I Am a Thief
Conduct
There’s Going to Be a Lot of Happiness
As I read the Book of Genesis, God didn't give Adam and Eve a whole planet.
He gave them a manageable piece of property, for the sake of discussion let's say 200 acres.
I suggest to you Adams and Eves that you set as your goals the putting of some small part of the planet into something like safe and sane and decent order.
There's a lot of cleaning up to do.
There's a lot of rebuilding to do, both spiritual and physical.
And, again, there's going to be a lot of happiness. Don't forget to notice!
What painters and sculptors and writers do, incidentally, is put very small properties indeed into good order, as best they can.
A painter thinks, "I can't fix the whole planet, but I can at least make this square of canvas what it ought to be." And a sculptor thinks the same thing about a lump of clay or marble. A writer thinks the same about a piece of paper, conventionally eleven inches long and eight-and-a-half inches wide.
We're talking about something less than 200 acres, aren't we?
If not you, then surely your children will see the day when not one drop of petroleum and not one whiff of natural gas is left to power any sort of machinery, or cook or heat or light anything, and precious little coal. Junkyard!
Chilblains in the wintertime, and darkness indoors and out when the sun goes down? Light a candle made from the fat of a lower, dumber, deader animal? Who's got a wooden match when there are no trees? Our century should be called this: the Age of the Planet Gobblers. We, the ancestors of all Generation A's still to come, inherited an aromatic, juicy blue-green planet, and we ate it up!
In our defense, we can only say, "We never asked to be born such prolific, voracious creatures in the first place. It would have been much better for all concerned if we had been sea lions instead, provided, of course, that nobody else got to be a human being, or a great white shark, or a killer whale."
Meanwhile, there is jazz, which, as I've said, has no harmful side effects. And I am put in mind now of a lawsuit against a pharmaceutical manufacturer years back, in which the plaintiff's lawyer had this to say about a certain pill, a nostrum that might be likened to our indifference to what we are doing to our environment: "Death is not an acceptable side effect."
-- Kurt Vonnegut, 1922-2007
Passover
We would sit down fifteen, sometimes twenty, to the table on seder nights: my parents; the maiden aunts -- Birdie, Len, and before the war, Dora, sometimes Annie; cousins of varying degree, visiting from France or Switzerland; and always a stranger or two who would come. There was a beautiful, embroidered tablecloth that Annie had brought us from Jerusalem, gleaming white and gold on the table. My mother, knowing that sooner or later there would be accidents, always had a preemptive "spill" herself -- she would manage, somehow, to tip a bottle of red wine onto the tablecloth, and thereafter no guest would be embarrassed if they knocked over a glass. Though I knew she did this deliberately, I could never predict how or when the "accident" would occur; it always looked absolutely spontaneous and authentic. (She would immediately spread salt on the wine stain, and it became much paler, almost disappearing; I wondered why salt had this power.)
-- Oliver Sacks, Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood (New York: Knopf, 2001), 174-75.
Tom Swift
No one seemed to realize that any of several Swift inventions would have changed the shape of human history. In Tom Swift and the Cosmic Astronauts, Tom casually invents a gravity concentrator after repairing a kite for some younger kids in an empty lot, and in Tom Swift and His Space Solartron, he implements a gadget that converts solar energy directly to matter in the form of any chosen element or simple compound. . . . The Repelatron alone would have changed the shape of technological society, as hinted but never fully explored in Tom Swift and His Repelatron Skyway.
The author or authors seemed incapable of grasping the implications of what they wrote. In that title, Tom Swift lays "down" a floating superhighway in mid-air, to be supported on Repelatron beams, with a helicopter. Tom's creators didn't seem to hit upon the truth (as we all did, and discussed endlessly on Boy Scout campouts) that Repelatrons made all other forms of flying obsolete. We also realized that if the Space Solartron could convert solar energy to oxygen for breathing, to water for drinking, and even to sugar for eating, it could make gold as well. But Tom never hit on that. I guess he was rich already and wasn't ruled by crass financial motives.
The Ill Natured Girl
Here is a representation of an ill natured little girl. See what an angry and unpleasant expression her countenance has assumed. She is angry at her sister and is tearing up a note, sent to her sister by her grandmother. I will tell you the story. The grandmother of those three children, was on a visit to the house. She had observed how violent and overbearing Susan was, and how properly her sister Annie behaved. Annie was of a gentle, mild, and willing disposition. If Susan's brother should happen to take up her book, she would immediately scream out in a sharp tone, "let my book alone." If her brother should attempt to reply, she would snappishly retort, "I don't care, you shall not meddle with it." Her conduct towards Annie was just the same, in fact, she more than once answered her grandmother in such a tart and abrupt manner, that her mother whipped her for it.
A few days after the grandmother had left, there was a package came for -- "Miss Annie." It proved to be a most beautiful writing desk, made of rosewood, inlaid with mother-of-pearl. It was filled with fine paper, pens, wafers, sealing wax, and a nice seal. It contained a note in these words: -- "This present is for a little girl who knows how to keep her temper. From her affectionate grandmother." Susan was so angry that she snatched the paper and tore it into pieces. The lesson will do her good.
-- The Girl's Cabinet of Instructive and Moral Stories by Uncle Philip
American Patriotism
Welcome to this section of my site honoring America the beautiful. Sheri’s Patriot Website. “This salute to President George W. Bush will remain here until the Iraq conflict is over. This reflects the promise of young conservatives across the U.S.A. to stand by our Commander in Chief!” Godd Bless America and godblessamerica.info. “America is great because of Jesus Christ, and if we lose Christ we lose our greatness.” America Triumphant, the movie, and America We Stand as One.
Congress Is Busted
"Hastert Launches a Partisan Policy" -- Charles Babington in The Washington Post, 11/27/04:
In scuttling major intelligence legislation that he, the president and most lawmakers supported, Speaker J. Dennis Hastert last week enunciated a policy in which Congress will pass bills only if most House Republicans back them, regardless of how many Democrats favor them.
Hastert's position, which is drawing fire from Democrats and some outside groups, is the latest step in a decade-long process of limiting Democrats' influence and running the House virtually as a one-party institution. Republicans earlier barred House Democrats from helping to draft major bills such as the 2003 Medicare revision and this year's intelligence package. Hastert (R-Ill.) now says such bills will reach the House floor, after negotiations with the Senate, only if "the majority of the majority" supports them.
Senators from both parties, leaders of the Sept. 11 commission and others have sharply criticized the policy. The long-debated intelligence bill would now be law, they say, if Hastert and his lieutenants had been humble enough to let a high-profile measure pass with most votes coming from the minority party.
That is what Democrats did in 1993, when most House Democrats opposed the North American Free Trade Agreement. President Bill Clinton backed NAFTA, and leaders of the Democratic-controlled House allowed it to come to a vote. The trade pact passed because of heavy GOP support, with 102 Democrats voting for it and 156 voting against. Newt Gingrich of Georgia, the House GOP leader at the time, declared: "This is a vote for history, larger than politics . . . larger than personal ego."
Such bipartisan spirit in the Capitol now seems a faint echo. Citing the increased marginalization of Democrats as House bills are drafted and brought to the floor, Rep. David E. Price (D-N.C.) said, "It's a set of rules and practices which the Republicans have taken to new extremes."
No Intelligence Reform Bill
"Intelligence Overhaul Bill Blocked" -- Charles Babington and Walter Pincus in The Washington Post, 11/21/04:
Long-debated legislation to dramatically reshape the nation's intelligence community collapsed in the House yesterday, as conservative Republicans refused to embrace a compromise because they said it could reduce military control over battlefield intelligence and failed to crack down on illegal immigrants.
The impasse, which caught congressional leaders by surprise, was a blow to President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and others who had personally asked House conservatives to accept the measure proposed by House-Senate negotiators early yesterday. It also marked a major setback for the Sept. 11 commission -- whose July report triggered a drive toward overhauling the nation's intelligence operations -- and for many relatives of victims of the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
The sidetracked bill would have created a director of national intelligence and a counterterrorism center, along with scores of other changes to the nation's approach to gathering intelligence and battling terrorism. The measure would have given the new intelligence chief authority to set priorities for the Central Intelligence Agency and 14 other agencies that gather intelligence, including several at the Defense Department. Hastert refused to call the proposal dead, saying Congress may reconvene Dec. 6 to try again, although lawmakers had planned to close out the 108th Congress this weekend.
Even some key Republicans, however, said prospects appear slim for producing a compromise that the House and Senate can pass. "I don't now see a process for which we can get this done in the next few weeks," said Rep. Peter Hoekstra (Mich.), chairman of the House intelligence committee and the House's top GOP negotiator.
Rep. Jane Harman (Calif.), the committee's top Democrat, said, "I think those who are vehemently opposed are not going to come around." She said it is up to Bush, Hastert and other GOP leaders to overcome the House conservatives' resistance. If a bill is not enacted by year's end, efforts would have to start anew in the 109th Congress that convenes in January.
The Republican Spending Bill
"$388 Billion Bill Is Show of GOP Power" -- Alan Fram in The Chicago Sun-Times, 11/21/04:
WASHINGTON -- Republicans whisked a $388 billion spending bill through Congress on Saturday, a mammoth measure that underscores the dominance of deficit politics by curbing dollars for everything from education to environmental cleanups.
The House approved the measure 344-51 margin, while Senate passage was by 65-30. . . .
From its tight domestic spending to the Democratic-backed provisions on overtime and other issues that were dropped, the bill is a monument to the GOP's raw power controlling the White House and Congress.
Even Bush's initiatives were not immune to cuts as the bill's GOP chief authors heeded his demands to control spending. His request for development of new nuclear weapons was rejected; his budget for the AmeriCorps volunteer program was sliced 12 percent, and the $2.5 billion he wanted to aid countries adopting democratic practices was slashed by $1 billion.
Passage would crown the lame-duck session of Congress, which began Tuesday. Lawmakers hoped to leave town for the year Saturday night, but Senate delays on the spending bill and the collapse of bargaining over a measure reorganizing U.S. intelligence agencies left timing in doubt.
Also enacted during the post-election session was an $800 billion increase in the government's borrowing limit. The measure was yet another testament to record annual deficits, which reached $413 billion last year and are expected to climb indefinitely.
Congress made it a little easier for hospitals, insurers and other to refuse to provide or cover abortions. A provision in the bill would block any of the measure's money from going to federal, state or local agencies that act against health care providers and insurers because they don't provide abortions, make abortion referrals or cover them.