I truly believe that this will not end for a long, long time. The anti-maskers, anti-vaxers and whatever other conspiracy theorists are out there are like passengers on a sinking, but save-able ship, deliberately interfering with the damage-control parties who actually could prevent the ship from sinking. Meanwhile your fucking president and his merry gang of white-house deplorables constantly and continuously spouts out vile, stupid crap that makes absolutely no fucking sense and is blatantly counter to the facts.
In Canada meanwhile, our own Karen made a big stink in a Toronto hospital because they wouldn’t let her in without a mask. So today she was in an anti-mandatory mask protest, stating so wisely "“Our individual rights have to be suppressed so that somebody else would feel better,” Letitia Montana, who was removed from St. Joseph’s Health Centre over the weekend for not wearing a mask, said. “Is that the kind of world we want to live in? That is what has led to the worst atrocities in history.”
Meanwhile you guys (US) are in the midst of a cold civil-war that could do god-knows what. This CNN headline is self-explanatory: “Strongmen rush to remake the world order as Trump faces potential election defeat.”
And add to this rising sea-levels (I’ve read that in the next thirty years there could be millions of people displace from coastal areas.)
I fear you are both correct. When I wake up in the morning, I have about one nanosecond of peace, and then I remember the world we are in. And it goes downhill from there.
I’m 71 and I’ll prolly be over the River Jordan before you… I’ll hold out my hand and help you across. Then we’ll have a beer. Or twelve. I’ll bet the beers in heaven are really good.
My 22-year-old son has no interest in having children, and so far only dates women who feel the same way. In other circumstances I might hope he changes his mind so I could know the joy of being a grandparent, but even before the pandemic I was rather grateful. We’re on a disastrous path with respect to climate change. The pandemic (and who’s to say there won’t be more if/when we get this one under control) and the rise of totalitarianism just make it worse.
I shouldn’t feel worse for a hypothetical grandchild than I would for anyone else’s kid, but it is human nature to feel the most pain for your own progeny. I won’t deny that the thought of a grandchild of mine growing up in the desperate times we’re headed for frightens and grieves me. I just hope my son can benefit through his life from what remains of the progress we’d made as a species.
Also, as I have frequently said, “God hates poor people.” Whether it’s a tsunami or a pandemic or a global economic downturn, people who were already vulnerable invariably suffer the worst. I can’t begin to wrap my mind around how bad things are/are becoming for countless millions around the world.
There will always be adult toddlers, throwing tantrums and screaming their demands. We, the grown-ups of the world, need to just manage things and keep them from hurting themselves.
The problems we’re experiencing right now are because one of the toddlers has been handed some power. He’s like a three year old holding a loaded gun.
What we need to do is stay calm and get the gun out of his hands. And then we can go back to dealing with the normal toddler problems.
As a Torontonian, I was following this pretty closely. I would estimate that 99.5% of the responses on Twitter were calling her out for the Covidiot she is. There are always idiots, but as a whole I think we Canadians are looking out for each other.
I don’t wish that on anyone but it comforts me to know that I’m not the only one who feels that way. Every. Damned. Day. It is really hard to keep on getting up and going forward. And yesterday I was reading about how many asteroids fly passed the earth every day and that we will have practically no warning when the one that will finally hit us, well, hits us.
Money isn’t the issue. Productivity is. Reward productivity and penalize destructiveness and society will prosper. Unfortunately, politicians don’t care about productivity they care about power and will pander to anyone regardless of the long term consequences to get power.
The rampant science-denialism, narcissism (acting like you’re immune to the virus), polarization and politicization of what is supposed to be a really fucking simple issue of “pro-disease” vs. “anti-disease”, makes me fucking embarrassed and ashamed to be an American for the first time I can ever recount in my entire life. I would be in Canada RIGHT NOW if I could convince my other half to move there, and I can’t, but if it wasn’t for that, I would find some way of getting there and staying there for a goddamn long time. I’d live in a fucking tent in the woods if I had to.
You know how there’s always a piece of property in every town that’s always changing hands and turning into a different business…sometimes it’s a bank, sometimes it’s a restaurant, sometimes it’s a run down abandoned building, sometimes it’s a pile of rubble. America is at the “run down abandoned building” phase at the moment. Some day it will undoubtedly be developed and transformed into something better; or it might just deteriorate into a pile of rubble; but right now that’s where it is and I wish I could be anywhere else.
Here’s a handy site that will help you determine if you qualify for Express Entry. Essentially, if you score high enough, this will put you in a pool of applicants. Having a job offer in your hand is quite useful to raise your score. If you have both English and French fluency, this is good. If you have professional job experience, that’s also good. If not, that may be a deal-breaker. If you’re older than 47, it becomes more difficult.
It’s a moot point, it’s not going to happen, but if I was unattached, it would. It wouldn’t be through any official procedure. I’d get in through Quebec or the Maritimes, not a place like Toronto or Vancouver where people are actually watching. But it’s not going to happen any time soon. I’m just jealous as hell of the people who get to live in places that actually cracked down on the virus instead of willfully allowing it to run rampant and proactively encouraging its spread out of hubris and narcissism.
And ThelmaLou I’ll definitely have some brews with you.
Meanwhile, for the last 30 yrs the world’s been sucking up to, and enabling China, which is holding two (who knows, maybe more) Canadians hostage and running concentration camps - but that’s ok, maybe we can do business.
