The Neal James Website

I miss Al Gore. I know this comes as a shock. Those of you who have been reading my scribblings for awhile now know that from time to time I have not been very nice to Al. For this, I want to make a public apology. Al really does not deserve my ire. Anyone who believes in the overtly sublime and inherent goodness of themselves as he does deserves mucho grande respecto. But Mr. Gore was a journalist in his younger years and he has not been above reproach when it comes to criticizing those of opposing views, so he won't generally mind when I take my shots.

I knew Al back in Tennessee when we called him "Scooter" and as mere boys we delighted in shooting crawdads with his pellet rifle. Al used to taunt the poor things with the barrel of the gun, and when they would raise their thorny mandibles in self defense, devious Al would administer the coup de grace via a fog of lead and yellow translucent crustacean goo. The look in his eyes as he did this was the same one he had years later when he stared down Ross Perot during their televised debate over the virtues of what NAFTA would do to America's economy.

We lost contact after high school when Al got accepted to Harvard and I enrolled at the Arizona College for Hardheaded Loser Donothings. While I concentrated on girls and the occasional attending of class, Al discovered the Internet and came to a wanton self-realization that the snail darter needed to be saved. But why stop at saving just one variety of fish when you can save the entire planet? Al took up that greater cause and donned the almighty cape of Captain Planet, in addition to being elected Vice President by Hillary Clinton.

I haven't talked to him since, and Al was in town this week and neglected to call me. If you see him, tell him my number's still in the book.

But after losing badly to George Bush in Nevada and Guam, Al took on the green vocation full time. He became Green and really started making green. The beauty in Al's cause is that he really can't be proved wrong. Climate data can always be skewed in whatever direction one wishes, for political purposes or otherwise. His efforts on behalf of the Earth are admirable, even if I've never heard him mention anything like the unpredictable activity of the Sun being involved in our planetary heating. He's done more than I'll ever do on the issue and he deserves credit for it.

As for my family, we practice green conservatism all the time. But since the Earth-friendly rabbits in my backyard keep eating my oxygen-rich grass and emitting planet warming carbon dioxide through their subsequent flatulence, I humbly submit that the real culprits behind global warming are fuzzy, feathered, furry creatures, possibly along with rich ex-politicians who fly in private jets and cruise from event to event in stretch limousines, all the while getting exceedingly richer in a filthy sort of way off of their well-meaning followers, whose environmental sentiments and efforts on behalf of the same are truly virtuous.

On second thought, I don't miss Al so much anymore.