“There is a bottleneck in human history. The human condition is going to change. It could be that we end in a catastrophe or that we are transformed by taking much greater control over our biology.
“It’s not science fiction, religious doctrine or a late-night conversation in the pub.
“There is no plausible moral case not to take it seriously.”
How Are Human Beings Going to Become Extinct
Sean Coughlan BBC
Characters in a story make choices. One choice and things might go well, make another and matters may spin out of control. What if the nuclear waste in Hanford, Washington spins wildly out of control and ends up irradiating most of the North America? According to an article by Valerie Brown published in Scientific America on May 9th that is indeed the problem technicians face as they race to find a method of securing 177 underground tanks so they might not face a chain reaction hydrogen explosion that result from leaks from the metal corrosion. When writing a comedy it is wise to factor into the stories equation the consequences of human folly. What is being made clear at this moment in history is that our political and economic system seem ill suited to our navigating the harm our use of the world’s resources seem to be causing. The matter is not whether or not we should do something, all of us know better, but it is a question of how in the world to arrange the world into some collective means of doing what we all know must be done. Underlying our species survival is an enormous reservoir of powerlessness, something approximating a Shakespearean tragedy. We are having an impossible time trying to not be the cause of our own demise… on the one hand it is tragic and on the other, through the lens of human folly it is a comedy. All’s Well That Ends Well.
HOT SPRING HONEYMOON
Fletcher walked back and stood in front of the assembled audience. The valance for the altar was made up of chiffon and taffeta square dancer petticoats. They’d been strung together into an awe inspiring kaleidoscope of turquoise, ruby, and purple laces and satin sheers intended to tickle an eye. Undergarments for this shaman were near where sublime and sacred might meet. He gleamed in the candlelight, a bird of prey perching upon a nest of fine ladies lingerie, a complex matrix of turquoise miner, town’s most notorious lover and now the biggest miracle of all… a virgin shaman. His spiritual powers were a revelation.
