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2002-05-28 - 6:05 p.m.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way--in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only. -- Charles Dickens

It is the worst of times, it is time for the worst, it is the age of foolishness, it is age for the fools of our age, it is the epoch of incredulity, therein is the incredulity in our epoch, it is the season of darkness, there is darkness in our season, it is the winter of dispair, it is the dispair in all of our seasons, we have nothing before us, and before us lies nothing, we are all going to hell, hell has been with us all of this time -- in other words, we have inadvertently sought the wrath of the plague that will be our undoing, with the best and the brightest among us forewarning us of its iminence, and the noisiest of our "authorities" insisting on its impending usefulness, spiting the words of wisdom that would be the savior of us all. -- B. R.

Ummm...too odious? I think not. It is the sign of our times. Only we are too busy to notice.

Here's a new perspective.

"Oh, it is not thus-- not thus," interrupted the being; "yet such must be the impression conveyed to you by what appears to be the purport of my actions. Yet I seek not a fellow-feeling in my misery. No sympathy may I ever find. When I first sought it, it was the love of virtue, the feelings of happiness and affection with which my whole being overflowed, that I wished to be participated. But now, that virtue has become to me a shadow, and that happiness and affection are turned to bitter and loathing despair, in what should I seek for sympathy? I am content to suffer alone, while my sufferings shall endure: when I die, I am well satisfied that abhorrence and opprobrium should load my memory. Once my fancy was soothed with dreams of virtue, of fame, and of enjoyment. Once I falsely hoped to meet with beings, who, pardoning my outward form, would love me for the excellent qualities which I was capable of unfolding. I was nourished with high thoughts of honour and devotion. But now crime has degraded me beneath the meanest animal. No guilt, no mischief, no malignity, no misery can be found comparable to mine. When I run over the frightful catalogue of my sins, I cannot believe that I am the same creature whose thoughts were once filled with sublime and transcendent visions of the beauty and the majesty of goodness. But it is even so; the fallen angel becomes a malignant devil. Yet even that enemy of God and man had friends and associates in his desolation; I am alone." -- Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

Here's another perspective. This one is mine, despite the recurring theme of a monster. Imagine the world's environmental plight. Consider its origin. This is an origin of two sources. One is a physical origin. How is this environmental collapse occurring? Are humans to blame? Are humans not a natural creation? So, is the destruction that is happening, however technologically related, not a kizmetic thing? The second form of the origin is of time. Karl Marx had the right idea. At its creation, anything created is racing toward its ultimate demise. The same idea applies here. The destruction of our environment, hence the largest doomsday device we may yet have to face, has been spiraling toward the day when it would ultimately come to a collapse and everything within it would perish, including us. During its lifetime, the environment has contracted and expanded, playing out and unimaginable number of stories among its many constituents, from the sexual love affairs of its smallest microbes in the primordial soup, to the valiant efforts of the cheetah's chase among the antelope in yesteryear, to the wispy dance of the pteradactyls high in the stratospehere many eons ago. Among its contractions have been countless ice ages where species upon species have disappeared, and then expanded again to include the billions of species of life that we barely even know today. So in its promenade through time, the environment owes us nothing. It is at our mercies. It has and will succumb to our whims. But it will not break. Because it is bigger than us. Even if it were to die out completely, leaving Earth as a lump of rock floating in space, it will have played out its function, having been determined from its inception at the beginning of time. Who are we to judge the fate of the environment. It has been and will be. It is ourselves that we have to worry about. I sure as hell do not wish to die. No Patriotism will save me from that fate.

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