Monday, January 11, 2010

Midnight Sun- a Twilight Zone Analysis

OK, so I'm brining to the table a "no duh" revelation. It's the sort that's similar to the old joke of building a wall between Mexico and the U.S. to keep illegals from coming in, "Yeah, but who do you think is going to build the wall?". Yuk yuk.

So, it's dang cold out there. Orange juice crops in Florida are on the brink of devastation, the rest of the South is seeing the rare snowfall. Record snow is falling in South Korea and China, and Europe sees no end to the cold snap (of course all of this is as of January 11th, so I'm sure things will improve soon).

But since it's the hot topic, the subject of global warming is what I'm thinking about. Yes I know it's not about seasonal extremes- heck I live in Arizona where it's routinely 115+ in the summer and I had to run barefoot in my skiivies today to get the newspaper (barefoot of course). But with more attention to Climategate, and the seeming disappearance of Al Gore, you've got to wonder what the heck is going on.

No real commentary besides my opinion that the Al Gore/Ted Danson camp is wrong. No, not wrong about the world needing to change its habits for our future, but wrong about the impact of human polution and activity. We're more likely to end up like Wall-E earth than Waterworld and the fact that my town voted AGAINST curbside recycling made my stomach turn (but that's an entirely different topic).




So for the uninitiated, I bring you the third part (can't find the complete episode uncut, but the first two clips are available on youtube) a classic from almost 50 years ago- a Twilight Zone episode I remembered watchin with my dad in the 70's. The plot is simple- the earth has been knocked off its orbit and is moving closer to the sun. People move to colder regions, but some loyal city folks stay behind- and suffer the consequences as the rising temperatures either kill them or drive them insane. When the heroine passes out the scene cuts to reality- it was all a dream... and the reality is actually the opposite of what the dream was. Compelling.

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