The PenOpticon

Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy today proposed an alternative to the massive Cape Wind renewable energy project slated for Nantucket Sound. Kennedy has been a vocal opponent of the wind farm, although it could generate up to 475 megawatts of clean energy. To keep the wind turbines from cluttering their view of the Sound, the entire Kennedy clan, along with other elite Vineyarders plan to build and operate a 24×7 spinning farm using high performance stationary bikes. Any excess power generated would be fed back into the national grid.

At a hastily convened press conference, Kennedy explained that despite being out of shape, he was ready and willing to do his part to help meet the state’s electricity needs. When a reporter queried whether the portly senator was hiding Jimmy Hoffa inside his person, Kennedy merely smiled and said that he was eagerly looking forward to “dropping a few pounds”.

Meanwhile, opponents of the Cape Wind plan danced with glee, poured gasoline on the ground and started several celebratory wildfires after learning the FAA has been issuing stop-work orders to various wind farm developers around the U.S. It seems the U.S. air force has suddenly decided that large spinning blades could allow small aircraft to elude military radar. To illustrate the problem, a Defense Department spokeswoman rapidly waved her hands back and forth in front of her face shouting “Can you see me? Can you see me? I don’t think so!” However, by this time, reporters had turned around to watch Senator Kennedy swaying and grunting atop a stationary bicycle. As he pedaled, a small red bulb began to flicker. Faster and faster he pedaled. Until sweat glistened and streamed in the folds of his face. And then the elder statesman, himself, began to glow. Like a large fiery chunk of dirty coal, he vowed to keep the lights burning in the Vineyard.

Time for another Bird of the Week installment! The Black Crowned Night Heron is a cool-looking character decked out in a tasteful black beret and “cape”. You might think the blazing red eye is a tinted contact lens, but you ‘d be wrong. The cool factor is completed by two “white, filamentous plumes” which contrast nicely with the eye and back. This one has can be seen foraging for minnows and bugs in a storm pond at York University, but he’ll winter in the southern U.S.

I’ve been collecting a number of interesting quotes and sound bites for a small project:

I’m more worried about other parts of the world. The Middle East, for instance. Iran is where they will start trouble if we aren’t careful.
– President Harry S. Truman, two days after the invasion of Korea:

It’s silly talking about how many years we will have to spend in the jungles of Vietnam when we could pave the whole country and put parking stripes on it and still be home for Christmas.
– President Ronald Reagan, October 10, 1965

The basic problems facing the world today are not susceptible to a military solution.
– President John F. Kennedy

Mission accomplished
– President George W. Bush

Since my earlier rant about God and the Indonesia earthquake, I’ve stumbled upon Jonathan Sacks’ piece on the 2005 Tsunami. It is as relevant to the current disaster as it was on Dec 25, 2005 when the Asian Tsunami took so many lives.

Never mind the human-generated violence and environmental damage that threatens this planet. Those anthropogenic miseries are mere scratches on the skin of the world compared to the fury often unleashed by the earth itself. The 2004 Asian (Boxing Day) Tsunami. 230,000 dead. Katrina? In the thousands, but somehow know one really knows. Yesterday’s earthquake in Indonesia. 5000 and rising. A complete inventory of death and destruction is a never-ending and depressing task

For those of us on the sidelines, we are again haunted by images of displaced survivors, many of whom have their hands and eyes raised skyward as if asking God “Why, why did you do this to us?”. In the days to come, the media will give religious leaders an opportunity to answer this question. Explaining death from natural disaster is one of the trickiest things religion can be called upon to do. On the outer fringes, some groups have even blamed gays and lesbians for tragedies such as Katrina.

Anyone who tries to “make sense” of these things (i.e. spin things to make God look good) is not looking closely at the facts. If there is a God — he/she/it is not a moral being. Or, if you insist that god is moral, then those morals can not be understood by mere humans. Do unto others as you would have others do unto you? Ha! Not this god. Rational self-interest? Not bloody likely. The Old Testament got things as right as any of them — this is a wrathful god, a god of vengeance.

So why even bother to say any of this? If the Born Again Creationist types insist that only a Designer could have created sea shells, crystalline structures and complex life forms, then they had better admit that this god is every bit a Destroyer as well as a Designer. A more recent “Prophet” — Khalil Gibran — may have gotten us closer to the truth when he links life and death as entwined paths to God:

For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun?
And what is it to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?

There is a poetry in Gibran’s words that may appeal to some, but this is of little comfort to the millions who have died or lost loved ones as a result of natural catastrophes. The recent earthquake in Indonesia is yet another sign that moral codes are not handed down by God and the God that we find in the natural world does not provide us with any sort of moral role model. Morality is a human invention — and it is something we must invent and re-invent on a daily basis. Here are a couple of places to start:

• Canadian Red Cross
• American Red Cross