The International Writers Magazine JUNE 2013

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Welcome to the JUNE Edition of Hackwriters Welcome to June edition of Hackwriters and hope you'll stay to look around. Read us and look at the amazing archives too. 14 years on-line and 7000 articles - reviews - stories - destinations. Next edition July 1st.

Editorial:
Right now Europe is in flood. It's pretty serious. One day we'll take the climate seriously. I wonder what it will take? Meanwhile as they struggle to cope - check the weather before you fly to almost anywhere in Europe this summer - your hotel might be under water. For the record I have just been to southern France and it rained every day and coffee at 5 Euros a cup can make serious damage to your wallet when all you can do is stare out of window...

Word processed this with a hollow arm. They took how many bottles of blood out of my arm?  Practically fainted when I saw the samples going into various bags. It’s all my fault for reporting a chest pain.  Doctors go into overdrive and next there was ECGs and pissing into bottles…. Turns out to be high cholesterol - nothing else wrong at all. I guess I need to be more active or something. Could it be anxiety they ask? Everything all right at home? I get out of there fast before men in white coats drag me away. Not going back either. Or taking statins.

Of course in some countries you’d be lucky to get any tests at all.  I remember getting sick in Mozambique about 25 years ago (my fault, I had an ice cube) and took one look at all the patients lying on the tarmac of the carpark outside the Maputo hospital and after speaking to the Russian Doctor who said he had only one needle for ‘everyone’, I fled.  Managed to get to Jo’Burg hospital before I collapsed and was pretty darn ill for a month but at least they had drugs and needles. I kind of hope Maputo is in a better shape now. All I remember was pot holes the size of whole vehicles, coffee shops full of people but nothing to drink, department stores devoid of anything to sell and everything falling apart. I read recently it was 'the' place to invest in ocean property right now, but I may have been dreaming that. That said, I do remember that the coast was amazing and had potential...
            So I should be really happy the doctor makes a fuss right?  Considering the pressure they are under everyday. (And how obese all the people were in the waiting room).
            I was thinking about mortality.  About how everyone lives forever now.
Gemma Malley wrote an interesting novel  ‘The Declaration’ about a how they invented a drug that meant everyone could live forever – but it rendered children obsolete and having kids was almost taboo and only if you didn't choose the 'life' pill.  But of course Gemma was wrong.  Children in that scenario would be slaves.  I am such a child now (albeit an ancient son) tending to every whim of my 93 year old mother, who sits in bed 24 hours a day, (coming up for eight years of it now) thinking of ways to make life hell for everyone around her. 
            So why do people want to live longer?  What’s the point?  Everything in the media is about being young, being beautiful, having a great sex life, success is being young and staying young and all the creams and pills they push to help you stay young are worth billions.  The media doesn’t like the old and are resentful of them. (Why can’t they live in smaller homes?) Asks the Daily Mail for example. They haven't quite got down to boiling them down for Soylent Green, but no doubt it'll come.  Advertisers don’t like the old (unless you watch afternoon TV when it’s mainly about incontinence pads and mobility.  You can’t get travel insurance when you’re old, and yet they want you to work until your seventy now. (And with luck drop dead before you can claim a pension).

Attractive Drop Dead Zones will be available in every community soon, no doubt. They won't charge your relatives too much to cart you away, as long as you sign up to a green energy recycle program. The Obese will be especially prized for their energy potential. You might even get money back for those extra fat burgers you crave.
           
Just what is so great about living forever anyway? 
The world is changing.  You just know there will be a major conflict over religion, clean water, air, energy, and food.  Perhaps all at once. You can’t go towards 10 Billion people on this planet and not have a major conflict.  Our old age will be utterly miserable, I am sure of it.  You can’t even join the revolution when you’re old as it’s difficult to escape from the enemy on a motability scooter.

Climate Change is inevitable (except for those denyers who won't make a connection to all those new coal fired power stations in China and other human activity raising the global temperature). All the historic evidence is there to read if anyone cares to look, to show that when the climate goes against us, as in the 17th Century, wars, pestilence and starvation followed. Read all about it here in The Chronicle of Higher Education if you really want cheering up.
           
I was listening to BBC Radio 4 the other night and on how the digital revolution has only just got started on hollowing out our jobs.  Technology has already rendered the high street redundant and given time, it will attack the professions and doctors, lawyers and teachers. They could all be replaced by an efficient on demand service with a huge background resource of back history data to call upon.  It will be a better service, maybe.
            The growth industry in the West will be looking after the old.  (As long as there is money to pay for it).
            Bed Sores R Us can’t be far behind. (As it were)
            And when the money runs out – the old better start running.
            Logan’s Run anyone?

© Sam North  Editor June 2013

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