A Journal of Humor and Verbal Anarchy

 

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Have you ever thought how Ithaca can benefit from the coming Dark Ages?

Remember Alvin Toffler? Back in the 1970's, folks like Alvin (named after one of the Chipmunks) ruled the globe. They were called futurologists. It was like Madame What was Her Name(?) from the 50's song Love Potion No. 9 had suddenly moved into the boardroom of American corporations; everybody back then spent a lot of time, peering into crystal balls to predict the future, discover the next big wave before it was even a wet wrinkle in the ocean. Even dry cleaning businesses had futurologists in those days. The future was big business. How prescient.

Alvin wrote a book called Future Shock which rocketed up to No. 1 on the bestseller charts. You hardly see a copy anymore - not even at the Friends of the Library Book Sale which is sort of a palentological research institute for former bestsellers. There are certain books that make great insulation if you have a trailer out in Newfield. Like Barbara Tuchman's Distant Mirror. They're stacked like cordwood at the Book Sale. The stuff everyone was reading 10 or 20 years ago. In a couple of years Oprah will be warming the neighborhood.

Funny, Alvin didn't predict that there was no future for futurologists. You never hear about them anymore. Maybe the future is too gloomy to predict. Or maybe we're moving towards the past. Plato's cave. Hoola Hoops. The classics are making a comeback. Everything is a rehash of something else when you go to the movies these days. Terminator 43. Captain Nemo. Mrs. Dalloway.

Even our President looks like Alfred E. Newman from Mad Magazine. He certainly doesn't look like Eisenhower. Ike was a progressive compared to this fool. Ike warned us about the military-industrial complex. Bush it it's poster boy. The Secretary of Defense gets more airtime than the Secretary of State. At any given time we're rattling the saber, threatening to go to war with someone else. This week it's Africa. Bush is lining up the black vote. We might soon be sending troops to Liberia or Zimbabwe to dislodge a couple of more dictators. That helps unemployment back home because we'll be able to send a lot of otherwise unemployed African American youths to Africa to fight and die for a country that won't even provide them jobs back home.

Anyway, it all seems like a bad dream. Like reading Gibbon's Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire, having too many Blue Ribbons, falling asleep and dreaming that it's 432 AD all over again. Do you think we're heading towards the next Dark Ages?

Well, Ithaca is the perfect place to be when the fog of history rolls starts to roll in.

First of all, we haven't recovered from the last Dark Ages.

People are still living out in the woods around Ithaca , left-overs from the last time that we thought that the end of the world was just around the corner. There's lots of little encampments, cozy little nooks where you can bunker down and start your own quasi-messianic cults. And new cults are moving in all the time who find that Ithaca has the right mix of backwater chic, rural comfort and a large pool of potential recruits. It's no coincidence that the 12 Tribes picked Ithaca to set up shop.

Folks around Ithaca are used to living off the land. We have organic farms, community gardens, farmer's markets, Greenstar. And lots of craftsmen who know how to make things from popsicle sticks . Check out the Ithaca Festival and visit the forest of knick knack tents. We're the capital of the cottage industry industry.

People around here are tough, resilient and independent. We have our own currency, our own credit unions, our own candidate for president. It took 20 years for Wal-mart to make a beach head. McDonald's went out of business when it was downtown. Ithacans are used to bad weather, a bad economy, bad newspapers, bad radio stations, bad politics, bad roads, bad service, bad jobs, bad everything. We're like the Ozarks of upstate New York. Folks in Ithaca thrive on adversity. Wilderness spirit. Grit.

That makes Ithaca an up and coming place. A road stop on the slouch towards Bethlehem. Come see us!
Comments invited at: ezrakidder@gmail.com - Peace, Ezra at 7:19 AM