01-Dec-2008
So far this year we’ve had the worst financial setback since the depression of the 1930’s, and we’ve elected the first black man ever to the office of President of the United States. Couple that with the university shootings we had here last February, and then the totally wonderful birth of my second granddaughter in August, and you can see that it has been quite a year: sadness, elation, horror, joy – sometimes the human noise just makes you scratch your head and then wonder why you’re scratching your head.
* * *
Having spent a good part of the seventies either pretty cold in the winter or hot in the summer and driving tiny cars because they got good mileage, I approach our current “green” movement with caution. I’m not at all a disbeliever in the critical need to care much more diligently for the health of our big blue marble, but it gets annoying when some highly-paid consultant or environmental writer tries to inform me of the level of sacrifice the world needs from me.
* * *
I also find it hard to take all those folks dutifully carrying their recycling bags to stores, turning household thermostats down, and riding bicycles to work while a short distance from my house a local judge lives in fifteen-room (heated, I’m sure) splendor, his carbon footprint the size of a whale. Of course my kids were right. I’ve always been a communist.
* * *
I remember being confused as a kid when, every once in awhile, there’d be a news report that the White House was honoring some dignitary by throwing a “formal steak dinner.” While I had no problem with the need to honor dignitaries, it always seemed so odd that the announcement was made in a framework of that one menu item. In my milieu at the time, a “formal chicken dinner” or even a “formal meatloaf dinner” would have been just as impressive. Yes, yes – it all eventually clarified itself, but I still wonder about the ways in which my government deceives me.
* * *
Maybe we should let the auto companies that are near death simply die. While one can be as sympathetic as all get out toward the workers who would lose their jobs, who – raise your hands now – wants to buy a car from a company that’s on government life support, especially when that car represents a $20,000 to $50,000 investment?
* * *
I’m looking forward to having a government that isn’t mean. Trouble is, I like (need) to be mean once in awhile, and the current administration has pretty much been hogging mean for some eight years now. That will be my last political statement for a long time.
* * *
I was recently invited to be a “friend” on Facebook. Since the person who invited me is someone I like and respect I went ahead and opened a Facebook page. Now I don’t know what to do with it. On my friend’s page I noticed that I’m now listed as one of his friends, which has led some of his friends to invite me to be their friends. I get the feeling that before too long I could be everybody’s friend and that suggests an obligation I’m not really prepared to handle. On the other hand, I’m now afraid to cancel the account because of the disappointment this might cause for all these friends.
* * *
Recently, in the mail, I received a gift card for $25 from Saks Fifth Avenue, good on any purchase over $100. I thought that was particularly generous since I’ve never shopped there. Why, however, do I get the feeling that I’m the only one in the world who finds it odd that the return address on the envelope was 12 East 49th Street in New York?
* * *
If you pronounce the word ‘asterisk’ as ‘asterik,’ you will go straight to hell. I’m sorry, but steps need to be taken.
* * *
Two phrases that need to be immediately banned from public discourse: “…in these hard economic times” and “hit the ground running.” Actually, a third comes to mind, too: “global world.” Really, its been both a globe and a world for a long time now. As you might guess, you can’t open this can of worms without getting in over your head so here’s two more that have yet to gain wide parlance but really want to. They must not be allowed to do that: webinar and webisode.
* * *
While it’s not hard to be sensitive to the plight of all the merchants out there as they scramble in the middle of a recession to put together a decent bottom line, I get confused when I see “50%” off of this or “30%” off of that. My question is always thirty percent off of what? Does anyone really know what the “real” price of anything is anymore?
G. K. Wuori © 2008
Photoillustration by the author
