The newly-dominant Republicans in the House of Representatives are bound and determined to show all those freedom-hating liberals just who is charge. One way which they plan to achieve this noble end is by sticking it to the environmental wackos whose “Green the Capitol” program is about to come to an end, which they plan to cement by putting decidedly un-green Styrofoam coffee cups and plastic dinnerware back into U.S. Capitol cafeterias.

Now, I've never liked the once-ubiquitous styrofoam cups which hot drinks were served in wherever you didn't sit down to drink them. I didn't like the way the material felt on my lips, the idea that toxic leachates were slowly but surely mingling with the cream and sugar, or the fact that one of those cups could easily bust open if you gripped it too hard or dropped it. Paper cups have a much nicer feel, especially with the extra heft afforded by the brown paper collars which you slip under and around the cup to protect your hands from the heat of the liquid inside it.

I find plastic cutlery similarly distasteful. The act of digging into a plate of yummy food with a utensil that looks like it can scarcely support a forkful of creamed corn is not a peak experience. Even if it's not the usual cheap, flimsy, overly-flexible take-out kind which can flick baked beans or spaghetti sauce onto your shirt if you're not careful, it still comes up short if what you're eating, spreading or slicing is even the least bit robust. I cannot count the number of times I've broken off a plastic spoon while trying to eat or dish out a firm but not rock-solid batch of ice cream. The natural food store where I sometimes take my midday repast long ago switched its salad bar from plastic dinnerware to wheat starch-based disposables similar to the kind used at the Capitol until recently. I actually like them and wish that other local retailers would carry them. While it's by no means indestructible (it too has failed the ice cream challenge on more than one occasion), it has weight and balance matched only by the reusable polycarbonate cutlery sold by camping stores. The bowls on the spoons are much deeper than I've seen on most plastic spoons. The knives have a surprisingly effective cutting edge. And the forks can hold up to almost anything you care to dig them into be it potato salad, dolmades or sliced chicken.

Putting plastic back into the Capitol Hill waste stream is a symbolic gesture, as was Ronald Reagan's removal of the solar collectors which Jimmy Carter had installed on the White House roof during his presidency. It's a sop to the oil industry which along with TV evangelists, is a major supporter of the Republican Party and its agenda. If the new majority really were set on showing off its conservative chops, I can think of better ways to do it than by packing tons of non-biodegradable trash (made from oil) into DC-area landfills. Lowering the prohibitionistic drinking age of 21 back down to 18 where it belongs would be a sure-fire attention-getter. Repealing the absurdly-harsh penalties for  so-called “obscenity” on radio and TV as well as legalizing sex work would cement the libertarian credentials of any member of the House who sponsored such bills. And policing the financial sector to protect investors from the fraud and other kinds of chicanery which led to the current recession would promote free enterprise as never before. Not that any of those things are likely to occur anytime soon. They make far too much sense and would probably piss off major Republican Party benefactors.

According to the MSNBC article, one Capitol Hill staffer was heard to comment, "Are we back in the 80's?"

I wasn't aware that Washington had ever emerged from that stupidly-regressive decade in the first place.