Thursday, December 08, 2005

Time Waits for Snowman

This is the title of a skiing video I watched as a kid with my brother.

The weather has been weird this year, eh? I read a headline in Time this week that made me think of the movie The Day After Tomorrow.

One of my good friends in high school, Hamang Patel, was a conservative environmentalist. He was also my debate partner. He wrote an Original Oratory about the greenhouse effect that started, "The Great Plains have become a dustbowl." Funny how debate and forensics haven't changed much, despite the Internet and other technological advances. Kids still want to talk about the greenhouse effect, at least as an impact to some of the more interesting disadvantages out there, I hope. I haven't managed to get my kids too interested in policy debate like I used to do yet, though. Here's hoping that changes soon...

Speaking of hope, I hope for snow in Las Vegas. If I were writing an almanac, I'd predict it for next year, though, not this year, as in next December, not in January. It doesn't feel like the kind of year where we're going to get snow in Vegas. I'm hoping I'm wrong, though.

Good thing time only moves forward. I don't think we could handle jumping backwards and forwards in time very well if it were really possible. Did you know that Rip Van Winkle could be considered one of the first time travelers in literature? He sleeps for 20 years, then discovers that nothing has changed, despite the Revolutionary War. The story is radically conservative. There's a new twist on things. See my Stanford Prof. Jay Somethingorother to explain it all to you. He's definitely brilliant, but he had a habit of putting his foot way up on the desk while he was lecturing. Funny the things you remember.

1 comment:

Vicki R. said...

I definitely think it'll be snowing - probably sooner than usual too - everything about this year has been "off" weather-wise - (which my theory is the tsunami from last year) so I'm hoping for truckloads of the white stuff to come visiting us in January. :)

i have to admit, i would be one of those students who rarely, if ever, was interested in the greenhouse effect - science buff i am not.

but rip van winkle, i'd be more interested in reading about.

vic