11/01/2009
Some Things I Don’t Know
You have to see how it is in modern times. You have to live it and feel it and think about it, even though a side effect of these modern times is that thought is about as popular as a puppy with worms. I don’t know why that is. I don’t know why a lot of things are.
I don’t know –
Why it is that Muslim women tolerate the hiding garb. Why they put up with going out in public like that, or why they submit to needing permission from a man to go out at all, or why they submit to no education and thus end up with the intelligence of a calm breeze, or why they allow themselves and their children to be beaten in the home, or why they allow the courts to sanction all of this, or why they allow themselves to be whipped for revealing their ankles, dealing with male shopkeepers, painting their fingernails, laughing, riding bicycles, playing sports, having their picture in a newspaper, keeping a pet, taking part in public celebrations, or washing their clothes in a public place.
Why it is that one of our local housing developers didn’t see anything odd in naming a street Cloverlane Drive.
Why it is that the latest naughty word in our political lexicon is socialism. It has long been divorced from its earlier associations with Communism/Marxism, and basically just refers to a society doing those things for everyone that individuals cannot do for themselves. Some good examples of socialist institutions would be: the military, the police, the street department, the water department, the fire department, the school system, Medicare. I don’t know why these should be considered bad things. I would welcome my socialist fire department into my yard any time my house is burning.
Why it is that some parents won’t vaccinate their children with the H1N1 vaccine.
Why it is that people subject themselves to such incredibly poor nutrition. They regularly eat foods grown they know not where, that are processed so savagely the destroyed nutrients have to be added back in, often in a form that becomes indigestible and palatable only with the addition of large amounts of sugar and salt; processed by people making, often, only a minimum wage and possessing little, if any, education as to hygiene, nutrition, or the safe handling of foods. Amazingly, we might spend years waiting for the test results of a drug that can cure some terrible disease, yet food manufacturers can dump all manner of untested concoctions on our plates with little, if any, oversight.
Why it is that car insurance companies will raise my rates if I have an accident, but they won’t lower them if I don’t.
Why it is that people feel a need to treat (tweet) the world to their most inane and inconsequential moments, or why they don’t realize that by urging their Twitter or Facebook friends to enlist in every cause, group, or crusade (online games, rock bands, diseases, animal benefits) they end up sounding like the most nightmarish of nightmare telemarketers.
Why it is that, after fifty years of varied but substantial feminist initiatives, so many teenage girls feel that their main goal in life is to get a man.
Why it is that we’ve been in a state of almost constant war since the 1940’s. Do we have a bad attitude?
Why it is that people don’t read anymore.
Why it is that Republicans are against end-of-life counseling, yet support next year’s zero estate tax that will cause any number of seniors to end their lives early.
Why it is that in all the health care brouhaha going on dentistry has been able to fly under the radar. There isn’t anything about dentistry that isn’t terribly expensive (and just ask any realtor about the kind of homes that dentists own), nor is there any aspect of dental health that doesn’t affect virtually any and all systems of the body. If you think that dental insurance exists as anything more than a pathetic joke, you obviously haven’t studied any dental insurance plans.
Why it is that the only thing about the Christmas season that seems to be important anymore is whether or not consumer purchases have met expectations.
Why it is that, in our media-saturated world, our highly-visible politicians just don’t get it that their sex lives are public property. Whether you like it or not, whether it’s anybody’s business but your own or not, distort the tenets of bedroom morality and the panty police will find you out and they will hang your libido out there for all to see, especially the voters.
Why it is that the strongest emotion so many people seem to feel these days is that of schadenfreude.
G. K. Wuori © 2009
Photoillustration by the author
