Not waving but drowning

 

NASA is about to to embark on its "Beacon In the Galaxy" program, sending this depiction of two earthoids into space as an invitation to visit earth.  They are waving to convey friendliness.  No way that could be misinterpreted.  The message will include "information on the biochemical composition of life on earth, the Solar System's time-stamped position in the Milky Way relative to known globular clusters, as well as digitized depictions of the Solar System and Earth's surface."   That should enable any reasonably advanced life-forms to draw down on us like intergalactic snipers.  Thanks, NASA.

No, really.  It's time to put this chunk of rock out of its misery.  

 

 NASA might want to include this picture of a man walking across a riverbed in New Delhi.  A prolonged heat wave in India and Pakistan has caused shortages of water and electricity and massive crop losses for over a billion people.  Ironically, many could drown if glaciers in the north melt.  Nazeer Ahmed of Turbat, Pakistan, was blunt:  "We are living in hell."

Iraq is used to sandstorms but not like this:  hundreds have been hospitalized by five in the last month, exacerbated by (all together now) "record-low rainfall, desertification and climate change."  The fertile crescent is no more.

The dead crops of India will exacerbate food shortages caused by the war in Ukraine, where Europe's breadbasket was emptied by murderous Russian aggression.  Not only is spring sowing affected but the country has thirteen million tons of corn and 3.8 million tons of wheat it cannot export by sea.  Men are fighting, so women and children are working in the fields.  In the cities, people queue for groceries and bottled water or depend on agencies like World Central Kitchen.  

Lest we forget, the plague continues.  Yesterday saw the death of the millionth covid victim in the US, certainly a low figure because many nursing home deaths were uncounted at the beginning.  Special thanks to Ron DeSantis, Rand Paul, Mehmet Oz, Greg Abbott, Ron Johnson, Fox News and all the other hacks, quacks and shitsacks who worked tirelessly to make sure the novel coronavirus would have the right to live and mutate -- next up, the "very contagious" BA.2.12.1 variant.  NASA had better tell our space friends to hurry.

Of course, middle-class Americans won't go hungry; they'll just gripe about how much Joe Biden is charging for milk and ground beef.  So far (it's only May) the wildfires have affected New Mexico and Arizona.  Unless you live in their path you can keep pretending somebody will do something to stop global warming next year or the year after.  Dial up the AC and follow the riveting case of Heard v. Depp.  Or is it Depp v. Heard?  Will it eventually reach the Supreme Court?  Does Sammy the Bull have a draft opinion ready?

To sum up:  Yeah, we did some great poetry, mu shu pork, Beethoven's late quartets and Buster Keaton, but I think we've reached the end.  Do Not Resuscitate.  Thank you and good night.