New Pompeii – How Am I Going To Be An Optimist About This?* Hey You! Yeah, You! The one with the scurrilous lips that spew hate! I saw you, or at least the aftermath…in the dead, dark streets of Pompei and the cindered bodies and bleached bones of Herculaneum. Their people living high with your shadow looming over them. They praised you, used the extrusions from your mouth, tuft, basalt, chinkery lava rocks to build their houses and their roads. They plastered over the walls with a thin veneer of colorful frescos and gleaming marble. The precursor shakings were explained away – “Just our God’s rumblings, no cause for worry. He is not serious. He loves us.” They continued on with their lives, oblivious, eating the fat of the land and toasting to their own blessedness with the purple-red wines of their own indulgences. Then, the mountain lost its head. Poisonous gases, mud, ash, and lava spewed forth down the slopes, covering everything, ending it all in an instant. Some had heeded...
