THE GIANT ICEBERG

The iceberg that was seen November 9th, terrified people in Australia. According to TV news, it was the size of seven football fields, and floating toward Melbourne.

The Guardian. Co.Uk., end of November, said, "Rare iceberg flotilla in southern Pacific poses threat to shipping."

World News (Associated Press) reported, "The giant iceberg seen off Macquarie Island halfway between Antarctica and Australia -- measures some 2,300 feet long with an estimated depth of more than 1,000 feet."

It was a month before Christmas. Aside from rushing around, shopping and buying, we were worried about the economy, Obama, Health Care, angry Republicans, Democrats, and Tea Partiers, and concerned with what to wear at the holiday parties we were planning to attend.

After New Year's there was the usual flurry of decisions that one has to make about one's own life. There was a gathering in Copenhagen, where urgent, important environmental issues were being discussed -- not solved -- blamed on aspects of global warming, and buried in headlines about storms, floods, earthquakes, scandals, and the up-and-coming Olympics.

Boom! In February, the giant iceberg was back in the headlines.

"An iceberg the size of Luxembourg split off from Antarctica and could disrupt global ocean patterns and weather systems for decades," according to scientists cited in The Times of London on a Saturday.

(In early November I'd seen the scary "2012" movie trailer. But the movie didn't get people shivering, frightened, writing their congress person, or emailing the President, or sending money to Al Gore.)

Does this iceberg prove what Gore has been saying? Is there one iceberg or two? Where is this monster island of ice right now? Did the iceberg cause the huge storm last week, or the winter snow they're predicting for end of next week?

Since early March, aside from this item, there has been no other new news: “The ice tongue was almost broken already. It was hanging like a loose tooth,” said Benoit Legresy, of the Laboratory for Geophysics and Oceanographic Research in Toulouse, France.

Why aren't we talking about this every day? How far is the iceberg from us here, in New York City?

Are we avoiding the problem because it's too frightening -- because we're dealing with death every day --Jihad, terrorism, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, and Haitians dying, plus the usual murder-death-violence on our streets -- all this while we're looking in the mirror and seeing ourselves growing older -- hearing about how to live longer while noticing one more thing about the body or the brain that isn't working as well as it did yesterday, or last year?

I think we simply are not able to deal with icebergs. We can barely deal with Al Gore's truths. I think it's a fact of life -- at least the "good life" in America -- we can't handle the idea that we -- you, and I -- are racing to the end of our time on the earth.

So, we turn off the lights. We, don't waste water, paper, rubber, tin, plastic or ... whatever... We'll sign a paper and give money, and give yeses to anybody or anything that's affecting the global ... whatever ...

Hey, the small things add up and help us help each other and that is a way of keeping the world going.

Sometimes all you can do is the best that you can do.