"The Seeds" - The Prequel
Last night, in between watching the Ottawa Senators lose to the Anaheim Ducks and reading "Up in the Air" by Walter Kirn, I flipped to a repeat of The Agenda - which was about something called the "Doomsday Vault".
Normally, I don't watch TV while I read, but I still held out a little hope that the Ottawa Senators would somehow, miraculously, become the better team and beat the Anaheim Ducks. No such luck last night, sadly. The better team definitely won that round.
So yeah - at least Ottawa fans can rest assured that the Senators didn't just choke, as everyone - including pretty much every Ottawa Senators' fan - is always accusing them of doing. Playing in the Stanley Cup final and losing games by one goal, winning by one goal, and finally losing by a couple of goals, being outmatched pretty much from the start - isn't choking. It's losing.
Yay! The Ottawa Senators didn't choke in the Stanley Cup Final! Yay!
Anyway, I knew they were going to lose so when I wasn't reading "Up in the Air" (and if Hollywood makes a movie called, "Up in the Air" and it's about a guy whose goal is to reach 1,000,000 air travel miles on the company dime while having to deal with all sort of intrusions on his attempt to achieve this goal before his boss returns from his golf trip and finds the guy's resignation letter on his desk and Walter Kirn isn't paid copyright - I think he should sue) I was listening to a guy who looked like Carrot Top's scientist brother talk about the "Doomsday Vault".
Wow. Talk about reason. I guess it's been a while because I was so overwhelmed by the sagacity of the venture, the human ingenuity of the enterprise, the noble serenity with which the project was being tackled - that I pumped my arm in the air and shouted to my viewing companion, "Dr. Fowler for Supreme Commander of the Planet!"
Think about it. While the most powerful country in the world has been, well, yaddayaddablahblah, Dr. Fowler and his kind have been busily gathering support for a vault in which all of humanity's seeds can be stored so that in the event of a disaster, replanting can be done. Of course, the Norwegians are mostly behind this - who else but a Scandinavian country would be so forward thinking, so pro-active as opposed to re-active, so humanist in its outlook.
Yup. They don't call us the New World for nothing, I guess. Unless...
But what was interesting, too, was the line of questioning our own Man of the Hour got around to - and I have to admit - I got there before he did - which was the standard old "us vs them" thing about the seeds falling into the wrong hands after a catastrophic event has occurred.
I can't say Dr. Fowler looked confused, exactly, or even exasperated - just somewhat taken aback. I figure that's because, unlike political people, Dr. Fowler doesn't think in terms of good guys and bad guys. He thinks in terms of humans. Some humans will be around to replant the seeds. It doesn't matter "which" humans to Dr. Fowler because he operates in the realm of humanity versus some sort of disaster that befalls humanity, destroying its plantlife, and the subsequent need for humanity to have some way of replanting for the future.
That got me to thinking about how propagandized we are to think in terms of good guys and bad guys - by our own good guys - even though we know fully well that there is no such thing as good guys and bad guys. I mean, who is this for, this made up divide amongst humans - that some whole groups are bad and some whole groups are good? Because, not to point the finger, but we think of "our" side as good but, Geez Louise, look at all the trouble we cause everybody else compared to the trouble everybody else causes us.
Better yet - don't look. It's pretty lopsided.
And, like, no offence U.S.A., but step off, eh. If we're going to have "good" and "bad" guys, I'm going with the Scandinavians for "good" and you guys for "up for grabs". Man, oh man. I bet Dr. Fowler'd be with me, too - and he's probably an American. 'Cause at least there are some people in the world who would want the seeds to go to SOMEBODY and not just be blown up by the good guys to prevent them from getting into the hands of the bad guys.
Oh... Hey... I just got a great idea for a movie! Except instead of the Americans fighting Terrorists for control over the Doomsday Vault after defeating the Russians in a nuclear war, Americans must team up with Terrorists in order to defeat MONSANTOCORP!, a group of mutated evil-doers who have survived on a secret genetically modified stash of "Korn Koronels" and have all sorts of Xtreme powers but do not believe in either God or Allah and instead worship Cockroach - their Superbug Ruler - who is 500 pounds of conscienceless greed.
Don't tell Dr. Fowler but he's already been cut from the script. I mean, c'mon. "Science, seeds, humanity, future" - it'll never sell. Good vs bad - that's where the money is.
