It keeps coming back to politics

“Crisis, what Crisis? — Supertramp album.

When a political junkie like me is feeling overwhelmed by the news, I can’t help but think that those who are generally unaware or unconcerned about the interesting world beyond their daily reach might be on to something. After all, most of the words, TV clips and videos repeat one hard luck story after another interposed by ads urging us to improve life by using a particular shampoo or non-street (officially) drug.

What you may be thinking is, “Why doesn’t he get off the net, change the radio to music and unplug the tube?”

To quote Mark Twain about tobacco, “Quitting is easy, I’ve done it hundreds of times.” Somehow, for whatever oddball reason, we’ve all become so wired that without recurrent information input, most people get antsy. It’s becoming hard to remember the last time I rode the chairlift without someone tweeting, texting or talking into a gadget. We’d be screwed if there were no such thing as electricity any more. Just wait for the upcoming BC Hydro rate increases that are going to be announced. The political firestorm will bring down the Christy Clark Liberals if they aren’t very careful, which of course they won’t be. Things will soon get interesting provincially, given high priced teachers and nurses wailing for more of whatever never satisfies them.

Was I on politics again? Oops. In that case, let’s Google Earth over to Syria where, who knows how many, women, children and Korans have been shredded today. Russia and China have successfully pleaded their case for arms sales and have effectively stuck their finger into the West’s nose by betting that the civil war will go on. Good news—they can have Syria. Obama, for a change, is smart enough to stay out of this mess.

Moving eastward into Iran via Streetview, one can easily discern that the folks there aren’t really too interested in the peaceful uses of the atom; otherwise there’d be transmission towers being erected for the electrification of the countryside and labs being readied to accept medical isotope manufacturing. Iran, if it wants to be a nuclear nation, needs to tone down the rhetoric and grow up diplomatically.

While we’re on the topic of fossil fuels or not, one may or may not like the methods of extraction or
transportation, but really who amongst us doesn’t take the car whenever we feel like it? Our fruits and vegetables travel by diesel but none of the expert nutritionists recommend cabbage and carrots only this winter for proper anti-oxidant qualities to ensure (or is it insure?—wait, I’ll look it up) a gentler global footprint.

But where have I been, the tickertape thing just rattled the latest—robo-call mini scandal. “What, me worry?” Alfred E. Neuman (the gap-toothed David Letterman looking guy from MAD magazine) would say. Let’s see, some machine calls and interrupts you, blathers stupidly about no brainer dumb stuff and, if you don’t have the lowest percentile brain function possible to hang up, Parliament will spring into action.

How have we come to this?