CSotD: It only leaks when it’s raining
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As I write this, Irma is working her way through the South and Jose is brewing and Katia is out there and there's probably no good time to talk about hurricanes, unless you wait until after the season ends.
At which point we won't care anymore and we'll go back to talking about the next Bachelor or who's directing the new Star Wars film.
But Harvey will still be a factor in Houston, and I'm sure Irma will still be a factor in Florida, even after the show is over. People there will mark their lives by the day the hurricane came, and you'll still be paying for the cleanup long after it's all just a budget item buried in other budget items where we argue about why our debt goes up without looking at why our debt goes up.
Nick Anderson has done a long, solid piece for the Houston Tribune called "After Harvey, will Houston Learn From Its Mistakes?" and the rest of the piece is well worth your time though I think I know the answer to the question.
We can argue about climate change, but it's hard to persuade anyone who doesn't want to act that climate change has already begun to impact our weather. People in Bangladesh live in a delta area that once was frequently flooded but which is now consistently, always, under a foot and a half of water.
But they aren't here and so they don't count.
And, as David Horsey notes, climate change doesn't matter here, either, especially during a hurricane when we have to deal with the emergency and not afterwards, either, because who gives a shit about it when there's no hurricane.
As the old joke goes, you can't fix the roof while it's raining, and it doesn't leak when it's not raining.
The True Believers — maybe I should say "True Deniers" — will be back next week, continuing to doubt, because that's their groove and it's what they do best. You can't expect Henny Youngman to suddenly say how much he loves his wife, because he built a whole career around cutting her down.
And which ditto.
The point of Anderson's piece is not climate change, however, but, rather, irresponsible development, and now you're talking about something right here right now, which ought to get people's attention.
After Katrina, there was talk about the importance of leaving the bayous alone for much the same reason: Their ability to absorb water and lessen these disasters. And maybe that's been worked into the master plans in southern Louisiana.
And maybe someone in Houston will listen to the calls for responsible development and for preservation of wetlands and for rebuilding Houston in a way that will help prevent the next hurricane from being so destructive.
And maybe not, but you can't stop trying to eddikate people, even if they kick and scream, or, more frequently, put their heads down on their desks and sleep.
Anyway, it's a good piece. Go read the rest.
On a related theme, more information is coming out about the Russian trolls who undermined dialogue in the 2016 election, as Rob Rogers notes (and Bullwinkle is cited in this Smithsonian Mag piece on how that show taught kids about political satire.)
As I said a few days ago, it's annoying to have the Russian troll factories come as A Big Revelation now, when anyone paying attention knew they were going on back then, but it's even more annoying to realize that, like climate change and weather, they're likely doomed to be one of those things people only pay attention to for a moment, because the roof only leaks when it's raining.
I had a friend who was in medical school when the Church Committee revelations about FBI spying came out, and he happened to be going through his psych rotation. He said it was very disruptive to have the paranoid fantasies of psychotic patients being confirmed on the evening news.
And I'm afraid that revelations of Russian troll factories will only inflame those who already believe in them, and that we'll go on quarrelling over divisions that were purposefully planted and should never have existed in the first place.
Oh well.
Plus this
Candorville builds on the familiar "first they came …" quote, nicely timed with yesterday's semi-non-stay from the Supreme Court, allowing us to at least temporarily keep brown people out of the country no matter how well they've been examined and vetted and no matter what the level of danger they are fleeing.
Of course, we're hoping to get a final ruling allowing the administration to bar immigration from predominantly Muslim countries that do not have significant business relationships with a company that is totally and completely unaffiliated with anyone in the White House.
And we're gonna build a wall to keep out some other brown people.
And, yes, we're going to get rid of productive, educated young brown people who have been carefully examined and found to be useful, honest and patriotic.
But don't worry: The roof doesn't leak except when it rains, and it's not raining.
Yet.
Word Play
Can't let today's Soup to Nutz slide by unacknowledged.
My admiration for the concept is not nearly as great as my admiration for Stromoski's willingness to just lay it out there without a final panel explaining it.
Now here's your moment of zen:
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