A Question of Priorities

Lordy! Another day, another 'cause du jour.' First it was: "We need to save our park and the poor trees therein." Now it is: "We need to set up a fireworks fund; we cannot seem to find a corporation generous enough to fund our roman candle habit!" What's next? "The Bard on the Beach wants to restore a few long lost rhyming couplets. Please give generously!?"

I cannot help but feel all this is a case of "fiddling while Vancouver is burning..." In the Downtown Eastside there are vulnerable, dually diagnosed people sleeping beside dumpsters in the freezing cold. Yes, the selfsame neighbourhood that is also recognized as Canada's poorest. A neighbourhood that sports some of the highest HIV infection rates in North America.

Let that often psychopathological entity - the corporation - pick up the tab for the godforsaken gunpowder. If they cannot shell out for a few Catherine Wheels then maybe the fireworks are not meant to be. Sure, don't get me wrong, the seasonal son et lumière in the sky over English Bay is a beautiful thing, but we live in a world where a child dies every 5 seconds of hunger. The U.S. is contemplating using nuclear weapons for the first time since 1945. The biosphere is getting hotter every day and the doomsday clock is at 11.55pm. More than ever, we need to stop fixing and fiddling with mere "things." Human hearts need mending.

I am sorry to seem didactic, but I cannot help following my heart; cannot help feeling that there are better ways to spend our hard earned money.