Paris IS Burning

The current unrest in France is ominous. It could have happened, surely, in any of those European countries with huge immigrant populations rife with anger, a sense of injustice, and a perception of racial and religious discrimination. As I see it, the situation results in part from global overpopulation, in part from the heritage of colonialism, in part from the growing discrepancy between the rich, developed countries and the poor, undeveloped ones. It's a vexing problem, with no easy or obvious solutions. On the one hand, there seems to be no just or effective way to halt the global population shift; on the other, immigration brings its own problems, the results of which are exploding in France today.

As to the future, it's anyone's guess as to how all this turns out. What will the world and its people look like fifty, a hundred years from now. If it survives the greed and the needs of its most voracious species. For our part, as humans, we have to finally recognize that we cannot continue to expand our demands on the Earth with impunity, that we must learn to control both the sheer numerical growth of our species and the ways in which we use the resources at our disposal and share them with the needs of our fellow-travelers on this planet.

That's my brief wisdom for the day, Bush. Now to get some more of those boxes unpacked!