The pile

It was a hot day.  The Universe knew that on such a hot day the task would be arduous and thankless.   It cursed humanity for global warming under its breath as it took off its shirt and turned on a fan in preparation for the strenuous exercise. The universe looked around, found the shovel and made sure it had some cold water nearby for later. 

The first few shovel fulls were easy enough, but then the stench hit the Universe's nostrils.  As it paused to contemplate the pile of manure, The Universe was grateful for the fan because it seemed to dissipate some of the stench that emanated from the disturbed pile.  

The work progressed uneventfully, but eventually The Universe's arms began to ache.  It's foot slipped slightly on a fresh patch of manure and as The Universe steadied itself, its aching arm faltered and its wrist twisted awkwardly.

The Universe watched as if the event transpired in slow motion.  The shovel slipped from its grip and the load it was carrying flew through the air toward the fan.  And then it happened.   Donald Trump became the GOP candidate for the presidency of the United States of America. 

Warning signs

"In retrospect, the warning signs were there," a concept immortalized by Frank Sinatra in the line "a Monday morning quarterback never lost a game."

We only see the warning signs in retrospect, while they are in front of our noses we don't understand them as warnings. They say that if you place a frog in warm water and turn up the heat gradually, it will not realize it's about to boil to death and will just sit in the water.  On the other hand if you place a frog in hot water, it will immediately jump out.  I've never tested this theory personally, but so they say…

In a tranquil field in what is now Montana a T-Rex looks up from his meal, ruffles his feathers, squawks and squints at a bright light in the sky.  He doesn't know that the bright light is a warning sign that this is his species' last meal. He smooths his feathers and calmly rips another bite of flesh from the dead Triceratops in front of him…. Had the T-Rex been able to look ahead a few days he would have seen the water around him boiling and he would have jumped at the sight of the meteor.

On August 24, 79 AD, Augustus, a prominent resident of Pompeii, rubbed the sleep from his eyes, stood up in his small, windowless, but lavishly decorated bed chamber and stretched his arms over his head. Standing there, he heard a slight commotion from the atrium of the house just outside his room.  He steps out into the atrium to find his wife, son and servants grouped together in the vestibule whispering in hushed tones and looking out of the front door.  Their beloved mount Vesuvius seems to be spewing smoke… Had Augustus been able to look ahead a couple of days, he would have seen the water around him boiling and he would have jumped at the site of that wisp of smoke.

Pride filled Edward John Smith as he stood on the bridge of the Titanic.  The great ship's maiden voyage was a triumph and certainly a feather in his proverbial cap… Well you know the story… Had Captain Smith been able to look ahead a few hours, he would have seen the water around him boiling and he would have jumped at the announcement of possible icebergs in his ship's course.

When German Jews saw legislation after legislation being passed to curtail their rights; when they were required to register and wear an identifying star on their clothes… were individuals able to feel the water getting hotter? Some jumped out, but many didn't.  We simply do not feel the water around us start to boil, we are not able to discern current information from signs of foreboding disaster. We don't see the warning signs until they have passed.

Joe Blow, a regular American citizen gets up in the morning and checks his iPhone for any news he might have missed while consorting with Morpheus. The news feed tells him that Donald Trump has won the Republican nomination and is a candidate for the office of President of the United States of America…

Of rhinos, supreme court justices and compassion

As John Donne so eloquently put it: No man is an island,[…] any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee. 

It was true back in Donne' late 14^th century when the entire human population was a mere 500 million people, but does it continue to be true today when we are  7 billion? Not really. When I was a little girl there were 70 thousand black rhinos in Africa and nobody talked about conservation or habitat, now there are only 2 thousand left and the world is scrambling to save the few that remain. The less you have of something, the more precious it becomes.  It's the most basic principle of economics and it applies to our appraisal of everything in the world, except, of course, for diamonds, which is a very common stone and has a completely artificial valuation.

There are simply too many people in the world for an individual to be valuable. We've become inured to the tolling of the bell. Compassion used to be a quality, now it is a weakness. And you don't have to go back very far for confirmation of that statement.  Recently I re-watched MASH on Netflix and was struck by the compassion and commitment exhibited by those characters who existed in a world with 70 thousand rhinos. When I watched the series in the 80s the level of compassion and commitment portrayed seemed natural to me as a child living in our society. Now, thirty years later and from the perspective of a somewhat cynical adult in 2016, the compassion and commitment exhibited by those characters seems exaggerated, even caricatured.  That level of compassion simply does not exist in the real world today.  It's gone, and we are not even ashamed of ourselves for allowing it to go extinct. Our compassion is our valuation of the individual.  The more people there are, the less valuable each becomes and the less compassion we feel. There are enough of us now that compassion is more endangered than the black rhino. The tolling of the bell has become background noise that we simply cannot hear.  

Every problem in the world today, from climate change to our intolerance and lack of compassion, can be attributed to the over population of humans on earth.  Think about it.

I've said all of that because I believe it to be true, not because there is something in me that feels guilty about celebrating Scalia's death and is looking for some sort of moral justification or force majeure for skipping around the room singing "ding-dong the witch is dead".