Future Tense

Some Things Never Arrive - Or so it seems.

Culled from the news online today:
1.) "The Baby Boomers are set to start retiring shortly." Now, this has been written over and over again, for at least since we stopped panicking about the Y2K disaster. If the baby boomers are ever to start retiring, please, let it be now! That way, maybe the new entrants into the job market (presuming such still exists - a job market, I mean) will have at least a few open positions to apply for.

2.) "The economy appears to be headed for a recession." Again, we're headed for it, but we never seem to arrive. It's like the question about how the arrow can ever reach the target, when it has first to travel 1/2 the distance, and then 1/2 the remaining distance, etc. Thus, it is clear, we can Never Reach A Recession, since we always have to get half way to one, and then ...

3.) "We have to reduce our Carbon Emissions, or we'll cause an irreversable climate catastrophe." Not yet, but soon. We really have to start thinking about maybe soon, we (well, You) need to start reducing your "Carbon Footprint". Or, maybe, reducing the Rate Of Increase of your carbon emissions. Someday... Someday... Maybe... Soon, perhaps.

Of course it's all nonsense. We do reach end points all the time. A point at which the status quo can't be maintained. If the Baby Boomers don't start retiring soon, they'll all be dead before they even get out the door of their workplace. If we're never going to reach that Recession, how can we ever reach the Recovery that is supposed to follow it? If we never get around to reducing our Carbon Emissions, forget about the idea of a climate disaster; what about the time when there isn't enough coal/oil/tar/corn/palm/bio-Whatever to go around? How many Iraqs can we invade? And how well has that worked for us? How big a war are we willing to participate in to maintain our overdrafting of limited resources? Actually, as I pointed out here..., the limiting factor isn't oil, or food even; it's that widely ignored, largely disrespected, constantly abused resource; Water Yes, H2O is the thing we're going to be fighting over in a few decades. As Mark Twain, that great American visionary once said, "... Whiskey's for drinking; Water's for fighting." And who are we, to argue with a man of such clear vision? Might be a good idea to lay in a supply of Evian, next time you're at the market.
Sometimes, after all, the soon-to-occur-event actually occurs!