The Rapture and other Destractions
Lately I have been worried that important decisions would be made by
Congress while a media destraction was taking place. By this I mean
that the media would be focused on one event, The Royal Wedding, The
recent Tornado diaster in Alabama, the Doomsday and Rapture
Predictions, and the Congress would make iportant decisions about the
Debt Ceiling or the Entitlement Programs while attention is diverted
away from them.
Fortunately, enough scrutany exists so that just enough attention has
been given to the decision making of Congress, even though too much
time is given over to events no one can do anyting about, or to the
experience of people who have no power or have given it up. There was
too much hype about the Royal Wedding and I was afarid it would crowd
out more important events, such as the civil was in Lybia, or what
Congress is doing. For as much attention given the Royals in a country
that fought a revolution to throw off these same monarchs, and the
whole idea of priveleged aristocracy, we sure seem anormored with
them. I wonder if this excites fantasies in our own re-emerging
plutocracy.
I note that fatalsim and doomsday have the effect of removing
responsibility especially when it is possible that disasters are in
part created by us. So, the Bible Belt reaction of those people around
Buringham Aalabama that were devistated by the F-5 Tornado which
killed more than 200 people and left a swath of destruction that was
visible from space was characteristically fatalistic, "It was God's
Plan.", but the possibility exists that the severity of the storms,
indeed the whole changing climate and weather pattern, is anything but
so out of our influience. The climate change now predicted as a result
of burning carbon and human activity putting green house gasses into
the atmosphere, says that storm severity should increase and happen
earlier in the season. When and how severe those events are may be a
result of our own choices, not God's will entirely, and so to throw up
our hands and say it is but God's will may avoid responsibility for
something we can do something about. The same can be said for the
doomsday prophisies. They are but a holiday from responsibility and
from the grind of having to live our lives, be responsible for our
decisions. One couple came all the way across the country to be close
to the Rapture as they clearly admitted to escape a life with unpaid
bills. They had to return to their life once the latest prophesy
proved false, or delayed in the wiggle room of the soothsayers.
And so even between the first draft of this and now, yet another huge
tornado has struck Joplin Mo. and killed about 100 there, and today,
another large tornado in Oaklahoma, killed a few. On the news last
night they said this season has had a thousand twisters whereas in a
normal year they have about 500 to date. The weather people stop short
of blaming global warming saying that the reason is a La Ninja causing
cooler-wetter weather in the west to create more contrasting air mass
in the midwest to cause more severe weather there, the kind of change
being predicted by global warming models. It may be that the data are
not yet conclusive about the patterns being clearly due to global
warming as opposed to observed normal variation, although one has to
be concerned about the caution being driven by poitics. Recall that
Republicans in the House of Representitives defunded a Global Warming
Office, and that maybe scietists at NOAA are wording things carefully
to avoid the ire of these politicians funded by energy companies who
have much to lose if they are forced to pay carbon credits. Maybe the
people being effected will vote to change that, then again they are
faith-based and will probably vote for Republicans.
It may be that sometimes people will act as lemmings and jump to their
deaths or drink poison to avoid something they fear more. I think that
this may feed a power trip, but maybe the desire to escape drives
all this. We have all felt times when we wanted to escape from
circumstance, if we are wise we discover that we need to cope with
what we have a part in creating and making a solution rather than
running. It would sometimes be a solution to leave, yes, but not to
resort to suicide, and maybe giving away all our accmulated wealth and
possessions in liu of a doomsday prediction is just a way to wipe the
slate clean and begin anew, as the people who lost everythig in the
severe weather must do anyway if they survived. Sometimes Faith
amounts to not wanting to take partial blame for circumstance. To be
sure there are quite a few folks whose property is worth less than
they agreed to pay that are quite literally under water, if not blown
away.
Dealing with Risk
There should be no callus arbritration of risk, in which some
accountant says, "You didn't take insurance, too bad!". We should help
people in disasters even if human decisions worsened the result. So
the people whose land and posessions were flooded by levy and spillway
releases of the Mississippi River need to be helped, as do the Tornado
victims, as do the Japanese, even though the man-made part of the
disaster there worsens. Trying to mitigate risks is a job for a
broader plan and quieter times, not when people's needs are dire.
One of my sons is growing a business and venture capitalists pointed
out to hime that not having medical insurance is part of the risk they
calculate in deciding to invest. This is fair, but you don't deny
medical care after the fact, someone will have to pay, but you look in
the long term not at the expensive care, but at how the risk can be
managed in a quality way and at less expense to individuals. Maybe,
solutions come in the form of long term policy and answering the
selfish and short-term benefits of a few for the benefit of most, a
political process. So, if the severity of storms has to do with
burning carbon, maybe you do something about the energy companies who
prefer coal and oil and natural gas to non-carbon fuels. At the same
time, maybe water cooled nuclear power plants are too risky to locate
near active faults, and maybe acute care is much more expensive than
preventative medicine. Maybe you don't allow people in build in flood
plains or in places you need to flood to save cities.
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