The Death of Cape Cod

It is clear that Cape Cod is becoming an overpopulated suburb like Long Island, New York.

Yes, it still has gorgeous beaches and architectural character in the small villages, but the villages used to be Cape Cod.

Now Cape Cod is a distination for shoppers, developers, restaurants, discount malls and brand name malls from one end to the other with the exception of Truro, Wellfleet, and Provincetown.

So what is new about this? The news is that this New Cape Cod is becoming the Old Cape Cod,

Mega Mansions and landscaped properties even dominate the scenic roads. The look of Old Cape Cod with its unpainted rambling houses, no landscaping, patchy grass lawns, laundry blowing in the wind..... gone forever!

The nouveaus arrive in their suv's and shop, eat, and play on the water and on the beaches. becoming dewy-eyed when they reflect on their summer when bthey return to another suburb they have created years ago.

The change has not gone unnotificed by locals and town officials and and when a shellfish area is threatened by the growth in dock construction of waterfront properties, town officials and public servants are confronted by three-piece suits and verbal skills that make the local idiom seem quaint.

It happens every day and is a type of place erosion. It can't be stopped. One retreats emotionally, like home owners moving their old fashioned, simple summer cottages back so many feet after years of predictable wearing away of the beach.

Now, finding the Old Cape Cod means visting protected areas or the National Seashore.

The machine that pushes out the old and makes the new old in time is inexhorable.
Perhaps it is a natural decline, a rise and fall of the times and economics.

When one thinks of all those flushing toilets, washing machines, swimming pools and remember a Cape Cod with small cape houses and a two seater and laundry on the line drying in the sun and wind, one must pause, bow one's head, and leave...but for where?

Mad As Hell and I Am Not Going To........

put up with it any more!

I am really sick to near death with the self-obsessed culture in America.

If you look at the campaign for president of the USA you see day after day the cult of personality in Clinton, Obama, and McCain, not to mention the former president Clinton. The parade of their egos on a daily basis as they pontificate about what is wrong with America, what they can do for America, how they will operate as president of a super-power is so unctuous, so patronizing, so
insulting to the reader, the viewer, the listener. We have come to expect nothing more than platitudes from our candidates and they are complying.

Do you think that any candidate sits alone and thinks about what he/she believes and shapes her campaign around beliefs, values, vision? Even Obama has given up the 'man of the people' for the 'man of the process.' John McCains 'straight talk' must be filtered through a campaign office before he stumbles into a public appearance. Same for Hilary. Same for Obama.

How did this happen? We invited it. We do not do our own thinking anymore. Pundits, anchor men, former or wanna be public figures conduct focus groups, discussions about what we are thinking and what they can say to that thinking. But what if we are not thinking? Clearly they know that we are not thinking and decide what we are thinking and tell us 24/7 until we think that that is what we are thinking.

Why is Iraq not center stage? The media and the politicians have decided we are not interested in it and hammer away at the economy. Is the economy not tied to Iraq? Look at your gas costs.
Doesn't Iraq figure into the equation?

Why isn't George Bush a huge target for all of the candidates?

Why isn't the national debt a huge factor in the debates?

They have made the mortgage crises the headline. Blaming banks and unscrupulous lenders for the crisies. They were legislators in Congress as this storm was brewing.The credit crunch was a long time coming with household debt at its highest in US history. America has spent its way into an economic crises. Cars, homes, electronics, vacations, shopping, shopping, shopping, spend,spend, spend.

A people, a government, a business community driven by greed must have a day of reckoning. War, tax breaks for the rich, cuts in social benefits, bail outs, and everything else that occurs is evidence that we are adrift. Have you heard one candidate you believe is not part of the problem?

An unthinking electorate gets what it deserves. A recession.

Looking for a candidate to bail us out of our own self-indulgence can only produce candidates who pander to the uncertainies that we elected them to help us avoid. They are in in Congress. WHAT WERE THE DOING FOR AMERICA BEFORE THEY DECIDED TO MAKE A RUN FOR THE OVAL OFFICE? Not much.