As Greg noted above, Charles Manson has given his first interview in 20 years, just in time for Earth Day:
‘Everyone’s God and if we don’t wake up to that there’s going to be no weather because our polar caps are melting because we’re doing bad things to the atmosphere. ‘If we don’t change that as rapidly as I’m speaking to you now, if we don’t put the green back on the planet and put the trees back that we’ve butchered, if we don’t go to war against the problem . . . ‘ he added, trailing off. . .
He is a founder of ATWA (which both stands for Air Trees Water Animals and All The Way Alive). It’s typically manic mission statement warns of the destruction of the planet from pollution.
This calls to mind the parlor game back in the 1990s, when folks noted the similarities between Al Gore’s Earth in the Balance and the Unabomber’s manifesto (the late Tony Snow first came up with this comparison), and the obvious update today would be Charlie Manson as a warm-up act for Charlie Sheen’s nightclub act, currently bombing at a city near you. So here’s the quiz: Which Charlie said what? (Answers at the bottom.)
1. “I probably took more drugs than anyone could survive. I was banging seven-gram rocks, because that’s how I roll. I have one speed, I have one gear: Go.”
2. “I live in the underworld. I don’t tell people what to do. They know what to do.”
3. “I’m in the bullring. I run in the bullring with the heart of the world.”
4. “That’s how I roll. And if it’s too gnarly for people, then buh-bye.”
5. “If you’re a part of my family, I will love you violently.”
6. “We are all martyrs. Love is a martyr… I am a martyr. But I am also a victim. And I’m a performer. And a dam. I’m both. I am everything.”
7. “You have the right to kill me, but you do not have the right to judge me.”
8. “I think Obama is an idiot for doing what he’s doing. They’re playing with him.”
Wasn’t it Chesterton who said there’s but an inch of difference between the cushioned chamber and the padded cell?
(Answers: Manson, 2, 3, 6, and 8. Sheen: 1, 4, 5, and 7)
(Hat tip: RBY)