Greenland's Ice

There is a difference of opinion whether the retreat of Greenland's glaciers is a harbinger of climate change, or whether it is merely business as usual for the Arctic Circle. Meanwhile, an asteroid of substantial size - big enough to cause a good deal of damage were it to impact Earth - slips through our solar system defenses and carries out a terrorist attack on the southern hemisphere of Jupiter.

There are so many things to do, so many to plan for. Every issue of life and death may - in all fairness - not really be a matter of the quick and the dead...but they are moral issues, issues which inform and shape and demonstrate our integrity and honor and sense of the Good. I feel it is honorable to make a commitment to the good of all mankind, now and in the future ( as well as the past - but that would lead us off on a tangential path ).  
I feel that to have integrity as a human being, I must commit to a sense of community. I am not St. Francis; St. Francis went off and embraced lepers as his brothers and sisters in his race to the glory of God. I am no saint. But I can see that a commitment to humanity - which to us sounds as bureaucratic as a UNESCO poster - is an example of the behavior of saints and angels.

The world of Global Image - the Image integrated globally through cable TV and film and sound - is the Big Brother of Orwell's 1984 imagination. However, it bends to its will like A Clockwork Orange. We have lost control of our environment. That is why a commitment to our well being is only going to be possible if it coincide with a reality show's concern.
We have lost control of our environment if we cannot deal with Health Care, our attention diverted by cops and professors capering off-stage. We have lost control of our environment if we cannot reform ourselves, if we cannot change, if we continue to condemn thousands to foreclosure while the banks are saved. Send the cameras to record the lives of the dispossesed and the shirtless and those living in cars. Then the blind will see that the Great Economic Crisis is indeed a crash.
We have lost control of our souls, and the heavens will steer comets toward us, but we won't see what's coming, because we will be arguing or watching silly videos. That's the way its always been. That's why we say that man is inherently evil. That's why there is original sin - to stain us from conception. It is not the way it has always been. It is the way it is in our histories, in our stories, and in our imaginations. We have read the script of our own damnation, we have proofed it, and we we agreed to shoot it, and signed a contract to put it on the big screen.

When the present Dalai Lama goes to his reward, his successor will not be found...... The Chinese government will appoint someone to fill in.....

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