Simple Rules for Crunchy Living

I've received some mail from readers concerned because they want to live their life in a more Crunchy fashion, but are confused by what seem like an arbitrary set of rules. In order to illustrate these more clearly, I've put together a bunch of examples which I hope will serve to clarify matters:

Food: This one is very simple. You should buy organic, but it's OK to complain about the quality and prices. Spending a lot of money on food is bad, but if you're eating with friends, it's acceptable. Caviar is OK so long as you actually enjoy it, and are not just doing it to act all sophistimacated. Wine, especially a bottle or two over poulet in Paree is OK, though dandelion wine is a safer, more convivial choice. And you should always buy locally, except when the guy in NYC has better coffee at a good price.

Cars are an important thing because your choices affect the lives of working men. Environmentally speaking an eight-year-old Honda or Toyota is really best, but you should buy American, because the auto companies allow honest men to support a wife at home. And despite what everyone thinks, Cadillac builds a very good quality car, though perhaps too luxurious; while aesthetics and beauty are valid concerns for the food you put on your plate, in choosing a car you should opt for the Buick instead. Joining a hot rod club is OK, but a motorcycle gang probably isn't, though if you bought a Harley, which is built in America, and always followed the speed limit and didn't get into turf wars with your rivals, I guess that would be convivial enough to be OK.

In terms of recreation, video games are really bad, bad, bad, and you should forget the fact that demand for games produces a huge industry full of high-paying jobs for creative people and that the production and consumption of video games has very little bad impact on the environment. But just because video games destroy the fabric of our civilization, using puppies for target practice is not an acceptable substitute. Try making some dandelion wine instead.

As for the Internet, we should keep in mind that it's a shallow, fake community and vastly inferior to the varied and rich choices that were offered by most small rural towns in the 19th century. The fact that Frederica met Rod on an AOL chatroom proves how great a sacrifice these two pioneers were willing to make to help the rest of us avoid the seductive sirens of cyberspace. How they managed to avoid having their souls shredded to ribbons in the process is really a tribute to their crunchiness.

Thinking about buying a washing machine? Try washing your clothes in the river like your great-great grandmother and countless generations before her! Imagine the conviviality.

Needless to say, church-shopping is wrong, though it is OK to switch from the denomination ten generations of your family worshipped at, to one run by the world's largest and oldest global enterprise because you think it's a better fit for your "traditional" beliefs. And while you should pay attention to your impact on the environment, large families are more important, so be (naturally!) fruitful.

I hope that clears things up!