From on high, the whole world looks wet
My new resolution is to cease looking outside and wishing that the rain would go away. I don’t really want that to happen. Today has been a parade of efforts to remind me about how important that rain is.
I’m fortunate to live in a part of the world that has an embarrassment of riches. Each morning, as my bus takes a run alongside one of the world’s mighty rivers, I subconsciously note that if I’m thirsty, I can ask the bus driver to pull over while I take a sip. Cool, clean water. Believe me, it’s not a universal.
Early this morning (while I was on that bus), NASA crashed a research satellite into the moon, in an effort to find water. Huge efforts for what seems so trivial in this part of the world. This evening, Guy Laliberté took to the podium (actually, the International Space Station) and coordinated a concert of world level quality. All to remind us that water is precious, rare, essential to life here on Earth.
The concert left me bemused. Amidst the efforts of first class performers, companies like GM and Hydro-Québec managed to sneak in commercial announcements that only accented how trivial they would be in a world without water. The television event took us around the world in 120 minutes, without slaking our thirst for more, more, more. We watched U2, Joss Stone, dancers from the Bolshoi, trapeze and trampoline artists from Guy’s own Cirque du Soleil and more (more, more). The image that best captured the show was a man swimming with an elephant. Surreal.
The announcement that Barack Obama had won the Nobel Peace prize seemed tiny, in comparison.
