Rain, rain, go away ... while parts of Gansu are being fried by a drought that has killed crops and livestock, Lanzhou and other areas are drowning. And have no apparent strategies to deal with it. Our campus area is flooded or swamped in mud for about a two km radius. Tracks that used to pass for roads are now washed out; I can scarcely believe that our work unit buses still circulate (the nearest public bus gave up days ago). Running water and electricity are intermittent; all morning on Wednesday classes were punctuated by air raid sirens. No one knew why – maybe the water just shorted out the wiring. Fortunately, things are normal in the city, where I live.

I hope you agree that I rarely grandstand herein, but if you haven’t, please see An Inconvenient Truth.