TMR has been politics free since the Tuesday sadness, and it's still not quite ready to add it's mite to the national noise except in a brief and general way. The election left the TMR feeling like a different Travis McGee, suffering from "...a bad burger, too quickly eaten."
Freedom lost ground. We can look forward to new dictates which will have the primary effect of making us apply for more permission ships and hall passes as we try to go about our productive -- or at worst harmless -- daily business. The de facto devaluation of our currency will continue and probably accelerate.
it is quite discouraging.
Nov 9, 2012
Prepping for a Sandy
There's nothing contrived for a photograph here. That's where and how the lanterns and the atlas live. It's a corner of the big, libertarian bay window installed some years ago.
( Libertarian" in the sense that the project required, but was built without, a permission slip from the Regulators of the village of Smugleye-on-Lake. The sheriff has not been around with a warrant yet, illustrating that you sometimes get away with egregious anti-social behavior. Part of the secret is just doing it while keeping your mouth shut until the statute of limitations runs out.)
Our power grid is quite dependable out here, even in the land of the tornado and the fierce blizzard. But sometimes the lights do go out, and when that happens at night I am in Room 101. The Worst Thing in the World is boredom.
Here in just a couple of square feet is an escape, illumination and information.
It isn't everything a fellow needs for survival, just a start. But, funny, it just seems to lead to other units of self-sufficiency. A few more lanterns, several feet of books, candles, LED flashlights, stashed lentils, rice, canned food, and so forth.
I tend to identify this attitude as "country," but I'm probably wrong. Even in Manhattan, Hoboken, there must be thousands of citizens of common sense and the ability to think ahead. We're led to an opposite view largely by the electric television industry which finds it more dramatic, and hence better for the Neilsons, to point their cameras exclusively at the bleaters.
"Don't nobody come to help me yet. Whattem I gonna do?"
I dunno for sure. I suppose you could try hanging another picture of President Obama or Governor Chris your wall.
( Libertarian" in the sense that the project required, but was built without, a permission slip from the Regulators of the village of Smugleye-on-Lake. The sheriff has not been around with a warrant yet, illustrating that you sometimes get away with egregious anti-social behavior. Part of the secret is just doing it while keeping your mouth shut until the statute of limitations runs out.)
Our power grid is quite dependable out here, even in the land of the tornado and the fierce blizzard. But sometimes the lights do go out, and when that happens at night I am in Room 101. The Worst Thing in the World is boredom.
Here in just a couple of square feet is an escape, illumination and information.
It isn't everything a fellow needs for survival, just a start. But, funny, it just seems to lead to other units of self-sufficiency. A few more lanterns, several feet of books, candles, LED flashlights, stashed lentils, rice, canned food, and so forth.
I tend to identify this attitude as "country," but I'm probably wrong. Even in Manhattan, Hoboken, there must be thousands of citizens of common sense and the ability to think ahead. We're led to an opposite view largely by the electric television industry which finds it more dramatic, and hence better for the Neilsons, to point their cameras exclusively at the bleaters.
"Don't nobody come to help me yet. Whattem I gonna do?"
I dunno for sure. I suppose you could try hanging another picture of President Obama or Governor Chris your wall.
Nov 7, 2012
Values
On election-eve morning I watched The Fountainhead and thought deeply about libertarian/objectivist values.
"You lie, James. You just leered at Patricia."
Dang. You ketcha me up, amigo.
"You lie, James. You just leered at Patricia."
Dang. You ketcha me up, amigo.
Nov 6, 2012
Travis McGee votes
I am Travis McGee today and a committed, decided voter, convinced that the oval I blacken makes a difference.
It is vainglorious, but it is good for the soul to scour the rust from the tin-plate armour, adjust the cookpot helmet, mount my pathetic Rocinante, swaybacked, galled and, like me I fear, something of a redundancy in this Brave New World.
I am off to tilt me the Hell out of a quasi-American Windmill. May my bent lance lodge between the blades -- stopping them cold -- of narcissism, revenge, contrived drama, and a lust for those glorious days when Lenin was still respectable, the days when all that was deemed good was deemed collective. Collective planning. Collective work. Collective reward. Collective guilt. Or, as the Windmill huffs it: "Forward." Or, sometimes, "You didn't build this."
Which is to say that I take my little vote seriously, almost ceremoniously. I will shower and closely shave, dress neatly, and enter the polling place as a first sergeant enters the company barracks.
But sadly I will still be thinking of the corollary decision. Against the sitting ruler, certainly, but for whom?
My state is close. The historically best poll calls it His Ineptness by five, meaning I should feel free to cast an honest libertarian vote. Other polls have it closer. Meaning that I should choose the quasi-Republican.
I suspect the decision won't come until the pencil hovers over the paper. I may or may not report it, but you'll be able to figure it out if you happen to be around Smugleye-on-Lake voting central.
If for Mr. Johnson, I'll walk out whistling a happy tune as I stride off to round up a few election-gathering supplies for this evening.
If for Mr. Romney, I'll slink home, futilely trying to persuade myself that I am a hero of the fighting retreat, but feeling badly in need of another shower.
It is vainglorious, but it is good for the soul to scour the rust from the tin-plate armour, adjust the cookpot helmet, mount my pathetic Rocinante, swaybacked, galled and, like me I fear, something of a redundancy in this Brave New World.
I am off to tilt me the Hell out of a quasi-American Windmill. May my bent lance lodge between the blades -- stopping them cold -- of narcissism, revenge, contrived drama, and a lust for those glorious days when Lenin was still respectable, the days when all that was deemed good was deemed collective. Collective planning. Collective work. Collective reward. Collective guilt. Or, as the Windmill huffs it: "Forward." Or, sometimes, "You didn't build this."
Which is to say that I take my little vote seriously, almost ceremoniously. I will shower and closely shave, dress neatly, and enter the polling place as a first sergeant enters the company barracks.
But sadly I will still be thinking of the corollary decision. Against the sitting ruler, certainly, but for whom?
My state is close. The historically best poll calls it His Ineptness by five, meaning I should feel free to cast an honest libertarian vote. Other polls have it closer. Meaning that I should choose the quasi-Republican.
I suspect the decision won't come until the pencil hovers over the paper. I may or may not report it, but you'll be able to figure it out if you happen to be around Smugleye-on-Lake voting central.
If for Mr. Johnson, I'll walk out whistling a happy tune as I stride off to round up a few election-gathering supplies for this evening.
If for Mr. Romney, I'll slink home, futilely trying to persuade myself that I am a hero of the fighting retreat, but feeling badly in need of another shower.
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