Are they afraid there will be a shortage of little boys?
Image: photostock / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Meanwhile, Here's a sneak preview of my half of next Saturday's "Generation Gasp" column. I think it speaks for itself:
The Generation Gasp
By Claire and Jim Castagnera
Column # 15
Get in Line
The Philadelphia Museum of Art has a special Van Gogh exhibit running right now. Don’t imagine that you can go to see this exhibition on the spur of the moment. No, to the contrary, the museum’s website admonishes us, “Your tickets will be issued for the date and time you choose, based on availability, and include a complimentary exhibition audio tour and Museum general admission to both the main and Perelman Buildings. Select your dates carefully, as tickets are nonrefundable and subject to a $2.50/$3.50 exchange fee prior to the selected date.” Adult admission is $25.
Forty years ago, when I was in my early twenties, Joanne and I knocked around Europe one summer. In Paris, we stopped at the Louvre, paid a modest entry fee, and in fifteen minutes were standing face to ace with Mona Lisa. Only a velvet rope separated us from the great lady. We visited many of the great art museums of Europe in just such a casual and cheap way.
Today, almost every worthwhile entertainment requires that we stand in line and pay through the nose. Why? One reason might be that in 1968 --- the year I turned 21 --- the planet was home to just over three million folks. A guy named Paul Ehrlich published a book that year, called The Population Bomb, in which he warned us that the world’s population was growing at an alarming rate.
In 1990, Ehrlich (with an I-told-you-so attitude) published The Population Explosion. World population stood at 5.3 billion. Last October, we were told that each of us is now one of some seven billion souls on planet Earth. No woder we feel crowded.
Maybe that accounts for all the rudeness that Claire and I groused about in an earlier “Generation Gasp.” My personal suspicion is that middle-class Americans feel threatened. They behave badly as a way of reassuring themselves that they still count for something in the grand demographic equation.
My best estimate is that most of the world’s people are headed for disaster. Not only does the population continue to grow unabated, but computer technology is eliminating far more jobs than it is creating. I see two opposing trends that are aggravating each other.
So brace yourselves. The lines, including the unemployment lines, will just keep getting longer.
No comments:
Post a Comment