I sat in on some training today. At one point the instructor said, “Excuse my french.” But he wasn’t swearing. He was from Quebec and he accidentally said a word in French instead of English.

The other night I watched “Nephi and the Brass Plates,” from the “Animated Stories from the Book of Mormon” series. It was funny Hanna-Barbera quality stuff. (It was about the same as what I’m used to from the Christian sphere) But that’s besides the point. The credits roll, and who do you think wrote the screen play? Orson Scott Card. The famous science fiction writer. I was amazed.

I have a desk in an office with 5 other people. On either side of me people are listening to the same internet radio station, but slightly out of sync. I’m listening to Fleetwood Mac with a two second delay. I’m actually pretty into it. It’s a lot more psychedelic than the easy listening that’s usually going on in here.

I think CNN.com is being a bit apocalyptic. The headline I just read was “Triple Digit Heat is Killing Us.” And the first part was: “People are dying. Sweltering temperatures drained life out of 164 Californians last week, and just since Sunday, heat is suspected of killing 20 across the country.” When I first read it I thought it might be a joke.

Temperatures “drained life out of” Californians, like little vampires. I should also point out you’re only supposed to say, “People are dying” when you’re in a war movie and your callous friend wants to leave poor innocents behind. Weird, while we’re talking about wars… I haven’t seen any reports on Iraq lately that had such emotionally involved language.

Thank God for air conditioning.

Consider, though, this one episode of “Star Trek: The Next Generation” that I saw. The Enterprise discovered this planet where the ecosystem was completely destroyed. They talked to the few people who still lived on the planet to find out what happened. As it turned out, their race had polluted the planet to the point of destruction. The only way the remaining people survived was through the aid of a machine which kept their living complex hospitable. The twist at the end was that the machine itself was polluting their planet. Years earlier they began to have problems or whatever and built a machine to keep themselves comfortable, but the machine was what drove their planet to total desolation.

Brilliant! Do you see the parallel to air conditioners? Where does the heat go as it’s removed from your house or car? Into the air outside. I bet on a hot day air conditioning adds 5-10 degrees to the state of NJ. When I run my AC it’s like saying “screw you” to everyone who doesn’t use it. But hey, I’m hot so what are you going to do about it?

Thank you, Star Trek, for allegorical social lessons.