end of the world

not to be alarmist,

but the world appears to be ending.

this is not due to the obvious factors.

but things such as:

god is perchance asleep.

lately good things seem only to happen rather haphazardly;

say when god gets up for an Oreo® in the middle of the night.

god has perhaps been sleeping a tad more deeply lately,

which, if so, explains many, if not all things.

another thing.

our world is shrinking.

far away places are no longer so.

if they were far away, our t-shirts would not come from there.

nor would children in uganda wear t-shirts proclaiming

their love of Shaq. Colonel Sanders is beloved in places far,

far away from kentucky.

another thing.

we are inventing solutions to problems that we invented.

that if we hadn’t invented we wouldn’t have to solve.

traffic jams come to mind. there are, of course,

more deadly examples.

another thing.

drive through lanes at any kind of store.

when people can’t be troubled

to park and walk into a store - the simplest of things –

what will they be willing to be troubled by? who can locate

darfur on a map anyway?

when people can’t be troubled,

then everyone will be.

starvation in africa begins insidiously with a box of

Kraft mac and cheese. war proceeds everywhere

and hundreds of thousands die,

but still somehow Coke® is available

in the most devastated village.

Anna Nicole Smith’s popdeath means

she will always be there for us. the pathos of Britney

makes every copy of People a mirror.

the wealth of Goldman Sachs’ lieutenants

is an old religion taken to new heights.

we crusade not against islam,

but the poor.

another thing

I am sure if I just had a Coke®, a new car, new job, new house, new coat, new nose,

new Sharp® flat screen TV, then everything would be alright.

You can buy everything now -

even denial.

sadly, HDTV makes it even easier to see the politicians’ eyes.

the eyes always tell the lies.

another thing

rising waters may raise all boats but rarely islands.

as religious fanaticism from Goldman to mohammad rises, all shrinks before their terrorism.

“us and them” is a very small place indeed.

the world is shrinking and shrinking,

and will soon end in a

very tiny dot

just like this poem.

Is Running As Profitable As Smoking?

Are you kidding. You gotta be nuts if you think running is profitable compared to smoking. And, speaking of nuts, Altria, the pseudonym for the formerly famous Phillip Morris Company, makers of the world's foremost brand of cigarette - Marlboro (estimated to kill some 75,000 smokers a year in the US) - is going bonkers on the stock market whilst Kraft which it partially spun off several years ago is languishing.

Apparently stockbrokers think products that kill people are sure sellers...and apparently they are right. Altria posted net income of US$10 billion on revenues of $80 Billion.

I cannot even begin to imagine how these numbers dwarf any numbers I could find from any facet of running or the fitness industry in general...and this is just ONE tobacco company.

We are only lucky that the smoking industries' ability to sponsor sporting events was seriously hobbled by the Tobacco Settlements at the turn of the Century. The only thing worse than the ING New York Marathon would have to be the Chesterfield New York Marathon.