“Inspiring Songs” #6: “What a Wonderful World”…
Note from Steve: Sometimes it happens that I’ll write an article that’s appropriate for both my blogs, this one and my political blog. That will usually mean the message contained therein goes beyond writing. I hope this short one resonates.
***
Okay, you’ve probably heard many renditions of this song, but Reuben and the Dark’s provides us with a different meaning of this classic. (Forget about the snippet heard on that Celebrity Cruise ad and listen to the entire version.) That Canadian group expresses almost a pantheistic love for Gaia, a primitive vision of the planet’s ecosystem that provides sustenance for all flora and fauna, including us. It’s wistful at the beginning, reminding us of how we’re damaging our only home’ but, after a glorious crescendo, becomes a celebration of how truly wonderful it is.
I’m sure that’s not what Celebrity sees in the song, but it might represent what Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) saw in his ten-minute view of Gaia from space, as many true astronauts have seen before from the International Space Station.
Thanks to the immoral Senator Manchin, champion of the fossil-fuel industries, evil will continue to be unleashed against Gaia. Hopefully he and others like him will have a special place in hell for all eternity. They deserve it. As long as such people walk this good Earth, the planet will never be safe!
It still is a wonderful world. We must vanquish the forces of evil and take care of it. That’s a moral obligation each and everyone of us has irrespective of religion or creed. Global warming, extreme weather events, and species extinction aren’t hoaxes. They’re warnings we haven’t heeded, and we and future generations will pay dearly if we continue to ignore the health of our planet.
***
Comments are always welcome.
Gaia and the Goliaths. This last novel (so far!) in the “Detectives Chen & Castilblanco” series is my only novel with an environmental theme. Russian and US fossil-fuel conglomerates are the villains, environmental activists are the victims, and Chen and Castilblanco’s homicide case that begins in NYC expands to involve a conspiracy of national and international proportions. This story also highlights much of the environmental debate currently going on and has the crime-fighting duo doing their best scrambling yet! Available wherever quality ebooks are sold.
Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!