How to begin a weblog? Why, through far-reaching existential musings, of course.
Remember the 21st century?
I do. As a child in the 70s, I remember picturing a world where everybody wears spacesuits, cars fly, and we no longer eat regular food. Let's just say things have turned out a bit differently. As this weekend's events have shown, we're not in Star Trek land quite yet.
But it's not space travel I'm worried about. As I look around me, I start getting the eerie idea that the 20th century was the real hurrah of Western civilization, and now it's time for the inevitable decline. The 20th century beat all of human history in terms of the rate of social and technological change. Despite that fact, we continue facing not only the same problems that have plagued mankind through history (hunger, war, disease, racism, genocide, you name it), but we are well on our way to irretrievably destroying our environment along with most of the other life in it.
Even two years ago, who would have guessed our own government's open contemplation of use of nuclear weapons? How quickly we forget those other imaginings from the last century, of people evaporating into thin air, and the much scarier aftermath of radiation wounds and genetically mutated children. Is this acceptable collateral damage for the deposing of one dictator? In the 21st century, we show ourselves the same savages that through the ages have killed, enslaved, and tortured their brethren because of race, religion, or difference of opinion. What's different now is that although we have the resources and the technology to solve the problems we face, our priorities always lie elsewhere. Fighting evil is so much more exciting.
-e
1:59:14 PM 
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