some mother

We call it Mother Earth or Mother Nature, but given the kind of weather we've been suffering over the last two months, I have to ask: just what kind of mother is she?

Yes, I don't like it much when heat and humidity do a slow waltz through summer. Today, it was 106 degrees Fahrenheit,when you take humidity into account. Too hot to eat, too hot to work, too hot to sleep, unless you're lucky enough to be air conditioned. Truth told, I'm better off not knowing the Fahrenheit temperatures -- they actually mean something to me. Tell me it's 41 degrees Celsius and I don't feel as bad.

Just to put this months long heat wave in perspective, a normal August 4 would have been 79 degrees Fahrenheit. Today's high was 91; yesterday's was 92.8. I feel like I'm in a movie called "The Day the Sun Didn't Go Down" or "Supernova".

If you think about the weather in the context of what we know about the precarious state of the environment -- just keep burning that coal and buying bigger SUVs! -- I have to wonder if this heat wave is the ecological equivalent of an exasperated parent. The planet keeps trying to tell us to curb our appetites and behave more responsibly and we just won't listen.

It feels like Mother Earth may just be raising her voice to get our attention.