America’s broken Dreams

 

America’s broken Dreams.

After decades of untrammeled capitalism there are still those that believe in its system able to the ‘transformation of all to the common good for all.’ This is what really happened though when the power of money took over from the power of sharing, caring, empathy and tolerance. Take a good look!

http://www.abc.net.au/iview/#/view/30857

Was it forty two million or forty four million who are now living in dismal poverty in America? How could a country get it so wrong and so quickly? Here was a nation once held up as an example of giving anyone prepared to put shoulder under the task the just reward in living the life of dreams and untold riches. They had John Steinbeck’s ‘Of Men and mice’ as a previous example. The problem was the neglect of dreams of the spirit and mind and an over emphasis on material benefits. Is this a repeat of the 1920/30’s?

Was it ownership of large houses with triple garages that overtook ownership of caring and friendship, neighbourly concern, an intimacy of living together? Did they forget to understand what gives  satisfaction is learning to overcome life’s tribulations and a yearning for bettering ourselves by caring about others? It wasn’t supposed to be this lonely race to fat bank accounts with share portfolios kept locked in  study-room’s gleaming drawers. Something went wrong somewhere.

Americans aspired to keep young with Botox infusions, silly anti-erotic chicken-wing look Brazilian waxes and expensive life expanding lotions, do anything to keep death away. That was banished as much as possible with the casket silently sliding and discretely hidden by a curtain, towards its final journey, the incinerator.  Better to concentrate on membership to exclusive golf clubs or solariums to give  tans as overwhelming proof of health, wellbeing and.. Being and staying alive together with John Travolta and Olivier Newton.

The poverty in America while terribly real is also removed from what we used to think of as poor. The family was still driving a large car; they had flat TV, computers and the kids fiddling with electric gadgets. Some of those did not look very hungry either with large torsos struggling to get in and out of cars. It was the feeling of the US being totally lost in people’s life’s travel that was the real poverty.

The desolation of the urban landscapes, the flotsam of dangling signage and derelict commercialism, windswept and friendless acreages of spiritual dehydration, so palpable and visual, even to the blind. The poverty in the US is truly obscene and it makes the poverty of those in Bangladesh by comparison almost dignified, if one can give dignity to poverty! How will this ever be overcome? It is not just lack of money at play here.

One couple lamented, oh so sadly, there are ‘no safety nets here’, it’s just hearsay; it doesn’t exist! So, of all the riches, of all the wealth creation with gigantic burgers with chips and mayonnaise, there still is no safety net, no care, and no empathy?  Where is society’s inclusiveness? No one is smiling anymore!

So, what is going to happen? I wonder if a change of course is required or will the old ways of the past be cranked up again? Perhaps, the Reds under the beds were not that silly back in the fifties. McCarthyism jailed those brave souls that were for equitable sharing, chased them away, but those that had inclination towards social conscience and fled to Canada certainly made that country showing a much more humane face. The extreme materialism in the US and with all those people with guns and assault weapons don’t bode well for a safe future.

One thing still fills me with wonder; those 120 million of smiling Hindus taking a dip into the Ganges at Allahabad. What have they got what the US doesn’t?

Hashish ” The best of Mary Jane”.

The ‘wow’ factor is not just for the young, it is also for Grannies…

Seeing all that euphoria on TV during the handing out of Film Oscars in Hollywood, with all the enthusiasm, exuberance and leaping about on stage, one could wonder what this is all is about. Apart from awards for movies, the Oscar night itself could easily be worthy of awards itself.

They are all still looking so young, even the old. Look at Michael Douglas, not a year over 37. Let’s not get too jealous though. Those unlined faces and perky bosoms are not always the result of gallons of Botox or ‘nip & tuck (or lift) jobs. Not a stooped back or bouts of gout anywhere, or if so, it is carefully out of sight and well hidden.

As soon as a name was pulled out of the envelope, the camera zoomed into the winner’s beaming face, who then rises up, gets hugged, kissed, and in the case of a female, possibly suitably teary. The male or female winner jauntily steps towards the stage, perhaps while buttoning a jacket or adjusting a strap.

Boy oh boy, is the wow factor there now. The thousands in the audience are rising in hypnotic unison, and wildly with unrestrained thunderous applause inflame this spectacle into an orgy of mutual me- you-me of endless loving and adorations.

All this adoration of the winner is clearly a very moving event. The winner is (again) speechless with gratitude and throws in, from the cuff or prepared, a witticism, while holding and swaying his Oscar statue aloft…Dorian Grey would be so proud. Not a single star’s age is shown as having aged, indeed, they seem having regressed to an even earlier age…

So be it. That’s Academy Awards Hollywood.

On reflection, I remember fondly a couple of grannies (not Grammies) from the US. Both were in their early and very youthful eighties, never seen as much as a Botox needle, ever! They arrived in Australia by boat on which was also their very large and well equipped Campervan. They were going to have a great tour around the Australian outback. Who could find fault with that sort of panache and chutzpah, and at their age?

On disembarking they filled in the normal batch of custom forms. “Anything to declare, they were asked?”  “Ah, no nothing at all, we are on holiday,” they added while, glancing away. The glancing away is a ‘tell’ that custom officers are specially trained to spot. It takes about six months of intensive tell training to spot the dodgy ‘tells’ from the real.

Still, there was nothing suspicious on their personae to investigate any further and they were allowed through. They must have been so relieved.

The old ladies were seen to walk around the quay, waiting for their very large Mercedes Van to get hoisted off the boat. There were a few onlookers to watch the spectacle including a couple of custom officers. All was still very ‘cool’ and under control. When the Van finally touched solid earth, the custom officers went gallantly to the aid of the American couple and helped put on their luggage at the same time clearing the vehicle through customs. A form still had to be signed. The doors were opened and while lifting the luggage it was noted the floor was somewhat higher than normal. “Gee, you have a very large and well equipped Van, but why is the floor higher than the inlet of the doors, strange, isn’t?”

Talk about panache, it turned out there was a double floor with 1 ton of the best and purist hashish hidden between. The best of Boom, Chronic, Gangster, with a mix of Mary Jane down the back of the floor.

Now, those grannies did have a ‘wow factor’ that those Oskar winners will never achieve. Sure, it was a bit criminal but you would have to admire them though. They were in their eighties as well, don’t forget. The papers were full of it for many months.

Some couple of years later I noticed an ad in the paper selling a bus. It was advertised as being used for smuggling marihuana and had belonged to the ‘notorious American Grannies.

There is hope for all of us!

.

Of Bob and Blanche and Botoxed Beauty

Helvi Oosterman

Never fancied Bob Hawke, the man, I’m not talking about Bob the Prime Minister here. All those polyester pants and white shoes, and the hair, talk about staying stuck in the time warp…

The imitation put-on, Aussie accent and the rolling of the eyes…give me a break, anyone sharing my birthday should not have a mouth permanently parked at twenty past eight, and that whining voice, please!

Then enters Blanche, a good-looker of a girl, blond, blue-eyed, enviable cheekbones and mouthful of nice teeth; she not just a beauty, but she can write as well, and rather well, they say. I haven’t checked if it is so. Blanche and Bob fall in love, it is not just an affair; they do get married later on, so true love it must be.

Now Bob is Octogenarian and Blanche has reached her retirement age, 66. For some reason she is not happy to age naturally, or as they say, gracefully. To me it seems like she has been blessed with ‘she’ll- keep-her-looks’ gene. Blanche begs to differ though, she doesn’t believe it. She gets busy with Botox and takes even more drastic measures in her quest to stay ‘young’.  This is not possible, she does not have to either; she is not an entertainer like our Kylie, who now looks younger than when she was still only one of our NEIGHBOURS.

Blanche is not someone who is battling to keep her job as a newsreader on Channel Ten, where the youth is the only currency. She’s also married to the much older Hawkie, and him being soo much in love, she’ll be his babe forever without having to look like a baby. Not being in the public eye anymore, (but sitting at home writing stories, some fact, some fiction, if we take Keating’s word for it), it might be time to pull on the old trackies, look dishevelled and get on with the real story, ageing.  

The smooth ironed-out pics in last week’s SMH almost fooled me into believing that Blanche has been successful in her quest of eternal youth; the harsh lights in Kerry O’Brian’s studio told a different story. The permanent wide-eyed-look-of- wonder, the overly luscious lips, made me think it was Hawke who now looked younger, HIS face still expressive, eyes still rolling…Strangely the old boy Bob now appears as the more attractive one of those two.

 Many of us feel sorry for Hazel. The gods have not been kind to her, first ‘Bob and Blanche’, and then her books, Alzheimer’s must have come to Hazel almost as a backhanded blessing…