Plans call for 60 outlets to open this year and 40 more in 1999, for a total of 100 stores. Loudoun's first mall - Leesburg Corner Premium Outlets - is slated to open in the next several weeks, bringing an abundance of factory stores, among them Liz, DKNY, Nautica and Polo Ralph Lauren.Ī few stores may open as soon as next week as part of a sneak preview. Jean VanSickels is accustomed to driving half an hour from Loudoun County to Fair Oaks and Tysons Corner malls, for their selection of Liz Claiborne clothing and other designer apparel.īut starting soon, VanSickels won't have to make as many shopping trips outside the county. It’s probably how it’s always been in human society, but there are more of us now – using more – demanding more – damaging more.By Stephanie Stoughton September 24, 1998 By the time more of us can afford electric cars and the old polluting cars have finally all worn out, will the situation have moved to a point of no return?īen Elton published ‘Gridlock’ in 1991 and things have changed since then, partly for the better, but the message of that book is still the same – what happens when a Gridlock is reached between the big business money-men, and what is actually best for people and the planet?Īnd so, we are back with Bartholomew Barker’s ‘Gridlock’ too. Yet – very little really being done about it – no curbs on manufacture and a very slow move to less emissions and electric cars. Too many cars, having a devastating effect on world health in so many ways. And why? Because there is too much big business money tied up in air traffic for any real curb to be placed on flights, regardless of their effect on air quality, sound pollution and climate change.Īnd now I come back to Ben Elton’s ‘Gridlock’, where petrol and cars are the culprits. Restrictions were lifted and the ‘planes took off again, just as though nothing had happened. The Pandemic hasn’t eased, though governments encourage people to think that it has. There was much talk of the benefits of this difference in the world around us and of trying to continue to limit, for example air traffic, even after the Pandemic had eased. Not only did areas of the world benefit from a more peaceful existence than they’d had for years, but also emissions went to a low not experienced for decades. When Covid first hit and Lockdown happened across the globe people weren’t driving as much and ‘planes weren’t flying anything like as much. Oil – we know that the excessive use of oil is damaging the planet and its people either through emissions, or plastic pollution. I was reminded of Ben Elton’s 1991 novel ‘Gridlock’ (novel) which deals with petrol rather than guns, but presents a similar scenario relating to oil. I’m writing of how I see it, and how Bartholomew’s poem presents Gridlock so succinctly – and I believe not only in relation to guns – his words can have various applications.
If anyone reading this is asking – what do I know, I’m not American, have never even been there – fair enough – write your own piece and let us know how you see it. Surely these incidents are the fruit of the gun gridlock. Money-men.īartholomew also wrote of this in his poem ‘How to Create a Killer’…… The Money-men are often hand in glove with The Powers That Be, backing them financially and politically.Īnd so we have – Gridlock. Guns are big business, at home and abroad. The thinking appears to be something like – ‘If I have a gun, other people with guns won’t dare to shoot at me.’ The whole Nuclear deterrent non-sense all over again.īut it’s just as likely that the gun control situation is never properly addressed because the Money-men are making and selling the guns. They can vote – but how many do?Įven among the ordinary people there are those with the idea that somehow they must have the ‘right’ to own a gun. But – they don’t have the power to effectively change the situation. Maybe because those calling for gun control are mostly ordinary people who are tired of the home-grown terror produced by the fact that just about anyone can have a gun. Every time there is a mass shooting ( what is happening, that I am even writing those words? – ‘Every time’), there is an outcry and public agitation for increased gun control. Bartholomew is writing of the situation in America re. Succinct, to the point – few words – much meaning. I read a Haiku by Bartholomew Barker which goes….
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