Truth Fairy

A few days ago I finally saw the Al Gore global-warning film An Inconvenient Truth. I may have been a little late in getting to this documentary (it was released in May this year), but not quite as late as the world in responding to the clangor of alarm bells alerting the human race to urgently address a situation that threatens its very existence. Al Gore, practically renamed Al Bore after his excruciatingly mind-numbing performance in the 2000 U.S. presidential hoedown, attains spectacular redemption via this film. No more the didactic insomnia-curer who gave his own supporters enough reason and time to hit the kitchen and butcher, baste and burn a cow whenever it was his turn to drawl at those infamous presidential debates.

In Truth, Gore, who on any sunny day could be accused of many things but rarely of lacking knowledge and never of being lazy on research, uses scientific data and simple reason to explain some very basic facts: The earth's climate is changing and we are more likely than not to blame. And if we don't move to change our habits of consumption and emission, a dire situation is going to get a hell of a lot worse in less than an average human being's lifecycle.

The weather, in case you hadn't noticed, is going nuts. In the recent past alone, storms have deluged deserts; raging rivers have dried up while more placid waters have unexpectedly overrun their banks, sinking entire villlages at a time; hurricanes that started mild suddenly turned fierce, causing untold spoliation. One could go on. Sure, there probably isn't one definitive conclusion that says my gas-guzzling vehicle or my energy-inefficient appliances or my power-sucking McMansion with automated sprinklers and central air conditioning are directly to blame. But there's rarely reason needed to step it down a bit, consume a little less. If anything, it'll simplify your life a bit.

I can only hope that more people watch—or make films like—An Inconvenient Truth. I would hope even more that it becomes required viewing in all schools. Because no one should worry more about the future than the ones who are going to have to contend with it.

Say Gracias Before You Glut

Last Thursday large numbers (and vast members) of the U.S.A.'s residents indulged in synchronized stuffing. To kick off the nation's official four-day pig-out known as the Thanksgiving weekend, George W. Bush, celebrated by many for talking turkey, but really better versed in the gab of gobbledygook, honored the not so traditional tradition invented by the dead president Harry Truman: he pardoned a turkey. The turkey was called Flyer. The White House website claims the lucky buzzard’s name was chosen via online voting, but, frankly, it reeks too much of the mind of incurious George.

So then: All across this expansive nation people gathered around less lucky fowls and partook of their oversize cadavers, roasted to a golden crisp and rammed with a mish-mash of materials intended to lend taste to the otherwise bland boidy. No doubt, per habit, many heaped upon their plates the usual army of accoutrements: green bean casserole, candied yams, mashed potatoes and more—much more. And lest you think that that smorgasbord of gastrointestinal inhibitors could stop the fun, don’t forget the pumpkin pie! But cardinal sin No. 2 aside, the holiday is generally the good kind; the kind that doesn’t involve self-mutilation, proselytizing, guilt-inducements or forced gift-giving. Just, as the title suggests, the offer of thanks. And the residents of this great nation—but then, what nation isn’t great?—have much to give thanks for. I certainly do. Here's a culling from my merci list:

— Only two more years to go before the world’s most incompetent leader is given the g'bye mat. Did I say Bush? Did I need to?

— Donald “freedom is untidy” Rumsfeld was pink-slipped—a lot later than he, or we, deserved; but at least it happened. Like his blithering bossman, his legacy will not die soon enough.

— I wasn't one of the 200 people who died in the Baghdad bombing on Thanksgiving day.

— I wasn't one of the nearly 3,000 American soldiers killed in Iraq since the American invasion.

— I wasn't one of the approximately 50,000 Iraqis killed since that same invasion commenced. (That number's according to Iraq Body Count; the British journal Lancet estimates 100,000.)

— I'm not black and poor and living in Darfur (but no thanks to the leaders of the Western world who are so quick to quell fires if there is profit to be made—or lost).

— I'm not black and poor and living in New Orleans, many of whom are still suffering the aftermath of their government's inexcusable apathy and incompetence.

But killjoys that daily headlines are, I remind myself that there is something bigger than our microcosm of self-importance. Humanity may head further down the spiral, global warming may cause the tides to turn turbulent, a nut with a nuke might flip the safety catch; that the answer is naught may be hard to digest. But life will go on. Even if not ours—or the turkeys'. Buon appetito.

Borderline Crazy

It's enough to make a cartographer froth. People of various ranks and pursuits - politicians, diplomats, patriots, disgruntled denizens - markers cocked and ready, are expressing the urge to redraw lines across the globe. Secessionists and vivisectionists each, they all seem to have a solution to or an ambition toward the world's border woes and whims.

The Chinese recently found nostalgia by throwing their hats back into the subcontinental territorial pissing ring: Sun Yuxi, China's ambassador to India, decided (or was told) to reiterate that nation's claim to Arunachal Pradesh, for some time now a part of the Indian republic. And what China wants, China is known to often take. India should worry. Further west, a man of some influence is suggesting the balkanization of Iraq. Peter Galbraith has proposed trisection as triage in that beleaguered - and rather buggered, I might add - nation. The son of the eminent North American diplomat John Kenneth Galbraith suggests Iraq be carved up and divvied among its severely dysfunctional religion(non)mates. This isn't the first time a Westerner came and diddled with the lines in that part of the world. If that happens, who will ultimately win the spoils of oil will make for some interesting wagers.

Borders, of course, are just lines in the sand for the people who live near them. Relatives, friends, lovers and business opportunities poke holes in the premise of forced divisions. Fences, imaginary and real, are no barrier to determination, much less desperation. Or brutal ambition. Just ask the Janjaweed, who've expanded their marauding map to beyond the confines of western Darfur in Sudan to Chad, causing disastrous repercussions in the Central African Republic. And the world that likes to stand on pulpits and heave such headline-friendly sentiments as "Never again!" watches fecklessly from the sidelines as it happens over and over again.

In contrast to the shape-shifters, however, stand the fence-makers. Some Americans found in the recently electorally disgraced President Bush their champion to concretize the division between their blessed land and their free-trade pardners to the south with a 700-mile "great wall" (made in China?). But some walls can only hold so long; even as the great barrier chief has made wall-building his legacy, score one more for the wallbangers. Standing as the antithesis to Bush's army of homophobes who would like to exclude gays from the joys of marital bliss and discord, South Africa's parliament just approved same-sex marriage. And who could be next? New Jersey. New Jersey! The odorous state's supreme court has set the stage (in fuchsia and winter green, I'm told) to make it official. What about their easterly neighbors? That's a nyet, I'm afraid. Did someone say "liberal" New York? Some divisions, it seems, are broader than one imagined.