Imagine you’re a graduate student in American History and you write a thesis that’s so good, so striking, and so timely that it’s deservedly a best-seller: 200,000 copies. As Ray Wylie Hubbard says, “careers have been built on less.”
Imagine you’re a graduate student in American History and you write a thesis that’s so good, so striking, and so timely that it’s deservedly a best-seller: 200,000 copies. As Ray Wylie Hubbard says, “careers have been built on less.”
This is not a complaint. It’s just a fact, though, that sometimes projects get complicated. Things don’t work quite as simply as they ought to.
My subconscious is a horrible nag and pretty much never shuts down unless I’m on opiates. Last night, I was dealing with some “issues” from an afternoon of mess (more on that later, once the problem is resolved) and my subconscious was clearly thinking about metallurgy – specifically creative ideas for layering blade steels.
Given the news of harrassment in the media, this game was probably not as thoughtfully named as it could have been. It deserves to be winning more attention than it has, and I suspect the name may have something to do with it.
Depending on how you want to count it, the US Government killed about a half million Americans using nuclear weapons. That’s a half a million more than the North Koreans, or anyone else, have.
That’s also not counting all the American lives that were shortened by working with radioactive material at Hanford and Oak Ridge, or Idaho Falls, Los Alamos, and other places. These are US citizens who were on the receiving end of nuclear weapons.
Religion is handed down from fathers to children as the property of a family with the burdens.
Political legitimacy is achieved by having a system of government in which the people agree to it, giving up a bit of their autonomy in order to gain the benefits of participating in the collective.
Walter Mosley could have been channeling the founding archons of Badgeria when he said:
Hey, it’s Marcus – your tactical consultant – here with another necessary bit of tactical stuff to protect you against all the various threats of the modern world. This is something that, well, if you need this, you’ve got some serious problems about being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
“Le Diable s’habille en Voltaire” – Voltaire has the devil inside. [literally “the devil wears Voltaire” like a cloak] [this may be a mis-quote “le diable s’habit en Voltaire” – the devil inhabits Voltaire” sounds almost exactly the same when spoken] Undoubtedly a complex man, and a man of his time, Voltaire also had the flaws of his time. I doubt very much that Voltaire would have accepted “he was a man of his time” as an excuse for someone else’s failings, and neither do I.
No heroes!
Dr Phil’s horrible life-shaming show often discusses addiction (because it’s a problem many face) and the good doctor is full of helpful suggestions for “enablers.”