End of the world

In the 60’s, that song was found on the top of the chart.

“It ended when you said ‘goodbye'”. In between then and now, we have seen various versions

of war, weapon and warriors (Space City should be counted in here as well). And there have been many “ends of the world” for people

who were caught in disaster zone, earthquake zone (Mexico City) and epidemic zone.

God must have grieved. So must man.

Yet our young people, tuning all that out, go ahead and fall in love.

The world is shut out, leaving just two people in their quarrel.

The objectivity gives way to the subjectivity (which hurts you more).

We have tried to analyze, and to put things in perspective for the past two years.

Each of us, survivor of this fiasco, should be awarded a PhD in philosophy (subject: End time).

Remember “green shoots?” which were pounded around last year?

Or a thousand points of light, trumpeted during the first Bush years?

Or city on the hill, during the Reagan trickle-down economy?

From Mac Namara to David Stockman, from Greenspan to our Man of the Year, the effects have

been the same. Unless you found yourselves invited to Davos, their policies don’t seem to make a dent.

It’s been the end of the world for a few guys we saw on the news. They couldn’t take it.

And some good guys who said goodbye to us from the entertainment world (Swayze, Jackson).

Lastly, celebrities who slip, like Tiger Wood. End of the (endorsement) world for him.

We don’t need self-reinventing. We need fundamental shift in attitude and action.

A calm, cool and collected (well-dressed model from Paul Frederick shirts for instance) persona can be

reassuring.

It says that despite all that is coming down, a man still put on his after-shave, tug in his shirts and pump up his chest.

He is to face the aftershock. And having survived the big One, he can do it again (survival).

He is our Last Man Standing.

End of the world for others. Not for our hero. Not for us. Not for me. Go away, not dead yet (Ishtar).