….and this one got Rotzy’s attention….and then some! So I’m sending it out especially for what I call the ‘Hybrid Bunch’, that new, slowly growing part of the car-buying public who want to rid the world of fossil fuels, at all costs. And these hybrids DO cost! A lot. Check it out….*With electrical grid systems that already become ‘challenged’ (or ‘overworked’ if you prefer) by a temperature of, say, -20C….or ‘at the other end of the thermometer’ and +30C with the oft accompanying ‘brownouts’ over LARGE areas, how in the hell is it gonna handle 100 Million cars being plugged up each and every night??!!*
Smart… I Know Not…
….how nor why this came to me the other day….the word SMART….and its’ numerous meanings/applications/uses. As an adjective in ‘That’s a ‘smart’ new suit you’ve got’. That guy’s not very ‘smart’….(another adjective)….he’s only got Grade 9….phlunked out after 1 2/3 years in Grade 10. That’s a nasty scrape on your knee….does it ‘smart’? (a verb?) C’mon man, ‘smarten’ up. (definitely a verb) Or, ‘he’s got a case of the ‘smarts’.(noun) And/or even ‘she’s a real ‘smart’-ass’. (adjective; noun, if you wish). Anyway, methinks it was re-triggered this morning about 9:00 on the way home from my twice-weekly appointment at the VON to have my leg bandages checked and re-wrapped when I stopped for a red light on the Wayne Gretzky Parkway behind a car that read ‘SMART’ on the back of it. Sorry, but it wasn’t. Smart. At all. In any way, shape or form. It was stupid/not sporty/very ugly in fact. The makers (Mercedes????) no doubt sell it as being ‘practical’. Sorry. Rotzy sees it as ‘practically’/absolutely unsafe. And I rather doubt my 220 lb frame (I actually ‘dipped’ to 216 last Wed!) would fit even remotely comfortably into one! There was a guy who owned a black and grey ‘Smartmobile’ up in Geraldton….an area where moose, black bear and cetera abound, hence , here we go. Again. I wouldn’t want to take on anything bigger/meaner than a Monarch Butterfly in one of them….you think? I didn’t believe they have a ‘hybrid’ model, but no doubt they are popular because they likely get 3000 miles to the gallon. It reminds me of a ‘car’ a buddy of mine owned about 50 years ago…an Isetta, which opened from the front and methinks ran on a Lawn Boy mower engine. It ‘calfed on him’ within a few months. So….SO….y’all can have your ‘mowers’, your Smart cars, your ‘Hybrids’ and cetera….I’ll stick with Norm The Nissan Truck….with a cruise in Edna the Equinox now and then….whilst the rest of them are ‘saving the planet’. Al Gore and David Suzuki will love ya!
Voting….or not?
Is it just ‘the nature of the beast’? (*I refer to politics in general as ‘the beast’) Is it ‘smart’? Is it stupid? Have other parties/governments done this? Is it a waste of tyme/money? I’m guessing the answer could be/is ‘YES’ to those five questions….but with an *asterisk beside it, because WW I and WW II aside, Canada (and everybody else) has never been in such a dreadful mess before….yet, in two weeks we’re going to vote in a Federal Election!!?? Hell….it seems like we just had one, does it not? The first tyme I was allowed to vote (the age limit was 21) was in 1968, the year Trudeau Mania swept the entire country. Pierre Trudeau. I went with the new NDP guy, Derek Blackburn, who woulda/coulda/shoulda won, but finished up as one of many ‘victims of the Mania’. Anyway, that evening I ended up going with a pal down to the NDP HQ at the UAW Local 458 Union Hall to watch the results come in and have some brown pops, finding the process quite interesting because of the very CLOSE race between Derek and the Liberal candidate (Dick Beckett?), who eventually squeaked out the win. If I remember correctly, it was close enough to require a re-count, altho the initial results stood. By the bye, in the NEXT fed election PET Mania had flown the coop, Blackburn won and became MP for Brant for several terms. So….SO….it was likely that nite at the #458 Hall that sparked an interest (*see below) that would become Federal, Provincial and Municipal and when I started doing newspaper items/columns (Orono Times Weekly/Bowmanmville Statesman, even the Toronto Sun) three decades ago, politics often surfaced. Obviously, they still do, ending up in a Rotzy Rant. By the bye, Miz Jo and Rotzy aren’t Liberals….and we aren’t Conservatives…altho we’ve been BOTH, but not at the same tyme. Back in 2001 or ’02 we hurriedly became ‘card carrying Fed Liberals’, brought on board by our MP Joe Comuzzi, in an effort by Paul Martin to ‘remove’ Jean Cretien as Leader….which they did, quickly….and Martin became #1. Soon after that, the ‘Right of Choice’ bill (abortion or no) came forward, and Joe being a good Dogan had only ONE way to go, so Martin ‘removed’ him from the Lib Caucus and within a week Stephen Harper welcomed Comuzzi with open arms to the PC’s at a small ceremony in Thunder Bay Miz. Jo and yours truly were invited to0….Joe also became Min Of Fednor. We were also card carriers for the (Provincial) NOP….that’s not a ‘typo’, it is/was The Northern Ontario Party….and there was some talk at one tyme of Rotzy becoming their candidate for T.Bay/Superior North, our riding when we were in Nakina, so I would have been running against our olde friend, long-tyme Lib MPP Michael Gravelle! (*Michael told me “(I) want no part of THAT”! , but he was breathing easier when I advised him we were already in the planning stage of moving south….and the ‘commute’ between Brant’s Ford and that HUGE riding, not to mention Queens Park trips, would be absolutely brutal!! “Hey Toad”, I said (to myself), ”what is all this s–t about? You’re really rambling on here”! “I don’t really know….but methinks I’m trying to come up with a reason as to whether or not to vote on Sept 20th. (What are you talking about, Toad?….NOT VOTING”?!) “That’s what I said stupid! The majority of Canadians (70-75%) clearly don’t want an election”! “But you’ve NEVER missed out on voting, because as you say, ‘that’s ‘democracy”.(*see above) Well, if I DO vote, it’ll be AGAINST the arrogant, little Dick-head that had/has the balls/is stupide enough to try and pull this off, and not so much a vote FOR the PC’s….if you get my drift? You know….you walk into the polling station….announce your intentions of ‘intentionally ‘spoiling’ your ballot’ to the ladies….and you walk outta there feeling ‘good’….or ‘relieved’….in spite of ‘NOT doing your democratic duty’. S–t. That is the heck of me! I do believe I just felt ‘a little ting-a-ling of guilt’, The “F/N” readership got any thoughts on this Rotzy dilemma?
*Thought Of The Day…”PAYDAY”….a popular caramel and peanut chocolate bar is changing its name because it’s offensive to those who don’t work. (thanks Billy….not his real name)
