grind my gears

Ye have little faith over his shortcomings due to circumstances involving a abnormal embolism. An embolism far greater than that of any reasoning between the extremely redundant motions and lines challenged by expressing myself monosyllabically enough for you to understand them all. I vouch for what’s worse; therefore losing myself or another in a figuratively based conflict based on falsehoods for the final thought of; is there peace after all?

Here’s my two cents. These days’ freedom is bullshit. As if the Night Of The Living Dead, an entire continent of zombies wander this strip mall landscape in search of brains. We shop at mega-stores that aren’t fond of full time employees because it means giving them proper benefits. These same retailers flood television screens with commercials depicting themselves as community saviors aligned with the needs of the thinly budgeted, while selling pants purchased for 15 cents for $15 dollars. And, to add insult to injury, we are also often made to adhere to the morality foisted on us by such retailers. Walmart, for example, represents a percentage of the gross national product of the United States, which means that it has the ability to set standards based on the beliefs of its owners with regards to things like music, film, and literature. Entertainment companies, who can’t afford not to do business with them, are forced to either play ball or lose the cooperation of America’s largest retailer.

But that’s what’s to be expected in a world in which people wholly removed from conflict, famine, and a whole host of other insecurities, can talk loosely about such subjects without batting an eye. Our entire economy is possible because of the exploitation of those less fortunate.

Pity poor George W. Bush - the much-maligned president is at an all-time low in the polls. And if Canada's new prime minister wants to stick around, he should learn from Mr. Bush's presidency and avoid making the same mistakes.

Little mistakes - like flouting important international agreements. Mr. Bush pulled out of the Kyoto Protocol to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, for example, in spite of scientific consensus that the problem is urgent and a public that sees global warming as a serious problem. -- read more.

A few words of interest to follow on from a weekly column produced by David Suzuki, the renowned environmental activist. He was in town the other night to promote his latest book and I attended the hearing with interest. It was a heartened glimpse into a brilliant life with a impetus of drawing attention to the importance of protecting our besieged planet from increasing degradation. For the less veraciously susceptible intellects, a world where we buy and sell ourselves bags of our own shit filled with excuses, such as the belief that globalization will catapult us into ‘the now’,so that those who are already swimming in pools of cash can have better access to cheap markets where entire families will work for 3 cents an hour making shoes that some whiner of a kid will spend 30 minutes throwing a temper tantrum over until his mother spends the $200 dollars to shut him up. Meanwhile, his counterpart arrives home to the news that his 14 year old sister, forced to prostitute herself in an attempt to help bolster family income, has been found floating in the river.

We are forgetting the fact that we are all in over our heads and going to douse our drawers over the edge that is far more devastating than any terrorist organization or a weapon of mass destruction. I implore all of my readers to visit his website to gain what it is worth.

Even this blog isn’t immune. I’m a Yahoo/Flickr member. Yahoo enthusiastically collaborates with the Chinese government with regards to censorship, not to mention that it has also aided in the arrest and imprisonment of a Chinese journalist. Yahoo’s Jerry Yang claims that the company is merely abiding by Chinese law. What he obviously isn’t willing to do is refrain from doing business in China because of the position in which it places Yahoo. Money, at the end of the day, motivates otherwise intelligent people to avert their eyes from those aspects of their business that are anything but ethical. I believe in the power of the social networking capabilities and applications created to bring people together and allow them to share information. It’s a shame, a real shame, that they have been sullied by a company that finds it acceptable to aid in the restriction of such things in other countries.

But let’s face it - hypocrisy is in. Be it me, you, us, or them – everyone’s in on it. Even the vast majority of Suzuki's environmentally friendly followers are habitual oil guzzlers, all to head home in by the end of said event.

As for the democratically elected leaders, they lie to their citizens and it’s forgotten within a matter of weeks. Wars are waged based on lies, and yet those responsible are never held properly accountable. Human rights violations are ignored in favour of fostering stronger economic relationships with those who perpetrate them. The rule of law is mentioned when convenient and discarded when it isn’t, as are human rights. Syria is bad, Saudi Arabia isn’t. The passive genocide in Sudan continually slips under the radar while Iran remains in the crosshairs (though I will admit that Ahmadinejad seems an idiot. Thankfully, the Iranian people can take heart in the fact that they’re not alone when it comes to suffering idiotic Presidents/Prime Ministers). The United Nations isn’t allowed to inspect American nuclear facilities, but when it’s denied access by other countries then it’s grounds for sanctions and possible military action. Of course, that shouldn’t stop us from examining the justification for the acquisition of the bomb, be it by the United States, Russia, or anyone else. The second that Hiroshima was erased from the face of the earth, the world’s powers knew that their securities would require the immediate acquisition on a nuclear deterrent. Of course it’s madness, but that didn’t stop the US and the USSR from engaging in the most dangerous and disastrous arms race in human history, did it.

Speaking of madness... Politcal left v.s. right and the Sponsorship Scandal has polarized Canadian politics, taking the onus off of what needs to be publicly accomplished and placing it on the ambitions of those that would use whatever opportunity possible to further their agendas and careers. And, as far as I’m concerned, there isn’t one in the entire lot that doesn’t seem a mannequin.

There are shootings in the streets, people lock their doors when once not long ago it was rarely done, school teachers are being nabbed with hard drives stuffed with child pornography, our military is being used to further one of the most reckless military agendas in recent history and there’s rarely mention of it (and when there is, people usually refuse to believe it, often defending the practice by offering up trite justifications), and to top it all off - next door neighbours are ever more strangers than friends.

But look on the bright side – you’ve got your paycheck.

Thus, beer and lap dances for all and everyone a good night.

And that’s what grinds my gears - Dianne.