From the Air

On the flight from Seattle to Detroit, there were two thoughts that I spent a lot of time with. The first was about the war in Iraq and the impact it has on people's life.

In Yachi and I's row there was a guy from some branch of the army. I am guessing he was in a special sort of unit because he had a beret and when I see a beret I think of green beret which makes me assume special. I was reading articles in the Washington Post about the war in Iraq. They were talking about the impact of the ISG report and how that would affect our progress on the war.

It was surreal reading about something that played such a large part in this guys life and I wanted to talk to this guy about his feelings on being a celebrity. I was not curious what his politics on the war were and to be honest I had / have not the right to ask him about his convictions. I was just really curious about seeing something that envelops your entire life be one of the main topics of discourse in America. It would have to be an interesting feeling.

Any ways I am doing a poor job of explaining this as it is really late and I think I lack the words to adequately express what I am thinking. Look at this pretty picture from the plane.


The other thought occurred to me when we flew into Phoenix. The way we build our civilization is fucked and backwards. All we try to do is increase our distance from one another. Seeing a city as big as Phoenix from the air really drives this point home.

There are a bunch of single family homes with as much distance as possible between one another and miles of concrete connecting them. This just is not a sustainable model and it saddens me to see this happening in the second fastest growing city in the US.

A large part of me cannot wait for the peak oil moment to occur. A city carved in the midst of a desert is a monument to hubris and this part of me would like to see the fall.

Enough ranting, I need to get some rest. One last picture from the sky.