Musings: Some Good News

Driving home from the beach yesterday evening, the big white moon was sliding in and out of streaky clouds and bright Venus hung low in a pink Western sky. By the edge of morning, when Koko and I went out walking, the moon had set and it was brilliant Jupiter’s turn to stand guard above Waialeale. Millions of stars — one shooting, another falling — twinkled above us, where Orion’s belt pointed the way to the dense cluster of Makalii.

We could hear, but not see, horses munching grass in the pasture and a little further on, the snuffling and snorting and rustling of pigs, most likely feasting on guava in the brush, and beyond that, the rush of water in the valley and the sighing of wind through the trees. And then slowly the landscape took shape as the eastern horizon began to glow.

A friend wanted me to write about the Tea Party — WASP-dominated, but no, they aren’t bigots — and how this supposedly grass roots movement is getting all its money from right wing fat cats, but I think we’ve had enough of politics for a while. So let’s look at some other news — some good news — instead.

For starters, the BP oil well that caused so much havoc is "effectively dead." The government swears it. And the dispersant worked! All the oil has magically disappeared. Well, except for the “constellation of little dots” on the ocean floor:

”It's in such small droplets that you can see it -- you can filter it and see it," [University of South Florida microbiologist John Paul] said. "But if you look at it, it's transparent, and small larval fish see these droplets as food so they're ingesting pure oil."

Kinda like the way albatrosses mistake floating plastic for squid and feed it to their chicks, sometimes to the point where they’re so clogged with plastic they die of dehydration.

Ah, the gifts that keep on giving.

While we’re on the topic of consequences of our actions, seems the nutty preacher who wanted to burn 200 copies of the Koran on Sept. 11 has been hit with a large tab for security. He didn’t seem to care that his stunt resulted in massive protests and even some deaths. But wow, that big bill sure caught his attention.

I’ve got more good news. Remember how the ozone layer was shrinking? Well, not anymore. In fact, it’s due to be back at “full strength” by 2048, although it hasn’t actually started increasing quite yet.

Oh, and the recession has officially ended. Was back in June 2009, in fact. What, somebody forgot to tell you?

Doesn’t matter, though, because capitalism is on the verge of death, anyway. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says so:

"The discriminatory order of capitalism and the hegemonic approaches are facing defeat and are getting close to their end," Ahmadinejad said at a summit meeting assessing progress on achieving U.N. goals to drastically reduce poverty by 2015.

Ahmadinejad offered no clear alternative to capitalism but said, "The world is in need of an encompassing and, of course, just and humane order in the light of which the rights of all are preserved and peace and security are safeguarded."

Unodat.