Saturday, July 18, 2009

No Title Required

When Al Gore knows there are lots of folks who deny global warming, why can't he provide a forum for asking and answering questions? I have so many questions, and no one of whom I can ask them.



Why don't we take a more practical, reasoned approach to the problem? Yes, humans are affecting climate change. No, we are not going to destroy the planet. Yes, there have been global climate shifts in the past. Yes, every time it happened, there were extinctions, some of history's mass extinctions have been tied to climate change. So what happens? Well, our ascendants won't look like us. They will have to adapt to very different living conditions. But they WILL exist. Remember, when our planet first evolved, there was no oxygen in the atmosphere. Early life was anaerobic, but it gave off oxygen as a byproduct. As a result the atmosphere filled up with oxygen and aerobic life arose. Now that the atmosphere is refilling with c02, the opposite will occur.



Yes, we've discovered recently that life is possible in the nastiest of conditions (thermal, deep ocean vents.) So we shouldn't presume that life will not thrive when we are done poisoning the planet. It will. Everytime a species goes extinct, something else is able to fill that niche. Life goes on. Humans are the worst kind of invasive species. We had it good in North Africa, but we also had either a wanderlust, or we used up all the food in our own neighborhood and had to move to find more notwithstanding that we would have to displace something or someone else in order to do that. So we took off for Asia, then Europe and then the Americas-or maybe we did some of that radiating at the same time. Either way, once we get someplace we decide it's not good enough as it is, and we try to remake it in our image, and destroy its original integrity and balance. We will continue to do so, even as we drastically change the way we live, and the form of our lives.

I do, also, however, have a nihilist streak. I think the great "supervolcano" in which we live will render all of this moot at some point in the near future. I may or may not mean the word "near" by the standard of our hurried, harried time, or in geologic time, but before long, all the plants around us will become new carboniferus deposits, and all of us animals will become oil. How about that for irony?

Thursday, July 9, 2009

Additional Inquiries

Why have so many public people adopted the annoying habit of saying, "The reality is is..." Why can't they just say, "The reality is that?" I hear it nearly every day on news interviews.

Next question-do I expect too much of people who are called upon to edify the masses?

Saturday, July 4, 2009

More on the Former Star, Sarah Palin

I believe that Sarah Palin had two enemies who should make an explanation of why they left her high and dry. Listing them numerically should not be taken as an assignment of 'order;' it's just convenient.
1. Whoever dragged her on to the national stage last year. The McCain campaign was not populated with novices. They were experienced campaigners. It was quickly obvious that she was not able to handle it, and that the more opportunities she was given to speak, the less she could manage to control the message.
2. Herself, for craving the limelight to such a degree that she "said yes without blinking." Had she blinked, it might have occured to her that she would have both positive and negative stories told about her. She would have known that scrutiny would begin as soon as they were off the stage, and that her real life would not fit the story that she was packaged with for the benefit of the "base," for whom she was specifically chosen to mollify.

Both of these people owe her, and her family an apology.

Big Bang

The darkness that came that night
was not like the darkness at the end of day
it was as if there had never been day.

It was the darkness your dad says
does not exist when you are afraid
at night-
under the bed
in the closet
but you know it is there.
Will there ever be light again?
Will we adapt as the fish in the deep ocean
who no longer need light?
What will we eat?
Will we forget the sound that came before the light
went away?
Was there a noise like that when the big bang happened?
There was darkness,
then sound,
then light and energy.
Now I have hope.

Friday, July 3, 2009

More Questions

Is Sarah Palin really the best the republicans can do? Have they checked the stats on the shrinking numbers of people who fit the super-reiligious, socially backward demographic that she appeals to? To them I say then, go for it!

What is happening in Iran now? The news seems to have quieted this week, and I can't imagine that people who felt so strongly only two weeks ago would just give up and go away.

When will a politician caught in a sex scandal ever comment on their own quotes years before condemning other politicians from another party who did the same thing. A little humility would make all these stories so much easier to stomach. I would love to hear John Ensign or Mark Sanford, or any of them step before the press and include, "I realize that I've said things in the past that showed intolerance toward those who fall into these temptations. I now realize that no one is exempt from such human failings." How hard is that?