A rchive Date
[ 23-05-2000 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Mass Media ]
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[The agony and the ecstasy
By ROSS MCLENNAN - Winnipeg Sun
May 23, 2000
Ecstasy ain't what it used to be. At least, not for the kids who frequent raves.
News from the centre of the universe, otherwise known as Toronto, is that young Canadian rave-party animals are adding Viagra to their favourite pharmaceutical pick-me-up. Imagine. It's not a pretty sight ...
The mind's eye sees rock-hard ravers stuffed into warehouses across the country, milling about like a bunch of Pinocchios walking on their hands. Poking their ever-growing proboscises here, there and everywhere. Still, this latest chemical cocktail does make a kind of sense. Ecstasy makes them glad to see you, Viagra able to do something about it.
Over and over again, presumably.
Of course, every male teen's hormones can and do call snap erections with alarming and often ill-timed ease. Which means Viagra, like youth, is wasted on the young.
Why carry coals to Newcastle? Or - for those unfamiliar with either coal or Newcastle - why light a fire under a belly where one's already burning out of control? The use of Viagra at raves is only going to drive yet another wedge between those kids and us aging Boomers.
The generation that went from acid to flaccid must be gnashing what remains of their teeth at the thought these young punks are wasting the drug meant for them. Viagra made Boomers the first generation in history to anticipate rather than fear hard times.
Talk about revolution.
But now the youngsters are stealing from their stash. Bad enough the fast-fading free-love bunch have to shell out for something they never had to pay for all their lives. Now their successors are driving up the price by increasing the demand. These kids are not alright.
Well, like we of the Woodstock generation always said ... Never trust anybody under 30. Or something like that. Maybe our minds are getting soft along with everything else. The nuts are taking over.
First there was that goombah in Sierra Leone, the looney who lops off the limbs of men, women and children to maintain control over the illicit diamond trade. The next grinning groom to slip the ring on his blushing bride's finger should realize there's a damn good chance it did cost somebody an arm and a leg.
Then there's that fool in Fiji, George Speight, who took hostages when he stormed the parliament building in Suva last Friday with up to 70 fellow nationalists. Make that racists. Curious George says he's overthrown the elected Indian-dominated administration in the name of indigenous Fijians, who make up 51 per cent of the population. About 44 per cent are ethnic Indians.
When reporters asked George if he was ready to kill his hostages, he said, "Yes is the obvious answer."
"Obvious" in the sense that anybody would agree it's the only practical recourse left? Or "obvious" in the sense George of the Jungle is nuttier than a Fijian fruitcake?
Watch as skinny Mahatma Gandhi clad in a loin cloth and preaching non-violence morphs into George Speight sporting a sulu skirt and spouting death threats.
Ain't history grand?
E-mail Ross McLennan Letters to the editor should be sent to editor@wpgsun.com
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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