Today I read Daniel Quinn's "Ishmael." Highly recommended reading! I won't go much into it, but will say that after I read it and then went on to read about the drought in the state of Georgia, the comments in the article really hit home...

Things like:
"What we've learned from this is what a blunt weapon the Endangered Species Act has become, where some obscure bureaucrat in Fish and Wildlife and some obscure judge can decide that mussels are more important than our children and grandchildren," said U.S. Rep. John Linder, R-Georgia, who spoke after Perdue at Saturday's news conference.

Perdue blasted what he called the "silly rules" governing the water situation, noting that even if the state got replenishing rains, it could not by law conserve those and must release the water to run downstream.

"We are also mired in a frustrating manmade disaster of federal bureaucracy," Perdue said.

"The actions of the Army Corps of Engineers and the Fish and Wildlife Services are downright dangerous, and Georgia cannot stand for this negligence."

See the rest at http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/10/20/georgia.drought/index.html

The thing that makes Perdue's comments so interesting is that there is NO realization or even consideration that perhaps the city of Atlanta can not be supported by the geographic area around it. It couldn't possibly be that Atlanta has gotten too large... no, it's that the 'disaster of federal bureaucracy' can't be navigated to the likes of the people that aren't happy... with no concern for the other life that depend on that river, including, apparently, other people.

Oh for the day when a political leader will stand up and say "Our actions are downright dangerous... we must change the way we live" rather than blaming the likes of the Fish and Game department, who are merely extending protection to life that we will surely end eventually...

Stop congratulating and start listening!

An opinion piece from the Times in response to Gore's winning (jointly, with the IPCC) of the Nobel Peace Prize entitled The Trivial Pursuit concludes with these sentences:

Al Gore is a serious man confronted by a political system that is not open to a serious exploration of important, complex issues. He knows it.

“What politics has become,” he said, with a laugh and a tinge of regret, “requires a level of tolerance for triviality and artifice and nonsense that I have found in short supply.”
See the full article here.

Sadly, it seems true. The Office of the President is badly in need of a restoration of trust and integrity, both with the American people and with the rest of the world. And the person most capable of restoring that trust and integrity realizes that the crap that he would have to do to obtain the office would in all likelihood minimize or at least greatly reduce his ability to then rebuild that trust and integrity.

Uh-oh.

To Trust or not to trust...

Karl-Henrik Robert was back in the classroom today with the master's class, and I sat in for the first hour or so. The topic was social sustainability -- an interesting topic to discuss in a sustainability program that is housed in a mechanical engineering department. Never-the-less, it struck me how relevant the social sustainability conversation is. Actually... nevermind 'relevant' - try PARAMOUNT.

I was just browsing some news articles... the first that caught my attention was Would you like a helicopter or minisub to go with that megayacht?. Interesting. Next... The Arctic's alarming sea change. Talk about things that make you go hmmmm... I guess maybe if I had the money and the arctic was opening up, I'd buy a yacht, too. Certainly a better investment than ocean front property... but does it strike anyone else as a bit ironic to see these two articles together? Especially if you read the article about the yachts - excuse me, megayachts - in which they talk about having GREEN megayachts. Maybe when the start running on algae (not too far-fetched!) and being remade of the Titanic (a bit more far-fetched) or other recycled stuff... maybe then the Green label will be ok. Diffuse glass in order to run the AC less? I don't think so.

In tying this back to the topic at hand... the third article that grabbed my attention: Meanwhile: Fill'er up with trust. During the lecture, Kalle was talking about the need for trust and how he is thinking more and more that it is all about trust. If we do some diagramming of the world to show some causal relationships... I think we might find that there are lots of gaps where we ought to see big, bold arrows with "TRUST" on the label.

So. How can we increase the level of trust in the world? Seems to me that the wealth gap between rich and poor can't be growing if we are going to increase trust. So much for those megayachts...

Along similar lines, I was having a conversation with myself in the kitchen the other day about my previous post on religion. I think some - perhaps many - would argue that compassion is a good thing that comes from their religious faith -- that belief in a particular religion increases our compassion for others. Fair enough -- that is consistent with my experience with christianity and consistent with my limited knowledge of several other faith traditions.

But why is compassion important? We take pride in having compassion when we help those who are less fortunate than ourselves... but why is it compassion that moves us to act? Would not it be far better if it was *common sense* that motivated us? Instead of saying "I'm going to donate to my favorite charity because I see that there are people in need and I have compassion for those people" wouldn't it be better if we all stepped back and said "I have all that I need; these other people don't. So I am going to give all of my excess so that we all can live."

What's the difference, you ask?

The difference is that when I give out of compassion, giving something small is enough to satisfy my feeling of obligation. As long as I give away a small fishing boat, it's okay for me to have a megayacht.

When I give out of common sense, it isn't to satisfy my feeling of obligation. Rather, it is because I realize -- consciously -- that my having a megayacht isn't helping very many people satisfy their basic needs. I can't stop giving after just a small fishing boat because I realize that there is still a gargantuan difference between what I have and what the other has. I might even realize that I don't need to take so much to begin with... because I just end up giving it away.

I'm only afraid that in this day and age, doing that very thing would diminish trust... people would be very suspicious about what I was up to..