Once America flaunted the atomic bomb and also the space rocket as power signs and symbols of cultural imperialism. Now in the enlightened age of Obama, America’s great ability to invent the next biggest thing which makes America look smarter, is centered on conservationalist, energy reducing, architectural and scientific prowess.
In architectural news that resembles more what a nation like Dubai would come up with, rather than Texans themselves, are reports, that scientists believe that a gigantic dome that covers the entire city of Houston, should be built to save the city’s disproportionate electricity consumption.
Houston is the 4th largest city in the US, but it uses more electricity than Los Angeles. This is primarily due to the fact that Houston has both scorching and humid variable heat, and the city’s sanity depends on constant air conditioning to run the city.
My thoughts are… is it going just a wee bit far, to create America’s first domed city? Or is the idea just yet another white elephant to devote hours of TV talk show and political talk time to, when people in Chad and Darfur are in a homeless, displaced, and starving state, in the same temperature climates as Houston but without any air conditioning at all. For the people of Durfar, to be relocated to Houston in its current state would be a dream.
All I’m saying is, that like the atomic and nuclear bomb, that makes people who possess it feel a tad bit more smug than other nations who don’t possess it… yet their very existence, creation and possession in the first place is one of the most stupidest things for the well being of the planet ever (history’s hindsight always revealing this to us later)… isn’t this Houston super dome idea, needing a bit of balance, also?
To go onto a sight like this one, that says: “Houston is in peril. The country’s fourth most populous city faces heat, hurricanes and other natural disasters” as the websites basis for existing on the internet, is to perhaps miss the point.
What if Houston was a metaphor for humanity in Africa? And as American citizens the nation of America was able to look outside a domed ideological bubble and see that Houston’s “problems” as a city, are the closest we know to what many lesser fortunate people on the planet are facing. Therein lies, the message.
What if, all the problems that Houston represents, is America’s call to act in the wider world, and use American resources to somehow make life better for Houston’s global cousins, displaced African people, disowned by the earth’s harsh and changing climates of global warming, that all of us in Western countries are also responsible for helping to create, such displaced people on the earth.
What if Houston is the flip side of the humanitarian coin for Darfur and regions of Africa severely hit by drought to the point of no return? Shouldn’t we then, try and help Darfur and Africa, rather than spending billions on trying to wrap Houston up in a big bubble. Or is the Houston dome really providing the ideal prototype of what can be done to help save African countries too, in African regions by building dome-like cities on harsher hit African terrain than Houston.
My point is… who really wants to talk about something ad infinitum, that turns out to be as ridiculous as the dome over Springfield in The Simpson Movie?
Come on America, let’s not outdo ourselves again, but let’s try and find a right balance on domes in general, analyze their purpose and priority in the world… and let’s go back to the drawing board on this one with a healthy sense of perspective.
It makes my spirit want to say… “Houston, we have a problem… The people of Africa are dying.” That’s it. That’s our problem. Africa helped gift us our American president. Let’s not miss the point and let’s be mindful of that.
Cultural imperialism makes us blind to the present. The sins of our forefathers, including our recent past president, are living monuments of hope (not despair) that a cultural imperialistic view, without thought to our neighbors on this one planet, ultimately leads us all to further poverty.
“Houston, we have a problem,” my spirit cries again. Help us see, outside the bubble of cultural imperialism, which blinds us to the wider world’s problems. To self-protect ourselves in a bubble of privileged denial and luxury and comfort, is not the meaning and spirit of liberty. To be a nation of liberty and the land of the brave, is to go outside our own bubble and truly touch the world.
Africa is America, America is Africa… now.
That’s Houston’s message, as an American metaphor and beacon of humanitarianism standing tall in America amidst harsh and extreme conditions of nature’s natural forces… to us all.
