One Brick Short

It’s a scene right off a college campus after the NCAA basketball championship: Hundreds of demonstrators throwing tires and explosives into bonfires as the rowdy, unruly crowd sets cars on fire and throws rocks at police, except this time it’s a protest in Beruit over electricity shortages and cut offs and the assasination of political leaders.

Part of the crowd was the usual trouble-making mix of politics and vendetta, the Middle East version of which makes the Obama/Clinton caper and even the Bush/Democratic Party disagreements look like sandbox whining. The other part of the protesters, however, could reflect a growing concern worldwide: Recent power shortages have reduced the neighborhood of south Beruit to only six hours of electricity a day.

“In south Beruit, people have interests and lives, too,” said one 19-year-old protester in an interview with the Associated Press. “We have jobs and work to do and without electricity we can’t do anything.”

Considering the state of oil consumption, which is supposed to lead to demand outstripping supply by 2012—the year that the Mayan, Nostradamus and a guy named Bill who lives on the Downtown Mall and eats out of dumpsters say the world as we know it will end—could Beruit be Waynesboro in four years? Are we doomed to civil unrest and even war to fuel our machines and heat our bodies?

It’s enough to make you turn the night light off in the bathroom.