Lost Hour

From my sleepy state, I peek at the alarm clock and see it's a little after seven, but that doesn't make any sense. I didn't go to bed that late. Then I remember. Daylight Saving Time. I go back to sleep, willfully following my body rather than the tricky clock.

If Obama is such a 'change' president, he should do away with this Daylight Saving nonsense. If he wants to keep the 'fall back' business, that might be okay, but this 'spring forward' shit has got to go!

*******

That's a first. I'm reading in the theater when I heard a light thud, and I look out the window and see that Willy has jumped onto the hood of Father's truck. I'm not sure how cute Father will think that trick. At least the truck is no longer in that brand new, virginal phase, or else Father might get his gun.

*******

I'm going to keep Frank Rich's column on the economic downturn and on our inward looking for the American spirit.

( Frank Rich )

Lost Hour

From my sleepy state, I peek at the alarm clock and see it's a little after seven, but that doesn't make any sense. I didn't go to bed that late. Then I remember. Daylight Saving Time. I go back to sleep, willfully following my body rather than the tricky clock.

If Obama is such a 'change' president, he should do away with this Daylight Saving nonsense. If he wants to keep the 'fall back' business, that might be okay, but this 'spring forward' shit has got to go!

*******

That's a first. I'm reading in the theater when I heard a light thud, and I look out the window and see that Willy has jumped onto the hood of Father's truck. I'm not sure how cute Father will think that trick. At least the truck is no longer in that brand new, virginal phase, or else Father might get his gun.

*******

I'm going to keep Frank Rich's column on the economic downturn and on our inward looking for the American spirit.

( Frank Rich )

"The Great Disruption"

Let’s today step out of the normal boundaries of analysis of our economic crisis and ask a radical question: What if the crisis of 2008 represents something much more fundamental than a deep recession? What if it’s telling us that the whole growth model we created over the last 50 years is simply unsustainable economically and ecologically and that 2008 was when we hit the wall — when Mother Nature and the market both said: “No more.”

...

“We created a way of raising standards of living that we can’t possibly pass on to our children,” said Joe Romm, a physicist and climate expert who writes the indispensable blog climateprogress.org. We have been getting rich by depleting all our natural stocks — water, hydrocarbons, forests, rivers, fish and arable land — and not by generating renewable flows.

“You can get this burst of wealth that we have created from this rapacious behavior,” added Romm. “But it has to collapse, unless adults stand up and say, ‘This is a Ponzi scheme. We have not generated real wealth, and we are destroying a livable climate ...’ Real wealth is something you can pass on in a way that others can enjoy.”

-- Thomas L. Friedman for The New York Times

On the climate/ecological front, we've been hearing this for at least a couple of decades, but the hope had been that geniuses somewhere would create new technologies that would get us past the bumps. It took this financial crisis to bring the message home, to get us from denial to problem-solving. A little late but maybe not too late. One can begin to wonder if we might see a new, grander world at the other side of this economic crash - prosperous and sustainable. But it's a long way till then.

___ ___ ___

A less optimistic view: move to Asia!

Learn Mandarin? I didn't have much luck with Spanish. I think I'm just going to have to go down with the ship.

"The Great Disruption"

Let’s today step out of the normal boundaries of analysis of our economic crisis and ask a radical question: What if the crisis of 2008 represents something much more fundamental than a deep recession? What if it’s telling us that the whole growth model we created over the last 50 years is simply unsustainable economically and ecologically and that 2008 was when we hit the wall — when Mother Nature and the market both said: “No more.”

...

“We created a way of raising standards of living that we can’t possibly pass on to our children,” said Joe Romm, a physicist and climate expert who writes the indispensable blog climateprogress.org. We have been getting rich by depleting all our natural stocks — water, hydrocarbons, forests, rivers, fish and arable land — and not by generating renewable flows.

“You can get this burst of wealth that we have created from this rapacious behavior,” added Romm. “But it has to collapse, unless adults stand up and say, ‘This is a Ponzi scheme. We have not generated real wealth, and we are destroying a livable climate ...’ Real wealth is something you can pass on in a way that others can enjoy.”

-- Thomas L. Friedman for The New York Times

On the climate/ecological front, we've been hearing this for at least a couple of decades, but the hope had been that geniuses somewhere would create new technologies that would get us past the bumps. It took this financial crisis to bring the message home, to get us from denial to problem-solving. A little late but maybe not too late. One can begin to wonder if we might see a new, grander world at the other side of this economic crash - prosperous and sustainable. But it's a long way till then.

___ ___ ___

A less optimistic view: move to Asia!

Learn Mandarin? I didn't have much luck with Spanish. I think I'm just going to have to go down with the ship.