honey and sting

Heard a story once, from a man named Al Bauman. He said, in World War I, the Germans invaded France at a certain place and from a certain direction. After the war, it was determined that never again would the French have this vulnerability. The Maginot Line was built, a series of concrete fortifications with gun mounts permanently fixed in the direction the Germans had come. When World War II came, the Germans invaded again. This time they flew overhead in airplanes. The guns were useless. The moral of the story, Al said, was that defenses are always built to defend against the previous war.

I'm all for investigations to find out what went wrong in the response to Katrina. I'm even MORE interested in what is needed, however, to go right in the next crisis. Countless recommendations about the need to rebuild wetlands and evaluate levees were ignored. I'd like to know *what other warnings are currently being ignored* and that need tending to.

Are shipping containers, railways, and other means of transportation anywhere near the proper levels of inspection yet, for either terrorist or accidental threats (such as rail accidents involving toxic materials)?

What is the evacuation plan for San Francisco or Los Angeles in the event of a major earthquake? Coastal areas in the event of a Pacific or Atlantic tsunami?

More fundamentally, what is the shift of consciousness that is needed to be able to face known threats, and have the flexibility and wherewithal to address unknown ones as they arise? Can we finally begin to live as if we know we are sharing a planet, which, contrary to the apparent core belief of modern civilization, does NOT have an infinite capacity to absorb our toxic, wasteful, and neglectful treatment of it?

Until we can say, without sentimentality, of all of us, "there are my brothers, these are my sisters," I'm afraid all of our plans will be like the Maginot Line. We need intelligent imagination, we need honesty, we need love. Whether centered in the heart of compassion, or the cool, objective appraisal of the mind -- it's time to wake up. Life is very, very precarious, and the planet is not a rock, but a living, dynamic environment both responsive to the human presense (as in global warming) and having rhythms and dances all its own (the shifting of the magnetic poles, the ice ages, its vulnerability to cosmic accidents such as a major meteor hit).

I once had a dream that the house was on fire. I got my mother, who was sleeping, out of the house, then stood on the threshhold and looked to see what one thing I could save. I heard a voice ask, "what do you save when the house is on fire?", and another answer, "nothing but yourself."

Folks, the house is on fire. It's ourselves we need so save. How are we going to do it?

with anger, fury, sadness, and love,

Devo