26 February 2025 – Oh, that pesky old Law of Unintended Consequences.

You know? You do X, to bring about Y… and then instead of basking in the delights of Y, you find yourself lumbered with Z,T and a raggedy bit of M.

For example:

On June 28, 1914, Bosnian-Serb student Gavrilo Princip assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife Sophie as they were being driven through the streets of Sarajevo.

He meant to protest the annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina by the Austria-Hungarian Empire.

He did not mean to precipitate World War I.

And for example:

In 1938, the Australian government introduced cane toads to the country.

They meant to control pest beetles in Queensland’s sugar cane crop.

They did not mean to introduce a new pest, which has since spread all the way to northern Western Australia. “This great toad, immune from enemies, omnivorous in its habits and breeding all year round, may become as great a pest as the rabbit or cactus” — National Museum of Australia.

And also for example:

In the 1950s, the heroine of I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed A Fly — words by Rose Bonne, music by Canadian folk writer Alan Mills, sung by Burl Ives, animated by the NFB — launched herself on a swallowing spree.

She only meant to get rid of the fly (“that wriggled and tiggled and jiggled inside her”).

But when that spree culminated in a horse? “She’s dead, of course.”

And finally for example:

Right here and now, the Orange Thug’s tariffs are meant to destroy Canadian sovereignty.

But as this poster, now widespread in our grocery stores, suggests…

and product shelves reinforce…

in one aisle after another…

hmmm, maybe some Unintended Consequences are already kicking in.

(Says I, who happened to need a new jar of honey, and came home with this one, you betcha.)

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