An ill wind blows no good

“But you don’t realize, that’s where I sail!”
- Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass)

Lately, I’ve been enjoying peaceful, quiet lunches at work. I pay to have our local newspaper delivered to my home, and if I take it to our cafeteria, I wind up reading and re-reading the same sentence and still don’t know what I read. So, rather than sit with a half dozen people with whom I share no common interests, I prefer to use that time to widen my horizons and [egad] learn something.

Regularly, the Inquirer runs editorial essays by Froma Harrop. They are always insightful and interesting. The one they ran on Wednesday was particularly so. It concerned the ongoing battle over offshore wind farms in Nantucket Sound in Massachusetts, where Teddy says he sails.
I’m going to bypass all of the political wrangling that has gone on and the historical perspective that Froma brings to the debate. What I prefer to focus on is the short-sightedness of politicians and their lack of perspective, both of which work toward the same dead end.

Kennedy is 73 years old. He is closer to the end of his sailing days than the beginning. What he and many of his contemporaries fail to realize is that their time here is short by global standards. They see any invasion of their pristine environment as an inconvenience, when they should be more concerned with everyone’s pristine environment. They are so concerned with the quality of their life that they have forgotten that they are supposed to be concerned with more than their little world.

It’s sad that part of our society has become so power hungry and possession obsessed that they have lost sight of the big picture – and even sadder that it’s the part that makes the rules. Regardless of whether or not you buy into the global warming argument, it behooves each of us to take care of this beautiful world that we have been privileged to inherit, regardless of whether or not we own a sailboat.

In the big picture, we don’t give a damn where you sail, Ted, or what you can or cannot see when you look out the window of your too-big home. For the record, you’d have to squint and have a clear sky to be able to see the proposed wind farm from Nantucket. There's a map here and an article here that show the distance from Ted's boat and his proabably failing eyesight.

There is a wind farm just outside of Atlantic City, New Jersey [photo left] and every time I drive past it I think it’s a beautiful sight. I slow down a little so I can watch those huge turbine blades spinning. To me they say that we are smart enough to use something that is free to make something that people can use. We don’t have to drill a hole in the ground, go to war or pay a fee to make it, and if they decided to build one next door to my home, I’d chip in and help the groundbreaking. Maybe someday we’ll figure out how to use the Sun as profitably.

Fools like Ted Kennedy and the people who support him have lost sight of the big picture. Their little world is collapsing around them, and all the money in the world can’t repair a damaged Earth. Speaking of which, you don't think that there could be the old "follow the money" deal going on here, do you? [he asked sarcastically]

So Ted, as far as I’m concerned, you can go fly a kite. There’s plenty of wind in Nantucket for that, too.