I read something online recently about how “climate change” and “global warming” just don’t cut it as sufficiently frightening metaphors for the rising sea levels, melting ice caps and glacierrs, unusually hotweather in summer, unusually mild weather in winter, alternating deluges and droughts depending on which part of the country you live in, and unusuallydevastating seasonal storms.
As in, “hello, Katrina and Rita.” It made me wonder what better handle there might be for all of this weather-related irregularities.
So I started thinking about all the different eras we humans have named in our journey from the past to the future via the present:
Ice Age
Stone Age
Bronze Age
Iron Age
Classical Age
Dark Ages/Middle Ages
Renaissance Age
Age of Reason/ Age of Enlightenment
Age of Steam
Industrial Age
Modern AgeModern AgeThis Modern World
Atomic Age
Space Age
Post-Modern Age
Information Age
Age of Lewinsky
Age of Unreason / Age of Deliberate Government Suppression / Heads In Sand Age/ Anti-Intellectual Scientists Age
UPDATE: Corporate Shill Age
Melt Age 1Melt Age 2Melt Age 3Melt Age 4
That’s it- it’s my husband David’s idea. We’re about to enter or have already entered the Melt Age. I was thinking of calling it “The Roast Age” or “The Age Of Sweltering” but “Melt Age” seems best to me. After all, that’s what’s happening to polar ice caps and glaciers left over from the Ice Age, right?
And then after that, there’s “The Glub Glub Age” and “The Gill Age” and possibly “The Post-Nuclear Age” and “The Neo-Neolithic Age”
David and I tried a couple of times to see Syriana – both times we weren’t able to get tickets and left rather than wait around for the next show. Then, we ended up missing it because it wasn’t playing the next time we felt like seeing a movie. I think we’ll end up renting it – we haven’t gotten into Netflix yet, so Blockbuster is fine for now.
Did these guys call each other before they got dressed for their big day out going to Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry? Here they are, purchasing transit cards, which probably means they’re tourists. Their caps are all perfect fits for their perfectly round heads – they looked like a set of bobbleheads that decided to go on a spree. I’d like to know why the guy onthe far left broke the fashion rules and isn’t wearing a white shirt though. He’s too matchy!
And yes, I’ll probably regret trying to use yet another beta upgrade of ecto, because every version promises to fix weird bugs. And then, there are new weird bugs. So with this post, we’ll see.
Deadly Israeli Airstrike Sparks Fury | Chicago Tribune
When I head the news this morning, I was shocked, saddened and outraged. Then, I was ashamed, because the Secretary of State is still holding back from urging an immediate cease-fire. Why? Because the Israelis have told her they need a couple more weeks to drive out the Hezbollah from Lebanon. Meanwhile, planes carrying our bombs to Israel so they can do this are on the way. And some of the British people aren’t going to be happy that Prestwick, Scotland, is a refueling stop for these flights.
I’ll state here for any international reader; I do not agree with this policy and in fact I’m going to email Rice and the White House and just say “Cease fire .” It’s a symbolic act, kind of like tapping on a warhead with a hammer, but we ordinary Americans need to speak up for peace.
For the record, I think Israel has every right to exist, but I don’t think they have every right to bomb the shit out of another country without expecting to be sanctioned. We are almost completely alone in our support of Israel; their actions with today’s bombing of a makeshift shelter are inexcusable, but somehow our glorious Administration and its glamourous Secretary of State will find a way to excuse it anyway.
Yes, Hezbollah needs to stop sending rockets over the border to Israel. They’re not doing that much damage, anyway – so why not take the high road? If they stopped firing off rockets, the Israelis would have no leg to stand on in its arguments that Hezbollah had to be wiped out.
International politics are too much like schoolyard politics; Israel is like the child who was bullied who grows strong and becomes a bully in return, but always sees itself as vulnerable and friendless. Thus, the over-reaction and literal overkill in its response to a total of 3 (three) soldiers being captured by two smaller but resourceful tormentors.
By the way, what ever happened to those three Israeli soldiers? Are they still alive? If they were to walk across the borders from Gaza and Lebanon right now, would this thing be over? Or are they dead, and nobody wants to come out and admit it?
Shit, does he think we’re fools? Doesn’t he know we don’t see Regi
I started a really, really long post about our visit to the Museum of Science and Industry‘s Leonardo da Vinci exhibit, but then ecto and I had a parting of the ways and my post got totally messed up. I had a ton of links that were all formatted incorrectly, and then my attempts to add text got formatted all wrong because ecto does not play well if you switch between
“Rich View” formatting and “HTML View” formatting. Plus, the backspace key behaves oddly in ecto, and I over-deleted a bunch of critical text. Bad, bad things happen. For instance, why, WHY does it add all these unwanted P tags? I just switched, and when I came back, P tags were wrapped around text that I did not want them wrapped around.
I think I hate ecto. I paid for it and everything, and lately I hate it. I used to like it before the most recent series of “upgrades,” but the Rich View format view has become a source of great frustration (and not a few abandoned posts.
And now it’s saying I must enter an entry title and body in order to save this update. I have an entry title and body. Stupid ecto.
My husband David and I met up with parents Shel and Leah, siblings Mitch and Gloria, and also Aunt Gwen for a day at the Museum of Science and Industry. Mom Leah had gotten tickets to the Leonardo Da Vinci exhibit, but the real reason for the outing was the annual family celebration of Hannukkah in July. We picked a perfect day for it; there were record temperatures, crazy drivers on the tollway and downtown, a huge car show on the lakefront, and of course people were already staking out spots for Venetian Night tonight, which seems to involve boats, fireworks, and music.
The highlight, or lowlight, of our day outside of the museum itself was the eye-popping sight of a very heavy-set guy cutting in front of us on Lakeshore Drive at about 70 miles an hour, riding an expensive, fat-tired racing motorbike. As he was riding in the “bendover” position, and his shirt was hiked up, we were treated to the glorious sight of his hairy buttcrack. Spontaneously, we both shouted “Oh! OH! OH!!!” and waved hands in front of our eyes as if to ward off the visual plague. Then the guy cut in front of a large Expedition that had been honking and flipping off at us earlier, so we got to witness a little poetic justice as a visual metaphor. Asshole, meet buttcrack. Buh-bye.
Anyway, the museum, right. We wandered along this train, which is outside of the paid-entry precincts of the museum proper, in the entrance lobby. At the tail-end of the train, facing the trademark rounded end of the observation car, there’re some benches and some exhibits of 30’s style streamlined housewares inspired by the train’s futuristic design, and there’s a short educational film. We had some time to kill, so we enjoyed watching the film, but everyone got there just as they were finishing telling the story of the glory years of the streamlined “silver streak,” so we didn’t hear get to the end of the line. Maybe next time we’ll visit it properly and get the whole story.
Via: Flickr Title: Zephyr By: GinnyRED57
Originally uploaded: 29 Jul ’06, 12.50pm CDT PST