The assassination attempt on Rep. Giffords has gotten American politicians worried about their safety. I say, get out of the kitchen if you can't stand the heat. Politics has always been a nasty business. I imagine that the first politicians were cavemen from our distant past—the head caveman was hogging all the women, and his political opponent bashed him over the head with a rock and took his place.
I have always thought that the "sacrificial king" style of ruling would be the way to go—each year, a new king is elected, and he has absolute power for one year, and then he is put to death, and a new king is elected. That's what I call a "term limit." The theory is that the king knows that he has one year to make his mark in history, and he will try his damnedest to do so. Corruption isn't a factor, because he won't live to enjoy any ill-gotten gain. The only weak point that I can see is, who the hell would want the job? It would have to be a supreme egoist; hmm—I guess any politician would fit that bill.
At any rate, has the Giffords thing really changed how American politicians think? Will they all go around thinking that they have a target painted on their backs? Are they now going to demand bodyguards at public expense? Popemobile type conveyances? American politicians seem indignant at the idea that they will have to keep looking back over their shoulders from now on, but that's been a way of life for politicians in most of the rest of the world.
Hey, maybe dueling between politicians will come back into style.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Monday, January 10, 2011
H.P. Lovecraft and Maytag dryer repairs
Hello out there,
This is my first blog, and I'm just gonna write this off the cuff. I'm a tattoo artist by trade, and a creative writing student part time. I'm also the fix-it guy around the house and around the shop. Today, for example, I spent several hours repairing my wife's twenty-year-old Maytag dryer; the thing was squealing and squawking. I don't know much about dryers, but the internet is just incredible for getting information, and I was able to find and download a service manual from http://appliancedigest.com/ and step-by-step instructions for disassembling the dryer from http://www.applianceaid.com/. I bought all the parts from a local appliance parts store for $80 and put it all back together, and Bob's your uncle, as the Brits say. I replaced the drive belt, polished and lubed the drum rollers and idler pulley, and replaced the teflon drum bearings. The dryer's never been quieter, my wife says.
After the dryer was fixed, I relaxed with a nice sandwich and a beer (Weyerbacher's Insanity Ale-awesome!) and perused a survey of supernatural fiction entitled The Evolution of the Weird Tale by S.T Joshi—specifically, I began reading the chapter about H.P Lovecraft. The interesting thing about Lovecraft is that he was a skeptic who refused to believe anything that couldn't be proven by the science of his day. That means that he was an atheist and that he did not believe in any sort of soul, or an immaterial afterlife, or ghosts, or spirits of any kind. He also did not believe that beings from another planet or universe, if they existed, would be anything like human beings here on Earth. We Earthlings are unique to our planet and solar system and exist according to immutable physical laws. Or something like that.
This is a painting I did when I was seventeen (oh, so long ago!) that was inspired by Lovecraft's Cthulu Mythos. It's been that long since I've read any of his stuff, and I'm looking forward to reading it again. The best part is that it's all free now; Lovecraft's stories are in the public domain, and I downloaded them into my Kindle.
This is my first blog, and I'm just gonna write this off the cuff. I'm a tattoo artist by trade, and a creative writing student part time. I'm also the fix-it guy around the house and around the shop. Today, for example, I spent several hours repairing my wife's twenty-year-old Maytag dryer; the thing was squealing and squawking. I don't know much about dryers, but the internet is just incredible for getting information, and I was able to find and download a service manual from http://appliancedigest.com/ and step-by-step instructions for disassembling the dryer from http://www.applianceaid.com/. I bought all the parts from a local appliance parts store for $80 and put it all back together, and Bob's your uncle, as the Brits say. I replaced the drive belt, polished and lubed the drum rollers and idler pulley, and replaced the teflon drum bearings. The dryer's never been quieter, my wife says.
After the dryer was fixed, I relaxed with a nice sandwich and a beer (Weyerbacher's Insanity Ale-awesome!) and perused a survey of supernatural fiction entitled The Evolution of the Weird Tale by S.T Joshi—specifically, I began reading the chapter about H.P Lovecraft. The interesting thing about Lovecraft is that he was a skeptic who refused to believe anything that couldn't be proven by the science of his day. That means that he was an atheist and that he did not believe in any sort of soul, or an immaterial afterlife, or ghosts, or spirits of any kind. He also did not believe that beings from another planet or universe, if they existed, would be anything like human beings here on Earth. We Earthlings are unique to our planet and solar system and exist according to immutable physical laws. Or something like that.
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