Platform for a Generic Political Party
. . . along the lines of “Basic English.” With these simple blocks one could rebuild a lot.
I care:
- how people behave themselves, and
- how they treat each other.
I don’t care:
- where they come from,
- what they look like,
- what they have in their underwear, or
- whom they choose to share it with, or even
- what they believe.
Basic building blocks of behaving oneself are:
- Self-responsibility,
- Courtesy, and
- Keeping your word.
P.S.:
- Everybody who wants to be an American should learn English, and
- Everybody should study a second language in school.
(Note that the requirement to “behave oneself” cunningly qualifies the “I don’t care”s: certain ways of looking would violate courtesy; some sexual conduct would violate self-responsibility and keeping one’s word, not to mention courtesy; beliefs that had noxious behavioral consequences would disqualify themselves, etc.)
What have I left out that can’t be derived from these?
A Dialog about Business and Government
Below is a dialog between Annie and me. It took place during the three days after the election. I am leaving it largely unedited, though some changes are being made for clarity. I am leaving out some of the more intemperate remarks on my part.
This mostly follows the title. A couple of digressions have been put in towards the end. This two digressions are, as best I can manage, the only things taken out of order, and even those occurred near the end, as here. I could scare up links for some of it, but if you care enough you can look it up yourself. I have only included one link as that was all I included in the exchange.
Anyhow, what follows is roughly 4500 words. I’ve said enough so don’t expect me to hang around in the comments, should any follow.
On Election Day…
Vote! Like Ginger Rogers and her mother Lela back in the day….
cross posted at Fluffy Stuffin
Political Stuff
For those eager to discuss politics I have a few posts with observations of the Orange County, Florida political landscape over at my place. I kept at the political yard sign counting in an effort to gauge the political intensity of the Presidential race down here. Since we’re in the swing part of a swing state it actually has some relevance! (Short version: I believe but am not certain that Romney will win Orange County and Florida. Some of the latest polling agrees with that assessment.)
Anyway, I try to avoid politics over here, but not over there. So if that’s what you want please feel free to join in. I’ll be posting about how I’m going to vote soon as well. I’ve been in the Attila the Hun American camp but I’m wavering.
And the REALLY good news is we’ve only got about nine more days of this crap. After the election we’ll get some fresh Hell to blight our political landscape.
A bit o’ delight
I sent this to our bloggeress, as so many folks I know need some cheering up, me included, so why not pass it along to the Ambiance readership?
Astaire and Rita Hayworth, in a production still from 1943’s You Were Never Lovelier.
This story can’t possibly be true.
I saw a story today that was so perfectly awful I can’t believe it is true. It seemed like every sentence made it worse! let’s start with the headline.
Okay, right off the bad this sounds too funny to be true.
BERLIN (Reuters) –
Even the by-line makes the thing sound more unbelievable! Berlin? A story about an undertaker suing a domanatrix for the infliction of pain MUST take place in Germany! The fact that it actually is just seems too incredible. (There will be far too much use of the word ‘too’ in this post.)
A German court has ordered a dominatrix to pay 200 euros ($260) to a local charity as a penance after a client accused her of hurting and robbing him.
She had to pay penance to a charity for thrashing some undertaker?
Cologne district court spokesman Dirk Esser said the plaintiff had accused the woman he hired for sex last month of holding a kitchen knife to his throat before demanding his debit card and PIN number.
The guys name is Dirk, he’s an undertaker, he hired a dominatrix and is upset that she held a knife to his throat and made him do things? You actually CAN make this stuff up! But I can’t believe it really happened. Surely the guys name was Rolf, or he was an accountant, or he didn’t know he was hiring a dominatrix, or something!
The plaintiff, a 49-year-old undertaker, also said the woman had detained him against his will for five hours.
Um, perhaps he didn’t understand what a dominatrix is for?
The court decided that it was impossible to know for sure what really happened because both parties had consumed too much cocaine during their encounter.
AND it was coke-fueled?! This is just too freakin’* incredible!
* I use ‘freakin” because what else would be appropriate?
It dropped the charges but ordered the prostitute to pay the “penance money” to a charity that supports crime victims.
They can do that?! How strange! “Well, we don’t know that you actually committed a crime, but what the Hell, go give some money to charity!” Couldn’t she have just said some extra “Hail Marys” instead?
The 35-year-old mother of four has been in pre-trial custody for the past five weeks, but declined to be compensated for time spent in jail, Esser said.
Of course she’s a mother. And of course she refused to be compensated for five weeks in jail. Right, this all makes perfect sense.
The dominatrix denied keeping the man against his will, adding that he had also asked if a transsexual colleague could join them.
Of COURSE a transsexual colleague would somehow be involved!
The only things this story missed are midgets and ponies. But other than that, it’s too freakin’ freaky to be true. Right? RIGHT?!
Ambiance 