what is to be done

From NY Times:

 

"Flooding severed Isla Mujeres, a 4.2-mile-long island off Cancún, into three parts, and it remained cut off from the mainland. There were still no reports of how its 10,000 inhabitants fared, said Gov. Félix González Canto of Quintana Roo province."

 

The guys at La Pena, where we had the welcome dinner, originally came to Isla Mujeres to help out after a hurricane. So I guess they've got some experience, though not quite as personal as the one they're having now. I'm pretty sure everyone got off the island, though. That's what we've heard. But will they have schools and a town when they come back?

 

Some climatologists are saying we're at the beginning of a twenty-to-thirty-year cycle of increased hurricane activity. So the increase in number of storms is part of a cycle that's been observed historically. What's new is the power of the storms, fed by the warming Atlantic, which is apparently also causing parts of the Amazon River to dry up.

 

Great time for Davin and I to start planning a tropical lifestyle, n'est-ce pas? I guess by the time we retire, the cycle will be over and whatever desertification happens will have reached a plateau.

 

The personal is political is global is meteorological. Don't say I didn't badger you and everyone within earshot about it. But don't say I did, either. I'm sick of people saying that. "Oh, there goes Dorchen, badgering everyone within earshot about the personal is political is global is meteorological again," they say. I suppose it's my own fault. But isn't it enough that I know it's my own fault without having it pointed out to me? I guess not. But why not?

 

But the problems of a lone badger don't amount to a hill of beans when drastic climate changes are becoming a constant threat to people's lives and livelihoods, and to much of the spectacular beauty of nature. Then heap on top of that unethical corporate manipulation of agrarian cultures and land-management politics, among other unsavory meddling. This is why the message of Basmati Blues must be heard around the world. It really speaks to the issues of how we as a global society are going to treat the planet and its ability to sustain a diversity of species as well as cultures.

 

There's a futurological documentary I saw once about a quasi-fascist organization called the Planetary Management Association taking over the world. They enforced green behavior on everyone. Everyone got a limited alottment of resources, and access to technologies to manage those resources sustainably. I think it was run from Japan. The Japanese, I guess, are the next best thing to aliens (nb The Day the Earth Stood Still) when it comes to spanking a misbehaving humanity. They have experience being fascists, they have a healthy suspicion of environmentally devestating technology ... hmm ... but they also have a fishing industry they'd need to smack down.

 

Anyhow, making a musical might be an unlikely way to try to avoid being spanked into best practices by the superior Japanese of the future, but I really can't think of a better one. I've tried being an intolerable gripe. I've tried being a hedonistic layabout. I've even tried voluteering for stuff, which sucks, and I don't reccommend it. There's no money in it. And, come on, there's lots of money in the world. Three trillion in tax cuts, so I've heard. Who gave all that money away? He could use a good spanking from the Japanese of the future.

 

So, let's all hop on the Basmati Blues bandwagon. Now more than ever, as Che Baron says on his business card.