illustration by Walter Crane courtesy of wikipedia.org
Scientists have discovered a way to extract small electrical currents from humid air. They hadn’t meant to do it. A student failed to unplug one of their machines at the end of the day. The next morning, researchers found a spray of microscopic tubes, one-thousandth the diameter of a human hair, produced an electrical signal without power.
It’s a small unit, not capable of producing much energy. Nonetheless, the scientists were surprised, much like the shoemaker who woke up one morning to find Eleves had mended his customer’s shoes.
Miracles in the real world are scarcer than geese that lay golden eggs, but the scientists’ discovery set me to wonder if other forms of energy were possible. What about greed? We have an abundance of that. Rumpelstiltskin was powered by greed, but he ended badly. If Vladimir Putin had read that cautionary tale as a child, he might have been less eager to swallow Ukraine.
António Guterres, Secretary General of the United Nations knows about negative energy. Like Henny Penny, he keeps shouting, ” The sky is falling” concerning the war between Isreal and Hamas. Instead of being thanked for his pains, he’s charged with spreading bad news.
Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salman has stepped forward as a peacemaker in the crisis. Unfortunately, many see him as Foxy-Loxy–a man who makes peace by killing his opponents.
Hateful energy in the U. S. Legislature may do little for the common man but the media thrives on it. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R) is particularly popular with reporters. Like the Queen of Hearts in Lewis Carroll’s Allice in Wonderland, she often calls for a colleague’s beheading. But to be fair and to her credit, Greene insists that the bloodletting be done with decorum.
She’d never boo a journalist for asking a question as her colleagues have done. But I could be wrong. I’m not certain about the etiquette of scoundrels. Booing might be a form of praise. The Republican leader Don Trump is often abusive to others, even those in his party, yet they continue to follow him like the characters who followed the Simpleton in The Golden Goose.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D) seems to share Greene’s respect for decorum. He told Mike Johnson (R ) the newly elected RepublicanHouse Speaker that if disagreements arose between them, Jerries would not behave disagreeably. His remark reminds me of another great man who was a master at decorum.
During a heated debate in the House of Commons, Winston Churchill refrained from calling his opponent a liar. He accused the man of technological inexactitude instead. Jeffries is right to be guided by Churchill. But for how long and how far?
For example, Johnson insists that a woman’s right to control her body is tantamount to the holocaust. His opponent might consider that view a bridge too far. Finding a troll in his path, Jeffries might do better to heed the lesson in Three Billy Goats Gruff and decide to throw his weight around.
I don’t believe in magic, despite the lessons in fairytales, though scientists who pull electricity out of thin air seem to have managed it. If it did exist, I’d never trust it. Look what happened to Jack Spriggins when he planted a few magic beans.
Being old, I’m less confident than the legions of beauty queens who have hoped for World Peace in their competitions. Aware that negative energy exists, I hold out less hope for the planet than beauty queens. Even so, Congress’s Queen of Hearts may have a lesson for us all. The best we can wish for is a little decorum.
