h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Loved it, but this surely deserves a wider audience. Tried sending it to a few publications? 'Time' magazine springs to mind (is that still going?)

Icy

I'd second that. I wrote something similar (but far less detailed and in a totally different format) last June. It certainly deserves a wider audience though.

Thanks guys

I hadn't considered wider publication. Thanks for the suggestion. Though I enjoyed writing this, it wasn't with a general audience in mind. I made sure Jordan read it, and satisfied myself with that.

I'm quite proud of its presience. The whole text was posted on 9th Feb this year, well before economic meltdown. I didn't know Rich planned to use it in the Post. It seems almost too topical, particularly since it'll be in the current edition as America votes.

Maybe the next-but-one president will be a Native American. THEN we might see some real changes in immigration policy!!

If it was written that long ago it is even more prophetic. Congratulations.

Hi there Pinniped, I enjoyed the piece and I'm quite interested to see how things pan out in the years ahead 'for real'! In case you don't know, I am in South Africa so it's with a bit of a different viewpoint that I'm looking at America, Britain, China and so on.

Hi Willem

I think we're all pretty keen to see how things pan out!

Since Hilde doesn't mention them, I guess we can hope that a few of today's US tribulations get no worse, ie it seems that Sarah Palin never comes to power and things like the Deepwater Horizon and the Tucson shootings turn out to be one-offs.

Whereabouts in RSA? (I spent a few memorable months working on the Highvelt in 1995, through the first days of the new nation)

Hi Pinniped, I am in the far North of South Africa, in the town that used to be called Pietersburg and is now called Polokwane. It's a couple of hundred miles north of the Highveld proper, but we are also on a plateau, just not quite as high.

My own greatest worry about the future is about global ecology. Your mention of the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe again made me think about the horrible things we've already done to the living world ... and I don't see much of a sign of this going to stop anytime soon. If we wreck the global ecology, then there will be global catastrophe *everywhere* ... no haven of safety and sanity.