Chicken Little Was Right

The Monday Minute
Quilts ~ Inspiration ~ Lifestyle ~ with Nancy Kirk

January 28, 2008

WHERE'S CHICKEN LITTLE NOW THAT WE NEED HER? The headlines in this weekend's paper proved that Chicken Little was right - the sky is falling - literally. Somewhere up there is a spy satellite about the size of a city bus which isn't working any more. And it's about to fall - on us. Or so we are led to believe. Apparently it's one of thousands of non-working pieces of space garbage orbiting around the planet. And at some point, Isaac Newton's Law of Gravity is going to come into play, and all the garbage is going to come home to where it started -- here. We have created garbage for thousands of years without giving much thought to what we were going to do with it. We've always had lots of land around where we could bury our garbage, even if it was full of awful stuff like chemicals, medical waste, or radioactive parts. We figured if we just buried it somewhere without many people it would be out of sight, out of mind and all would be well. In recent years, there have been a lot more people around, and they have moved into many of the formerly wide open spaces. And these people who live "out there" don't want our garbage in their back yards any more than we do. And now it's falling out of the sky, and it could land in just about anyone's back yard. I know there are some very smart people who are working on trying to make sure this bus sized satellite doesn't hit Omaha - or wherever you live either. I'm not sure exactly what they have in mind - it's a secret spy satellite so they aren't really telling anyone. The news does say they want to make sure it doesn't fall somewhere where it could end up in the wrong hands. Somehow I think we need to go back to the things we learned in pre-school and kindergarten - when you're done with your toys, pick them up and put them away. This assumes that the grown-ups in the room have created a shelf or toy box to use for the putting away portion of the day. So often we start things without thinking about how we are going to put them away at the end of the day. We usually start things with really good intentions. We start new projects without thinking about how they are going to end. We start quilts without planning a place to stash them in progress, and sometimes without a place to put them after they are done. We create medicines and save millions of lives, without thinking about where the unused pills will be buried and what happens when they dissolve into the water supply. We build computers and televisions and millions of electronic gadgets filled with toxic chemicals, heavy metals and even radioactive substances, and then when they become obsolete, wonder how we are going to dispose of them. We send hardware into outer space, but rarely with a foolproof plan for bringing them back to earth safely. Everything seems to be going green these days, which is a hopeful sign. Little kids are learning about protecting the environment in kindergarten these days, so learning to pick up our toys at the end of the day may have a whole new meaning for the kids coming up. I hope so. I want Chicken Little to be a silly, old hen who is worrying about absolutely nothing. I don't want the sky to fall, in my neighborhood or anyone else's neighborhood. I want all the smart people in the world to decide that garbage collection and disposal is a really important issue. Not just the stuff they pick up from my house on Tuesday morning. But all the stuff we create without thinking about the consequences when we use it up, make something newer or figure out it wasn't a good idea in the first place. Give a cheer for the garbage collectors of the world. They will be some of the most important people in our future. This is Nancy Kirk with your Monday Minute.

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