Donkey Balloons and Cassandra

As it turns out, we may have gone to the Anne Arundel County Fair on "Republican Appreciation Night" or something. After I emailed my sad experience to the rest of my MoveOn group, one of the women wrote back saying, "I was at the fair Friday evening from 4-7. Everybody had Dem balloons. We gave out oodles and oodles. We replaced lost balloons and every kid, even the ones in strollers, had a Dem balloon -we must have easily outballooned the Republicans 50 - 1. We had myriad people sporting Dem stickers...We also had a woman change her registration to Dem from Rep while I was there...We may have been too generous with balloons!" Ok, so now we know where all the donkey balloons went.

Speaking of where balloons go, I noticed last week that Trader Joes gives out balloons that are biodegradable. Amazing. I love that store.

I also read a great article from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer called "We Can't Say We Weren't Warned." http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0921-25.htm It makes the point that Katrina shows how we have neglected environmental concerns for too long. Here is an excerpt:

On this larger issue, the science is perfectly clear. We are dangerously degrading our biosphere, and for decades policy-makers have been warned of the dire consequences of ignoring this systemic environmental decline. As with New Orleans, we are all living on borrowed time. We are rapidly approaching a planetary tipping-point from which there will likely be no recovery. But just as with Katrina, governments have ignored warnings of global ecological collapse as well. How much longer can we afford such shortsighted, selfish ignorance?

In Greek mythology, Cassandra was bestowed the power to foretell the future but no one would believe her. She warned of a Trojan Horse, to no avail. The rest, as they say, is history.

Will we as a society learn from this perfect storm, reaffirm our "respect for nature" and attend to our deteriorating planetary life-support systems before it's too late, or not?

When will we ever learn?