One Flood After Another

I was going for effect, with the headline of the Jersey City Reporter in the foreground and a raindrop speckled window as the background but the window faces the street and only the black asphalt came through and the raindrops look more like glitter. I fiddled with it some using my very weak photoshop skills, and turning the image into black and white didn’t make it any worse and besides, paper newspapers are so retro. I write about weather a lot here. One reason is that many posts consist of me taking a picture than thinking of some comment or diatribe or whatever to post along with it. When you walk around and take pictures you think a lot about the weather. You are outside a lot. But the other reason is that the weather is no longer like it used to be, and that’s the Inconvenient Truth of it all. About a century and a half of the industrial revolution poisoning the world’s ecosystem and resulted in the destruction of the climate. Beginning with Ronald Reagan and more recently with the eight year-disgrace and horror of G.W.B., our nation’s infrastructure has fallen into disrepair because our wealth has been used to make the wealthy wealthier and turn America into a two tier society. Unfortunately, our decrepit infrastructure can no longer withstand the severe climate changes caused by our pollution. The Jersey City Reporter is a weekly newspaper and they do a pretty good job too. But being a weekly, reporting on weather usually falls outside the scope of their news focus, except for week before last, when severe rainstorms caused flooding in many Jersey City homes, especially in the downtown neighborhood. The weather event was so bad even a weekly had to report on the devestation. A buddy of mine told me about his basement flooding. Most of New Jersey—above Perth Amboy at least—is a swampland and flooded basements are renowned in our submerged Garden State. Hudson County and Jersey City have so far been spared. Our dry times are over. Two days after this newspaper headline appeared, flood warnings were again issued for another day and a half of downpour. The curb lagoons in our streets have been so deep and wide. I was hoping the black and white would underscore the irony. I was hoping highlighting irony would bring out the humor in the situation. Then again, I’m not invested in a basement.