Home again

Taking I-40 to and from Tulsa was a drag this time. High winds battered my Prius so hard, in both directions, that I actually got less than 40 mpg. The fender battered loose by tire pieces during my earlier blowout, unrepaired (shrugs, who cares?) shuddered noisily the whole way, convincing me to give that decision another look.

On both trips I stared at sky so pink or beige with dust (pink as the sun set) that I worried about how many tons of Arizona were moving to Utah, carving canyonlands along the way. Until I got home, I forgot to worry about all that oil spilled in the Gulf being pushed ashore by (could it be the same?) relentless winds from the south. I'm an ignoramus about meteorology and geology (and a long list of other subjects), but I heard on NPR that winds were (are?) blowing hard from the south down there too. What an abomination has been set loose upon the earth by our mania for oil! (I'm in mourning, not up to snarling or cursing, but just so you know, I care.) A recent article in Mother Jones asks why nobody is talking about population growth these days. It's glaringly obvious that (1) at some point all hell is going to break loose and (2) fewer people on earth would solve most, if not all, our most urgent problems.

I remember back, decades ago, when I was leaning way left politically and at the same time studying ecology in graduate school, that it was not a great intellectual challenge to see that the concept of capitalism requiring constant growth (on many levels -- markets, money, consumers, etc.) and the ecological limitations on growth (populations that don't level off must fluctuate wildly, risking extinction with each crash) are incompatible. I used to tell my students about this, shrug, and say that their generation was going to have to figure this out. I had no answer. China has scared everyone off talking about it, apparently. That, and the right-wing opposition to both abortion and birth control. Sure, we don't know how many people is too many. Personally, I suspect we've already gone over the limit and something is bound to (and has already been set into motion to) slap us down soon. Maybe it'll be water, a virus, a nuclear catastrophe, or a bunch of things all at once. I just hope I don't get to see it.

On another equally cheerful note, I arrived home to find Grumpy, who had spent the afternoon mowing the grossly overgrown lawn, in a state that suggested an actual or potential heart attack. So, he's been in the VA hospital for a couple of days while they try to sort out what is going on. There isn't any heart damage (that enzyme test), so what the hell is it? He's bored to death being monitored, finally gets a stress test today. I'd better get off this computer and go see him. He wants me to bring four giant dill pickles from the jar taking up half the refrigerator. Okay, off I go. If only the jar would shrink as its contents are depleted.