Excuse My Re-Use!
Attention Deficit Disorder is a great source of humor:
How many ADD kids does it take to change a light bulb? Hey, I know, let’s go ride our bikes!
My grandfather managed his aging years with the observation: "I’ve hit so many rocks in my path, my plow is blunted"
We have had hit rocks on our path of global humanity. The major catastrophies of Japan and Libya are the most recent rocks. There have always been catastrophies, natural like earthquakes and tsunami’s, engineering like melt-downs and chemical spills, and economic, like our military-industrial complex leading the most prosperous country in the world to economic tragedy. We react with compassion and urgency to help the survivors to rebuild. It has always been that way. It’s a normal human reaction.
But now our plows are blunted by catastrophe overload. We fear the dire consequeses and ignore them at the same time. It’s our National Attention Deficit Disorder. How many Citizens does it take to hold our leaders, both corporate and governmental, accountable for their absurd behavior? Hey, I know, let’s go watch a movie!
We see evidence of a constant barrage of mind grenades: in advertisements where the round walk-in bank vault morphs into the ample breast of a red, white and blue clad cheerleader — Obviously this bank won the World Cup of Mom-trust. At least at the P.R. level. Or what about the blue cloud bouncing sheep advertising a “medicine” where the voice-over announces dire and deadly side effects. We are lulled to sheep and act as sheep: we buy the product, eat the burger and put the house on the charge-card. All with the faith that we will win in the end. Our leaders tell us so.
In the face of these obvious psychological ploys to generate total credibility overload, we are asked to simply have faith. Isn’t that the hallmark of a religion? To take facts and logic as enemies of “faith?”
So what’s a Portlander to do? To create or dismiss Counterspiricies of moles in theBilderberg Groupwho are secretly controlled by theJohn Birch Society? Run and hide? Dig fallout shelters with our blunted plows?
Since most of us in Portland are members of the Church of WGAF, we might refuse to follow the lead of the leaders, and bop off on our own direction. For example, our bizarre style sense in Portland is best described as “EXCUSE my Re-use.” That’s why you might see a woman in 30’s style evening dress with t-shirt and leather chaps. Or old petticoats worn inside out. Or some color combinations that would shock an elderly chinese woman.
In the case of national economic dysfunction, our leaders advocate the viagra fix for our blunt plows best described as ‘burn the candles faster and harder, trust us, we will loan you the candles.’ But in Portland, we seem to have more off-grid solutions and values. Where else but in Portland do hundreds of people gather with sleds of carboard simply to celebrate as zillions of birds fly down aGrade School Chimney. Tree-huggers that we are, we likely will have human-tree marriages sooner than California.
We have turned our land fills into gold mines: the family next door dug down a couple of feet and found a set of marbles made in 1776, complete with shooter, aggie, cat’s eye — They sold it at Christie’s Auchtung Auctions for a cool million. Another family found a similar set, but used them in valves for irrigation.
The family that got the million blew through it in two months, and are back scouring the hillside. The family that used the marbles figures their irrigation system can be sustained for at least 150 years with materials found on the hillside. Both of these families love scouring the hillsides and hugging the trees. It’s sustainable. Take that, Mr. Counterspiracy!
That’s St. John’s, Portland, Oregon on this glorious Summer of April 2, 2011 — It’s a Jaywalkers Paradise!
Jim’s Note - This one took several days, I want to thank S. McDonald for her suggestion of the "million dollar marble," which sparked the proper St. John’s ending, and PapaDon for his support and encouragement.