Dark Green Future

We make cars, washing machines, clothes, plastic water bottles, houses, concrete. We fabricate the very building blocks of what we do out of what nature created, or out of things nature never imagined. We are rapidly running out of things to create with, and we continuously find new ways to destroy the sources of the things that sustain our lives on this planet.

And this may be a good thing. The planet may not survive us, but hopefully the planet will survive if we don't. Our society can go from status quo to madness in less than forty-eight hours, and no amount of television coverage can make people behave rationally when they think their little slice of heaven is threatened.

But make sure you buy the latest 3D TV, because you'll want to see the latest oil well rupture in the clearest possible detail, or the skin texture of the burned, twisted corpses dragged out of the latest mining disaster.

When will we learn that what we think civilization is supposed to be is wrong?

Yes, dear readers, I have found a new thing to read, a new place to look, and weirdly enough, while what I've just written sounds unbearably depressing, it's actually a look over the edge. If our civilization is actually not meant to succeed, what does the next thing look like? The good people at The Dark Mountain Project are asking that very question, and they're not entirely afraid. I'm with them. Hoping to look, unafraid, at the next turn our species makes, and what might be the result.

Thoughts Or Not

So, with the massive collapse (and nearly intantaneous rebound) of Wall Street last week, many people turned to God to tell them what to do next. Since no one can fathom what the hell happened in the first place.

Ignoring, of course, the evidence that God is pretty much done with us, or at least He certainly doesn't seem to care that we're pretty much as vapid a species that ever plumbed the depths of philosophy. To wit, the Transocean/BP oil rig disaster that they tried to fix by dropping a lid on it (which didn't work because it both iced up and "wouldn't stay still" or some such excuse). Next up: "we're gonna stuff it full of shredded tires and golfballs!"

There's furious activity in no particular direction for ya...

I believe it was the Rude Pundit, speaking as a guest on the Stephanie Miller Show who suggested they stuff a whale into the opening to plug the leak, under the heading of "taking one for the team."

Chris Hedges has a great piece on the failure of religion in TruthDig this week, and it's one of his finer downers. In my mind (admittedly a twisted, rotting place) the best companion piece is here. Read Chris first. Then read the other one. Really. You have to take them in that order or it loses its impact.

To quote Dennis Hopper in Speed, "In two hundred years we've gone from 'I regret but I have one life to give for my country' to 'Fuck you!'?"

It's very important to kneel before the altar of Stuff I Must Have while praying to the Celebrities I Wish I Was.