Rain. It’s been raining for days. According to one forecast it’s supposed to rain for more days yet. What’s wrong with this picture? We live on the dry side of the mountains. Seattle gets rain. We get dry. It is true that we depend on winter snows for our water, and this winter was not a good one for that. The snows came late and melted too quickly. The local paper threatened water rationing. Farmers and ranchers were likely not to have access to all the water for which they have paper rights.
Now it’s been raining steady for days. I wonder what that will do for the water supply? I wonder which farmers will be overjoyed and which ones will be sure their crops are ruined? I wonder who will blame God for having lost his sense of timing? I wonder who will blame it on global warming, and who will blame it on Obama? I wonder if the people on the Gulf Coast will know or care about a very rural intermountain region whining about too little or too much precipitation?
Let’s see if I’ve got this right. The Gulf is filling up with oil and there is no immediate prospect of stopping it. The damage to life in all forms may be incalculable. BP may cease to exist and with it a huge percentage of dividend revenue going toward pensions in Britain. The European debt crisis may drag down the nascent economic recovery. The Israelis are using lethal force in international waters to defend themselves against boats loaded with unarmed Gaza relief activists. China can’t keep its school students safe much less control North Korea. Japan can’t keep a leader longer than eight months and is catching up with France or Italy in the race for most PMs in the shortest amount of time. Thailand can only fake democracy. Chavez is leading Venezuela into a worker paradise as prosperous as Cuba’s. Mexico is in an internal state of war with drug lords who have become rich off of American drug users, but we get some of the money back by selling them guns. Jamaica wants to be like Mexico. The people running Wall Street are no smarter or honest than they have ever been. And, oh yeah, it’s raining too much here.
Gee I wish I was president and could fix all these things.
Your wittiest public affairs blog yet! Worthy of Mark Twain or Will Rogers at their best! Or of Erasmus' Praise of Folly! Dr B
Second day in a row, I'm agreeing with Dr. B – nice post! (I like agreeing with both of you, it just seems like some of the time I have NO idea about that which the two of you are conversing:)!xo