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The most horrible thing of all about the Japanese earthquake disaster is the thought you cannot banish from your mind as you look at the pictures of total destruction - that this is what the day after a nuclear war must look like. Could there be any crueller irony?
For the first time since 9/11 news pictures reduce me to tears and it's hard to focus on anything else. There's also the sense, which has been building through the last few weeks of dramatic news from Libya and Egypt, that a turning point in history may have been reached. As I gaze, open-mouthed and sobered, at the tottering piles of shiny Honda cars, commuters walking along deserted railway tracks in one of the most technologically advanced cities on Earth, and the sheets of flame from oil refineries, as I read about the Earth being literally rocked on its axis and the entire country of Japan being moved several centimetres, I wonder if this is when it finally sinks in that our attitude to oil is unsustainable and toxic to mankind?
Events in Libya have exposed the terrible consequences of Western powers tacitly supporting morally corrupt regimes to protect their access to oil reserves. Petrol prices are already going supernova, it seems, putting immense pressure on many hard-pressed families. And now we see as we look at Japan how thin the crust of technological civilization really is, how easily we are reduced to scrabbling for the essentials of life.
It's been a funny old time in my personal life, and that's possibly prompting these reflections. We're having our kitchen ripped out, having to manage with only intermittent supplies of things we take for granted most of the time - electricity, gas, mains water. Our daily routines have been completely disrupted and we've had to make decisions about which 10% or so of food and basic cooking equipment to keep accessible. It's nothing to the suffering in Japan or Libya, of course. But it's enough to make me take stock, as I pack up box after box of baking tins, cookery books, little paper cupcake cases and all the other things it seemed necessary, or at least desirable, to buy at some point. Making a meal right now is a matter of a few simple choices - what can you bung in a microwave, what involves the least amount of washing up?
It sounds very stressful, and sometimes it is. But the funny thing is, I've done jobs in the last few days that I'd previously put off for weeks. I've actually been more productive than usual. And more relaxed. The clutter, the over-abundance of choices, was actually stressing me out more than the domestic chaos we're living through at the moment. It seems like a very Lenten experience and I hope that when it ends, and we have our shiny, lovely kitchen back, we don't forget about those who have lost everything.
Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are,
That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,
How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides,
Your loop'd and window'd raggedness, defend you
From seasons such as these? O, I have taken too little care of this!
Take physic, pomp...
And thank God that![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
honorh is safe!
For the first time since 9/11 news pictures reduce me to tears and it's hard to focus on anything else. There's also the sense, which has been building through the last few weeks of dramatic news from Libya and Egypt, that a turning point in history may have been reached. As I gaze, open-mouthed and sobered, at the tottering piles of shiny Honda cars, commuters walking along deserted railway tracks in one of the most technologically advanced cities on Earth, and the sheets of flame from oil refineries, as I read about the Earth being literally rocked on its axis and the entire country of Japan being moved several centimetres, I wonder if this is when it finally sinks in that our attitude to oil is unsustainable and toxic to mankind?
Events in Libya have exposed the terrible consequences of Western powers tacitly supporting morally corrupt regimes to protect their access to oil reserves. Petrol prices are already going supernova, it seems, putting immense pressure on many hard-pressed families. And now we see as we look at Japan how thin the crust of technological civilization really is, how easily we are reduced to scrabbling for the essentials of life.
It's been a funny old time in my personal life, and that's possibly prompting these reflections. We're having our kitchen ripped out, having to manage with only intermittent supplies of things we take for granted most of the time - electricity, gas, mains water. Our daily routines have been completely disrupted and we've had to make decisions about which 10% or so of food and basic cooking equipment to keep accessible. It's nothing to the suffering in Japan or Libya, of course. But it's enough to make me take stock, as I pack up box after box of baking tins, cookery books, little paper cupcake cases and all the other things it seemed necessary, or at least desirable, to buy at some point. Making a meal right now is a matter of a few simple choices - what can you bung in a microwave, what involves the least amount of washing up?
It sounds very stressful, and sometimes it is. But the funny thing is, I've done jobs in the last few days that I'd previously put off for weeks. I've actually been more productive than usual. And more relaxed. The clutter, the over-abundance of choices, was actually stressing me out more than the domestic chaos we're living through at the moment. It seems like a very Lenten experience and I hope that when it ends, and we have our shiny, lovely kitchen back, we don't forget about those who have lost everything.
Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are,
That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,
How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides,
Your loop'd and window'd raggedness, defend you
From seasons such as these? O, I have taken too little care of this!
Take physic, pomp...
And thank God that
honorh is safe!
