How to suck the oxygen out of everything

A silent prologue

Last week I attended a seminar on urban heat islands, the speaker being a staff scientist with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Mitigation strategies to lower temperatures in urban regions will become increasingly important as half the world's population now lives in cities of one size or another and climate change is raising global temperatures. This is what we call facts. We can verify these facts, anyone can for that matter.

Can't catch my breath

Even though 2016 is not unique, it does seem that we have a higher collection of world leaders at the present time that run the gamut from sociopath, to gangster to merely authoritarian. Democratic values are not winning the popularity contest at the moment.

You would have to be half mad to dream me up.

(Mad Hatter, Alice in Wonderland)

In the United States Donald Trump, the profoundly ignorant, deeply narcissistic and repulsive man-child, for the past year or so, has overwhelmed our political and cultural lives, which in and of itself says something about our present (ideally short-lived) dysfunction.

In a sort of “best of all possible worlds,” the Donald will vanish into the trash can of history along with the White People's Cult, formerly known as the Republican party. But you would have to be “half mad” to believe it's going to be that easy.

Now, to resume our discussion on urban heat islands.... but first make sure you vote and overwhelm ignorance.