1 July 2008
Think of yourself sitting on a cloud, viewing the comings and goings of humans on earth. A notice in the newspaper today heraled the opening of a new hotel in Saudi Arabia with a suite available for $13,500 a night. Seems there is a perceived demand for upscale digs for billionaires in the gulf states.
On this side of the Atlantic apparently motor scooters are becoming all the rage. Remember the rush to small cars during the 70s oil embargo? And then the rush to SUVs as soon as it passed? And everyone crying about the stock market and housing costs - but they sure were estatic when they were on the way up, regardless of how obviously unrealistic that was. And they gobbled it all up, didn't they, being entitled as they were? Ohhhhhh those big houses - lets people know how successful we are, you know, along with those must-do fancy vacations all over the world. On a train going to Prague I met a couple who had just sold their business and were taking the obligatory arranged victory lap around Europe. They weren't sure where they had been, were fuzzy on where they were going and were limited as the only language they spoke was Ohio. Their tour guide had installed them in a quaint local hotel right in the middle of town, and it took maybe two hours before they were knocking on the doors of the Hilton for "more familiar" accomodations. But I'll bet they regailed the locals with awesome tales when they returned home.
But the best of the best - for the bemused observer - has to be the Arab militants dressing themselves up in fancy explosive belts and diving into a crowd to see how many strangers they can join in annihilation. But then that's not the only strange customs they have, although it can all change really rapidly when they break away from the restrictions of their cloying culture. Wouldn't it be just wonderful if we could all jump back into the seventh century?
What's unfortunate is how much pain the idiots - all over the world - foist upon the innocent who are just trying to survive. Although given the opportunity most of those survivors would do the same as soon as they had the chance. The view from the top of Olympus must have been great, and the gods fully amused day in and day out watching the antics of the inhabitants of the world zoo. You think? Alas, they couldn't stay above it, and had to get down into it and mix in, screwing it up even worse.
For all the wonderful advances we have wrought we sure can screw things up and seem to thrive in the process. It would all be a big joke if we were up on that cloud and not involved, wouldn't it?
