blogONEAnd now begins an entirely new series of posts…mainly because every time I have a large list of items I wish to discuss, I either forget about it, or lose all the will to write about it when I have time in my hectic schedule.
I think one of the first things I will start with the Ontario minimum wage increase, since every here loves money. I will somehow tie that in with materialism, capitalism and a personal reflection of how it fights Christian beliefs…as well as my hypocritical comments.
After that, I will probably start gibing my own little blurb on the electric car/alternative fuel industry…and more specifically, North American car manufacturers and Canada’s incentives.
Music reviews will be in late April…probably.
As we all know, we will be seeing minimum wage increases! Everyone who is no making enough to get by is definitely rejoicing…and especially the new kids entering the Golden Timmy Arches environment. OK…so this is a step towards fighting poverty in Ontario. Hey, that is cool. What isn’t cool is how a lot of people are complaining about their jobs and wages. WAKE UP CALL, FOLKS - there are kids in China making Wal Mart’s Kathie Lee clothes line for only 3 cents an hour. There is increasing global poverty and decreasing living standards. And here we are…complaining about how $7.50 isn’t enough. Even those who panhandle…despite how awful and heartbreaking it is, make more than those in “slave labor”; one Canadian quarter is worth HOW MUCH compared with 3 cents??? But hey, I guess you need to take care of your own country (let alone, PROVINCE) before you can take care of the world, right?
This brings me to one of my recurring discussions: slavery and poverty. We abolished slavery. Why? Maybe it was because we started to actually think of equality…or maybe because it was actually cheaper for the slave owners to set the slaves free. Let’s see here…if the slaves were no longer owned by the slave-masters, the ‘masters’ no longer have to pay ‘maintenance fees’ on the slaves! So what happened? those were were once slaves to another person…became slaves to poverty. I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again: poverty is the new slavery. Why do children have to work in sweatshops? Why do children even have to be SOLD to work at the sweatshops? Let’s not just focus on children then…how about entire villages? Slaves to poverty…and the government isn’t capable of doing anything…
This brings another topic into focus: the materialistic and capitalist cultures/lifestyles of developed countries. In our societies we are constantly bombarded with advertisements to buy this or buy that. We go crazy over the newest iVeiling. We spend thousands of dollars on plastic, silicon, transistors and things that don’t last. Me? I constantly ponder over what things I could purchase in a few months…another bike, a higher-end sound card, another musical instrument or a laptop. And yet, what are we told by the scriptures? We are told that all of these things WILL NOT LAST. These things have no souls, no human attributes, no redeeming features and nothing worthy to be redeemed. Yet, we devote our lives, salaries, dreams, thoughts and time to attaining these things. We have Christians constantly going abuzz over spending over $3000 for another product which has a bite taken out of it. We have Christians going i! i! i! We have Christians saying “OMG, that Beamer is soooooo nice, but my friend has her own Lexus! I wish I did too!” Is this just human nature, to always have a sense of wanting more and more material things to just comfort us? Are any of us immune to this feeling? I wouldn’t bet on it…or rather, I wouldn’t preach on it on Sunday, and then continue to obsess over my car.
And now, on a slightly deviated topic: the green revolution, Canada and North American auto-makers. So…we’re going to get a tax discount by buying an alternative fuel car eh? That’s great! But why do the car manufacturers of North America cry ever so hard! Why must they complain that the market is being closed on them! For Pete’s sake, you guys were amongst the first to build cars, and you were not able to spur up the ingenuity and innovation to research electric cars or alternative fuel? You CANNOT blame the government for the Japanese car industry’s strives for innovation in alternative fuels when you are primarily focusing on building cars that burn and emit more. While Honda’s Insight and Toyota’s Prius were still in their infant ages, where were the North American hybrids? Oh, that’s right…you were busy making heavier-duty pick-ups, 4×4s and SUVs. What am I looking forward to from the North American industry? The Chevy Volt. To add to the list, the roadsters offered by Tesla. That’s right…you read RIGHT…ROADSTERS. These are ELECTRIC VEHICLES CAPABLE OF SMOKING A SOUPED UP CIVIC. So, Ford…Chevy…GM…man up. Stop crying, and get moving.
Since we’ve been reading a book by Pool in Impact…I think its appropriate to touch on it: I think its time for the industries to jump onto the “bandwagon” for the green revolution. The world has [belatedly] confirmed global warming…so what are you going to do? Will we really just keep on dumping a giant ice-cube into the oceans, as pictured in Futurama?
3 Comments
You bring up good points in this post, but I have some beef with the minimum wage argument. Just because one of our dollars is worth so much in another country doesn’t change the fact that those who are on the lower end of the income stick in our country are struggling. It’s like saying that you shouldn’t have any problems with a high school diploma here because you’re super educated if you go to a less priveledged country.
About the electric car, the only reason it’s not “popular” or widely successful wasn’t because of crappy design, or weak concept, or even poor public demand. I don’t know if you know, but there once was a line of electric vehicles called the EV1 by GM. If you don’t want to watch Sony Picture’s “Who Killed the Electric Car?” documentary on this obscure line of cars, basically what happened was GM came out with a f***ing rad car that ran completely on rechargeable batteries. There were actual waiting lists of people who wanted to buy this car to end all cars. It went fast and one charge was more than enough for a normal person’s daily needs (and that’s with the relatively crappy battery technology back then). This trend for looking out for the environment in California raised the issue about emissions laws for automakers. For some retarded reason, the government officials ended up passing the law but couldn’t make it stick when automakers started bitching about it. All the while, GM starts mysteriously taking the EV1s back and systematically impounding/destroying them. FTW, all signs point to where the money’s at (Big Oil, as my economics teacher calls it). Basically, people out to continue making in the range of the billions a year (EXON Mobile, I’m looking at you) started pressuring automakers into reverting to old, inefficient, polluting technologies. Greedy buggers. Go watch the documentary. It’s well-done (kinda like Al Gore’s “Inconvenient Truth”) and informative.
Oh btw, the EV1 ran completely on electricity w/o any gasoline needed (just a regular/nightly recharging). So yeah, these hybrid vehicles you’re talking about are actually a step backwards (yes backwards) from the EV1. I actually think they’re a pretty stupid (but better than nothing) compromise to tide over automakers (i.e. the whining oil industry backing automakers). It’s funny, one of the people who were responsible for the discontinuation of the EV1 quit his day job and was hired by EXXON the next day. Hmm…