Connecting The Dots

Unfortunately for us, the human species and all the others that occupy our battered planet, the dots are bigger than we think, and as fast as they connect, we disconnect them. So much is happening that I don’t know what to talk about first.

First. We’ve got this Presidential primary going on where the two top Democratic contenders are in the 11th round of a 12 round boxing match and they are both battered and have been on the canvas a number of times. Yes, I favor Obama but so what? I’m watching Hillary and Obama in a fight where, at the end, there may be no man (or woman) standing.

I trust John McCain. I believe John McCain. By listening to him I realize that if he wins the Presidency, and that’s all too possible now, the war (wars) will continue, fuel prices will continue to rise, which means food prices will continue to rise and the death toll will rise, ever higher, ever higher.

What’s happening here? Is every politician so desirous of winning that they don’t care that the human species is on a humungous playground slide where, at the bottom, waits death and destruction on a scale which we have never known before. No one tells the truth because they all want to win.

Actually, I don’t know what Hillary believes, and I’m not really sure what Barack Obama believes, but I know that Deval Patrick fooled me and dammit, like the Who, a rock’n’roll band from that 60′s (that incidentally fooled me) said, “We don’t want to be fooled again.”

All right, maybe I’m being too hard on Deval Patrick. Maybe he’s just making mistake after mistake after mistake but his heart is pure. But I just don’t know anymore. That Cadillac he bought sure buried me under a ton of carbon footprint and now, that book deal Deval’s cooking up has blown me right into the Dead Zone that’s building up in the Gulf of Mexico. Nothing can live there.

And that’s not the only Dead Zone in our oceans; there’s a few of them.

I try to do the right thing. I ride my bicycle instead of using my car as much as I can. Okay, okay, some of you may have caught me on my motorcycle but that gets 60 miles to the gallon because it’s only a 250cc. I’m not going to name it because I’ll be damned if I’m going to advertise for any giant corporation if I can help it.

Those giant corporations are killing us while they tell us they’re all going green. The only thing going green right now is the Hulk — no, wait a minute, the Hulk is RED now; he’s bleeding just like life on this planet Earth.

How many species will become extinct this year? Did you ever wonder, while drinking a cup of coffee in a strofoam cup, how many other people are drinking a cup of coffee in a styrofoam cup that day, and how many are going to do it again in a brand new styrofoam cup tomorrow. And how big is that pile of styrofoam cups even if they’re crushing them, whoever THEY are?

I’m guilty as charged. Part of the problem. I’m trying not to be but – – – okay, where are the dots?

One dot is ethanol, what they’re putting in your gas/our gas to stretch it. Did they tell you that ethanol comes from corn and corn is grown by giant conglomerates that use fuel to grow the corn and not only is that raising food prices all around the world but ethanol leaves a futher-mucker of a carbon foot print too.

So they use fuel to make fuel but who’s paying attention anyway. Also, almost everyone in the United States, (I’ll pick on us) has a toilet bowl which gets flushed more than once a day. That’s a lot of water for a world that’s struggling with water demand in many countries.

The one thing we have to keep in mind is all those countries are on the planet Earth so they are all connected. Dot. Dot. Dot.

There is only one source of fossil fuel. It is the planet Earth. We, as a species, are using more fossil fuel than ever before and, some scientists say, we have passed the halfway point of the fuel that is left and accessible on Earth, yet our demand for it is still growing. Dot. Dot. Dot.

Our food supply, controlled by giant conglomerates for the most part, is fertilized by fossil fuel, travels to us by fossil fuel, and is even preserved in our refrigerators powered by fossil fuel. Dot. Dot. Dot.

Everything that burns fossil fuel has an exhaust pipe somewhere and those exhaust pipes are pumping carbon wastes into our planet’s atmosphere at an astounding rate. Because of this, the Arctic ice is melting, the weather patterns are changing, and if you look over the large population centers of the world you will see a cloud of particulate matter that is tainting the very air we breathe. Dot. Dot. Dot.

Then there is WAR! Right now, as I sit at this old MacIIci computer, there are wars being waged in more areas of this planet Earth than I can name. I have an old milage ration paper with coupons from World War II and on top of it, the words read “Gasoline Powers The Attack!” The only thing that has changed since then is the use of fuel for war has grown exponentially. Iraq. Afghanistan. Israel. Palestine. Russia. The United States. Dot. Dot. Dot.

I’ll go back to the election now, just for a minute. I only have one question. Where is Al Gore right now, now that we really need him? He’s not a candidate. My friends, that is indeed “An Inconvenient Truth.” Dot. Dot. Dot.

I also want to add one more truth that much of the world is aware of but, here in the United States, I wonder if we really understand this. Food does not grow on shelves. Connect the dots.