If it is, I do not want to be right. Because, DAMN! it sure does taste good.
But no one listened.
Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.
This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual — is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.
Well, that did not go as planned. Seems I have a strange shaped throat. As a result, my surgeon was not able to intubate me properly. So, after a half hour of trying various ways to get a seal, they gave up. This was suppose to be outpatient surgery. Instead, I am going to have to have the surgery in a hospital. Supposedly they have better means at intubating. I suspect that means I will be staying overnight. I can only imagine the worse possible outcomes at this time.
Seriously, it hurt so bad just to breath after they tried to intubate me yesterday. I cannot imagine all that they might have to do to keep my blood properly oxygenated. I figure I will have both a major headache for days after the surgery, as well as one mean sore throat.
So, here I am today, with a sore throat, still wiped from the anesthesia, and I am wondering how I am going to rearrange my schedule at work.
I’m off to Woodbury, MN to get my sinuses and nose roto-routered. I have two deviated septums, a few polyps, and all sorts of nasty, left over infection crap that all needs to be scraped out. It means being off of work for 6 days. It also means being at my parents after the surgery until the anesthetics clear. Of course, then there is the probability of being in so much discomfort as to not being able to drive home even after that. In the end, I will be out of commission for at least 24 hours, possibly longer.
Now, to take the garbage out and see if my car will start in this -11 temperature.
Sean Paul Kelley shared this picture on Facebook, but I just had to post it on my blog. It really is amazing the contrast between the old Pope and Pope Francis. When I look at the picture to the right, humility comes to mind.
I have begun the second draft of my novel. I realized it was just not possible for me to dictate my rough draft into text files. The agony of reading my pathetic, horrible writing was killing me in a slow, agonizing death of a thousand cuts.
Yes, I know. It is a bit dramatic is it not?
Anyway, I have replaced my morning journal writing with novel writing. Still on the first chapter, but I am not planning on any timeline at the moment. I will finish it when I finish it.
However, I am in need of readers. People that understand they are not to tell me where my story is to go, but instead can tell me if they are understanding where my story is going. If you think you understand what I am saying, explain so in the comments of this blog.
Yes, I am posting this on Facebook, but if you really are interested, please leave your response on my blog.
So, I have moved. I am now living in the two bedroom apartment behind my favorite restaurant: Peggy Sue’s Cafe. From the outside it looks like one long building. Surprisingly, the apartment takes up more of the building than the restaurant. At least on the main floor. There is no basement or upstairs. The great thing is that my rent includes electric, heat, water, and garbage/recycling! Pictures to follow.
(Booman Tribune) I love the writing here. But I don’t really think of it as a slow, almost imperceptible process. Certainly, you can trace the long, slow progress from Goldwater to Gohmert. But there have been sudden tectonic slips that have jolted the crazy forward.
I think one of the less appreciated legacies of the Bush administration is that they made Republican ideology incoherent. One moment the GOP was calling for the liquidation of the Department of Education and planning to let Medicare “wither on the vine,” and the next moment they were giving us No Child Left Behind and Medicare Part D. One moment they were closing down the government because they wanted spending cuts, and the next moment the vice-president was telling us that Ronald Reagan proved that deficits don’t matter. One moment Bush was campaigning on a more humble foreign policy and the next moment, if you weren’t with us, you were against us. The Bush administration was awful from every perspective you might wish to view it, and that includes the movement conservative’s perspective.
But movement conservatives were nonetheless willing to go along with the Bush administration and defend it with the harshest, coarsest, most vituperative language and rhetoric. As they unlearned logical consistency, they also lost the ability to think clearly. Logic became a kind of threat.
So, that was the first real tectonic slip. The next came in late August and September of 2008 when, first, Sarah Palin was selected as John McCain’s running mate, and then the economy completely collapsed. It became almost immediately clear that Sarah Palin was a colossal moron who had absolutely no business on a presidential ticket. It also became clear that John McCain had no idea how to deal with the financial crisis, as he suspended his campaign, unsuccessfully tried to skip a presidential debate, and called for an emergency meeting at the White House where he had nothing to say.
This forced the conservative movement to defend both McCain and Palin is ways that no sentient human being should ever defend other human beings. I believe the experience caused permanent collective brain damage to the entire Republican community. Arguing that Sarah Palin should be a stroke away from the nuclear football will do that to a brain, and a political party.
The final straw, however, was the decision to oppose every single thing the president tried to do. They turned him into a monster when he was never a monster. He became the Kenyan socialist usurper. That was a decision that Mitch McConnell made before the president was even sworn into office. And the result was that the Republican Party started rejecting their own ideas and labeling them communist plots to destroy the country. At that point, with all the bad habits already ingrained, the party just lost control of its base.
They hadn’t governed according to their “principles,” and they had ramped up the fear of the Democrats to such a height that the base decided that they were facing some existential crisis.
Basically, the big steps were ideological inconsistency followed by epic failure which both required people to defend the indefensible which broke people’s logical brains and respect for the truth which then caused them to respond to manufactured fear with rebellion against their own puppet masters.
You will have to go read his post to learn what writing he loves. It is a pretty good metaphor he linked to, but I liked his step by step analysis of the decent of the Republican Party into madness.
This cannot be stressed enough; the Republicans in the House of Representatives changed the rules in a naked grab for power and control with no thought of actual leadership or benefit for the country.
