• Blue Notes

Thursday, January 7, 2010

New decade ushers in new era of paradox

posted by BOFarrell at 7h29

To quote my great-great uncle Charlie: “It was the best of times; it was the worst of times….”

That’s the new year’s template: It was the time of endless paradoxes. 

It’s 2010 – twenty-ten. I like that name. It’s concise. The years slip by so fast. I still sometimes write 19… on the date line of my cheques. I must be a residual victim of Y2K. (I know what you’re thinking: He still writes cheques?)

We have also entered a new decade. Let’s call it the teens, because after 2012 it will contain seven years ending with the suffix: teen. So we can all be teenagers again. And to quote Uncle Oscar: “To get back to one’s youth, one has merely to repeat one’s follies.”

I think about that every time I see a guy my age on a Harley. It’s a paradox. Let’s call it: Late onset puberty.

The past is past, thank God. The last decade was dismal for us. However, if you lived in China or India, the last decade was great. Another paradox. I’m so happy for them.
Did I not mention irony? It goes with paradox like gin with tonic.

Only a clairvoyant or a climate scientist would dare predict the future. But here are some safe predictions: Taxes will increase. Services will decline. And the PQ will complain that we speak too much English in the West Island.

And we will take it, because Canadians are a very self-depreciating lot. And we’re not very good at it. (Love that joke.)

Our biggest problem is apathy. But … what can we do? (Love that one, too. They belong together.)

Those pesky paradoxes. We have the queen of a foreign country on our money. Think about it. We need a visa to work in the homeland of our own head of state.

And that recent squabble about Senator Jacques Demers? We can’t blame the fact that he was appointed to the Senate on him. He was a hockey coach. What could be more Canadian? The real problem is his domicile. In keeping with our head of state policy, we should only appoint senators who don’t live in Canada.

Being a politician is a thankless job. As opposed to being a senator, which is a jobless thanks.

Here’s another paradox. We have one of the biggest natural supplies of oil in the world. More oil than Saudi Arabia. Yippee! It’s propping up our economy and paying for all our socialist entitlements. But we feel guilty about it! Let’s publish yet another photo of those ugly oil sands.

I keep waiting for the warming. New Hampshire licence plates proclaim: “Live Free and Die.”

Ours should read: “Live, Freeze and Die.” Or how about: “Warm globally, freeze locally.”

Skeptics are still arguing about the Middle Age Warming Period. Or, as it’s known to most lady boomers: menopause.

I realize that to some of you these things are sacred. But if we can mock the right, why can’t we mock the left? Why should anyone get away mock free?

Our prime minister has closed Parliament for three months. Everyone is up in arms. I’m thinking: Are you crazy? Let them stay at home longer, where they can’t do any damage.

And my new year’s resolution? Learn to enjoy the paradoxes.