Jesus can have my sofa

Pandemic-an epidemic occurring over a very wide area, crossing international boundaries and usually affecting a large number of people. A global epidemic.

Pat Robertson-"What was called the Blessed Hope of the Bible is that one day Jesus Christ would come back again, start a whole new era, that this world order that we know would change into something that would be wonderful that we'd call the millennium,"


So what are your plans for the end of the world? I'm gonna kick back and watch it on my TV.. The Four Horsemen seem a little early though. I'm brushing up on my Revelations but it seems we have not quite hit Armageddon just yet. Though if the mainstream media is any bellwether we seem to be close to the end.

When my wife and I moved to T. earlier this summer we lived without TV. for a couple of months then I went through near convulsions when I missed The West Wing premiere and broke down and got the cable, but before I was surprisingly much calmer . The bliss of ignorance is under-rated. Turn on the TV. for 10 minutes and flick to CNN, or whatever and you get a distinct impression that we have done something fatally wrong and are being punished.

Is it me or do you feel civilization has lost a bit of its grip? Have we really reached the point where there is nothing to fear except fear itself? The thesis that seemed absolutely absurd a few years ago-that we are being driven toward some social experiment by a culture of fear that is directly and indirectly being sponsored by the government, the illuminate and our elites is seeming now a logical explanation for our times. I can remember my life and how I felt about living in the world before 9/11 and it seemed a different place. For those not directly affected by the towers falling, the ripple effect has taking a while to reach those of us in safe places like Canada, but more and more it seems we are being driven to fear, the natural world, our bodies, and each other. For good reasons. I also remember having an explicit trust in our government, my elders and even institutions, corporate or not. Now not so much. I remember a seminar in university where we were talking about some of the reasons for the failures of countries like Argentina, or Ecuador and I said that in the west we have tended to trust our governments and in the south there is no trust. Corruption, neglect, malignant evils thrust upon the populace were for the poor souls unlucky enough not to be born here. Not anymore. Our governments surrendered their control to the forces of globalism a long time ago and now seem helpless to defend us against the dark side of capitalism.
I am also feeling that the foundation of our freedoms are being eroded. Security over privacy, we seem to constantly assume guilt, to not trust each other. I see people now losing respect for each other more and more, that protecting yourself and your family is the ultimate goal and fuck the community-they could be the enemy-the other. I see this most strikingly in younger kids. Teenagers have such a detachment from our humanity now. Kids have always been great sceptics and revolutionaries, but the generation coming I see as jaded, beaten down by the realities of modernity. They see safety and power in technology, not each other.

From all of this I guess I can say we do have more to fear than fear itself-we really have put ourselves at a crossroads. Civilization goes through peaks-the Enlightenment-the Renaissance and valleys-the dark ages-the 18th and 19th centuries and I think we are defiantly in a valley, and have not reached the bottom yet. This time seems different now because of the power we have over our collective destiny and how we are really an interconnected civilization. The 1960's promised a future of endless possibilities where we would find answers to all the mysteries of life and we would be surrounded in miracles-but in truth, in this future we are lost.

With all of the almost unbelievable evil and injustice in this world I understand the revolutionary mentality. I feel that I am really close to being the first one to join a modern day Che Guevara if he or she is to emerge. Have we passed a point of no return that we can use our intelligence and love to solve the worlds great problems, or are we really going to have to prove people like Pat Robertson right that Armageddon is upon us and let the Almighty's warriors be victories?

Well, this brings me to this. Our history began in Africa and our next future will begin there as well. For me Africa is the place that when a alien flys by to see how we are doing they scan that continent and say-not ready for contact yet. What are we doing???!!!! Millions of people are dying there of not just Aids, which is a manageable disease that can be contained, but of cured and treatable diseases. Have we forgotten Rwanda? Or is OK that Second Cup sells a coffee grown from there that somehow the continent is moving on and we can feel better? How the fuck did Shell get off on Nigeria? How the hell did we let drug companies use Africans as lab mice for vaccines? Africa for too long has been the spotlight on our failures. There are beautiful triumphs everyday there of course and certain countries have had extraordinary leadership and effective development programmes in place but all of this is overshadowed and while the affluent society sips its mochachinno the average African life expectancy is 46, the literacy rate is about 50%, 25 million live with Aids, 2.3 MILLION a year die from Aids.

Other African Stats.

19,000 children die daily from easily curable diseases
80 per cent of children under the age of 15 living with HIV are children living in Africa.
It is estimated that children comprise 17% of Africa's labour force. 25% of children between the ages of 10 and 14 are involved in labour. Senegal government estimates between 50 and 100 thousand children are street beggars.
21% of Kenya's children are not attending school.
It is estimated that as many as 130,000 street children exist daily in Nairobi.
There are an estimated 200,000 orphans in Rwanda as a result of the recent civil war.
Of the children that die under age of five:

In Kenya 35% die of aids
In Namibia 48% die of aids
In South Africa 50% die of aids
In Zimbabwe 50% die of aids
In Botswana 64% die of aids*


I got these stats from a website that said "it's time to get angry", Fucking eh right it is. Lets stop being scared of one another and start helping each other. Lets stop worrying about the unknowns and start fighting the evils we do know. Lets use our brains and fight the distractions of our over-caffienated complacency we have fallen into in the 'civilized' world. I am trying to keep a grip on my sanity and ignore the problems I see with ourselves everyday. I'm watching less CNN and reading more National Geographics. If the end of the world is upon us, I'm not going down without a fight. And if it really is the end of the world, Jesus can crash on my sofa.



-Postscript-
In our last rehearsal we broke into in the middle of Canyon "All you need is love". If John Lennon were alive today...



*The World Bank African Development 2005 and the Abaana Organization