I was up all last night and most of the night before, checking out various places around the state and their relative, which is to say their absolute elevations above sea level and comparing them, hoping to find a suitable place to relocate. I need to move soon — within the next year or so — as the Antarctic ice cap could slide off at any time, not to mention the possibility of Greenland producing such a profusion of freshwater that sea levels would rise precipitously and catastrophically…

 

What am I talking about? Global warming and one of the most predictable consequences of climate change…. The scenario, as I foresee it, is this (and keep in mind that I am being utterly selfish, thinking of no one but myself here, no one but me and my own small circle of family and friends…): I live in the Connecticut Valley, inland it is true, but at sea level with nothing between us, nothing literally between my building  and the ocean  but the valley floor. If and when the ocean level rises there is nothing that will stop the water from simply flowing right on up the valley. It will not even need to climb a slope as, according to Google Earth, this building is literally only 10 meters above sea level. Even if there is some ground higher than that in between, the water will simply find a route around the high points, making islands of it, and continue flooding wherever else it reaches.

 

Why am I making such a big deal of this? After all, I’m 56, I’m practically elderly. I should think of the younger ones who…But I admit it, my biggest fear in the world is drowning, and I cannot / will not sit around and wait for that to happen, no, I must do something to prevent such a fate now, while I still can. According to Google Earth, even my twin sister is on relatively high ground  – 600 feet – compared to me, even though she is closer to the shore and further south. Nevertheless, she has not put out an invitation, even when I pointed out the disparities of  our elevations. My younger sister, too, resides in the Valley, but she is farther north, in Massachusetts, and at 66 feet is somewhat higher in elevation. However, just a couple of miles out of town, the area not far from her is 300 meters above sea level, so she can get out of Dodge easily when the floods come. I wish she  would move so she wouldn’t be in harm’s way at all. I simply know that she will not listen to me if I bring it up so it is useless to try to get her to prepare. In the meantime, since I cannot count on my twin or any family member or friend to take me in, I must try to find an apartment on my own. I must  get myself to a new town — which one?– somewhere in the northwest hills, where the elevations are the highest and pray that the worst of the worst scenarios does not happen. 

 

Yet I know it will, and I cannot bear to think of the hundreds of millions, possible a billion people who live along the world’s coastlines who will also be in danger when the flooding starts. My concerns are neither more nor less serious than any of theirs, only more conscious. It could be better not to be so aware of what is to come: ignorance of the inevitable  must surely be less painful than the agony of knowing a devastating future without any ability to change it.

 

When I contemplate the certainty of mass panic, the evacuation and stampede inland, the fruitlessness of it all, my heart pounds with a horrible anxiety, being unable to bear thinking about so many people suffering…It is then that I wish to be dead myself, wish to have it all be over. I  myself have nothing to offer those suffering millions upon millions, though god knows I would if I could. If I myself cannot save them or help them, I cannot bear to witness the end of the world either. No, I would rather not be there for it. If a billion are going to die, then let me die before they do! I do not want to be left behind in such a world–

 

—————————————————————-

 

Someone ought to do a film on American prisons and the making of a “violent criminal”– from his/her start in the State system of juvenile care (foster, psychiatric and otherwise) to juvy to the vicious cycle of imprisonment and abuse in the so-called “correctional system” until institutionalization and/or brutal three strikes laws make it permanent…Those who somehow think that most violent convicts freely choose to become violent are fooling themselves or are willfully ignorant: the prison system creates violent criminals, period.

 

 Abu Ghraib did not arise de novo, out of some new bizarre impulse from “rogue military elements”. No, we exported U.S. prison guards to Iraq who knew the tricks of the trade because they already used them in American prisons. Yes, the hoods, the dog leashes, the humiliating nakedness and don’t forget the torture — all are regularly practiced, with impunity, in American prisons. Yes, even President Barack Obama still exempts as legal and reasonable, the use of torture in prisons and during the punishment of prisoners.  

 

In fact, the Geneva conventions read as follows: Article 1

 

For the purposes of this Convention, torture means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.

 

So even the Geneva Conventions agrees that while torture consists of inflicting severe pain on a person by official instigation or consent,  it seems to be allowed in the case of prisoners….EXCUSE ME? Prison guards can beat a manacled naked prisoner senseless and leave him in the “hole” for weeks, even months, no one saying a word about it, and it is fine with President Obama and fine with the Geneva Conventions? Well, I don’t think it is FINE at all. Especially not when the so-called resistant prisoner happens to have mental illness and is in “seg” because of it. Especially not when the prisoner is an 18 year old who just graduated from juvy, where he was sent after having spent years being shunted from one abusive “home” to another, molested in one and raped in another…and where he was not, beaten until he ran away and was sent to reform school. Now, in the Big House for armed robbery, is it any wonder he is both scared out of his wits and violent?