The Flub-A-Dub Award

Flubbing our way toward the Dark Ages

I have this reoccurring nightmare that we’re in the middle of the ocean, with no sail, no paddles, no motor, hoping that somehow we’ll reach land. The folks on the ship are bewildered, almost in a trace-like state, looking around at one another, wondering who is going to step forward, who is going to take charge, who is going to illicit some hope, who is going to lead us back to the promised land? But no one moves.

You don’t see it anywhere. Not in government, politics, business, ditch digging, environmentally sound building, city planning, you name it, no one is stepping forward. Instead of the new millennium ushering the Age of Aquarius, we are one again descending into The Dark Ages, a time of violence, despair, and stagnation.

War remains our game of choice. If you don’t like what others are doing, or they ain’t quite in line with our thinking, kill them. Certainly not a new phenomena. Are we any further ahead today than we were in 476 AD? Hardly! Compromise, negotiation, mediation, and an honest attempt at understanding have remained in the back seat. In fact, the last six years have moved us to the brink of nuclear disaster. So much so that the talk today is nuking Iran if they continue to develop nuclear weapons. That sounds like something Genghis Khan would have come up with. The theory, “You’re going to become a democracy, or else we’ll kill you,” is not a good one. It will not work. Its time is up. This is the time of new opportunities. This is the time where we should be becoming more than we were.

The environment is once again being given over to big business for profit. Another theory that should have been long ago discarded. We should be evolved way beyond the ignorance that stated humans are on Earth to conquer nature. Hurricane Katrina is yet another wake-up call. Did we learn anything? No, we go right back to building below sea level and stripping the wetlands for additional development opportunities. But this time we’ll put the homes on stilts. How silly can we be?

The Earth is warming and brewing up disaster. Do we take heed and lower our emissions? Do we sign on to the Kyoto Treaty? No. From the President on down we trumpet our superiority over Nature and tell the scientists they are wrong. This whole climate warming scare is a liberal plot. For what purpose scientists would be putting us on I fail to understand. As we watch age-old glaciers turn back into water, we want to turn our backs on science rather than take heed and change our ways. A miserably sorry response to our responsibility to future generations.

Which leads us to science vs. right-wing, fundamental, Christianity. Another Dark Age confrontation. The world is flat. We Christians swore by it. Anyone suggesting otherwise was put to death. The Earth is the center of the universe. We swore by it. We continue to not want to change our beliefs to make room for science, to adjust them to make room for the known. That would be way too painful. Our great-great-great granddaddies held these truths to be unwavering. We shall do the same. For we are the chosen ones. To hell with science, to hell with liberals, to hell with logic, to hell with other belief systems, to hell with anyone who would stand in our way. God Bless America.

Flubs.