This week’s essay of the week aggravates me and inspires me at the same time. It aggravates me because it takes a promising idea and does not do it justice. But it inspires me because it has gotten me thinking about why I don’t think this essay handles the subject properly and how I would do it differently.

And what is the subject of this aggregating and inspiring essay? Properly speaking it is death and the foundation of society. But in one the first ways in which the essay goes wrong the author of the essay (Joseph Bottum) elects to call the essay Death & Politics. He thus gives a rather mundane gloss to a serious issue.

Flaws aside, the inspiring aspects of this essay make it worth putting up with the aggravation that it contains.

Much of the US is operating under drought conditions as this story from USA Today demonstrates. This drought is afflicting parts of the country that are not use to prolonged dry spells. From the USA Today article…

This drought has been particularly harsh in three regions: the Southwest, the Southeast and northern Minnesota.

Severe dryness across California and Arizona has spread into 11 other Western states. On the Colorado River, the water supply for 30 million people in seven states and Mexico, the Lake Powell and Lake Mead reservoirs are only half full and unlikely to recover for years. In Los Angeles County, on track for a record dry year with 21% of normal rain downtown since last summer, fire officials are threatening to cancel Fourth of July fireworks if conditions worsen. On Wednesday, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa urged residents to voluntarily cut water use 10%, the city’s first such call since the 1990s.

In Minnesota, which is in its worst drought since 1976, the situation is improving slowly, although a wildfire last month burned dozens of houses and 115 square miles in the northeastern part of the state.

The Southeast, unaccustomed to prolonged dry spells, may be suffering the most. In eight states from Mississippi to the Carolinas and down through Florida, lakes are shrinking, crops are withering, well levels are falling and there are new limits on water use. “We need 40-50 inches of rainfall to get out of the drought,” says Carol Ann Wehle of the South Florida Water Management District.

Despite a recent storm, water hasn’t flowed in Florida’s Kissimmee River, which feeds Lake Okeechobee, in 212 days. The district has imposed its strictest water-use limits ever in 13 counties, cutting home watering to once a week and commercial use by 45%.

Of course, this is adding fuel to people’s global warming concerns. But to my mind, the really scary thing is how much worse this could get using only the historical record as a guide. As The Weather Guys point out in their blog….

But as bad as this drought is, it can’t hold a candle to the disastrous Dust Bowl of the 1930s. For example, in July 1934, an incredible 63 percent of the USA was considered to be severely to extremely dry, compared to just 18 percent this April, according to the National Climatic Data Center.

Just because we live in a traditionally wet area, does not mean we should assume that we are safe from really bad droughts. And I count the dry summers that we have suffered from in the past as being really bad droughts.

Most people don’t realize how many people risk their lives on a daily basis just so that people will not be inconvenienced. Electrical transmission capacity in the US is so tight that a lot of people would be seriously inconvenienced if lines were taken down for maintenance. That means some people have to work on high voltage lines while they are live.

This video gives you an idea of how they go about it.