Humanity has a bunch of rabidly-serious, snarling-mad problems, not the least of which is a god-complex that sooner or later gets in the way, swaggering in, sure we can save the day. Otherwise, humans tend to be binary, mostly switch off, do little to nothing constructive, leaving end-results to The Fates, to an assortment of denominational gods and goddesses.

In the latter scenario, we eventually despair, throw ourselves on the fire of last resort -- Science -- and expect its wizardry to sort everything out, help remove our well-toasted behinds, roasted glutes, and charred butts from the inferno.  The track record here is spotty, maybe 50-50 on a good day, despite some really impressive showstoppers -- returns from the space program, amazing leaps in medicine, too.

More than a month we are now from Trayvon Martin's killing, still unable to get any clean traction of facts amid all the slipping and sliding of local cops tripping all over stand-your-ground laws.  So, here we are, wondering why it is we have to step back to take in this view, a scene that seems pretty cut and dried, simple for anyone to understand why this teenager died.

Racism never likes to announce itself, though. As drivers of action, it's quite retiring, instead preferring to hang in the background, make excuses, nudge other notions closer to the front as reasons for things people do.  See:  Racism understands that if it came right out and spoke its mind, truth would be revealed:  I don't like you because you are different from me.

A Florida teen was killed more than a month ago and no arrest has been made.  Taking of human life without penalty cheapens life, laughs at our laws.  Many people are steamed about this.  We should have pillars of steam rising over our heads, too -- clouds of moisture running away as fast as it can from our great source of heat, we should be scorching, burning up mad over such things.

These killing events are tragic and keep repeating.  We plop bad laws onto the books, imbue them with pet names to make them seem housebroken, like humans are still in control.  These pet peeves, these pests answer to the name of "stand your ground," although "paranoid shooting gallery" would do just as well.

More than a month ago, Trayvon Martin was killed.  We are still trying to find out what happened, precisely, amid cascading failures by local police, temporary steps and side-steps to shore up this or take a peek into that.  The static view to date of these "stand your ground" killings shows us later-stage symptoms of an American disease no longer in remission: Racism.

You need not be an expert to know something has gone terribly wrong in life and liberty here, and feel a cold, clammy, unsettling change in the American character and nation, whatever its superficial and surface appearances may say.

Half-promised this would not happen again, trudging down these muddied and bloodied paths again, sledging through this sludge, examining the worst possible aspects and traits of human beings -- yet, here we are, we keep arriving here once again.

Geologists will tell you, in nature, steam plumes are necessary for relieving pressure building up inside something, that they keep things from exploding.  Good enough.  We'll run with that relief for the moment, and ignore the fact that those columns of super-heated steam are also signs of imminent danger right under us, just beneath our surfaces, where no-one can see.

World Water Day came and went recently, Thursday, the twenty-second.  I saw it lap at my feet for a moment, then, it was gone again, vanished, submerged back into our busy world, three-quarters of it water.

It is difficult to remember, to not take clean water for granted:  We grew up around it, seems like an automatic birthright, it's always been clean, always been here.  Liquid water, a rarity among bodies in space, plenty of it right here:  It nurtures and sustains us, grows our food, helps us exist and be.

Clean water's a no-brainer, or always used to be, as most basics of life and living once were. Of course, nations go through pendulum swings and phases, and, by all measures now, we are in an uber-right wing phase, worst ever seen or tracked, in which no aspect of life and living thing is certain, not in this climate of winner-take-all, right-is-wrong, and screw-you-I-got-mine.