
Jagannath ("master of the world" in Sanskrit) is an absurd but kind little god. Once every year he mounts an improbable wheeled contraption about five stories high. Row upon row of devotees perch on the different levels of Jagannath's throne as, clearly unsafe at any speed, he lurches through the streets of Puri. Today, we have our own much odder and much less kind Jagannath – "Juggernaut," as the priest wrote it – preparing some much bigger death for us in the form of impending climate calamity. (more)