My usually reliable sources inform me that tomorrow is Earth Day (now known as Earth Week, due to the inflationary effects of global warming). In my capacity as acknowledged arbiter of public morals and taste, I take seriously my responsibility to clarify some public misconceptions about this observance.

I am very old, and I remember the first Earth Day. At least I remember magazine articles and people talking about it. I have no memory of the actual observance. I was in college at the time, and I think they gave us the afternoon off. I think the students were supposed to walk around town picking up trash. But I don’t recall it (and, sadly, I can’t even offer drunkenness as an excuse). If I did pick up trash, I don’t remember. Of course, this college was in Forest City, Iowa, which means there probably wasn’t much around in the first place. I suspect I spent the afternoon hiding in my dorm room, cowering with the lights off, fearful of the dreaded knock at the door.

Which was how I generally spent my afternoons anyway.

So how should we observe Earth Day? How should we honor our dear, abusive Mommy Dearest Earth, who sends us hurricanes and earthquakes, harbors our insect and bacterial enemies, and recently threw a hissy fit in Iceland, just because we forgot to call?

First of all, keep that bicycle in the garage. Bicyclists tend to get hit by automobiles, causing unnecessary fuel expenditures for gas-guzzling ambulances and all those energy-sucking operating room lights. Also the water necessary to wash your blood off the street is a drain on the aquifer.

Also, eat a lot. Preferably fatty, salty, high-sugar foods. This lowers your lifespan, you human parasite, and nothing reduces your carbon footprint like death. Also, Mother Gaia loves burials (why do you think she keeps dropping heavy stuff like mountainsides on people? She’s a carnivore). One caution—do not be cremated. Greenhouse gases, you know. Especially after you’ve eaten a lot of fast food.

Hug a wild animal. Preferably a large one with long teeth. They need love too, and your understanding may be just the thing that gives meaning to their dull lives, living out there in the woods where’s there’s no high speed access. And no fast food delivery. Until now.

Join some religion that will force you to live in a pre-industrial age, like Wicca, Islam, or Texas Hold ‘Em. Then give away all your sinful, environment-molesting high end electronics.

I have an address where you can send it all.

Matt Scottoline gives us “Moments from famous films I would have ruined had I been the star.”

From It’s a Wonderful Life: “What do you want? The moon? Really? There is no possible way any person can do that. Ugh. Never mind.”

Cut! (Thanks to Books, Inq.)

A friend on Facebook gave us this the other day: “Rewrite lines from famous movies as Dr. Seuss might have written them.”

Here are a couple starters.

1. Play it again, Sam. Play it for me. Play it for Suzy and Fibber McGee. Play it the way that you played it before on the flute, the kazoo, and violadore.

2. Inconceivable!

You keep saying that word, but do you know

if that word will take where you want to go.

Now, what will you do with that? I’m looking at you, Book. What will you do with that?

This is going around the net, if you haven’t seen it already. Not only the greatest movie trailer ever made, but a short course in everything you need to know about current movie cliches. Well done, whoever did it.

Above is a facsimile of the new United States Postal Service “blank stamp,” which is set to go on sale on April 1, 2010.

“There has been considerable criticism from several quarters against the tradition of printing images on stamps, images which necessarily offend certain members of the community, since there’s no image that doesn’t offend somebody,” said a spokesperson for the USPS at a press conference in Washington D.C., earlier today. “As giving no offense has become a primary objective of government policy, we’ve decided to nip the problem in the bud. The blank postage stamp was an obvious solution.”

When asked why there are also no words or numbers on the stamp, the spokesperson answered, “In order to respect the feelings of the growing American illiterate community, the decision was made to omit all words and numbers, in order to bolster the self-esteem of that valued citizen group. If you wonder what the value of a stamp actually is, a toll-free number will be available where inquiries may be made.”

One reporter noted that, without the traditional “simulated perforation” die-cutting of previous self-adhesive postage stamps, the new stamp is actually indistinguishable from the Avery self-adhesive labels anyone can buy at an office supply store.

“There is no truth at all to the internet rumor that claims the Post Office has just bought a supply of labels from Staples, and is selling them to the public for forty-four cents a piece,” said the spokesperson. “These are genuine U.S. Post Office stamps, designed with great care by a noted conceptual artist who has asked to remain nameless, and backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government.”

“What’s to prevent people from just sticking Avery labels on their letters?” one reporter asked.

“In order to prevent that kind of unconscionable counterfeiting,” the spokesperson answered, “we have been authorized to require every U.S. citizen to buy a supply of these stamps, whether they plan to use them or not. It’s the only way to insure fairness.”

Today would appear to be Parody Day here at Brandywine Books.

This morning I was listening to a National Guard recruitment ad, one of the kind where one character raves about how much money she’s saving on college by joining the Guard, and the other ends up saying, “I’m gonna call the recruiter today!”

And I started to wonder about the kind of recruitment ad we can expect to see a few years down the line, once our military has had its consciousness fully raised by a progressive administration…

JENNIFER: Hey, Stacey, guess what? I joined the National Guard! With the Guard’s great education benefits, I can afford to go to college, and skip that great big debt!”

STACEY: You joined that National Guard? Jennifer, don’t you know they’re a tool of American hegemony, exploiting indigenous peoples around the world, and promoting racist and corporatist national interests?

JENNIFER: Boy, are you behind the times, Stacey! That was the old National Guard! Today’s Guard encourages its members to think for themselves, and provides lots of opportunities for revolutionary action! I plan to be a communications specialist, and I’ll be using the new privacy rules to funnel military secrets to our enemies abroad! There’s even an elite Jihadist unit, where you can be taught to participate in human-caused disasters right here in our own country!

STACEY: Wow! I didn’t know that! I’m gonna call the recruiter today!