DISCLAIMER: This particular post will make Fritz look like a racist, classist bitch. It is possible that Fritz is a little bit of both, and hates herself for it. Please know that ultimately, I respect the sanctity of life and the myriad cultures this Earth has produced. Please also know that I am concerned for the future of the world.

Michael and I were having one of those talks. You know the kind--you start talking about stem cell research and wind up debating how the world will end. We're undecided--will it be nuclear holocaust? Planetary destruction? Overpopulation? Derisive abuse of fossil fuels?

Europe's birthrate had actually declined but is now on the increase due to illegal immigration from Africa. America's birthrate is expected to explode with the population increases due to the immigration routes from South of the Border. China (as we all know) is imploding with folks. India is regenerating exponentially. Over half of the world's population lives in China and India. That's over four billion people. Wow.

Wow.

Meanwhile, the Latino cultures value Roman Catholicism, and the Church preaches against birth control and women's rights. So that means more babies. This is a slippery slope. Am I a racist for thinking we have to do something about this kind of thing? Should I be concerned when third and fourth world countries are reproducing at a faster rate than first and second? What are the implications? Can this quickly dissolve into more racism? On the other hand, shouldn't we move to protect the fragile resources this world has? Does the Roman Catholic church have a responsibility to look at its doctrine and tinker with it so people could stop making babies? Or is this essentially a case of the beginning of the end--entropy, so to speak?

It's interesting how viruses work in the same fashion. They enter an organism and start stealing its nutrients. Then, the virus multiplies and mutates. It does it so much that the organism can no longer support all of the little viruses. The organism dies, and with it, all those gazillion viral pieces. Dead organism. Dead viruses.

And in the end: should we worry about this kind of thing or just accept the fact that in the history of evolution, humans might not have been a good idea? Should we understand that we are causing the death of our world--we who are sentient and capable of thought and emotion and communication? Or shall we simply say, "Well. That's it. We're on the downward slope to destruction and we may as well deal with it"?

It's hard to love this world, because it makes it so much tougher to watch it being ripped apart. I'm grateful (in a sad, morose kind of way) that I probably won't live to see the end of the trees. At least we still have those--the bits that cause us to look up, and dream about a nice place, where everything co-exists in peace.

Where lions and lambs slumber together.