I enjoy securing my five-point harness for Mr. Mooney's submissions, where we careen down disparate roads of histories and personalities that converge like stock cars in a plaza of reconciliation.
We here in Canada seem to be like the good Germans of a century ago, tucking our heads into our shoulders, putting in our earbuds and praying to hold on to our membership cards to the middling class.
I almost wish we had capacity to protest and resist anything on this side of the pond, with at least as much energy as the only ones collecting – the flag-wavers celebrating their ignorance like drunken frat boys, once again coming out of the beer halls.
We are so quick to convene the Coalitions of the Willing when it comes to war. How about a mass buying group, a Green Coalition, that is willing instead to forego just a little of its ultimate ability to consume in order to buy only from member countries who prove – not talk about and wring their hands over – a tangible program to improving the health of the planet. Start with the easiest to measure: fossil fuel consumption per capita, etc.
We don’t need to jump out of planes with daggers in our teeth as did our forbearers to meet the challenge of a global threat, just accept that through the embargo of non-compliant countries, our consumer goods might get just that little bit more expensive.
That is the big sacrifice asked of us today - in not a War on Pollution, just a Mild Inconvenience on Ecological Destruction.
Thanks for strapping in, JW. Mass buying – the Coalition of the Wallet. I like. We're today careening down another scary road, driven this time by the Guardian/Le Monde et al's new mapping of high-level PFAS & PFAO "forever chemical" pollution in drinking water across Europe – pollutants that don’t break down in the environment and build up in the body. All in the name of "non-stick" convenience. Deeply disturbing – who wants to even think about it? And yet: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/feb/23/revealed-scale-of-forever-chemical-pollution-across-uk-and-europe
Great writing and éducation. My mother began telling folk to stop idling 30 years ago. And Paso is the way to go. I do like to burn wood in my chimney, but do not do it often. Ambiant moments for spécial occasions.
Thanks you Barbara-jo. I like a good fire, too. In Bamfield, on the rare occasions that the fire ban isn't in place. Or in a place like La Charite. But in a city already suffering a catastrophic peak in pollution... not so much!
"Ignorance or denial of the presence of disease." Sounds very close to cognitive dissonance. I'm just a layman but such conditions have always interested me - the irrational potholes that otherwise rational people fall into. Fear, it seems is at the root of such behavior. A wise man once said: Why sit in the prison when the door is wide open? Is it that some things are too terrible to face? I ask myself these same questions daily...
Yes! I think fear is the fallback for most of our afflictions. But here I think lassitude is the more dominant force - and, perhaps, fear's fallback. Fear requires energy. Fear is exhausting. Just not giving a shit is much much easier. No?
This is a motherload of a subject! I suggest another evening summit meeting. Ahaha. Until then - and because I've not yet finished my morning coffee - I would recommend a brilliant book titled Prisoners of Ourselves - the totalitarianism of everyday life by Gunduz Vassaf. It's available on Amazon. He digs deep into these afflictions. I love this dude!
Fascinating. Never heard of him but a very intriguing CV. See he was at McGill for a spell. You came across him in Turkey? Orhan Pamuk calls him “the freest spirit of Turkish prose.”
I had not heard of him either - odd considering the hundreds of nights I'd spent with the heroes of the Istanbul intellectual underground. I came across Prisoners in a tiny treasure box of a used book shop in Datca (go there!) called le Flaneur. What a revelation! Of the handful of books that have most profoundly informed my life, this book is right up there - (the first, I can hear you asking, is The Razor's Edge.) I had no idea he was at McGill, but not at all surprised by Pamuk's praise. Pick it up. You won't. be disappointed. Hey, how about inviting Gunduz for dinner! Ahaha.
I enjoy securing my five-point harness for Mr. Mooney's submissions, where we careen down disparate roads of histories and personalities that converge like stock cars in a plaza of reconciliation.
We here in Canada seem to be like the good Germans of a century ago, tucking our heads into our shoulders, putting in our earbuds and praying to hold on to our membership cards to the middling class.
I almost wish we had capacity to protest and resist anything on this side of the pond, with at least as much energy as the only ones collecting – the flag-wavers celebrating their ignorance like drunken frat boys, once again coming out of the beer halls.
We are so quick to convene the Coalitions of the Willing when it comes to war. How about a mass buying group, a Green Coalition, that is willing instead to forego just a little of its ultimate ability to consume in order to buy only from member countries who prove – not talk about and wring their hands over – a tangible program to improving the health of the planet. Start with the easiest to measure: fossil fuel consumption per capita, etc.
We don’t need to jump out of planes with daggers in our teeth as did our forbearers to meet the challenge of a global threat, just accept that through the embargo of non-compliant countries, our consumer goods might get just that little bit more expensive.
That is the big sacrifice asked of us today - in not a War on Pollution, just a Mild Inconvenience on Ecological Destruction.
Thanks for strapping in, JW. Mass buying – the Coalition of the Wallet. I like. We're today careening down another scary road, driven this time by the Guardian/Le Monde et al's new mapping of high-level PFAS & PFAO "forever chemical" pollution in drinking water across Europe – pollutants that don’t break down in the environment and build up in the body. All in the name of "non-stick" convenience. Deeply disturbing – who wants to even think about it? And yet: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/feb/23/revealed-scale-of-forever-chemical-pollution-across-uk-and-europe
Great writing and éducation. My mother began telling folk to stop idling 30 years ago. And Paso is the way to go. I do like to burn wood in my chimney, but do not do it often. Ambiant moments for spécial occasions.
Thanks you Barbara-jo. I like a good fire, too. In Bamfield, on the rare occasions that the fire ban isn't in place. Or in a place like La Charite. But in a city already suffering a catastrophic peak in pollution... not so much!
"Ignorance or denial of the presence of disease." Sounds very close to cognitive dissonance. I'm just a layman but such conditions have always interested me - the irrational potholes that otherwise rational people fall into. Fear, it seems is at the root of such behavior. A wise man once said: Why sit in the prison when the door is wide open? Is it that some things are too terrible to face? I ask myself these same questions daily...
Yes! I think fear is the fallback for most of our afflictions. But here I think lassitude is the more dominant force - and, perhaps, fear's fallback. Fear requires energy. Fear is exhausting. Just not giving a shit is much much easier. No?
This is a motherload of a subject! I suggest another evening summit meeting. Ahaha. Until then - and because I've not yet finished my morning coffee - I would recommend a brilliant book titled Prisoners of Ourselves - the totalitarianism of everyday life by Gunduz Vassaf. It's available on Amazon. He digs deep into these afflictions. I love this dude!
Fascinating. Never heard of him but a very intriguing CV. See he was at McGill for a spell. You came across him in Turkey? Orhan Pamuk calls him “the freest spirit of Turkish prose.”
I had not heard of him either - odd considering the hundreds of nights I'd spent with the heroes of the Istanbul intellectual underground. I came across Prisoners in a tiny treasure box of a used book shop in Datca (go there!) called le Flaneur. What a revelation! Of the handful of books that have most profoundly informed my life, this book is right up there - (the first, I can hear you asking, is The Razor's Edge.) I had no idea he was at McGill, but not at all surprised by Pamuk's praise. Pick it up. You won't. be disappointed. Hey, how about inviting Gunduz for dinner! Ahaha.