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Notes from a Garage

With John Gardiner

H1N1 fiasco; an unsustainable system; and the lack of sports in my life…..

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

The grandkids on Hallowe'en....April the Spider, Gramma Carol and Batman (Isaac)...... Gramma Carol gets a visit from Hanna Montanna......

You know, my grandkids had to stand outside last week for over three hours to get the H1N1 vaccine. Indeed, there were huge lineups across Canada as people basically got into panic mode, seeming to think we were all gonna die if we didn’t the shot – and get it fast. The vaccination process was so disorganized and haphazard that most areas used up their supplies of the vaccine and ran out before all the so-called high risk people had received their doses. It was pandemonium during the pandemic. And who to blame for this breakdown in our normally fairly civilized society? I blame the media, plain and simple. They have led off their newscasts with stories on H1N1 for months and have covered the story from every conceivable angle, most of them goofy and stupid. This overload of information coming from a myriad of sources has led to an enormous amount of confusion, and, dare I say it, panic among the general populace. It has been journalism at its sensational worst. And this is what the media does these days – it gang tackles issues and pushes out so much information that no one really has a clue what’s going on. A friend of mine continues to contend that the media plays a “valuable” role in our society by performing its job as “watchdog on government”. Well, judging by the amount of government waste these days and the apparently huge amount of graft and corruption that goes on in government, I’d say it’s doing a damned poor job. I saw Pamela Wallin and Mike Duffy, both prominent Canadian journalists, appointed to the Senate recently and I thought it appropriate. They’re all the same and neither politicians nor journalists puts the well being of the Canadian people ahead of their own self interest.. No, I’m pretty sick and tired of the mainstream media and really can’t wait for it to be killed off by the internet. It has grown fat and lazy and smug and really isn’t doing its job….time for it to go!

And while I’m carping away about the media, how about modern day retailers and marketers and what they’ve done to upset the applecart. I’ve seen quite a bit of Christmas advertising already this year – every store and company on the planet runs non stop sales – when one sale ends, another begins. And this has accomplished two things. Folks are totally desensitized to the whole concept of a sale. 10, 20, 40, 50% off means virtually nothing in everyday terms. Also, people, myself included, refuse to pay full price for anything – nothing is really worth what it’s supposed to be. It’s the truth, people. Overall, the marketing has worked over the last 30-40 years – we’ve all been turned into mindless, unthinking consumerbots who line up at cash registers across the land. And we don’t care what we buy as long as we’re buying something. Individual sales don’t work, but the whole marketing machine is working wonderfully. It’s got us buying so much useless junk, we’ve run out of places to put it – hence the popularity of garage sales and mini storage facilities. In the old days, our forebears could move their entire families and all their worldly possessions from one side of the country to the other in a covered wagon – these days most of us need an extremely large truck just to hold our stuff. It’s a neverending rat race in an unsustainable system. And I’m sure you didn’t read that here first!

I mourn the fact that I no longer have any interest in professional sport – it is something I sort of miss. I used to be a huge sports fan – the type of person who’d watch tiddly winks competitions on a Sunday afternoon. I was into hockey, baseball football – I’d watch a little golf, car racing – I was into it all. These days, I watch none of it and find the whole professional sports world to be a perverse aberration. The money, the lack of loyalty, rule changes, poor refereeing – no, I’ve left the fold of the sports fan for a whole lot of reasons. But I do miss it somewhat. I used to really enjoy settling in on a Saturday evening to watch the Leafs, and for quite a few years, it didn’t even matter if they were losing. They were somehow my team. But that has all changed. These days, the fans are supposed to be loyal to the teams, but the teams aren’t loyal to the fans and the players certainly have no loyalty to the teams they play for. Back in the old days, players like Tim Horton and Bobby Baun and George Armstrong were more than just hockey players – they were Toronto Maple Leafs and if you cut them, they bled Toronto Maple Leaf blue. Even the greatest player in the game, Wayne Gretzky, didn’t really care where he played as long as the money was okay and it was a big enough media market. No, there’s no loyalty left in professional sports and I really feel sorry for the kids. It must be hard to cheer for someone you know is only after the money……

Well, another week, another rant….hope you’re enjoying cktimes these weeks. The second largest number of pages viewed in the history of the paper in October, so must be doing something right. Out of time for another week….take care and remember, “Hew to the line; let the chips fall where they may.”



John Gardiner is a 25-year-veteran of the community newspaper business, but he is also a prolific writer of moralistic short fiction he refers to as "emotional thoughtscapes" or "adult fables". Samples of his fiction can be found at:

He has also produced a noteworthy piece of humanist philosophy which can be found at: http://www.xs4all.nl/~aboiten/ad502.htm He welcomes comments on his work.