That is a Dorothy Parker quote, and we apologize for starting the working week with mild alarm. When uttered, it must have been a memorable moment in New York’s Algonquin Round Table cocktail lounge. Maybe muttered over some rich silk blouse, with pearls and red lips perched on the rim of a martini, a Chesterfield filter cigarette smoldering in a trim ceramic tray on the bar near her elbow.
What fresh hell indeed this morning.
It is hard to start unscrambling the weekend messaging streams. There is the one from Caracas this morning about the re-election of Presidente Maduro to a third historic term in office. He succeeded the legendary Hugo Chavez on the passing of that dictator in 2013.
Chavez is best remembered for leading the Bolivarian Revolution, a socialist political program that provided dramatic change in what had been an oil-rich and dynamic growing nation. There were problems, of course, but he successfully implemented then by turning Venezuela into a swirling mass of poverty, disarray and despair.
In order to achieve that transition, his successor Maduro has successfully exported some of the problems (gangs, drugs, prisoners and the mentally ill) through the open borders to the north. There is talk that exit polling reported his opponent had been leading by 30%, so the narrow victory is considered a bit surprising. There had been talk of a “bloodbath” if he didn’t win. Sometimes things work out purely by chance, you know?
Our Legal Section says we can mention controversy about that election, and some alleged last minute jiggling of numbers when it was known how many ballots were necessary to declare victory for the incumbent, but that we are to specifically stay away from the messaging about elections anywhere north of Venezuela.
That could lead to a quick discussion of fresh initiatives from the suddenly lame-duck Presidency. These are quite fresh, newer even than his abrupt change in status. Some one issued a statement indicating he is now calling for limits on the terms of service for the Justices of the Supreme Court, who he apparently thinks are too old to serve, which is why he dropped out of his own job.
The Court is a co-equal branch of government to his, so this change would normally be achieved through existing Constitutional means, but a fresh wind is rising that makes it a crisis that should be achieved while he retains power for another few months.
So, there are some of the elements of the fresh flaming messages, along with the issuance of an apology from the International Olympic Committee on that part of the spectacular opening ceremony for the Games in Paris. Apparently, some offense may have been inadvertently caused by the men-dressed-as-not-men, clothed and unclothed, performing a mockery of someone’s Messiah having a final meal with his disciples.
The segment broadcast wasn’t the centerpiece, although it became one.
Legal Note, inserted by AI: We oppose none of those activities if performed or appreciated in a manner appropriate to audiences whose choose to view them. The Committee didn’t have quite the same appreciation, and are thankful they got feedback from those who considered it “blasphemous. They welcomed the clarification, saying “…there was never any intention to show disrespect towards any religious group or belief. Their intention was always to celebrate community and tolerance, not to offend anyone.” Thus, they expressed sorrow.
Some people are so sensitive, you know?
There is a cascade of similar hells spewing this morning, but another struck us as illustrative of the predictably impossible things we are expected to believe. And to which, of course we are obliged to comply. You know the long list. That includes junking things that work, perhaps imperfectly, but which underlie the means by which we live in comfort. For example, natural gas power plants currently supply about half of our electricity. Many plans in progress intend to force the closures for compliance at the rate of several a year until all are closed. In sixteen years, by 2040. That is the year our grandkids will be first eligible to vote about the things we are doing to them now.
That seems a little unlikely, at least in terms of keeping the lights on while we are attempting to do it, but we have been assured there is a plan, and some great people executing it. You can look it up for details in a quick G-search about some of the sprawling chunks of farmland and rooftops that will be paved with glass plates arrayed at the sun, or strewn with gigantic fans to achieve it. One of the answers to that problem is to build them on the waves, offshore and out of sight. All that money, and all those troubles, are just a bit hull-down over the horizon. Invisible.
There is a problem with that only now emerging. Or it might have emerged before we opened the treasury began using oil-fired electricity to distribute dollar bills from the vaults to the artificial open wind. One of the new mega-farms just had a casualty this weekend due to a modest mechanical and weather event. Wreckage is strewn across Nantucket beaches. It is estimated to cost a bunch of money- unspecified- to clean it up. This is not a result of a massive storm. It is just ordinary weather and routine mechanical failure of large and fairly fragile spinning machines.
You can see in the little box below the quotes in our introductory slide about what Wind Capture is planned or already constructed along the East coast of the United States. The effect on marine life, animate and plant-based- has been a matter of recent speculation to which the husks of former whales now dotting the beaches gives some mute testimony. We do not assert that off-shore wind is impossible. Nor do we assert that it might be not be useful. We do think it is worth some more discussion, since you can see all those farms along all that coast are exactly where the path of some of the most violent hurricanes have been recorded over just the last century.
That is not routine weather or simple mechanical problems. This is the wrath of the heavens, more powerful than anything humans can generate, and it occurs in every decade with the passing of storms we name and remember for their immense destruction.
Again, the Legal Note: We don’t oppose wind or solar power as useful augmentation to an existing working energy system that has less direct impact on atmospheric concentration. There is also uncertainty in assumptions about what is happening. There is recent credible contention that it is Nature’s natural temperature changes after a global Ice Age that drive changes to CO2 levels, rather than the crisis narrative with which we are currently inundated.
Consequently, we just think before we re-finance our entire society on a risky bet we ought to be a little more secure that the current crisis we are warned about is real, theoretical or wildly overblown.
And even if it is all real and possibly happening in a few thousand years, something we might be able to have a week-long conference about and actually consider the consequences of what we are doing. But we are in a crisis and have no time to think about all the great ideas we are implementing without a great deal of consideration. They seem almost intended to not work, and behave exactly like a Nantucket wind turbine.
Dorothy Parker had all this summed up pretty nicely. Her words are still fresh, you know? And she seemed to where it was coming from.
Copyright 2024 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com