(Monday is myrln’s day to blog here at Kalilily Time.)
BANK ON IT
In a bit over two weeks from today, on February 26, a new bank is opening on an island near the Arctic Circle. Unlike other banks, though, it won’t offer cd’s or checking or savings accounts. So we won’t be offered mp3’s or toasters or anything at all in return for new accounts. In fact, this bank doesn’t even want us there to poke around, which is why they put it in such a godforsaken place (or devilforsaken, depending on your inclinations).
You see, this bank is of a kind that illustrates a rarely-seen side of the human species: foresight. This bank, a product by Norway, will be a storage site for over 200,000 varieties of plant seeds from all around the world. That, in effect, makes it a gene bank for crops of all kinds, like oats, peas, beans, and barley (grow), and rice, wheat, lentils and so on. The Norwegians undertook this “doomsday vault,” as it’s been called, as a service to the world: the Svalbard Global Seed Vault.
The point of it is to preserve agriculture in its myriad forms in case some manmade or natural disaster should destroy it, in part or in whole. This seed vault is said to be capable of preserving the vitality of the stored sees for thousands of years. That means they might well outlast the human race itself which has a greater predilection for destructive — rather than preservative — endeavors. Hey, we built the atom bomb, didn’t we, and then of course had to use it to see how well it worked?
But this Norwegian gift to the world is a truly admirable effort — something the rest of us should consider as a model to emulate for saving us from ourselves.
Thanks, Norway.
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Now that the politicos have agreed on terms for our tax rebates (and making it seem as it we’re getting a gift from them), here’s something else we can look forward to: starting in May (the month after we’ve just paid our taxes) when the checks start finding their way into our mitts: the price of everything will go up.
We can bank on it.
bank on it
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