The Newest Crop in N.C.

I’m thrilled when I get to cover fun stuff like the top story in today’s paper. Wind turbines are beautiful objects. I’m honestly excited to see more of them. If you’re one of the people who sees these enormous white pinwheels as a blemish rather than a blessing, remember that the alternative is not empty fields, it’s more smokestacks. I’m not alone in fetishizing windmills: one of the world’s greatest anime creators, Hayao Miyazaki, makes them a visual theme of some of his best work.

If you haven’t already, I suggest you watch Nausicaa in the Valley of the Winds, which is available to watch in full online. The images from this film, of valleys filled with peaceful, quiet windmills turning away in the wind, have become a permanent and welcoming part of the landscape of my imagination. I have come to long for a world where our power comes from the stately rotation of turbines powered by the wind, from the power of the sun and the waves, rather than from burning substances wrenched from the belly of the Earth. That’s dramatic, I realize, but all the best narratives are.

In a few weeks or months, Atlantic Wind LLC will begin construction of up to 150 wind turbines on land in Pasquotank County in North Carolina. This is a good thing. Like bicycles on the roads, however, it is unfamiliar, and it will anger some people. Those of us who are excited by these developments have a duty to help explain these changes. I suggest everyone watch Nausicaa, for starters, to acquire a sense of vision.

Wealth Gap Has Widened

This is definitely the overall trend in the U.S. these days: everything is widening. People’s waistlines, the deficit, and now the gap between rich and poor, and white and black. White households currently have a net worth on average of 20 times that of black households. This gap has been growing–in 1984, whites had 12 times more than blacks. This is not good and it is not sustainable.

Mystery Goo

“Cantaloupe-size globs of what appeared to be human excrement” appeared on the beach by the Lynnhaven Fishing Pier over the weekend. But don’t worry, it’s not really feces. It just looks like feces. So, I’m not worried. Not at all.

And that’s all I have time for today. Just watch Nausicaa, please.

Even the ocean poops sometimes.