City Of God 22

It goes without saying that we are in the hands of fools, when it comes to the people and the various groups and interests that are running our countries and, by extension, our lives. And many of those fools are elected by us the people to run our affairs for us. There is no other way that President Dump could have got in the White House, but for the massive support of his beloved uneducated and hyper-angry heartland Americans who wanted to punish the Democrats for leaving them behind. Or so the narrative goes. But there it is, folks, one sizable contingent of dumbasses electing a particularly wealthy, noxious and deplorable dumbass to the highest office of the land in the most powerful and influential country on earth. Ah, Democracy! We've done somewhat better here in Canada, replacing the deplorable fat little Napoleon, Stephen Harper, with Sunny Days Pretty Boy, Justin Trudeau. But he has also turned into a big disappointment, shelling out what will eventually add up to well over ten billion dollars of our money for an oil pipeline to keep carrying its fuel of death to our west coast and to China, one of the most flagrant polluters of the atmosphere and vectors of climate change through global warming. China is not a democracy, and their leaders are particularly deplorable. One has only to read about what they are doing to the Uyghurs in Xinxiang province in the west, more than one million put in detention camps for...being Muslim? I could go on, but I don't want to ruin this Saturday for myself, nor for any of you, my Gentle Reader. But there you have it. We are in the hands of fools, idiots, greedy despots, short-sighted imbeciles, and vindictive little dictators, and this is the way the world turns. This could be very worrisome and alarm raising, but for one little caveat: those are the class of people who have always run our world, and the current crop of deplorables in high office might even be a little bit better than some of their predecessors. Faint hope, perhaps, but we still have hope. But now to get through this looming nightmare of climate change, to see if we really can make the needed improvements and adjustments in our energy practices over these next ten years that we have before everything goes down the great global toilet. I shudder think that there might be anyone equal to the task. It could be that those of us who survive the coming catastrophe might still be glued to their smartphones, no longer operating of course because Wi-Fi will be gone, but they will cowering in caves and still be clinging to their little rectangular pacifiers the way a toddler clutches onto his security blanket (Gentle Reader of a certain age will remember Linus from Peanuts), when they are not out trapping and killing small animals to eat. And that could be one of the better case scenarios. But let's not go there, eh? President Dump, if he's still around, will be pretend tweeting from his underground bunker, waiting to see how much longer his hoarded Big Mac supply will last till he becomes a toxic banquet for the surviving vermin, and Junior Trudeau will just have to live without a mirror. I don't think it's going to get that bad. I do believe our ass is going to get kicked, and kicked hard, but we will still get through this somehow. We always have, and we (hopefully always will). In the meantime, it is still awfully hard to feel comfortable about the human race when in my own city, the first response to our homelessness crisis was, well: a sudden proliferation of nail spas and doggie boutiques sprang up like toadstools on a wet autumn morning. At least there is a chance, however slim, that we can go into our uncertain future looking fabulous and feeling unconditionally loved by our little doggies. Provided we don't end up having to eat them in the end. Or they don't end up eating us. Gentle Reader, on this beautiful October day, really pay attention to the people around you, and see what small, tiny gesture of kindness you could make, some act of beauty you could perform, to help make life a little bit better for them. Seize the day, before it seizes you.