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BALLOT POWER

Monday, August 10, 2020
 
 
 
We’re familiar with the term comfort food.
 
We all have go-to things grandma used to make, warm porridge on chilly winter mornings, homemade soups, hot dogs, fried chicken, chilled beer on sweltering days, cheese-laden sauces on pasta ~ we know and love that feeling. Food packagers and fast-food restaurants play to our desire for comfort, for familiar tastes and aromas. Bakeries smell like bread baking, and nothing tastes better than bacon.
 
The opposite then should be discomfort food.
 
Are we asked to swallow something terrible – or just hard to swallow, harder to stomach?
 
The Prime Minister, The Finance Minister, and the Governor-General in Canada ought to be taken out behind the woodshed for a spanking – ought to be tossed from office. Still, they aren’t subject to behind-the-woodshed justice or forced to take corrective action, and it is spun out to us as if we’ll keep swallowing false information as truth, swallowing the sizzle without first taste-testing the steak.
 
Either way, we are swallowing and not digesting our discomfort very well.
 
Our American friends have all that and more – swallowing distasteful politics, fed false claims, and gaseous expectations – yes folks, it’s an election year. Every button you have is being pushed, so that explains the queasy feeling in your stomach.
 
It seems to me that both countries – and perhaps many more around the globe, are using the tension and hysteria of the COVID pandemic to move too many pieces around the political chess-board as if we aren’t watching, or noticing, and as-if citizens are powerless to do anything about it.
 
Voting power alone won’t solve everything, but it’s an excellent place to start.
 

 
 
Reader feedback:
 
WANT A LOT, OR WANT FOR NOTHING
Covid has given rise to dramatically higher sales of RV’s. It’s difficult to get a campsite because they are all booked. Tee times are harder to come by because golf has become the Covid recreational activity of choice for so many, by default. Sales of condos in Canmore are on the rise because people are giving up second homes down south for something safer and accessible. What else are we missing, what opportunities should we be exploring? , RH, Calgary, AB




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