If It Walks Like a Duck and Quacks Like a Duck
Your recent issue devoted to our mayor prematurely withdrawing himself due to lack of passion ("Life After Luken," issue of Aug. 11-17) has prompted these lame musings of mine.
"Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it." Everybody talks politics, and everybody does something about it. They vote, write letters to politicians, letters to editors, carry picket signs, bitch....
But weather and politics have something in common. They're good examples of complexity. Complexity recognizes the reality that, while humans can impinge upon it, humans cannot predict the result of their impingement beyond a short time span — five days tops in the case of weather, global warming being about climate and not weather.
What irks me is that meteorologists and climatologists know their limitations, while journalists continue to be delusional about their abilities as "rainmakers." And raining as a metaphor for politics always means flooding that causes devastation rather than refreshment.
There you have it, free of charge — the three degrees of separation between lame ducks, politics and weather suitable only for ducks.
