11/18/2004: Swarm at the pyramids

[Undertoad]

full story - dateline, YESTERDAY. It started as a West African infestation, then swarmed into Cairo. From out of nowhere, the city streets were thick with these 3-inch monsters:



Locusts. Pink ones!

And by nightfall, they were all gone.

This kind of swarm hadn't been seen in the lifetimes of most of the city's residents, and it was described as "biblical". Well, sure!

Can you imagine what this might have seemed like in biblical times? Without a strong grasp of how these things work - without the communication and science to notice and warn of the West African infestation - this would definitely look like something that a higher power had engineered. For the lot to suddenly appear as if out of nowhere, and then to disappear so quickly? The instinct to understand, to have a story, to answer the question "Why?" is so strong in us, that it's easy to imagine explanations developing out of well-intentioned storytelling.

And then, to develop rules that seemed to act as prevention - especially if that "Why?" question was answered with "Probably because of something you did." A parent-child relationship being the most familiar rule-making structure, that became the narrative for the higher power who would get angry and swat His people with plagues.

On the other hand, perhaps the people of Cairo HAVE been bad, and perhaps a higher power DID engineer the plague by setting up the conditions under which an investation would develop.

Enh, your call. But in the end, it's all about who sets up the story, who controls the narrative.