Deep but random thoughts

Time to play catch up: First, let me hearken on back to that column about hurricane names. In reading it, I was horrified, even mortified, to see that I had forgotten the best name of all for a male storm in the ‘U’ category, and that would be Ulysses. I mean, nobody is gonna ever name a hurricane Ulrick or Upyseus, but Ulysses is one totally dandy name for a big, wet, pissy ’cane.

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I’m sure George Bush would like to be seen, when all is said and done, as the Alan Ladd character in Shane, the good guy in the white hat who wipes out the terrorist (played with very black hat by Jack Palance) and makes the town safe for all the decent folks again. Unfortunately for Dub, his current performance doesn’t remind one of Shane so much as it does the character created by Larry Storch on F Troop, the slaphappy Corporal Agarn. Right now, it’s very easy to imagine Bush in a classic Agarn mode, slowly raising his head over the rim of a burned-out covered wagon, checking out the scene with about six arrows piercing his hat.

And while it’s more fun than a barrel of Astro-glide to see Bush’s approval ratings sink lower than Saw 2’s chances to win Best Picture, one should remember that low approval ratings don’t mean dogdoo to a fan belt if the American people just keep mutton-headedly re-electing these pirates to run the show. Ultimately, that’s who has to answer for this big, fat basket of snakes—the American people. We’re the ones who keep putting these ding-dongs in the belfry.

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This column has always been super gung-ho on the Big Picture concept of Nevada developing a leading and powerful position in the creation of wind farms, solar farms, geothermal farms, and whatever farms that would be an intelligent response to the increasingly turbulent international petro-energy picture. Why not? Why not go for it with gusto, and see what can be done?

If you share my enthusiasm for such endeavors, I encourage you to support an organization called the Nevada Clean Energy Coalition. It wants to do two things above all else: (1) Get the coal-burning power plant proposed for the Gerlach area put on ice, and then (2) get a major renewable energy-generating project built instead. There is no better time for this stuff to be put in front of the public and decision-makers, so what the hell, let’s get started. Again, why not, and why not now? nevadacleanenergy.org.

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Last week, this paper’s StreetTalk asked, “What’s your favorite quote?” If Dave Foto had asked me, I would have gone straight to Arthur C. Clarke: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

Reflect on that when you use your cell phone to call someone in Philadelphia … and send him a photograph.