Earth's Hallmark Holiday

I'm a little jaded on the annual Earth Day love-in. If children showed appreciation for their parents only on Mother's Day or Father's day, the human race would be screwed. Is it a nice thing that we venerate our parents once a year? Sure. But who are we kidding: many of us approach these hallmark holidays like programmed robots. It's Mother's day: cue the flowers, the breakfast in bed, the Sunday Brunch. So it is with Earth Day. Cue the park clean-ups, the lofty (and cautionary) speeches, the obligatory rallies. Yeah, been there, done that. Come the day after, it's back to the same old, same old: taking the planet we live on for granted, just like we do ma and pa. As The Washington Post correctly observes today in an excellent article, the original 1970 protest/celebration has now become