Not sure if anyone noticed, but I had a birthday last week. Apparently the family was going to buy a cake, but there was no trailer big enough to transport it. So I found some some things under my son's bed that looked like candles, so put them on the cake that Betty Crocker and I baked.
It became an explosive situation: What you may have thought was a fireworks display coming from the next county over was actually the result of 61 Roman (or roamin'?) candles out of control.
So, now that I'm 61, and I want to wish me a happy birthday.
I find myself more and more reflective these days, especially since I turned the big 6-0 last year. Thirty years ago, 70 seemed so far away. However, at this point, 70 is now only within nine years. Some days I feel that old, er, mature; other days, I can navigate a walker with the best of them.
As I meander through the garden of life, I'm not sure I like what's coming down the path. Right has become wrong, good has become evil, and tolerance has become intolerance. In short, so much of what used to be proper is now turned on its head. Is it just me, or do you feel the same way?
Life is changing at such an exponential rate (translation: changes are coming quicker and quicker and quicker) that I get dizzy just trying to think about it.
And it's not even the changes that disturb me the most, questionable as they are: it's the demands that I agree with the way others “think” (to use the term loosely), or else be cast on to the heap of extraneous humanity.
It's “group think” at its worse, if you will, with a greater emphasis on “group” than “think.”
These days there appears to be very little investigation into the facts, ramifications, and ultimate outcome of certain trends. It's power without pause, practice without principle.
And their kicker is simply this: If you don't do as we do, there's the stigma, followed by a label.
You may recall another movement in the 30's and 40's, over in Germany; their label was a yellow star of David. There are similarities and it's frightening.
Has anyone really “thought” (there's that word again) through the three biggies, namely, climate change, immunization, and same-sex issues? These three are the more pressing, more newsworthy, and more in-our-collective-faces that come to my mind.
I can't do much about people who believe any of these things, but I sure wish they would “think” them through. And at that point, at least allow others to differ with their loud opinions.
In fact, I get alarmed with the mass hysteria that follows resistance to these three. Any challenge, even in the form of hesitation, is regarded as being the wasted drivel of uninformed conspiracistss.
Really? I wonder where the drivel is, who is uninformed, and what is the real conspiracy?
Let me tackle what appears to be the most harmless of them all, namely, climate change. We'll deal with the other two next week. Either way, when it comes to a careful examination of the issues, well, we need to be careful. This is especially true when there are political and economic restrictions implemented (yet without any really genuine historical, scientific evidence to back them up),
The joke here in Alberta is that of course we believe in climate change—we just call them “seasons.”
I suggest that if anyone was really serious about climate change, then we all should look at the facts from the past, then analyze them historically and scientifically. I'm good with that. Facts never scare me or other clear-headed people.
It's the analysis and application of the facts that do.
Just a suggestion here: If you are really serious about climate change, check out the polar bear population. Get past the hype and hysteria, and get to the facts. The polar bear population is thriving in the Arctic. But we never get that in the media. Methinks we're being lied to...big time.
I don't know if there is an agenda with this climate change hype. And with our climate change protagonists spewing out “evidence” of a world that's apparently warming up, we are expected to sit up and take heed. And woe betide the individual or corporation that doesn't buckle under.
I was raised to think before I spoke. I don't always do it, of course, but it saves me a lot of grief when I do. I suggest that others also think before they threaten (or demonstrate or legislate).
We don't need any unnecessary heat generated by this already hot topic.
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