The Harmony of Discord

The NY Times reported this week that we could be sucked into a black hole. Well, they didn’t really report that, but they did report on a lawsuit to stop a particle accelerator in Geneva that is about to become operational. The plaintiffs believe that the scientists resopsible have not done their research carefully and that they may be underestimating the risk that their project will spawn a black hole that will devour the earth, and possibly the entire universe.

That money you lost in the stock market? Won’t matter. Obama versus Hillary? Not to worry. You overdue mortgage payment? Who cares. This blog? Poof.

They seem to be on the run, but don’t look for things to get better for a while. With 9/10ths of the human beings on the planet living in something close to abject poverty or worse, it isn’t clear that the people like us, who have access to the internet, wealth enough to buy coffee at Starbucks, and mostly drive cars, are really going to catch on to how high the stakes really are.

But what the hell. Al Gore is admitting that America is wrong on global warming. China is the great hope in leaping from coal to renewable in their search for latte, Bush looks fairly irrelevant, and the horrid reincarnation of NCLB is languishing, awaiting impetus from the new President. Unfortunately, the slate of candiates on both sides seem to be doing more to obfuscate that clarify, and the establishment is waiting patiently for the field to sort itself out. Everything seems to be in the balance, as indeed it always is. We just know it this time.