Got Drugs? Pass it on!

 

Got Drugs? Pass it on!

 

Who was it that said “For every action there is a direct and equal opposite reaction. . . .” or something like that? Turns out to have been more true than we realized, at least accordin’ to the recent news. Basically, what they’re talkin’ about are them prescription drugs an’ over the counter drugs, an’ even the illegal kind o’ drugs people inject into their blood streams an’ then pee them out and flush ‘em into the rivers, lakes an’ sewage systems which transfer them to treatment plants, which then don’t get the drugs filtered out o’ the system, which then go back into the water we drink, which then means we are ingestin’ all kinds of who knows what all into our bodies before we start the cycle all over again.

It was Isaac Newton who made that casual remark a hunnert an’ fifty years ago.  It was a matter of physics, he said. Who knew that physics had any practical application? I always thought it was reserved for them crackpot scientists like Stephen Hawking. Well that’s a big bang of a theory. Shows you what I know.

Regardless of the theories an’ concerns though, this could actually turn out to be a good thing that crept up on us here. It’s sort’a like what they do for people with peanut allergies. They feed ‘em a little bit at a time to sneak up on the allergy an’ build up their resistance to the reaction. Here now, we got a whole drug store at the kitchen sink. Blood thinners, headache remedies, maybe even Viagra an’ cocaine too. They say that these are only miniscule amounts of the drugs that are not bein’ filtered out by the treatment plants, but if you figure in the risin’ population, the amounts will grow in the next while an’ by the time we need some o’ them pills, we won’t have to go to the drug store no more. We’ll just drink lots o’ water like them health nuts tell us to. Our blood pressure will go down, our anxieties will be relieved an’ we won’t even have headaches no more while we are primed for sex. Might be that erectile dysfunction’ll be cured too an’ we’ll be on a continual high from cocaine. All we gotta do is drink eight glasses o’ water a day an’ we say goodbye to the drug companies.

Who’da thought the health care system would cure itself through Mother Nature? Now if we could just figure out which particular drugs we need, we could tune our faucets to them drugs. I think somebody ought to start makin’ some specialized faucet filters that you can turn on to any medication you want. At least that’s how it seems to me from up here on the top shelf.

Just sayin’. 

 

Separation

Separation

 

Here we go again. Scotland is holding a referendum on separation from the United Kingdom. In other words, the United Kingdom has the possibility of becoming unhinged or un-united if you will. Sound familiar? It seems there’s always somebody wanting independence, or at the very least, association with a different entity. In this case, the Scottish people just want shut of the bloody British. They’ve been wantin’ that since Mary, Queen of Scots had her head chopped off. Later in fact, when Bonny Prince Charlie got his army together to defeat them buggers, he found his own warriors to be so savage, it made him puke an’ run back to France. At least that’s one o’ the stories I heard.

Well at least the Scots are bein’ civilized about it (for the moment). They’re not like them Russian Ukrainians or Ukrainian Russians or them Isis creatures in Iraq. Them people (if you can call them people) provide a whole new dimension to independence. Liars, cheaters an’ thieves, they make Hitler an’ Stalin seem normal. I’ll tell you, I’ve been a pacifist all my life, but these critters sure test the limits o’ that. It seems them Isis folks are makin’ up their own religion an’ callin’ it Muslim. What confuses me is why the rest of the Muslims don’t move in an’ shut ‘em down once an’ for all. It would sure bode well for Islam’s credibility if they did. But instead, they leave it up to the damned Christians who couldn’t find their rear ends with both hands behind their backs. But I digress.

In what’s now called the “Global Village”, we all seem to want to be separate, yet we want to belong to something other than what we are already part of. That’s even evident from our social behavior. No matter where you go you see people travelin’ in groups, all busy on their what-you-macall-it phone pads, talkin’ to somebody else (or to no one in particular). Well you might equate that to the Ukrainian situation. Them Russians who’re livin’ there kind’a like it. They got good jobs, education for the kids, an’ all the amenities they want. Only problem is they’re livin’ on Ukrainian soil. So instead of pullin up stakes an movin’ to Russia, they want to turn the Ukraine INTO Russia. Nice trick you’se guys! They know full well where Putin would relocate them to if they emigrated back to the mother country. In Belgium there’s a current uproar of Muslims demandin’ a change in school lunch diets to conform to their religion. OH REALLY?

Well I think on that basis, Me an’ my family an’ friends ought’a move into Buckingham Palace. Once we’re settled, we’ll get the Queen to do some renovations to suit us. That should be fun. At least that’s how it seems to me from up here on the top shelf.

Just sayin’.

Education on Education

Education on Education

It’s not as though I haven’t raised the issue before. I’ll keep harpin’ on this ‘til somebody pays attention. I’m talkin’ about post secondary education of course an’ who pays for it. For starters, let’s figure out who benefits from it.

The graduate students benefit of course, you say. Oh REALLY? Well let’s see now. Firstly, they get to have some letters of designation behind their names. Then they have the benefit of massive student loans that they have the opportunity to repay within a given amount of time. They also have the opportunity to put out a gazillion resumes to companies that are ambivalent about hirin’ them in the first place even at a wage that puts a crimp in their ability to repay the student loans AND buy the groceries too.

Oh wait a minute. That don’t sound like a whole lot o’ benefits to the graduates. They bust their butts for about four years to end up forty thousand dollars in debt an’ a whole lot o’ information in their brains that nobody’ll buy. How is that a good investment o’ time an’ effort? Goin’ to University is more or less like playin’ the lottery. In the first place you gotta decide what you want to become so you can take the appropriate courses. At age seventeen you’ve more or less decided that your parents got no brains anyways so they can’t help you (except for meals, a bed, an’ spending money etc.). An’ the school system has got no statistical basis upon which to steer their students neither. It’s not like in Europe where you’re guided into a trade or discipline by the time you’re fourteen or so. An’ the job fairs that go on for high school students are just a pack o’ lies designed by industry to create a pool o’ graduates to choose from in four years time, should they still have a requirement then. An’ governments, well they always win. First of all there’s the debt you gotta repay which means you somehow gotta get a job of some sort, which in turn means you gotta pay taxes. I remember a pretty renowned architect years ago whose first job after graduatin’ was as a shoe shine boy. Well he had to pay the bills, didn’t he?

There’s currently 1.2 million university students in Canada. What they all oughta do is quit their studies an’ line up for social assistance – well either that or all become drug dealers to get by on. That way, they’d be lookin’ after theirselves much in the way the government an’ industry does. Let them all hire foreign workers to do the jobs Canadians should be doin’ in the first place an’ pay the price as well. Do the math. That’s a pretty hefty bill to pay. Mind you, for Mr. Harper to get industry to pay for anythin’ other than his election campaign is outa the question. The government an’ industry could use an education on the priorities of education in this country. At least that’s how it seems to me from up here on the top shelf.

Just sayin’.

The Yellin' Clock

The Yellin’ Clock!

 

I never thought I’d see such a thing: A clock that yells at you without makin’ a sound. Well, I seen it ‘cause we got one. I still don’t know how to react to it.  The missus’  been grumblin’ about the old radio clock sittin’ on her night table for months now, how she can’t see the blamed clock on it an’ she don’t know whether to come back to bed after she visits the bathroom or get up an’ make breakfast. You know how that is when you get so fed up with a situation you gotta do somethin’ about it.

“C’mon,” she says, “we’re goin’ down to the Walmart an’ get a new clock.” She was lookin’ for one o’ them wall clocks she could hang up across the room from the bed so she could see the time from the comfort of her pillow. So we go down to the Walmart. Contrary to her usual custom, she walks right past the hair color, the throw cushions, an’ the artwork, an’ heads straight for a clerk an’ asks her where’s the clocks. I can see that she’s some determined. It was a good thing too ‘cause there was nothin’ there you could hang on a wall.

So then I spot one o’ them mantle clocks she can put on her night table. It’s a digital clock that lights up. It’s got no radio or nothin’, but it’s got big numbers you can see ‘cause it shines in the dark. “That’s it!” she shouts. So we buy it.

I don’t know if you ever noticed, but things always look different when you get them home than they did at the store. It ain’t no different with clocks neither. Well, you don’t notice at first. I set it on the night table, plugged it in, set the time an’ put the light on bright. There, that ought’a do it. The missus approved.

Around eight or eight-thirty the missus decides to call it a night an’ trundles off to bed while I stay up to watch some TV. A couple of hours later, I follow suit. In the darkness of the house I expect I’m gonna see this new clock. I’m surprised to see there’s no clock anywhere. Maybe she stuck it under the bed or something.

In the morning I find out that it was just too big an’ bright so she threw a towel over it. Well that’s a lark! Reminds me of Goldilocks an’ the three bears. So I go an’ turn down the brightness. An’ now it’s just right, says the missus. But for me it ain’t just right. Every time I go past the bedroom door I see those big two inch tall digits starin’ right at me to tell me the time whether I want to know or not. It feels like the clock is yellin’ at me an’ I don’t wanna always know what time it is. If this keeps up I might just close the bedroom door to shut the blamed thing up. At least that’s how it seems to me from up here on the top shelf.

Just sayin’.