an environmental blight on streets, sidewalks, and other open areas. Rather than being a protective health device, cigarette filters are primarily a marketing tool to help sell ‘safe’ cigarettes. They are perceived by much of the public (especially current smokers) to redu...

Freedom is a word that gets tossed around haphazardly, especially in this country - USA. But what does it really mean to be 'free'? As you might have guessed, I have several thoughts on the subject. THE ONLY WAY TO PROTECT ONES OWN FREEDOM OF AUTONOMY IS TO ALWAYS ADVOCATE FOR THE FREEDOM OF OTHERS TO HAVE THE SAME.   When we attempt to deny basic personal freedoms to anyone, we open the door to having our own freedoms infringed upon. I recently watched the George Carlin special "It's bad for you" on Netflix where he states, "...rights aren’t rights if someone can take ’em away. They’re privileges, that’s all we’ve ever had in this country, is a bill of temporary privileges. And if you read the news even badly, you know that every year the list gets shorter and shorter and shorter." As an example of this, Carlin cites the interment of Japanese-Americans in 1942. "In 1942, there were a 110,000 Japanese American citizens in good standing...