| Can t Seem to Stop Talking Like This CF Miley, Opinions Editor I have some “Good News For People Who Love Bad News.” ’'m addicted to speaking in song lyrics. Aécording to Arthur Schopenhauer, “The first forty years of life give us the text; the next thirty supply the commentary on it.” In my case, the text has come from a lifetime of memorizing lyrics. In this day and age, when we have the Wu’s end of the 36 chambers, I’d have to say that I’ve spent much of my life “swing- ing through your town like your neighborhood Spiderman,’ in between bouts of “bringing the MotherF#$@ing Ruckus,” and, “forming like Voltron.” Talking Heads fans claim that I’m “Speaking in Tongues,” or that I’m the “Sand in the Vaseline.” NWA fans realize that I’m just try- ing to “Express Myself.” Really though, I want to “make it through the day with some help, from Johnny Walker Red,” because, while “T’m a loser, baby,” it’s also true that “Tm a driver,’ and, “I’m a winner,” and “things are gonna change, I can feel it.’ I know this because occa- sionally I realize—in the immortal words of The Flaming Lips—that, “Suddenly everything has changed.” Still, whether ’m out “Money makin’,’ or at home, “chillin’ like a mega villain,’ I can’t seem to stop talking like this. Sometimes, when I’m wondering, “Where is my mind?” I try to remember that, “In heaven, everything is fine.” Pretty soon I begin to see that while, “Things Fall Apart,’ it could be worse. I could be living a “legal age life at variety store, dealing in dope by the exit door,’ and I think, “Relax, don’t do it.” I’m trying to find a 12-step pro- gram to help me with my problem. I need to admit that ’m powerless over my addiction, and that my life has become unmanageable. I’ve been having troubles with this first step, though, and instead, I find myself uttering, “I’m all lost in the supermarket, I can no longer shop happily.” Yesterday, when my phone rang, I picked up and yelled, “London calling, yes I was there too, and you know what they said, well, some of it was true.” It turned out to be a wrong number. I hit *69, called the person back, and quoted the oft-under quoted Sloan by say- ing, “I want a special meeting too, with Captain Everyday at Station Navy Blue.” The woman on the other end muttered something about a restraining order, screeched, and hung up. Unmanageable indeed. Last night, while trying to figure out “How to Disappear Completely,’ I began to “wake, from [my] sleep, before your father hears,” because I decided that “today, we escape. We escape.” I needed to figure out “who are my real friends, have they all got the bends? Am I really sinking, this low?” The answer was yes, but it’s okay, because when I step back and assess where I’m at, it seems that I’ve got “Everything in its right place.” [’m going to be alright, because “that there, that’s not me. I go where I please. I’m not here, this isn’t happening. This isn’t happen- ing...” If anyone needs me, I'll be “sit- tin’ on the dock of the bay, watching the tide roll away. Sittin’ on the dock of the bay, wasting time.” I guess things could be worse, instead of “feeling rich like silt on a riverbed,’ I could be walk- ing around muttering “Would you sell one of those if I shave my head? Get me out of town Mr. Crime Boss said. Never trust a man in a blue trench coat. Never drive a car when you're dead.” But that would mean I was crazy; crazy like Tom Waits. Hey! I love Tom Waits. You do too? Remember that part of that song that goes.... Science Matters Glearing the Air for Our Kids David Suzuki, The David Suzuki Foundation India. This is true. Our cities don’t generally suffer from “pea soup” smogs like London did in the 50s, which killed thousands of people. And cities in developing countries can suffer from ter- rible air pollution. But these comments miss Air pollution is often accepted as part of life in urban areas. But new stud- ies have shown that our complacency could come at the expense of our health. And we need to do more if we want to avoid an increasingly smog- gy future. Results of a long-term study on the effects of air pollution on children’s health were recently published in the pre-eminent medical journal “The New England Journal of Medicine.” This Children’s Health Study is the largest ever of its kind, examining the cumulative exposure effect of vari- ous pollutants on more than 1,700 children from 12 southern California communities over eight years. The authors found that “exposure to ambient air pollution is correlated with significant deficits in respiratory growth over an eight-year period, leading to clinically important deficits in lung function at the age of 18 years.” In other words, air pollution can damage the developing lungs of children, which can reduce their lung function as adults. The authors also confirmed something reported by several other stud- ies. For some pollutants, like fine particles called “particulates,” the exposure-response relationship appears to be linear, with no “safe” levels of exposure. So, whenever even the smallest amounts of these pollutants were found in the air, there were corresponding health effects found in chil- dren. These results should tell us that we need to do more to clean up our ait. Yet, often when I bring up the topic of air pollution, a few people pop up and claim that urban air is much cleaner than it was 50 years ago. Or that air in urban North America is much cleaner than it is in urban China or the point. Yes, we are lucky to live in the developed world, but why would that stop us from reducing what is apparently a health risk countries, in our own just because it may not be as visible? And the only reason why those pea soup smogs cleared up in the first place was because of government intervention and clean-air laws. The fact is, improving our air in the future, or even keeping it the same quality as it is today, will take substantial effort. A growing population, a constant stream of new untested chemicals and an ever-increasing number of motor vehicles on our streets means that air pol- lution is on the rise again. Even in Europe, where laws are more strict than in North America, air pollution is proving difficult to reduce. Recent reports have found that increased road traffic will likely prevent the UK from meeting its pollution-reduction goals for 2010. This has experts con- cerned, since climate change is also expected to make air pollution worse, as higher temperatures and more sunlight lead to greater smog formation. In North America, where lax fuel-efficiency regulations and a prolifera- tion of sport utility vehicles are the norm, air pollution will also increase continued on pg.11 GEPEMbEr § a2/e00H