Politics of Denial

God keep us from getting what we wish for. I want civilization to fall on its face. I want to live long enough, just long enough, to see sea levels rising, the weather unbearable, gas $1,000 an ounce, money totally worthless ... people mugging each other, not for a hand-out, No, for the hand itself: throw it in the pot. Gotta eat something.
And, by God, I’ve got my wish. Almost. Sea levels are rising. The weather is unbearable.
Florida is famous for being windy. But for the last several years the wind never relents for more than an hour or two. The fish themselves are sea-sick from the chop.
In nice weather the bass come into the nice calm shallows: where you can see them, or at least detect their activity, at least guess where a nice one might be: cast to it ... and catch one: in an average of one hundred such casts. With the chop up, you can cast one thousand times, and catch nothing. You can fish a week and not find a single day’s legal limit.
Now some scientists have been warning us that this could happen for decades. But some scientists, all kleptocratically funded in some way, say, Oh yes, this is a natural pattern. It’s not man-made; it’s natural. Now those are the scientists that President Bush is anxious to reward, to republish, to tout. Oh, please let us get away with our politics of denial just a little bit longer.
Of course it’s a natural pattern: the species prospers until it fouls its environment, until it no longer fits what had birthed it (because it fit so well), until the species doesn’t fit: and goes extinct: and other formerly-fit species along with it.

Good. That clears space for something(s) that WILL fit.

more coming

2005 10 12 Midnight. I looked out the window. The palm fronds were still. I stepped outside. Not a leaf was stirring. I threw a couple of rods into the car and drove down to the bridge over the canal between Lake Jackson and Little Lake Jackson. The flag by the hotel was stiff out of the east. What the hell: my park is sheltered; the lake front is not.
By the time I've crossed the highway and gotten ready to cast, the wind is lifting my hat off my head. Still, I work the two rods, telling myself that each cast will be the last. Hell, I start to crank in the heavy rod and my lure is stuck. I struggle to free it: and a bass is splashing around on the surface. In this infernal, incessant, wind I have no feel of the line: can't tell a strike from a rock!