Who gives a hoot?

Doesn't everybody have a cause these days? What would you rally for - stop "the war", abortion rights, free speech, humanitarian issues...The environment is also on this list - save the whales, restore our rainforest, lower greenhouse emissions. Take your pick, make up a catchy rhyme or rhythm, get a group of people to say it with you and then wave it around town. I have to say, I've always had "causes" but nothing that I have rallied or really spoke up for - other than chastising anyone who litters, so I guess I "give a hoot."

Sunday afternoon, I was flipping through the channels on TV in a sleepy state of boredom when I passed by an image of a man in a khaki and olive green colored hat standing in what looked like the edges of a landfill. Actually, he was an Arizona Game and Fish representative standing in the desert along the Arizona Mexico border being interviewed by CNN. CNN said (and so have I) that illegal immigrants literally shed their belongings while the trek the deserts - clothing, empty water bottles and gallon-sized containers, backpacks, pill packages, diapers, human waste and just plain litter. One Game and Fish guy said the trash was "knee deep" in some areas. The turbulent marriage of immigration and the Arizona desert will no longer be known by the trail of the dead but the trail of their trash.

I feel that an interview like this would have always caught my attention for at least 60 seconds or so. If you read my first blog, I tried to make it apparent that I was much of my childhood revolved around being a friend of the forest...and desert for the matter. But lately, any media clips, soundbites, pictures or chat that I hear about trashing the border has become something of an obsession, mostly thanks to making the topic a semester-long topic of research for class. I've become desperate for material.

I think this desperation is making the issue of trashed borders grow into my current cause. I've always thought that causes instigate opinions and emotion. I tried to listen to my tiny, usually indifferent inner activist to see if I could muster some guster about the issue. It turns out she's alive and well, and we just reunited (the last time we met was when Brother Jed visited campus my sophomore year. My roommate called UAPD on him and then went to the Dean. Since then, my inner activist and I - and my roommate - don't even concern ourselves with giving him attention). I heard and felt a little roar in my belly when watching the CNN interview. I really do give a hoot.

This morning, I feverishly searched YouTube and and Google video for that CNN interview but no luck. In fact, The only videos I did find were of raw sewage flowing from outside Tijuana into the ocean. Gross...and kinda related, but mostly just disgusting. CNN.com didn't even mention a story on the topic of trails of trash along the border. My inner picketer was disappointed and now making a new sign for a new cause - more media attention to the trash on the border.

But atlas, from the abyss of the online media universe, one clip revealed itself. Brought to you by MinutemanHQ.com via YouTube, my inner activist presents to you: "Environmental Destruction Along The Border." (pull the curtains please...!)


Unfortunately, I don't have the facts. I have no idea where it was shot and the video lacks substantial commentary, but it makes my cause real. *Ren has stepped off her soap box*