The Post-Normal Times

I know you weren’t expecting a kind of Spanish Inquisition, on Halloween – but honestly, could there be a better day for rounding up heathens?

Jarring chord. The door flies open and Cardinal Ximinez of Spain enters, flanked by two junior cardinals. Cardinal Biggles has goggles pushed over his forehead. Cardinal Fang is just Cardinal Fang.

Ximinez Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition! Our chief weapon is surprise…surprise and fear…fear and surprise…. our two weapons are fear and surprise…and ruthless efficiency…. Our three weapons are fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency…and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope…. Our four…no… amongst our weapons…. amongst our weaponry…are such elements as fear, surprise…. I’ll come in again. (exit and exeunt)

Reg I didn’t expect a kind of Spanish Inquisition.

Jarring chord. They burst in….

Ximinez Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition! Amongst our weaponry are such diverse elements as fear, surprise, ruthless efficiency, and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope, and nice red uniforms – oh damn! (to Biggles) I can’t say it, you’ll have to say it….

… Biggles I know…I know! Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition. In fact, those who do expect…

Ximinez Our chief weapons are…

Biggles Our chief weapons are…um…er…

Ximinez Surprise.

Biggles Surprise and…

Ximinez Stop. Stop there! Stop there. Whew! Our chief weapon is surprise, blah, blah, blah, blah. Cardinal, read the charges.

Fang You are hereby charged that you did on diverse dates commit heresy against the Holy Church. My old man said follow the…

Biggles That’s enough. (to Lady Mountback) Now, how do you plead?

Lady Mountback We’re innocent.

Ximinez Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!

(From Monty Python, episode 15)

Unfortunately, it has an enduring legacy. And now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

In follow-up to the last post, I didn’t make it into the Capitol Rotunda last night because I was one of those at the East Entrance to the Capitol wildly cheering for the motorcade that brought Rosa Parks and her entourage in from the BWI airport. I then stood in the line to get into the Rotunda, for a few hours, somewhere between 2nd and 3rd streets, where it appeared that the line just went around 3rd Street. But then somebody noticed a gap in the line – a closer inspection revealed that the line snaked back and forth all the way around the Mall, i.e., to 7th Street and back! So we contented ourselves with having seen and greeted the motorcade. For DC area residents, motorcades of that size, that can be seen even in the distance, lighting up the night sky as they move through cleared city streets, only mean one thing – It’s the President… Not this time. Behind the fleet of motorcycles, instead of 3 limousines, there were three city buses. The first one was the 1957 bus that carried Rosa. The second two carried the entourage. Among the folks waving out from the bus, I only recognized Donna Brazile. But I was also trying to take pictures with an uncooperative camera. I doubt anyone has ever seen anything like it before, or will again. As Neddie says, now its up to the rest of us.

As an almost life-long Washington area resident, the first public event I remember participating in was standing in a very very very long line at the Capitol, with my entire family, to pay respects to President Kennedy, when he was lying in the Rotunda. All I knew at the time was that the world had changed forever. The passing of Rosa Parks makes me wonder, what might have been, had some other people, inspired by what she did, not had their lives so rudely cut short. If you are anywhere near the Washington DC area, you need to turn off your computer shortly, and go pay your respects to Rosa. She will be lying in the Capitol Rotunda this evening from 6:30 pm to midnight, and tomorrow morning, from 7 to 10 am. If you have children, take them with you. They will never forget it.

Quote of the day:

We do not know what is happening, and that is what is happening.

From the diary of Leonard Garment who, according to Murray Waas, “was an aide to Richard Nixon on Christmas Day, 1972, when James McCord was indicted for his role in the Watergate break-in [and who] was, in turn, quoting Jose Ortega y Gasset.

Murray also notes:

Even though everyone in Washington breathlessly awaits the grand jury, that’s won’t be an end… as so much a beginning of something much more important and vast. We will soon hear back from the grand jury, but that only raises more questions, taking the President and the nation into murky, uncharted waters. And once again, we will be left saying: “We do not know what is happening, and that is what is happening.”

I noted in one of the first posts on this blog, that we already entered into terra incognita, or Post-Normal Times, when changes in key greenhouse gas concentrations went beyond the range of variation known to have occurred over the past 400,000 years – longer than our species has been in existence. Science and other forms of intelligence are now more critical than ever for navigating these uncharted waters. But there is this oblivious elephant in the room….