“Hoisted with his own petard.” William Shakespeare’s contribution of that adage to the human lexicon is, in my humble opinion, the Bard’s greatest gift to mankind.
The phrase, part of a speech from Shakespeare’s play “Hamlet,” refers to a bomb-maker blown up by his own creation (a petard is an explosive device).
“Are you ever going to get to the point?” you may be asking yourself by this time. In literature, as in life, one sometimes has to eat one’s vegetables before they can enjoy dessert.
The tasty confection in this instance comes from Oxford. Not the shoe, the University. Apparently, a group of students decided to pull a Greta Thunberg and demanded the college divest itself from investments which involved fossil fuels.
Enter Professor Andrew Parker, the manager of the school’s financial affairs. According to the Times of London, the Professor’s reply was swift and to the point. “I am not able to arrange any divestment at short notice,” Parker wrote to the protesters, “But I can arrange for the gas central heating in college to be switched off with immediate effect. Please let me know if you support this proposal.”
The aggrieved students, naturally, did not like the Professor’s proposal one bit, and said something to that effect. Parker’s response: “It is all too easy to request others to do things that carry no personal cost to yourself. The question is whether you and others are prepared to make personal sacrifices to achieve the goals of environmental improvement (which I support as a goal).”
Poetic justice. Which brings me back to the aforementioned Ms. Thunberg, the latest teenage flavor of the day/stage prop/useful idiot in the ongoing climate wars. While other kids her age are demanding a later bedtime, Saint Greta is demanding “real zero” emissions. Now. Totes immediately. She’s not kidding, people.
And people are listening. I mean, Politically Correct people are listening. That’s why she is up for a Nobel prize. For being a moody teenager. Hell’s bells, there’s not enough metal in the world to fill the order if they dole out Nobels for being temperamental. Awards committee, I’m waiting…
It’s funny how serious climate folk get when they are asked to live by the same draconian lifestyles they want to foist upon the rest of us.
Truth be told, I feel pleasure when those who would pronounce themselves our betters get hit with a reality stick and are asked to live by the same insane rules they say are paramount if mankind is to survive. Not so much fun when your ox is being gored, is it?
For some, however, having the vision to see the need for conservation from others is a chore in itself. That gives them a little latitude to bend the environmental rules a little bit. Isn’t that right, Mr. DiCaprio? Prince Charles? Anyone?
The sound of crickets permeates the air. Fine. I’ll start by only discharging two aerosol cans a day into the atmosphere. The bar has been set, folks. You can only go up from here.
