Life and love are like a lottery ticket blowing away in the wind. You know that if you don’t catch it, you’ll spend the rest of your days wondering if it was the one. Mine blew off in a strong wind as I stepped out of the pharmacy. I caught it. My pursuit must have cut an interesting image as I stumbled after it doing a strange dance while trying to stomp it into captivity. If someone else had found it, I know it would have been worth millions. Perhaps it escaped my hand because I was distracted by the US election result on the newspapers by the cashier’s desk.
The Disunited States can begin healing and getting on with their traditional two party democracy. The horrible era of the Trump party (That p-word has more than one meaning) is ending. How long I’ve waited to hear someone mouth the words, “YOU’RE FIRED!” The lesson is indelible about what happens when folks don’t exercise their obligation to vote as they did not in 2016. Apathy ultimately demands a high price. This election’s record voter turnout has hopefully set the American train back on its rails. In reality politicians are rarely voted in but instead are voted out. Frankly my perspective is that one party is as pathetic as the next, yes in this country too; but there is no other system which actually works as well. The politicians and the people just have to remember who serves whom.
Hopefully Mr. Biden and Ms Harris can prove some integrity by actually trying to serve the people. There will certainly be a hard scrutiny upon them. People have been reminded of how thin the walls of their comfort zone can be. This reclusive bog Canadian can only hope that our country has caught the lesson as well. If Mr T-Rump did anything positive it was to shake the US out of its comfort zone. And sadly, comedians and cartoonists will be short of lampoon material for the time being.
The new president elect and his vice-president offered some stirring speeches as they celebrated their success. Let’s hope they meant what they said and said what they meant. After Covid the biggest problem in the US is to accept the fact that although they may have a huge military they are no longer the world power they still think they are. They have some huge messes at home to clear up before they re-assume themselves a world leader. With a global pandemic, desperate economics and massive environmental issues to face they must face certain pressing issues. Finding water on the moon, soil-sampling asteroids and exploring Mars are not priorities. Those budgets of billions should be used to address domestic issues. If we have the technology to do some of those amazing things and to develop military hardware to its scorched earth capability several times over, shouldn’t we focus that skill on disease and poverty? Our problems on this planet have to come first. It has to remain habitable before we can be thinking of wandering off into the universe. Earth is still the only home we have but the US is not its guiding light.
It is a splender anchor windlass now sitting beside the dozer boat.
It is a cold November morning. The sky is clear and the west wind is thundering. It’s time for two old dogs to stumble off into the rising light. There is a threat of snow for tomorrow. We need to get out and find some fresh new photos along our weary daily routes.
Still they bloom.
“Free election of masters does not abolish the masters; or the slaves.”
― Herbert Marcuse
