One Answer

My blog friend Ramana posted this on his Facebook page and I thought: This is the answer to the question I posed the other day.

I imagine that rightwing religious fanatics and gun-nutters will have trouble with the answer (what about the boogey-men and the terrorists and dark-skinned people and da gayz and extremism?), but I think this is a damn fine credo:

How The Bankruptcy of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania Affects Me, Personally.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~click on map to embiggen~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Seriously. It does.

I’ve been to Harrisburg, capital city of Pennsylvania, a few times. Mainly driving through it and on to somewhere else. But one time we actually stayed there. It was foggy going through the Pennsylvania mountains on our way to South Carolina so we found this little motel and slept, dead to the world, from the sheer exhaustion of gripping the wheel and squinting our eyes to see through the fog for many hours. The breakfast we all remember, it was that good. There was fabulous ham from a local farm and eggs bennie. And home-made bread. I measure my life by the great meals I’ve eaten. I come from a long line of good grubbers.

But that’s beside the point.

Harrisberg is now but the canary in the coalmine in our new world of cities collapsing under unsustainable debt. And through the overextended tentacles of financial engineering and global credit defaults, we are all connected.

The latest fright comes from Harrisburg, the capital of Pennsylvania. The city is considering seeking bankruptcy protection—as well as tax hikes and asset sales—to address $68 million in debt service payments due this year.

And

Carol Cocheres, bond counsel for the incinerator’s operator, the Harrisburg Authority, told the city council at a Dec. 14 hearing that the city is already in danger of legal action for payments that were missed last year on $288 million in debt it has guaranteed with its full faith and credit.

“There’s never been a default like this in Pennsylvania municipal history,” she said. “This is all new territory.”

Cocheres told council members that by skipping payments that are made on behalf of the authority, the city risks being sued and ordered to raise taxes or fees by Assured Guaranty Municipal Corp., formerly FSA Insurance, which has insured the bonds, or by the deal’s trustee, TD Bank.

Read all about it here:


And my point?

You see, way out here on the edge of the Atlantic in Newfoundland, TD Canada Trust Bank is my bank.

There is absolutely no hope, agreed?

Only 39%! 39%! 39%! 39%! of US Citizens believe in evolution!!!!! In 2009!!!!! That's right! - leaving 61% believing in creationism.

From Riverdaughter:

Charles Darwin film ‘too controversial for religious America’

A British film about Charles Darwin has failed to find a US distributor because his theory of evolution is too controversial for American audiences, according to its producer.

… US distributors have resolutely passed on a film which will prove hugely divisive in a country where, according to a Gallup poll conducted in February, only 39 per cent of Americans believe in the theory of evolution.

Movieguide.org, an influential site which reviews films from a Christian perspective, described Darwin as the father of eugenics and denounced him as “a racist, a bigot and an 1800s naturalist whose legacy is mass murder”. His “half-baked theory” directly influenced Adolf Hitler and led to “atrocities, crimes against humanity, cloning and genetic engineering”, the site stated.

The film has sparked fierce debate on US Christian websites, with a typical comment dismissing evolution as “a silly theory with a serious lack of evidence to support it despite over a century of trying”.

Jeremy Thomas, the Oscar-winning producer of Creation, said he was astonished that such attitudes exist 150 years after On The Origin of Species was published.

“That’s what we’re up against. In 2009. It’s amazing,” he said.

“The film has no distributor in America. It has got a deal everywhere else in the world but in the US, and it’s because of what the film is about. People have been saying this is the best film they’ve seen all year, yet nobody in the US has picked it up.

“It is unbelievable to us that this is still a really hot potato in America. There’s still a great belief that He made the world in six days. It’s quite difficult for we in the UK to imagine religion in America. We live in a country which is no longer so religious. But in the US, outside of New York and LA, religion rules.

Sigh. These people vote and reproduce. Somebody help us!

Distractions

I was appalled to read The Guardian on line today and catch Climate Wars Threaten Billions when prior to that, over breakfast, I was reading Cold Rush, the Coming Fight for the Melting North in hard copy Harper's. As you have to subscribe to read Harper's on line, I'll sum the very long article up : There is a battle going on for access to the magnificent new trade route opened up by, yep, the Big Melt. Canada is trying to defend her rights to three coastlines now, rather than the two we've had. But when confronted by the neighbour down south has backed away with the plea (I'm again summing up here):

"OK.OK., alright, you can borrow it, but you're going to have to tell us about it before you use it, eh? When you remember, if it's not too much trouble, eh?"

Meanwhile Canada is patrolling the waters and trying to stay out of the way of the new warrior tourists who are busy venturing on to the lands that were formerly frozen tundra and icepacks.

My head hurts so bad after all this, that I go back to sit in front of the fire and work on my niece's Christmas gift.

I say to her a month ago: Would you like me to knit you something?
Yes, she says, knit me an afghan (lap blanket, couch throw, to those uninitiated to the finer arts of knitting stuff).
And how would you like it? I say.
Like all the colours of the waves on the ocean of Newfoundland, she says, every single one.
Righto, I say.
And here it is.