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Black holes, socks, marriages, politics and banks
© by Mike Keenan 
I read that astronomers found a "super-massive black hole that is recoiling out of a distant galaxy" at high speed. I was startled that the black hole was "super-massive." The only item I can place in that size context is 300+ pound NFL linemen I watch all day Sunday, then on Monday night and now Thursday evening, much to Miriam's disgust. I'm sure she believes that this retiree's lifestyle has much in common with black holes.
When I was a student, a long time ago in another galaxy, the only black hole we knew about was the "Black Hole of Calcutta," a jail where British prisoners were kept, and my recollection was that most of them perished in the same perfidious fashion in which my pairs of socks go into the washer and dryer and in some mysterious process conducted right there in our laundry room, when they emerge, instead of pairs, they are now singles like 50% of contemporary marriages. Yes, I suppose marriage has something in common with what astronomers peer at out there in remotest space, but what I'd like to know is precisely how does anyone really "see" a black hole? I mean, it's supposed to be "black," isn't it? So, how does one see it? I guess it's a lot like honesty in government. It must be out there somewhere, but why can't we see it? Perhaps the Parliament buildings of Canada are indeed, black holes that swallow up whole the very concepts of truth, duty, justice and so forth. How else does one explain to seniors existing on fixed incomes that our tax dollars are being frittered away on cabinet ministers who hop aboard helicopters to be rescued from a pernicious fishing camp that attracts high rollers who enjoy telling fictitious yarns about the size of their catch? How else does one explain a cabinet minister condoning dirty tricks played upon a Quebec MP as if Watergate was a perfectly fine democratic exercise despite the convictions and jail terms of Nixon's paralegal "plumbers?" How else to explain NHL mouthpiece, Gary Bettman, insisting that it's too early to do anything about boxing on skates and that the massive damage inflicted on hockey players' brains is inconclusive at this point in time? Black holes are the only answer. So I turn on Jon Stewart's parody of mainstream news, the Daily Show - in order to inject some levity into my depressing latter years, much like doctors who inject poison into our bodies to decrease wrinkles and other annoying signs of age, and what do I hear? He tells me on this bizarre non-news news program that Bloomberg News has discovered that the same US government that bailed out Wall Street - the beginning of our current world financial mess - that same bunch of pro one-percenters also, but this time in secret, provided banks through the Federal Reserve with a further $7 trillion in loans at an interest rate of 0.01%. In other words, for free! And guess what the capitalistic, free-market 
banks did with this corporate welfare scheme? They invested it in government treasury bonds at 3.4% thereby pocketing gazillions of dollars in an easy liaison with that so-called big government that Republicans so want to get rid of.
I cannot imagine the extent of $7 trillion or black holes in distant galaxies. The concepts are staggering. I read today that two Canadian banks reported earnings of over $6 billion. Even that puny amount is difficult to grasp. What I can grasp however, is a +$40 regional tax levy added to my already huge water, heating and hydro bills along with the excessive cable costs that allow access to those massive linemen who are now starting to remind me of black holes which is exactly where we started. As I get older, life is more baffling. I will simply tell grandchildren that I once lived when there was a middle class and we went to the movies for 10 cents and parents and children ate together and played together and we had politicians who inspired trust. They won't believe me! They will think I'm joking. |
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