Stumbling through the heat

Just a few weeks ago I moved from Memphis to New York. I had hoped that by moving north, I would avoid the heat. Though one of my good friends warned me that NYC was just as hot as the southeast, I wasn't prepared.

I'm not alone. People all along the east coast are suffering, as they are in Russia where temperatures have cracked triple digits and where hundreds of people have drowned swimming drunk to escape the temperature. While American and Russian citizens stumble through the heat, our politicians do the same, just recently scrapping plans for an energy bill that would have put a price on carbon emissions and invested federal $ in alternative energy. The heat in DC is apparently playing games with their brains.

I'm beginning to wonder if the White House and Capitol Building are actually going to start melting before our legislators are stirred from their stupor. You'd think a heat wave in their city and the world's worst environmental disaster would make politicians began to question mother nature's health and our addiction to sticky, black fossil fuels. Perhaps though, you'd only arrive at that conclusion if you lived somewhere where the triple degree temperatures hadn't fried your cerebral cortex. I hope Santa brings all of our brave legislators the lumps of coal that they're fighting so dearly to protect.

Just a few days ago, I celebrated the prospects of an energy bill. Now, I'm lamenting the short-sightedness of our politicians and the apathy of a public who cares more about a concocted deficit crisis than a real environmental/economic one.