LifeItself

Oh, brave Odysseus, son of Laertes! You were so beloved by the bright-eyed Athena and - after slaying the Suitors and resettling with your faithful wife, Penelope, - you were granted by Zeus a long peaceful life in your beloved Ithaca.  Home at last! Homer told us your dazzling story that might have taken place around 1200 B.C. Now fast forward 2500 years, and this how Dante Alighieri described meeting your Spirit burning in the Eighth Circle of Hell: Then of the antique flame the greater horn,   Murmuring, began to wave itself about   Even as a flame doth which the wind fatigues. Thereafterward, the summit to and fro   Moving as if it were the tongue that spake,   It ( Odysseus' Spirit, TWP ) uttered forth a voice,   and said: "When I From Circe had departed, who concealed me   More than a year there near unto Gaeta,   Or ever yet Aeneas named it so, Nor fondness ...

Almost every day on the way to campus I watch all kinds of monster trucks overtaking my small diesel engine-powered car.  The drivers look down at me with amusement and proudly roar from all of their 8 monster cylinders, spewing their monster exhaust fumes.  All these dinosaurs on wheels usually carry one person, who is not getting anywhere any faster than I do.  They do burn, however, four times more precious liquid hydrocarbons than I.  And herein lies the quintessential  U.S. infliction: blithe, mindless waste everywhere. Since this blog post will likely be used for all kinds of political spins from the left and right, here is my disclaimer: I am enthusiastic about most renewables (the giant-scale ethanol from any source and biodiesel fuel are excluded), and I would love to see a wiser use of much less energy in the U.S., as well as fewer people. Unfortunately, my fellow Americans - most notably politicians and journalists -  are rather oblivious...