Restless Rumblings...

Before I packed up for the weekend on Friday, I began an entry that was full of cautious optimism for the coming weekend. Ole Miss had just enjoyed a media sponge bath and the football team scored a glorious upset of the Florida Gators. However, after fumbling the ball away on Saturday and being forced to watch my other team meltdown on Monday Night Football, I must think again how nice it would be to support a team that actually wins consistently. The one good thing that came out when Pandora opened the box that Zeus gave to her and Epimetheus was hope. Hope springs eternal.

Early fall is one of my favorite times of the year to run. Things start cooling down after a long hot summer, and familiar trails change colors and reveal new perspectives that were previously unseen or unnoticed. This year however, in the middle of a personal revival of sorts concerning running, I am struck down by injury. Not of the accidental kind either. This injury is the first of its kind, which makes it all the more infuriating and frightening. My friends, I have developed a heel spur in my right foot. Not very dramatic, no; but it's the first developmental overuse injury that I have sustained thus far in my young life. I have developed this little bastard through a combination of both glorious and vainglorious lifestyle choices. Nemesis #1 can be solely attributed to wearing flip-flops during every season of the year for the past, I don't know, 16 years or so...Other than that, take your pick of these: not changing workout shoes often enough, running on pavement too much, blah blah blah, rah rah rah. The point is thus, I hate getting out of bed with shooting pains in my heel. It's not a good thing to wake up to, period. I have since ordered some sort of magical foam that promises to not only provide comfort and support, but also to reverse the process that made me grow this calcaneous crook of bone. It sucks. This morning, I woke up feeling quite a bit upset, besides the sore foot. This economic bailout package is bullshit. I read the original piece of legislation that failed in a vote on the House floor. The reasoning behind the failed vote was that Speaker Pelosi gave a partisan speech that “hurt the feelings” of many of the Republican congressmen and congresswomen. They got their feelings hurt. Please. They can handle having their entire lives examined under a microscope while campaigning for office, and yet, when it comes to one of the most important pieces of legislation they could hope to vote on, they get their feelings hurt and clam up. Then, to sweeten the deal for everyone, they throw a bone to those who didn’t vote for it. That’s right, for all of those who didn’t vote for this package, they got their piece of the 700 billion dollar pie. The original bill was 108 pages, and relatively succinct as far as congressional bills go. The final version was 451, and filled to the brim with pulled pork sandwiches. And yet, with everything else going on in the country, almost no one took any notice of this. All the money that is supposed to be going to financial institutions, banks, lenders, mortgage companies, and small businesses will instead be going to funding projects like these: a $2 million tax benefit for makers of wooden arrows for children; a $100 million tax break to benefit auto racetrack owners; $192 million in rebates on excise taxes for the Puerto Rican and Virgin Islands rum industry; $148 million in tax relief for U.S. wool fabric producers; and a $49 million tax benefit for fishermen and other plaintiffs who sued over the 1989 tanker Exxon Valdez spill…

My friends, we are doomed. We let things like this happen. Then we reelect the assholes that are responsible.

Not that it matters anyway. The bailout package itself will bring many of the aforementioned financial institutions under government control. Soon, we will be purchasing our insurance, mortgages, medical care, and loans from the government. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to socialism…

All is not lost. It was a beautiful weekend in Washington, D.C. Jacqueline and I spent the entire weekend together doing lovely couple type things. Next week, we will have been together for two years, which is inconceivable. It has been wonderful, and nothing to expect but more wonderment. She is awesome.

Classes are classes. I don’t really feel like I am a student again. It really just feels like I have a couple extra meetings during the week. I will have to put my nose to the grindstone though soon, midterm papers due dates are closing in. Work goes well, and I hope to interview for a significant promotion soon. Hopefully my good karma is back on top.

I was raised to my second degree in Freemasonry last week. It has been a good journey so far. I have learned a great deal and have met interesting people from all over the world. It seems strange to me to walk in the footsteps of Presidents, and so many others of such high esteem. I hope to do them proud one day. The best parts about the lodge are the fellowship and the charity. There was a significant hole in my person for a long time which I was unable to pinpoint. Then I thought back to a conversation I had with my grandfather when I was very young. He told me (roughly paraphrased) that there would come a point in my life when everything was on the upswing. I would be getting my feet under me personally, professionally, socially, etc. I would then start to think what was missing. He then told me to bear in mind the fraternal orders based in philanthropy. The man was near prophetic in his foresight, for he nearly described my exact situation. I think it is very important to devote time to those less fortunate. There is very strong evidence that those who give of themselves lead longer and fuller lives, are less susceptible to many diseases, and are more satisfied with their lives in society. All these are very strong motivating factors, and if you do good things, I believe you can reasonably expect good things in return.

On a somewhat unrelated note from the bailout package, I have been thinking a good deal about where our society will fit into the national history when it is all said and done. I have come to conclusion that our society will be known as the Great Society of Pussies. We have never known true hardship or abject poverty. We have never known true social conflict, or true war. Most of us have never known what it is like to truly struggle to make it day to day. We are a bunch on whining, complaining babies that expect everything to be made right by the few of us willing to put forth the sweat, blood, and tears to do it. I am in no way proclaiming to be exempt from this epitaph either. I am just as guilty as most everyone else. As a more or less avid student of history, I consider it a damn shame that my generation may be the tooth decay in the national grill so to speak.

Buy your books now, they will be obsolete and out of mainstream use in 15 years. Some years thereafter, they will be collectors’ items for the eccentric.

All is not lost. The Bald Eagle will soon be removed from the endangered species list.

I feel better after some venting and airing out some of the grievances that have been levied on the world by poor leaders and stupid people. I feel that we get so wrapped up in the little things that we forget to look at the big picture. The world has become a rapidly changing and evolving place. It’s an exciting time and place to be alive. It’s a great day to be alive.

I leave you today with several quotes.

"This is a very personal relationship, 'value', has two good factors for a human being. First, what he can do with a thing, its use to him. And second, what he must do to get it, its cost to him. There is an old song which asserts 'the best things in life are free'. Not true! Utterly false! This is one thing that will bring about the decadence and collapse of the democracies of the twentieth century; those noble experiments might fail because the people had been led to believe that they could simply vote for whatever they wanted, and get it. Without toil, without sweat, without tears. The bottom line is that nothing of value is free. Even the breath of life is purchased at birth only through gasping effort and pain. If we had to sweat for our blessings the way that a newborn has to struggle to live, we would be happier, and much richer. As it is, we should be pitied for the poverty of our wealth."
Robert Heinlein, Starship Troopers

"Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life has not.''
Bill Gates

"A state is not a mere society, having a common place, established for the prevention of mutual crime and for the sake of exchange...Political society exists for the sake of noble actions, and not of mere companionship."
Aristotle

And one more from the good doctor. We miss you good sir, the world needs more of those who swim against the tide every, single, solitary day.

"They herded us out of the ready room and called a ragged kind of cadence while we double-timed it across the wet grass under the guava trees in back of the hall, and finally burst through a well guarded access door held open for us by Secret Service men just as the balloons were released from the ceiling. It was wonderful; I waved happily to the Secret Service agent as I raced past him with the herd onto the convention floor. The hall was so full of balloons that I couldnt see anything at first, but then I spotted Chancellor up there in the booth and I let the bastard have it. First I held up my "Garbage Men Demand Equal Time" sign at him. Then, when I was sure he'd noticed the sign, I tucked it under my arm and ripped off my hat, clutching it in the same fist I was shaking angrily at the NBC booth and screaming at the top of my lungs: "You evil scumsucker! You're through! You limp-wristed Nazi moron!"
I went into the foulest back-waters of my vocabulary for that trip, working myself into a flat-out screeching hate-franzy for five or six minutes and drawing smiles of approval from some of my fellow demonstrators. They were dutifully chanting the slogans that had been assigned to us in the ready room- but I was REALLY into it, and I could see that my zeal impressed them."
Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72.

Don’t settle for the status quo. Live Triumphantly.