The faces we remember...

What do we remember? What are the moments or people that remain after years of living and loving - winning and losing. Perhaps it is different for each of us. I remember faces - eyes mostly. Maybe I think I have seen souls. I don't know.

But I remember the face of every woman I ever loved or made love to. I remember the faces of the women I desired. Some remain fresh, young. Others I have seen since they aged and that is how I remember them now. One face stands out - mostly because it was filled with pain and tragedy. She sat next to me in a university math class eons ago. I didn't know her name - though I could find it.

The last time I saw her when we were still young was in Vancouver, 1971. She was hanging with the band at an outdoor concert. We were far from St. John's and I saw her. She still did not see me.

Then years past and she faded from view. I had forgotten her and then I was back in St. John's hanging out in a favourite pub. A local band had just finished a set. They were the journeymen kind. Around the business, hanging on long after all hope was gone. Playing gigs for cigarettes and booze. She was there then, still with the band. The years had been hard on her and it showed on her face. Her eyes gave her away then. She saw me and remembered my face from the past. She saw I knew her in her devastation and could recall her in her splendour. I saw the look of a drowning person then - slipping away into the undertow.

I never saw her again but she is there now in my memory. Old and young. Hungry for love.

It seems so predictable...

I am not an economist. Sure I took some basic economics courses as an undergraduate and like anyone who pays any attention to the news I have been subjected to the speculations of economists of every ilk. No matter what their individual theoretical perspective all economists seem to live by the general delusion that the primary function is growth - wealth creation is one common descriptor.

What they never like to talk about is the notion that unlimited and never ending growth is really a fancy way of describing unmitigated greed. That fact is market economics are premised on the central idea that people at the top must gain more and more wealth so that the economy as a whole functions well. It seems obvious that there has to be a limit to growth and that inevitably the so-called growth experts would slip into untenable devices for creating wealth - or at least the illusion of wealth.

And it seems to be so predictable that in the end the bubble must burst. We saw it with Dutch tulips and we saw it in the 1920's. Now the rotten house of cards ( to mange some metaphors) has come tumbling down. Will it change anything? Not really; sure we will lick our wounds and commiserate over the venality of the few. But we will remain smugly wrapped in the illusion that the marketplace is the heart of the nation - its raison d'etre for some.