You think plugging a ponytail into an animal is cool?

I watched James Cameron's Avatar movie the other day - it's pretty good, everyone agrees, full of big blue nobly savage people fighting the greedy little pinkskins who killed their own mother, and are now coming after the blue folks' mum. I had three major thoughts as the credits rolled, other than how much cooler Stephen Lang was in Terra Nova.

Firstly, that plugging their hair into animals was so tangible, so...real!

Secondly, how cool would it be if we could do something so tangible in our own attitudes and relationship with ecology?

Annnd third, the real onion, is why they put this in there. There are several possible reasons and all of them are disturbing and annoying. What are people going to think about why we can't? How is skipping symbolism and throwing a tangible middle finger in people's faces going to encourage them *not* to 'kill our mother...' and for that matter we are not even killing the Earth! We're ruining our ability to live on it, sure, but she was here long before we came, and will recover and endure long after we go.

Screw Avatar. Anaesthetic mass-marketed disillusioning lie.

You think plugging a ponytail into an animal is cool? No, it's not. What is cool is that we can achieve far more, in a far less outlandish and dream-like way, in a far less outlandish and dream-like place - our own home. We have to stop anaesthetising ourselves with this bullshit, and figure out our own responsibility, ability, and strength.