Sunday, November 13, 2016

Leaving For All The Right Reasons

Yes, we have it tough here in America. So tough in fact that on Election Night Canada's immigration web site crashed. Yes, the future looks a little bleak, okay a lot bleak, but where else would you go? Currently the choice so many were picking, The Great White North, has beer and donuts in abundance and you don't need to learn a new language. Just throw on a toque and a few extra "ays" and "aboot" and you're a Canuck. They even play football up there. Sort of.
Maybe fleeing is not your cup of tea. Perhaps you're the type who would like to stick it out, even when the very firmament upon which you have built your life has been ripped from underneath you. Nixon, Reagan, a couple of Bushes, and yet our nation still stands. We've faced worse problems, right? Imagine how awful things would be if you lived in Great Britain?
Lost in the hubbub of our own vicious election cycle was the little matter of Brexit. In a move that should have been a great big overfed canary in a very dark coalmine, the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union. It was a show of national pride and stubbornness that seemed ridiculous at the time, with a great many Great Britainers looking at one another the day after a twelve Guinness night. "We did wot? I musta been snobbled." Then many of them wanted their vote back. Even in England, where they drive on the wrong side of the road, that's not the way things work. You might expect that a nation like the United Kingdom would be familiar with the concept of "no take-backs." As a result, there are millions of Brits who are now having to come to terms with the choice they made last June in a fit of neo-conservatism. Forward, into the past.
What's the worst part for the Englishers? Well, if you asked them, they might say the ten percent reduction in their favorite chocolate bar. Toblerone has started making a bar that still costs one pound (that's British for "money") but now comes with less chocolate. It's not like they are getting less for more, they're just getting less for the same. Less little spiky bits of chocolate for a pound. The sweeties market will not point a finger directly at the Brexit for the shrinkage, but it seems likely that it has something to do with the economy over there. Hard to say, since they're all metric and everything.
Which gives us something for which we can watch: When Snickers start showing up no bigger than your thumb, we'll know something's up. Perhaps we're too late.

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