Some Things Are Too Important to Ignore

Serpentine--the rock that seduced a state, who then betrayed it in front of everybody 

In an age where lawmakers across the globe have heaping plates of important legislation to deal with, unsustainable debts, and record unemployment, it is nice to know the industrious folks in Sacramento are doing their best to make time for less sexy, if still extremely important issues that might otherwise get swept under the rug.

From the New York Times:

California May Drop Its Official State Rock

The lawmaker and others who would like to see serpentine stripped of its title say the olive green rock found all over the state is a grim symbol of the deadly cancers associated with asbestos, which can be found in the rock. Geologists, who have taken to Twitter on behalf of the rock, assert that serpentine is harmless and is being demonized by advocates for people with asbestos-related diseases and possibly their trial lawyers, too.

The bill to defrock the rock — which recently passed the full State Senate and is awaiting a vote in the Assembly — is sponsored by Senator Gloria Romero, a Los Angeles Democrat, with the strong support of the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization.

Declaring that serpentine “has known health effects,” the bill would leave California — one of roughly half the states in the nation with an official rock or mineral — without an official rock. (According to the bill, California was the first state, in 1965, to name an official rock.)

OMG! Say it ain't so, Californ-I-A! No official state rock? Why, that would change...absolutely nothing about the lives of every single Californian!

Please write your Representative today, call his or her office, post on their Facebook wall, send nude photos of yourself eating a hot dog atop a pony every single day until this offensive bill is stuffed into the shredder in the accounting department, because if there is one thing you deserve, California, it is an officially-designated state rock.

Get yours!

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