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Welcome to 2013
E-KNOW editorial
For the deeply superstitious, the New Year must seem a daunting thing. We leave behind the comforting and even 2012, despite the predictions of doom and gloom, and embark on a celestial year-long tilt and roll around the sun on the Goodship 2013.
It doesn’t come off the tongue quite right and writing 2013 is awkward and uncomfortable. Every New Year requires folks to quickly adapt to the change and many-a-cheque has been torn up and re-written from incorrect year scribbling. But there’s not much the superstitious or the non-supernaturally causal can do about it. To borrow an often apt hockey player’s cliché, “it is what it is.”
The New Year is here and as of today (Jan. 2), it’s time to get back to work or to school and get back on with the day-to-day grind of life aboard the Goodship 2013.
A New Year means replacing your day-planner, the appearance of which often gives a clear indication of how busy the past year has been for an individual; in my case, I am replacing a day-planner that is dog-eared, worn and twice as large (fat) as its replacement.
A New Year means tallying statistics from the previous year, for most professions and it usually means, after the post holiday grumbles subside, usually in the sound of a washing machine cleaning the PJs and sweat pants that provided such stout and comfy service during the down tweener days between Christmas and New Year’s, getting back to purposes and focus on goals.
Most people re-discover fire and passion in causes and employment after the Christmas/New Year break, as that great clear slate of days and months ahead poses such intriguing potential.
Like artists before clean canvases or writers in front of blank pages, the year is ours for the creating and making and living.
New Years also give us pause to reflect on what has been stamped on the finished canvas or pages of the recently concluded year.
East Kootenay News Online Weekly has published a four-part visual retrospective of 2012 and up next is our top 100 images from our monthly photographic feature ‘In the East Kootenay.’
We considered compiling a written presentation of all that happened in the region in the past year, but after starting, quickly realized it would be far too compendious for most readers to push their way through. That is a statement about how much goes on in our lovely region’s four key centres: Columbia Valley, Cranbrook, Elk Valley and Kimberley.
Instead, let’s take a look back 100 years, to the year that preceded the start of The Great War, which launched the mad rampage of out-of-control human overuse of the planet, population spikes and the birth of all our current woes and tribulations, as well as successes.
Motion picture film, still in its infancy, started to become the target of a classification and censorship board. Like the Internet of today, that medium left old-world folks shaking their head and excited the living Dickens out of the younger generations.
In America, the 16th Amendment was passed, paving the way for the collection of income taxes and in Mexico, revolution was in full swing.
In Russia, the House of Romanov turned 300; it would not see its 303rd birthday. In Washington, DC, on March 3, 1913, was the Womens’ Suffrage Parade and the next day Woodrow Wilson became the 28th president.
Turmoil in Europe continued to grow with the Balkan War and assassination of Greek King George 1.
On May 13, Igor Sikorsky successfully piloted the first four-engine aircraft, while in the Philippines, the United States army, under General JJ Pershing, crush an armed uprising at the terribly one-sided Battle of Bud Bagsak.
Rebellions seized China, a second war broke out in the Balkans, stainless steel was invented and Bloody Sunday occurs in Ireland.
On Oct. 10, the Panama Canal was officially completed and on Oct. 31, the Lincoln Highway, the first automobile highway across America is completed.
On Dec. 1, the Ford Motor Company initiates the first-ever assembly line and also in the US, the Federal Reserve Act is passed, creating central banking in the country.
Many of these events would play a role in the world igniting into the fire of the First World War, with advances in industrial technology adding to the death count and to future financial powerhouses.
The past year has been a difficult one in our world, as economic turmoil still teeters at the rim of a toilet about to flush, as armed conflicts still rage and, seemingly, a madness continues to settle over the American population, which gives one much cause for pause and concern. As of this writing, conspiracy web weavers are nudging out suggestions that President Barack Obama may be or has been subject of death/assassination threats/attempts. One can only pray that won’t happen because it would be the spark to the tinder dry kindling that is America’s middle ground.
In Canada, we think we are governed by a tyrant but every person who has challenged Stephen Harper’s (the chairman’s) actions, remains alive and (as far as we know) out of the gulag. That said, after his first year ruling a majority government, Harper has become loathed and disrespected and his every move is now questioned with squinty-eyed doubt and skepticism. One can only guess as to how that will work out for him.
Meanwhile, our world continues to suffer under strains from climate change and, even worse, its inhabitants argue ceaselessly over the reality that their weather patterns and climate norms have changed, or haven’t. While doing so, we continue with the status quo, which will lead us to weather stories of the like we’ve never experienced and, as we keep sucking the world dry of the energy given to us after the Big Bang, we take another year-long step toward the end of the Oil Age and, once and for all, a paradigm change that will either spare us for the centuries ahead, or push us into the toilet.
History shows that the only thing that really changes is the surface of the world and how we parasitical humans amp up our abilities to suck the world dry. A look back 100 years clearly shows we haven’t come that far and a look back over the past year, globally and regionally, shows that we have a great deal of work to do.
We need leaders more than ever before and humans need to slow down and start thinking – honestly and genuinely thinking – about where exactly we think we are going.
What does 2013 hold for us? We shall see.
May you, individually, escape the random pursuit of wrath and insanity; may your families be safe and at peace and may the good that is inherent in all of us, find more willingness to shine through.
Happy New Year!
Ian Cobb/e-KNOW
