ROUND AND ROUND ...THE MONKEY CHASED THE WEASEL

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "THE LATEST CONTROVERSY": 

You are definitely not the only one. We have rot in all levels of government. Evelyn...how the heck do we get out of this mess? 
Posted by Anonymous to  Our Town and Its Business at 20 February 2018 at 22:16

*********************************

I'm not sure rot is recognized and even less sure a mess is acknowledged.

I've been contributing to a new site that consumes much of my interest .The focus is the town where 

I was born. It's so old ,its beginnings are lost in the mists of antiquity.  My early neighbourhood  was demolished in the 1960s with devastating impact. Only photos remain.

Now demolition is again being contemplated. 

The site prints pictures of old streets and buildings no longer existing  and it invites  memories. I have much to share about how life was lived in my time. Memory serves me well. 

It takes little to trigger the flow but a lot more to turn it off. It feels like travel in time but a tough slog 

at best. 

Organizing thoughts into writing is a tricky process. Stories tends to take itheir own direction. New angles present. .. often new discovery.  When I start the dig I have no idea how deep it will go or how many pieces will emerge and how the puzzle will complete. 

My mother was born in 1902 and died in 1992. She was the fifth child of parents married in mid 1890s.Their first child was born in 1897 and killed at the Dardanelles in 1917. 

I lived in my grandparents house from the time I was eight. My early experience is an amalgam of my 

mother's, my grandparent's and my own.The span of that time is one hundred and fifty years. 

Knowing is one thing. . Writing another. Reading is still another entirely. Without knowing how different life was  a hundred and fifty years ago, no sense can be made of it. 

Telling the story , the events and consequences therefrom is but half the task.

A  movie called "Kidnapped" hit the screen  fifty years ago. Two children found a baby untended 

and decided to keep it.They were found guilty of kidnapping. Their granite hard Highlandgrandfather (John Laurie) walked the miles home from the trial to his farm in Nova Scotia with his boots hung  around his neck by the laces. The understanding being, he was shamed by his grandchildren. 

No such thing. He was just saving the leather. Where he came from, boots needed to last a long time, so they were only worn for special occasions. Those  making the movie out of the story would have no way of knowing. So they guessed They guessed wrong. The audience would not know that. 

People don't learn from experience of the past. History became an optional study in Ontario High Schools thirty years ago. Even before Wikipedia obviated  the need. 

Technology obviates the need for cursive writing and spelling. 

And Facebook commentary gives us a sense of the new literacy or lack thereoff. 

People no longer know what they don't know. 

It's not rot .

It's just plain, bloody,appalling circa 2017, ignorance.

Cost of education has never been higher.

Value  has never been less. 

There's no sign the generation in charge recognize a mess. 

Politicians are picked  but not for substance.