Oil & Water

Despite the dregs of evening television (like Conan O'Brian), some late night programming is actually pretty good. At my house, the cable channels include goodies like the the Discovery Channel, Food Network, National Geographic Channel, the Style Channel, and Bravo.

Recently the History Channel aired a special entitled "Rome: Engineering an Empire," which "chronicles the spectacular and sordid history of the Roman Empire from the rise of Julius Caesar in 55 BC to its eventual fall around 537 AD." It covers the most significant building projects of the Roman emporers, and also discusses the social, political, and economic impetuses behind and consequences of those architectural masterpieces.

The segment details the of the engineering challenges of structures such as Hadrian's Wall, the Colosseum, the Pantheon, and the Baths of Caracalla. Particular attention is given to one of the Romans' most astonishing achievements: the aqueducts. The narrator mentions that when the Visigoths sacked Rome, they were able to capture it with relative ease by cutting off the water supply upon which the Romans had become so dependent.

Fast-forward about about 1,600 years. Another empire has emerged to establish its own hedgemony. Like the Romans, it is the wealthiest, and most militarilly dominant civilization of its day. And like the Romans, its citizens are reliant on a special liquid, but one much more viscious, one much darker, one much more toxic. The supply chain of this atramental brew is tenuous: Nigeria and Venezuela are politically unstable; Iranian sanctions are just around the corner; the House of Saud is producing at full capacity. Will they wean themselves off this crude habit in time?