I suppose it is appallingly predictable: the manner in which our elected officials are blind to the real issues of the world: the impending climate change catastrophe, peak oil coming and going without a whisper, and the crash and burn of the ephemeral paper trails which constituted the bulk of the stock exchange ‘wealth’. Not to mention looming water shortages, disease, starvation and the resulting global unrest.
Our Canadian federal government has taken a holiday from it all - Why worry? – with the Governor General’s blessing and won’t resume governing us all until late January. That’s next year, folks. They’re also, co-incidentally, avoiding a no-confidence vote in parliament. Why are citizens surprised? They’re avoiding every other issue, the jobless rate, the collapse of the auto industry and that’s only the tip of the iceberg. Of which we don’t have much left due to that arctic melt thing.
Well, the collapse of the way we’ve run the world until now really. But no one is looking at that. Let’s keep the sheeple sedated with reruns of Big Brother or Canadian Idol or some such drek.
Meanwhile in other parts of the real world:
· The collapse of major retail chains is imminent after Christmas (warning: do not give or receive gift certificates, most will be worthless).
· Green crabs have taken over much of the water surrounding this area of Newfoundland. Killing everything in sight and devastating the fishery.
· No one wants to give up their plastic grocery bags (I did my own independent survey at several places where I shop, I am one of 100 that shop with cloth bags, that is 1% of all shoppers in a tiny island where disposal is a problem and the cliffs and forests are festooned with these plastic aberrations that should be banned everywhere on the planet). And yeah, they’re oil based which brings me to:
New, SEVERE CUTS is the word being bandied about when OPEC meets on December 15th. As in SHORTAGES. As in further changes to our WAY OF LIFE. Which is going to prove highly negotiable in spite of what Bush The Decider promised way back in the dim history of the foundation of the new and improved Homeland, reminiscent now of the German Fatherland. (And why is Motherland considered a sissified term? Oh, I get it. Mothers, at least the nurturing kind, don’t usually carry AK47s or patrol with Blackwaters).
Enjoy the gas holiday everyone, it is going to be brief and the stuff of nostalgia in less than 6 months.
Cranky? Yeah, I am. How didja guess?
Those plastic bags are a constant irritant, aren't they WWW?
ReplyDeleteWalmart and Homeland have started selling cotton bags, but quite honestly, the way they have checkouts set up for speed, I don't see how, with a piled up trolley (which we try to do to save gas and avoid too many trips to the supermarket) it would work.
They have carousels stocked with plastic bags, and I can imagine very grim faces if we were to produce a (necessarily large)stack of cotton bags.
Back in the UK, I hardly ever used platic bags, or if I did it was one of the long-lasting big strong kind, used time after time. There my local supermarkets were quite small compared to Walmarts here, so it was no problem to produce one's own shopping bag to stash goods into.
I don't know how it will all end. There must be a solution, but it probably won't emerge until absolutely forced by circumstance.
Good advice re gift vouchers from retail stores!
I would like to be cranky with you, although I do live in a country where cloth bags are used a lot, but some idiots forget to use them and grab for the plastic bags instead, adding to the waste pile.
ReplyDeleteThe term fatherland is even kinder than the term homeland with all it implies, but giver me a mother country any time.
My neighbor gets in his car to get a pack of cigarettes and I ride my bike all over the place or take the bus. You wonder when people will catch on. Not those with money to burn in their pockets.
Futility is the name of the game and people still drive around in 4x4's, I see them even here in this town, where there is no excuse for them. All it does is put you up higher than the rest of the traffic.
Where is sensibility? I see hardly any around, especially under young people who should know better.
I hope I live to survive it.
Hi WWW
ReplyDeleteAwww. I know that feeling when the world just seems too stupid to be a part of. I usually curl up with a good book or a DVD and it goes away.
xxx
Pants
I note you're about as cranky as me right now, though I have an excuse - viruses! And not just those that infect computers, there's the other type that nasty, snotty-nosed, little kids spread around on their way to and from school. I'm now on my second cold of the winter. Still, if OPEC get their way they'll all be walking to school. A damn sight healthier for them, and me. Of course, I'll be out of a job, but right now I couldn't care less.
ReplyDeleteBy the way - what's your excuse?
;-)
PS I see you've enabled comment moderation. Have you been getting nasty, anonymous, infiltrators?
Can't say I blame you. It's like the four horsemen are gathering ...
ReplyDeleteT:
ReplyDeleteWhat I find is that the baggers have now been trained to deal with the cloth bags. Hurray. They are dying to practise the new skill as the cloth often holds 3 times the groceries but alas and alack, I'm usually the only one to show up in a day.
And no, I haven't Big-Boxed in years even tho at times it was difficult. I made a vow to the Grandgirl.
And have held fast :^)
XO
WWW
Irene:
ReplyDeleteI really believe you leave a very small environmental foot-print :^).
You don't drive and you bike, etc. That's one of the reasons I enjoy reading you so much - I get a bird's eye view into your life!!
XO
WWW
Pants:
ReplyDeleteAfter posting that's what I did, finished a current book and started another AND hauled out
some old Hitchcock DVD's.
I'm easily distracted....;^)
XO
WWW
RJA:
ReplyDeleteI'm overall pissed off at them dat governs and look out only for their own crude self-interests.
Sorry to hear about your virus, I hope you delete it soon, I see you managed the computer virus rather well - I didn't quite believe you had one on your blog of all places.
Speaking of, spammers got past my word. ver.
To add to the list of piss-offs....
XO
WWW
Tessa:
ReplyDeleteOn the horizon, aren't they?
And no one to greet them here, Ottawa being on vacation 'n all.
XO
WWW
Bit much, that, since they invited them in, the bastards!
ReplyDeleteTessa:
ReplyDeleteWhat I find even more intriguing is that none of them wants to look at the truth and the reality of the world at the moment.
Pox on their lavish houses and Hummers.
XO
WWW