Lawrence.com

To stop hurricanes and end hunger.

I'm not exactly sure how I feel about "manipulating" an entire ecosystem to fix the fact that we've already caused a change in said ecosystem, but like the article said, I guess this is Plan C. I suppose river diversions, building behind natural levees and rebuilding wetlands isn't quite as sexy, technologically speaking. (I bet Bill calls it his 3 1/2" floppy.) This seems to be the next giant leap in Army Corps way of thinking, that whole let's tame nature, control it until it bitchslaps us for our arrogance. The invasion has begun. If it's not the hairballs of the sea, it's the bullies of the deep.

And I suppose treating world hunger like just another commodity, ripe for speculation and the whims of that mysterious entity known as the Free-Market was bound to happen. Yes, let's engineer a system designed to help the few when the whole problem is that the few don't have enough in the first place. The simple fact that there IS enough food in the world might lead one to believe the problem is primarily with distribution, maybe gluttony if you're hell-bent and aiming to play fair. Again, not as sexy. What is sexy, is manufacturing a system open to grand fluctuations, profit margins, and geared towards hoarding, when hoarding is one of the key problems in the first place, not an overhauling of the status quo. Baby with the bathwater. UN World Food Programme, sponsored by Monsanto!

"What people are uncomfortable about is when you speculate about food," continued Roman, "something so fundamental to life. When you're speculating on something that is the essence of life, when you're speculating in that space--" and here she stopped. She gazed across the press-room and she frowned. "People don't like that," she said.

I can't imagine why.

Linkage to lighten, which surely, is where the comments will come from. I'm not down with just the flute guy, so if you agree, go to minute 4:07.