You may have noticed a decline in the frequency of mariner’s posts. The truth is, his complaints, insights and speculations have become perpetually negative, repetitive and never have an opportunity to report progress.

Watching today’s borderless, endless dysfunction has way too many horses in the race, simultaneously using way too many tracks and is confusing because not all entrants are horses. So mariner has decided to keep track of a three-horse card on one track.

HORSE #1

Will the United States survive as one unified and principled nation? The nation stands at the same precipice it has in the past when it formed a constitution with multiple personality syndrome, as it fought over slavery, and as the nation drifts apart again over deep cultural differences between red and blue. The trophy is constitutional democracy.

HORSE #2

Will the United States be a strong world leader in economics and global communication such as to be one of the very few nations that will dominate the political and economic reality of a one-market world? The present state of human political life ignorantly is spinning into a near future of global starvation, greatly reduced farming capacity and collapsing natural resources. The trophy is international stability; how many nations will cease to exist or merge because of a permanently collapsed economy?

HORSE #3

Current odds make this horse the favorite: global warming AKA climate change. Will the planet, tired of the fickle and self-promoting behavior of Homo sapiens, cause so much damage at the level of continent behavior, weather, intense storms, tsunamis and flooding that Horses #1 and #2 will not be able to continue in their present political/economic relationships? The trophy is humanism.

Ancient Mariner