Quote from third Hank Rangar Novel K & I are working on
Kurt Vonnegut’s Fates Worse Than Death.
"Is there nothing about the United States of my youth, aside from youth itself, that I miss sorely now? There is one thing I miss so much that I can hardly stand it, which is freedom from the certain knowledge that human beings will very soon have made this moist, blue-green planet uninhabitable by human beings. There is no stopping us. We will continue to breed like rabbits. We will continue to engage in technological nincompoopery with hideous side effects unforeseen. We will make only token repairs on our cities now collapsing. We will not clean up much of the poisonous mess that we ourselves have made.
If flying-saucer creatures or angels or whatever were to come here in a hundred years, say, and find us gone like the dinosaurs, what might be a good message for humanity to leave for them, maybe carved in great big letters on a Grand Canyon wall?
WE PROBABLY COULD HAVE SAVED OURSELVES, BUT WERE TOO DAMNED LAZY TO TRY VERY HARD.
We might well add this:
AND TOO DAMN CHEAP.
So it's curtains not just for me as I grow old. It's curtains for everyone ..."
A judge actually quoted this when sentencing someone for an environmental crime
"Is there nothing about the United States of my youth, aside from youth itself, that I miss sorely now? There is one thing I miss so much that I can hardly stand it, which is freedom from the certain knowledge that human beings will very soon have made this moist, blue-green planet uninhabitable by human beings. There is no stopping us. We will continue to breed like rabbits. We will continue to engage in technological nincompoopery with hideous side effects unforeseen. We will make only token repairs on our cities now collapsing. We will not clean up much of the poisonous mess that we ourselves have made.
If flying-saucer creatures or angels or whatever were to come here in a hundred years, say, and find us gone like the dinosaurs, what might be a good message for humanity to leave for them, maybe carved in great big letters on a Grand Canyon wall?
WE PROBABLY COULD HAVE SAVED OURSELVES, BUT WERE TOO DAMNED LAZY TO TRY VERY HARD.
We might well add this:
AND TOO DAMN CHEAP.
So it's curtains not just for me as I grow old. It's curtains for everyone ..."
A judge actually quoted this when sentencing someone for an environmental crime
A judge without judgment... nonsense.
By the way: I am still waiting to hear about the prospects for the second novel in the series to be available in hard-copy... Any news?
Regards,
O.A.
Funny, people were saying that in the 60's, the 70's, the 80's - and life keeps getting better. Whoulda thunk? - I would have.
But, the real question is - how does this fit in the novel? Is it a state of fear style environmental activism through government plot? (BTW - talk about hotcakes now...).
IP, Gun Control, Climate Change... ? Is he going to end up tangling with Abigail again - who has gotten her head around 2nd amendment but can't believe that global warming is lukewarm? ... :-)
The quote is a good example of a position chosen for poetry and drama, and then intelligence is applied not to evaluate but to justify it.