CelticBear’s Musings

It’s so pretty, the frozen wasteland that is where I live.

Since the only people who read this save one or two, know me personally, you know I live in southwest Missouri. And if you’re not all those people who know save two or three, you’re right in the middle of the ice storm aftermath as well.

Our house lost power about 9pm Saturday night, and hasn’t come back yet. We’ve been staying at my in-laws since Sunday since not only do they have power and room, but also a backup generator. (Something I should look into.)

We checked on our poor kitty this morning on the way to work, and the little (read: big fat) bundle of fur was reasonably warm all cuddled on our bed. But we opened up a couple of those 24 hour air activated chemical heating pads and placed them under a blanket to give him a nice warm bed. I have no idea when they’ll get power up on our street. Springfield, Missouri had 75,000 residents (according to the 2000 census that’s more than the number of households in Springfield, so either that’s really number of people or also includes the greater Springfield area,) without power as of Saturday, and it’s down to 35,000 as of yesterday (Monday.) So, I’m not going to expect anything until maybe Friday.

Everyone in my office is without power (although the office has power,) some have refugeed themselves to distant family (as we did ourselves,) and it reminds me of the book I just finished reading, Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash. It’s a cyberpunk (one of the cyberpunk) novels of the early 90′s that takes place actually now-a-days. It’s a very prescient novel that imagines an America that’s been splintered into city states and self-governing “franchise” neighborhoods. Basically a near libertarian paradise where the federal government has been relegated to small embassy-like areas and the rest of everything is privately owned with even competitive freeway construction. But Stephenson sets this world of corporate and neighborhood defined laws and regulations as both good, and very bad. Viz a vis: realistic! Inflation has turned the federal dollar into worthless paper while private, corporately generated money has value, there’s no taxes but exchange rates between currencies constantly fluctuate, there’s no standard laws and each neighborhood has to hire privately owned law enforcement and even jails. It’s a country of incredible freedom and extremes in both riches and poverty. The rich are ridiculously rich and the poor are endless. Imagine the population of some drought ridden and civil war affected African country set in the middle of an ultramodern American metropolis. Where endless lights from corporate logos (“loglo”) and the culture of consumerism illuminate both gated and guarded communities and the storage garage living lower class equally.

It also reminded me of a recent conversation with my brother where we debated the causes and effects of global warming,” and while I’m not a tree-hugging liberal (oh god no!) I believe the economic and ecological impact from global warming will affect us terribly within my lifetime. World droughts may not occur it appears, but worsening weather conditions from larger hurricanes that go deeper inland, frequent tornadoes, and worse ice storms, will create so much havoc that half of the nation will be refugees in their own country.

Add to that the blatant and overt goal of the neo-cons (and most of the Republican Party and a good portion of the Democratic Party as well,) to create an oligarchy where the corporate rich rule over a non-existent middle class and a country of 99% poverty stricken, and I see an America that, while may not be as bad as that, will be a lot closer to something from the Middle East within 20 years. (I’m not even going to get into the added element of the American Talibahn.)

But, in the meantime, I’m really enjoying the icy and beautiful landscape. Driving to work this morning through the rural landscape I found so many incredible scenes of frozen trees in various shades of white, crystal, grays, and dark green; areas of rising morning mist; beautiful clouds, I so wish I were a painter or had a good DSLR camera. Nice.