To everything there is a season

Something important to consider in these troubled times - the sarcastic wisdom of my favorite cartoonist, Bill Watterson, speaking through the eyes of six-year-old Calvin:

"Since September it's just gotten colder and colder. There's less daylight now, I've noticed too.

"This can only mean one thing - the sun is going out. In a few more months the Earth will be a dark and lifeless ball of ice.

"Dad says the sun isn't going out. He says it's colder because the earth's orbit is taking us farther from the sun. He says winter will be here soon.

"Isn't it sad how some people's grip on their lives is so precarious that they'll embrace any preposterous delusion rather than face an occasional bleak truth?"

The first time as tragedy, the second time as farce

This, from the New York Times:

"...nearby was Anton Zimin, 26, an advertising copywriter, who said he was quite familiar with (a recently deceased novelist, radical, and historian) but doubted that others in his generation were. He said people his age have lost touch with the struggles of their parents and grandparents.

"The problem is that now, it's all about consumption - this spirit that has engulfed everybody," Mr. Zimin said. "People prefer to consume everything, the simplest things, and the faster, the better."

The radical author to which the 26 year old refers is Solzhenitsyn. The consumerism he laments is not American, as the young copywriter is Russian. He speaks of the consumerism of Russia.

In this age of instant gratification and the global village of modern communication, what it took America to bring upon itself in 50 years of mass consumerism, Russia has done in half the time. In the dog years that technology offers, I figure they'll be mirroring our insurmountable national debt, credit crisis and housing crunch by next May. Sarcasm aside, there have always been those who looked to burgeoning economies abroad and spoke of the opportunities to be had there - and these still exist. Moreover, so do opportunities to do it better this time, correct old mistakes, and find new solutions. Unfortunately, between China's dismal environmental record and Russia's corruption, this opportunity may already passed for those countries' leaders, but not yet for the companies looking to build a better world there, and back here at home.