Underground and Overhead

The 2nd Revolution

To me, the best argument for the Boehner bill is that it is a step in the long-term strategy - it's the way the game is played.

The best argument against the Boehner bill is that it is a step in the long-term strategy - it's the way the game is played.

I'm reminded of an episode of Star Trek where the away team lands on a planet involved in a "civilized" war, where computers determine who has won or lost a battle. The losers have to march into a death chamber, but at least the society is saved. Of course, the leaders inform Captain Kirk that the Enterprise has lost a battle and he and all his people must surrender to go to their deaths. Kirk, of course, is having none of it, and simply smashes the machine.

"Do you know what you have done!?" the leader screams.

Yes, Kirk says, and now you're going to have to do things differently.

I think we're there.

The Tea Party is Kirk, and it's smashing the machine.

The R's and the D's are maneuvering and haggling, positioning themselves for a prolonged battle.

The T's are saying, "Enough! End this nonsense now!"

Call this the Second American Revolution

Update: Boehner's bill is changing as we write. Conservatives who support it say to look for a strategic victory, which may lead to more victory later. I think it may be time to throw the tea in the water.

Bad writing celebrated

Winners of the 2011 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest have been announced and the recipients should be very proud. Check out the many categories, but I like the Vile Pun winner:

"Detective Kodiak plucked a single hair from the bearskin rug and at once understood the grisly nature of the crime: it had been a ferocious act, a real honey, the sort of thing that could polarize a community, so he padded quietly out the back to avoid a cub reporter waiting in the den."  (Joe Wyatt, Amarillo, TX)

Something to aspire to.

The Rise of the West

I just heard Rep. Allen West refuse to apologize to Rep. Wasserman Schultz. My opinion of West just went up a few dozen points. I like this guy!

Great Quotes - Continuing - Einstein

"The supreme task of the physicist is the search for those highly universal laws from which a picture of the world can be obtained by pure deduction. There is no logical path leading to these laws. They are only to be reached by intuition, based on something like intellectual love."
The World As I See It - Albert Einstein

Great Quotes - continuing

Quote of the day in my Franklin Planner: "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls, and looks like work."

Thomas A. Edison

No Brakes. What Would You Do?

What would you do if you were traveling on the freeway, you tapped your brake to make a lane change, and the pedal went all the way to the floor?

It happened to me Tuesday, in the dark of the morning, on the way to work.

While driving on the freeway, about 65mph, I needed to change lanes and so hit the breaks to make the move. But there was nothing there. No brakes.

It had felt like a cold morning, but it suddenly felt very warm in the car. I adjusted the heater to shoot in cold air and tried to think. Thankfully, there was plenty of room to manuever, so I slid over to the right lane and began coasting to reduce speed. I tried the brakes again. They actually grabbed, a little, at the very bottom, but it gave me hope.

I began to try to think what to do. Get off the freeway, of course, but how? Could I stop at the end of the ramp? I stayed in the right lane and eased back from the guy in front of me, increasing my following distance as much as possible.

About this time I noticed two things, thankfully. The Brake light was lit on the dashboard, and then, Oy, the parking brake was set. Only a little, but enough. I knew instantly that was the culprit. I released it immediately, of course, and did the math. I’d traveled about 20 miles at freeway speeds with it on. No wonder my brakes were gone.

Thankfully, the ramp was coming up and thankfully, it was Forest Lawn Drive - that is, the road next to the large Forest Lawn cemetary. I tap the brakes again, this time three times. The second time, they grabbed about halfway, the third time nearer the top. There were some brakes left.

Thankfully, the Forest Lawn ramp was not in much demand at 6 in the morning. I was the only car, so I could take all the room I needed to stop.  There was only one good way to go, and I decided to try to get to a gas station or mechanic right away.  

Thankfully the road continued with few turnoffs or slowdowns for a good mile or two and I began to reallize my brakes were probably cooling down. But also, there were no gas stations anywhere.

I turned at the next available corner and continued on, passing under the freeway and along more isolated roads with only a few turns or stops. I kept hunting for some place to pull in, but found only open road. At the few stops I did have to make, I gingerly tapped the brakes, and thankfully, gradually felt like they were returning (cooling). The road curved around and met the freeway again. I thought for a moment about going back home. The traffic would be in my favor, but as I kept trying the brakes I could feel them grabbing higher and higher and I started to believe that they were going to be ok. The dash light turned off somewhere in there, too.

I decided to go on to work, another 50 miles, but stayed in the right hand lanes the whole time, doubled my following distance and gently tried the brakes from time to time. Eventually I made it in. I checked the brake fluid later and it seemed okay, but all the web experts say to get the brakes checked after something like this. I guess so.

Apparently, I got lucky. Or should I say, thankfully, I had Someone protecting me.

Been thinking lately about the saying "You reap what you you sow". Still true, of course, but sometimes it doesn't get through so much to us non-farmer types.
I was wondering what some modern equivalents might be.
Maybe "A moment on the lips, forever on the hips."
Maybe what the car mechanic says, "Pay me now or pay me later."
In the computer world: "Garbage in, garbage out".
Or the variations around that saying, "Lay down with dogs, rise up with fleas."
A lot of the time it seems it would be very useful to remember You reap Only what you sow - if you reap nothing, you sow nothing.
Procrastination, laziness, doing the easy thing instead of the best thing - it's easy to ooze into the easy. I remember Robert Bork's Slouching to Gomorrah.
And then think about what we will reap if we keep sowing the glorification of violence, the self absorption of what is falsely called love, the surrendering of personal freedom to the bread and circuses of nanny government.
What will we reap?

Lessons I Wish I'd Learned Earlier And Am Still Learning

You will not be a rock star. You will not be a professional sports player. You will not be the President of the United States. Most of you. But that's a good thing.  It would be good for you to get that stupid idea out of your head. (Those of you who will be a rock star, ball player or President will ignore this anyway, so there's no danger of my dashing some dreams that don't need to be dashed.)

Your life will be successful not because of what you are, but because of who you are. Some good things to be are a loving parent and a faithful spouse.

Pay your bills before they're due.

If you have sex, you will have babies. (Protection is irrelevant. Sooner or later, you will have a baby. Somebody will forget, something will break, you'll pick a person who says it's "safe" but they lie. Babies will happen. That's the way it's supposed to work.)

Don't spend money you don't have, with two possible exceptions - a house and a car. The car would be better in cash- which means it will probably have to be a smaller, crummier car. So? As for the house, plan on being out of work for a year. Will you still be able to make the payments? No? Then look at a smaller house.

A job is better than no job. You can always look for a job, and get it, easier, if you have a job now.

"Find what you love and do that - you'll never go broke" - is bad advice. (See you'll never be a rock star above.) Some people are needed to clean messy diapers, help a smelly drunk to his feet, pick up the trash at 4 in the morning, clean the inside of the toilet, guard the dangerous, angry, vicious prisoner, and walk into danger for the sake of someone else. Few people dream of doing that, sacrificing themselves for someone else's sake, with the possibility of never being recognized or rewarded for their work. But somebody has to do it. And it's a good, a very good, thing to do.

Pray to God and row towards shore - you never know which will be the way out this time.

Laugh more.

Laugh at yourself more. No, seriously. :)

Another Great Quote

J.M. Barrie, author of Peter Pan is reported to have said to author H.G. Wells:

"It is all very well to be able to write books, but can you waggle your ears?"

Demon Rum

So I saw this shopping cart lady this morning on my way in to work. It was early and cold, about 50 degrees. I walk about three blocks through downtown Pasadena, but it's about six o'clock, dark and quiet. I thought about stopping to see if she needed something, but she kind of startled me and I just kept walking.

She was bundled up in a down-filled blanket kind of thing, over several coats, but she still looked cold. Sometimes the chill just won't go out of your body. I guess I know that much.

I sat at my desk, but couldn't get her out of my mind, so I decided to go back and offer her a few bucks. I wondered if she would still be there ten minutes later. It was getting light and she was at a bus shelter on a busy street. She was still there, only now she was standing and the down blanket reached from her ears to her ankles. But people walked by and she hid her eyes, as if to make them go away.

After they passed, I walked up to her and asked if she needed some money. To my surprise, she said something like "The demon wants me to have some money," and tucked her face under the blanket again like a turtle.

I asked again; she said, "the demon told you to ask me that."

I said, no an angel told me, God told me.

No, no she insisted, it was the demon.

"You don't need any money?", I asked.

"No, I don't like what the demon do to me when I got the money."

I thought maybe she was talking about the demon rum, as it used to be called, but it was clear I wasn't going to get through to her, so I walked away. I think I said God bless you as I left, but I'm not sure.

I don't know what the problem was. Maybe she was wiser than me. Maybe the money would only tempt her to drink or something.

It left me wondering many things. The power behind alcohol, and how it can ruin minds and lives. The weakness of some minds, people who need to be taken care of, but who somehow survive, on the kindness of God, I guess.

I wondered at my own motives, too. Guilt? Prompting by the Holy Spirit? Guilt?

I prayed for her. What else could I do? What more could I do? As I walked away I thought I saw, in another doorway at the back of a building, another shopping cart person, shivering in the cold.