Life As Performance Art 122

You know, I really wish they would ban the fireworks. Such is the wish of many people who live downtown. Of course the whines and squeals of protest would ascend to the heavens like a vile and acrid incense, since the stupid people that make up the vast majority want their dear little spectacle, and the fireworks themselves are lovely, even if I no longer go out to see them. But at ten in the evening I really want to start going to sleep. It's also the way the streets in my neighbourhood become unnavigable, even by foot, after six pm, and then there are the leftovers who want to stick around and make noise and destruction until la madrugada, or the small hours of the morning. Like that idiot shouting and screaming from somewhere not far outside my window at 2:30 this morning. I had to shut the window, not much fun on a summer night, but I had two fans on so it was still tolerable, and I fortunately was able to get back to sleep okay. I also found myself wondering if he was homeless, mentally ill, and frightened and traumatized, or just drunk and stupid with a nice warm and very taken for granted bed to go home to. One never knows. Neither should compassion fatigue be ever used as an excuse for not doing anything. I suspect that those most likely to hide behind that little smokescreen of a lame excuse are the same ones who have never cared a turd about anyone less fortunate than themselves. You know who you are. The same people who vote corrupt and greedy scumbags into political office who cut back or eliminate social programs just to give greedy scumbags a lovely robust economy. The most vulnerable end up getting thrown under the bus and then we have to listen to those well-off bastards whine, whinge and scream about those awful homeless people making their beautiful neighbourhoods unliveable and unsafe, when they are the very people responsible for creating the very conditions of homelessness. I have no patience with this kind of selfishness or hypocrisy. And we know exactly who they are. They live in the rich and tony neighbourhoods that they have made particularly ugly with garish red black and white lawn signs that protest the modest increases of taxes just so that we can pay for social programs to help get people off the street and into housing. The most egregious and offensive are the ones who don't even live in the houses. They are there for investment, property flipping and money laundering. Why not build really affordable housing in those same wealthy and leafy neighbourhoods? We shouldn't have to care about their property values. Those same people have already coasted for so long on their greed and privilege, and it is time for them to start paying up. My dream is to see all of those sumptuous mansions renovated into apartment buildings to house people on mixed and low incomes. The rich can go move to Grand Cayman and Lichtenstein or wherever so they can be all that much closer to the precious money they have stolen from the rest of us. I don't care. And I really don't care where any of them might happen to be from, whether China, Mexico, here or the United States. Greed has no racial preference. Wealthy people who whine about paying a few extra dollars for the common good are the ones that need to go, and not the homeless. Today is the Pride Parade. I still don't know if I'll attend after church, if only to take a quick peek at the people and the costumes just after the parade, but I find these things exhausting and after several years of street ministry, and no longer being what anyone could even charitably call young, I am really needing to rest these days. Hence, these grumpy blogposts.