Hard Rains Goin' Fall...Let's Get Building

Literally. Thanks to global warming, a hard rain will literally fall in certain areas. And completely not fall in other areas.

But actual rain is not what Dylan meant, right? He used "hard rain" in the figurative/metaphorical sense that ten thousand voices will start fighting to be heard if we choose not to hear them. And yet, while we in the West may be unnerved by car bombs and other tragic attacks, those in the poorest nations will feel the figurative "hard rain" the hardest. Because in times of great economic strife, poor people turn on the rich less often, and instead turn on each other.

And in a fascinating piece by Nick Kristoff, they turn on elderly women. Now if there is any thing disgusting in the world it's global trends that lead to the brutal executions of elderly women.

Al Gore wanted to create a lock box for Social Security to protect our elderly.

Looks like we should open up a box right now for the Social Security of elderly women across this world. In fact, we need to start preparing some sort of "Noah's Ark" plan for the coming invasion of global warming. And by "building an Ark" I do not necessarily mean a physical Ark. I mean something else. And I'm not sure what. I just know it's going to require some imagination and community building.

As Kristoff points out, there's no way to predict how human beings respond to terrible weather conditions. But if history has any thing to say, human beings do not respond well to crazy weather. They become insane. And so we need to start thinking about building an Ark. Cause Noah was the only visionary that we can point to who knew to think ahead. I mean, let's think about it. Let's create a plan on how to respond to the unpredictable, volatile, and vicious trends that global warming has in store.

I want to believe in hope (thank you Barack). But we have a progressive movement that is so (rightly) entrenched in the battle for universal health care and getting out of Iraq that I don't see many Noahs building arks for the future.

There is some serious shit looming that we could possibly have prevented in the Roaring Nineties and that we can still do something about, but far less it seems. Now we have to take into account that the worst of humanity that we are seeing in Darfur is a stone's throw away on an even wider scale.

Don't like the invention of trench war fare and all the other stuff that came out of the first half of the twentieth century? Well...we got to get moving then to prevent more "inventions" from humanity's worst nightmares.

I hate to be a doomsayer. I want to believe in hope. But in searching for my hope, I'm going to have to follow Dylan's advice and head for the Church of my choice where I might find God or Brooklyn State Hospital where I may still find Woodie Guthrie. But if I don't find either in these places, Dylan has a solution: you can find them both at the Grand Canyon at sundown. And if by the time I get there, the canyon is covered by the ocean, I hope to be with you all in an Ark that we had imagined and prepared.