Forwarding Thinkingness or Just Avoiding the Obvious

My days as a sub have been half-full, at best, whether you are an optimist or a pessimist. The up-side of this lies in all the time I have to read news and essays and articles of all sorts—-football, hockey, cycling, politics, literary, whatever current of interest I find myself on in my surfing. Like most things, there is a good side and bad side and both can be found in the same place. After all, just how much does one want to consider the current financial woes and throes the country and thereby the world is in? True enough, I do want to remain wide-eyed and sober when shit hits the fan, so that I won't rage into a hysteria which large numbers of us are bound to be doing. Yet I also don't want sink into the mire of information glut. As a result, I find myself dodging here and there, as if to avoid the stuff that may sink me beneath my feet.

I came upon one article that discusses the detriment to health that my recent favorite breakfast does to one's body: Why the great British breakfast is a killer. I happen to enjoy a good English breakfast, but like many things we want, it is not may not be good to us in return. The calorie intake alone should send off alarm bells. Yet I don't care. I'm still gonna have one now and again. Yet I'm also not going to be what I eat, and life does have a smörgåsbord of offerings. I want them all!



The forward-thinking Dutch continue to take a progressive stance on cycling; however, this may be a bit much. An out-side car airbag for cyclists that the car may potentially hit. I don't know if this is an invitation to hit cyclists or an "OK" for having done so. The picture is good for a laugh if nothing else. I do know I wouldn't give it a test drive.



Finally, there is Russia, the once-Cold War enemy who since having taken a dip in the world-wide Super Power Standings, has resurfaced due to their mercurial leader Putin and his sham-election which placed another face in front of the camera for him to speak through as puppet master. In hard times like these, we want an enemy; they provide us with a point of focus which allows us to concentrate on competing and thus improve ourselves in relation to them. Russia served as this during the cold war and they are rising to the occasion again, as China, despite so much discussion of being the next Super Power, seems feeble at times, with their quasi-comic dominance of Tibet and embarrassing environmental problems. Russia, on the other hand, has shown a resurgent economy and nationalism that has bordered on the fascist. Somehow my father has instilled in me a distrust of Russians; having been raised in WW II Sweden, it makes sense, and their mafia's encroaching on Finland and Sweden with their prostitutes and stolen car rings confirms their contemporary shiftiness/shadiness. Yet consider this video as presented by the New York Times. Not only do their thugs bully the surrounding countries (i.e. Estonia, Finland, Poland, etc) but their own society conforms in ways that could make any American go, Say what? I thought that we, as species, had surpasses this on some level. I guess I thought wrong. I'll not forget this, nor get bogged down all the obviously depressing and pressing issues we all need to consider, but I'll also try not to forget that no matter how much I overlook the obvious, the obvious remains where it always was, right under our noses. There's a delicate balance there.