Statecraft Informer

Sparxafire!

We think we are pretty darn smart with all our technology and whatnot. We have trains, planes, automobiles, cell phones, Google™ and microwave ovens. But let us never, ever play complacent with Mother Nature. She can, and does continue to kick our butt all over the place – especially when we have the arrogance to mess with her.

Just this week we are enduring at least three major traumas where Mother Nature is delivering three smackdowns, casually and dispassionately swatting human life off her bosom like so many cake crumbs.

When you dig great tunnels in the dirt to mine minerals out of the earth, those tunnels are by no means guaranteed to hold. It appears that hope has faded for the Utah miners and it just makes me sick. Mom Nature insists that those who want to dig for her treasures must pay full price in terms of safe practices to get it. Shortcuts don’t pay.

Flooding in the Midwest, claiming victims to rushing/rising waters. It’s just terrible, but ask any resident of New Orleans, water will go wherever there’s an opening… no matter what. It’s strong and powerful and is only overcome by extraordinary means… like Boulder Dam, for example. From the sinking of the Titanic to the failure of the New Orleans levys, water has proved it is dead serious.

And, Hurricane Dean… another force where humans are pretty much defenseless – at this moment, tracking across the Gulf toward Mexico – has already claimed at least eight lives.

These are acts of a natural world that has no conscience. They are the result of weather, water and wind… just the living earth doing her thing. They are not acts of God.

If I should decide to descend into a tunnel under the surface of the earth, with support that is unknown to me, you won’t find me praying for God to suspend the laws of gravity while I’m down there.

I further assure you, if a hurricane is headed my direction, you will find me nailing up up plywood, you won’t find me on my knees praying. Neither will you find me trying to pray away rising floodwaters.

I hope no one lost his or her life this week praying in the face of a natural emergency. And it’s not about, “God helps those who help themselves…” It’s about nature and gravity, buoyancy, force, the laws of physics and getting the hell out of harm’s way! And it’s not about “intelligent design” either. Frankly, what is intelligent about hurricanes? Or floods? Earthquakes? Volcanoes? I call that “poor design,” frankly.

I urge and encourage all loyal statecraft informistas out there to get up off their stupid knees and keep themselves safe.