Tuesday, February 27, 2007

golly, Monday was wonderful. I didn't even take my car in to have checked out for damage.

I left the door open to the back yard so the doglet could go in & out, and several times I noticed her napping in the sun. Sweet.

It was great to have a day of no driving, no getting dolled up...


Something I wrote in the last post and on which G bro commented made me want to say a little bit more.

I referred in the Oscar post yesterday to Al Gore's science as "faulty." (I can thank John Cleese for my now-instinctive urge to type that "Fawlty") G bro commented that we hope his science is faulty.

Yes, indeed we do hope it is. I think there is some middle way that falls somewhere between devil-may-care attitudes in which the environment is laid waste for the sake of industry and being so afraid of upsetting the balance of the ecosystem that we are terrified to flip on a light switch. I refer to the current crop of freakie-outie-ness as "faulty science" because I believe a true scientist would honestly state the case that in the relatively tiny 5000 years' recorded history of humans, we haven't observed enough of natural phenomenae on our changing earth to say how and when the climate will dramatically change. I agree that it is irresponsible for us to be wasteful when we have a choice to do otherwise, but it's the hysterical language with which this concept is treated that gets my dander up. When the more intellectually honest terms "may" and "can" are exchanged for a monolithic "will," well, I get just a bit tetchy. In other words, why not say "we may have screwed up but we can improve," instead of "we ARE screwed?" If we ARE screwed, why bother trying to change anything?

This thought that we are so advanced and have achieved such a level of understanding that all discernible knowledge is within our grasp is pure-dee arrogance and hubris. One of these days there is going to be a "boy who cried wolf" effect - one can only hear so much bad news before he will stop turning on the news altogether.

Oh, great departure from all this stuff:
Right now I'm sort of obsessing over supreme cellist Jacqueline du Pre's divine recording of Elgar's Cello Concerto. Breathtaking.

YOu can see it here in 4 parts. The first link includes a bit of interview with her husband, and then about 2:20 into the video is the beginning of the performance. Astonishing.
Take about 40 minutes to watch and listen, and keep a box of hankies nearby. This music wrecks me. I love it.

#1 http://youtube.com/watch?v=kb6jjIFFizk
#2 http://youtube.com/watch?v=Qs95OJfBo-w&mode=related&search=
#3 http://youtube.com/watch?v=v4jFe1ab7vU&mode=related&search=
#4 http://youtube.com/watch?v=qtED60WHA0Q&mode=related&search=

4 comments:

Liz said...

Hubster doesn't believe that anyone has proven that global warming is anything other than cyclical (after all, everyone claims that hurricanes are worse now than ever but they are relying on data collected from satellites. Which we've only had for 50 years. If you use the metric of landfall (as opposed to what they see offshore), there were more hurricanes in WW2.) He finds most of the "data" cited to be fairly manipulative.

However, it is documented fact that we are destroying rainforests, etc. and we do have to consider the ecological implications of that. So, recycling, driving more fuel efficient cars, etc. is exactly what we should be doing from the standpoint of preserving natural resources. In other words, I agree with the solution proposed even if I don't really agree with how the problem is stated.

Liz said...

Oh, and while we're on the topic, someone got hold of Big Al's power records and he uses 20 times more power than the average American to heat and cool his nifty little mansion. It's great for all these big stars to talk about conservation. After all, their private planes and mansions and limos are magic and don't use any resources at all. Leonardo Di caprio on the other hand flies commercial, drives a Prius, and lives in a reasonably sized house. He doesn't just preach it, he tries to live it.

Maven said...

Hey, what's opera, doc?

FHB said...

What she said.

People have just drunk the whole jug of kool-Aid on this global worming thing, and pandering politicos like Gore are riding the wave for everything they can get (like Joseph McCarthy and the Red Scare). It's become the scientific crisis du jour.

It seems that every generation of liberals sets up some scientific or sociological idea and says that if we all don't buy into it whole heartedly it means we're not really caring, thinking people. 100 years ago it was Phrenology or Eugenics, and a generation later it was mental hospitals lobotomizing everyone they could get their hands on.

Then it was global cooling (I'm still holding out hopes for that one). I'm not sayin' its not true, but I'd like to know how the hell we can do anything about some raggedy ass farmer in Brazil who wants to cut a tree down.

Every year we have tons of smoke wafting north from Mexico because their farmers are still slashing and burning the forests for their crops and diggin' with a stick, but we can't do a damn thing about that ether.

I believe in being responsible, to a point, but I figure I've got about 30 or 40 more years of life left on this planet and I plan to enjoy myself, even if it harelips the Pope.