- At the grocery store. The stealthy way food is being packaged so that you get smaller and smaller quantities for the same price?
- Because of our demand for year-round produce, the stuff is being picked and shipped in such an unripe state that we seldom even know what the real thing should taste like.
- The way automakers market their cars now, with more and more distracting “safety” gadgets. I think it says something about us that we would rely on things like self braking cars with seats that vibrate when you’re about to stray from your lane. Wake up and take control!
- That we consume so many chemicals in our food that the latest marketing ploy is to state that your product is “free of this” or “free of that” (pick your poison)?
- The comedy of prescription drug ads which extol the product’s virtues, then tell you quickly and quietly a list of horrendous side effects that would make any thinking person have serious doubts.
- The planned obsolescence of things like cellphones and computers so that we need to buy the next bigger and better model? I’ve had the same phone for six years, just use it for the odd call or text, bought the rubber Otter Box for it, dropped it at least a dozen times without damage, and got my bill down to $25 a month.
- How we spend a good chunk of our life’s savings on keeping our cars new and stylish, when, looking back (as I do now that I’m older), we could have spent that money on something far more important?
- That so many of us sit and watch these repetitive reality shows where people are constantly being judged, have to race the clock, seemingly cry on cue so that we can get our vicarious emotional satisfaction?
- That there are more and more dangerous and crazy people on our roads?
- That many of those in authority put public safety at risk because of budgetary concerns? (I live in a small town where repeated requests for improvements to a dangerous crosswalk were not acted upon until the morning after the Mayor’s mother was run over.)
Rant finished for now. In the words of Jefferson Airplane:
Don’t you want somebody to love?
Don’t you need somebody to love?
Wouldn’t you love somebody to love?
You better find somebody to love.
Aremyfeetofftheground 