Snowden and my Marriage:
What Snowden is Holding Back
Everyone who knows me knows my concern about climate
change, but this story isn't about that.
I offer this as background for those who don't know me.
You see, I've been after my dear husband about the
weirdest stuff these past few years, like getting rid of much of the unneeded
black asphalt surrounding our house - it throws off a lot of heat in the
infrared range I tell him. Or, solar
panels because of extended power outages that is sure to come. Or, real shutters. Stuff like that so I feel a little safer at
home. And, I freely admit I talk a lot
about it, because as a scientist, I like to think I understand the immediacy of
the problem and it truly frightens me.
Now, Bill of course
thinks I'm a little nutty because of this.
I can tell he often just does things to humor me rather than agreeing
with me. So after watching an amazing
PBS Nova episode titled "The Earth From Above", I turned to him and
said, "I know what Snowden's holding back".
I just know Bill thought it was going to be climate
related, and that I must be entirely mad, so when I told him that Snowden must
have evidence that the government's capability of snooping includes images of
everyone on the planet, for every second of the day, everywhere they go, and
that they could probably tell what was said and even what anti-deodorant was
used that morning, he looked at me like I really was crazy. Then he rolled over and went to sleep. I guess he's used to what he thinks are my
odd ideas after 17 years of marriage.
Several days later, we watched the movie Red for the first
time, and I admit I mostly liked it. As
we watched Bruce Willis being chased by the FBI in a cool shoot "em up scene,
the movie quickly cuts to a military techie zooming in a satellite image. The image from space showed where Bruce was,
what he was wearing and saying all in amazingly cool graphic detail. I looked at Bill and said, "See?" It took a second for it to register, then a
light bulb seemed to go off in his head.
And by his low grunt, I would tell his level of respect for me just went
up a notch.
Later, as Bruce Willis telephones the FBI guy, I said to
Bill, "He's calling from the agent's house". Sure enough, a little bit further into the
scene, another FBI guy who traced the call rushes in and gives the first agent
the phone number that Bruce is calling from.
Yep, you guessed it. Bill turned
to me and said, "Now, how did you know that?" I giggled: "The same way I know about
the immediacy of climate change impacts.
Some things are just obvious."
There you have it, and I certainly hope I'm wrong on that
climate impact thing, but I don't think so.
And, as to Snowden and what he's holding back? Well, it could be climate related for that
matter. It's bad enough that it could
certainly be that too... But I've
decided to stick with my first guess.