Essays in Idleness

In minor news from the front of the Batflu hysteria, Greyhound has surrendered its bus service in Canada. It has withdrawn from the whole country, removing bus routes and bus stations. It formerly had sufficient government connections to enjoy monopoly privileges on most of these, but now the company will only retain routes from several large Canadian cities to the United States. These may reopen when the borders do.

The “temporary” shut-down began just after “Covid.” The permanent closure is one of many now occurring, in small and family-owned businesses generally, but also some large, specialized service companies. Frankly, I am not able to keep up with the liquidation news, which is not covered by Canadian media, which has focused on “happy news” and medical scare stories since the Trudeau government made subsidies for reporting more or less universal. “Unhappy news” is only available from Small Dead Animals, Rebel News, and a few other enterprising websites which refuse the subsidies. Business stories rarely interest them, if they lack the buzz of scandal.

No scandal followed the buses. The market had been dying out, thanks to the proliferation of private automobiles, and passenger-sharing schemes. The value of a rural bus, to make single users independent and car-owning unnecessary, is never mentioned. There is a shrinking official train service, the passenger part of which burns money wildly.

But actual “environmental” policies cannot be considered. Each invariably “impacts” a very small portion of the population, and in a modern democracy, the individual has only theatrical rights.