I'm Awake!

     But not for long.  I slept in some way that knotted up my back and my plan, just as soon as I finish tea, toast and ibuprofen, is to either get horizontal or into a hot (bath)tub with Epsom salts, or maybe the former followed by the latter.

     I'm way too big and gawky to make this "fragile" stuff work, dammit.

     PS: I had a high-traffic day yesterday, woo-hoo!  But I'd rather TJIC and Jennifer had had an undisturbed 4th  and I'd had the usual holiday slump in blog-visits. 

**Fire***Works!**

     Broad Ripple sounded like a combat area last night, though the color flashes and thick black powder smoke looked as if the battle was between Civil War soldiers and Discworld wizards.

We made our own fun:

And what fun it was!

 Now, if someone can only tell me how to fix the rotation I already fixed in Paint....  I fixed it!  But I had to cheat.

Got

     After yesterday evening's news, I'm just got.  Agog.  Boggled.

     The town where it went down, by the way, is famous for being the bloodiest spot of the first day of the American Revolution, where Colonials harried retreating Crown forces.  It's also the birthplace of a meat packer named Samuel Wilson, the model for "Uncle Sam."

     The ol' boy must've been weeping yesterday.  --Now TJIC is a reg'lar foot-in-mouth kind of guy; he's got strong opinions and he's not averse to sharing them.  And the last I heard, MA prided itself on a long tradition of free speech.

     Well, almost free.  Kind of free.  Free-ish, unless you talk smack about politicians or the po-leece.  (Republican Presidents presumably exempted.)

     I've got my gripes with IMPD but they look like angels compared to what TJIC and Jennifer have had to face.

     Gah.  MA sux.

Jackbooted On The 4th Of July

     In Massachusetts, natch-o, cradle and grave of liberty.  TJIC and Jennifer: TJIC having recently got his FID card back, an infringement like an IL FOID, and applied for an LTC (that'd be a carry permit), received instead -- today -- a visit from the police, who are as we speak removing firearms from the home.  A warrant, they did not have, but advice of counsel, etc. and so on, IMO translated reading, "Do you want to spend tonight behind bars?" has led 'em to make nice.

     Tam's on the phone with Jenn as I write this.  There is much tweeting and retweeting.  Tam's blogging it.

4 July

     Today's the day when I'm supposed to commemorate the formal launch of one of the few successful revolutions in all of history.

     One of the most successful and, at least in the home country, poorly understood.  It was not a war won by winning battles, it was a war won by avoiding too-expensive losses.  It was not a war won by beating the the Crown's forces to their knees but by making continuation too costly for them (at the time, they had other troubles, elsewhere).  It was won, in fact, by refusing to give up, even though it appeared unwinnable over nearly the entire course of the war.

     And, much as we'd like to think it was fought for the very highest ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independance, it was mostly fought to get the Crown's hand out of our pockets, to get the Crown's men out of our homes, and to generally be left alone.  --Or are those the highest ideals expressed in the Declaration, after all?

     The document this day marks the adoption of was not at the time and has never been a part of the actual law or foundational documents of the States, united; it is not The Law Of The Land.  If you're after the first of those, you want the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, used for four years prior to ratification in 1781.--Some perpetuity: it was replaced a dozen years after first use.

     Along about 1787, either the fed.gov established by the Articles of Confederation was too puny to work, or it hadn't grabbed enough power to satisfy the social engineers, depending on who you believe.  The reality appears to be both and motivated more by pragmatism than idealism: things were falling apart and a baker's dozen of squabbling States stood no more chance against the Great Powers of the day than it had in 1776.  Thomas Jefferson being safely out of town, the drafting of our present Constitution began, ostensibly as a "revision" of the Articles of Confederation.  Instead, the delegates threw them out and started over.

     That is the first example of what came to be a classic pattern for popular revolutions: the old order is tossed out, there's a relatively brief period of great freedom, followed by a consolidation of power or formal reordering.  Best case, there's just the one and things get back on track; worst case, um, see French Revolution.  It appears inevitable; perhaps it's just theory hitting reality and the only variable is the size of the splat.

     If so, we were fortunate; but no luck runs forever and I'm half-convinced we have already passed the point where future historians will draw a line, saying, "Here the Republic ended; here the Empire began."

     It's still a good place, compared to most, and a great life, compared to most.  The present and the past that led to it are worth celebrating.

     That past is worth remembering and worth analyzing.  What happened?  Why did it work?  What did they get wrong?  What short-term compromises lead to long-term failure?

     What did it all mean and what does it mean today?  Something more than "BANG!" and a puff of bright sparks and colorful smoke, I hope.

Fire Sleepworks

     Darn right it does.

     Never did drop off until the crackling, whistling, booming trailed off, along about 0130, but then I dropped way off and didn't claw my way back up 'til just now.

"Well, There's Your Problem, Lady!"

     Reading a well-written Bruce Sterling article on getting the most from a writer's workshop -- and not writing like an ijit -- I tripped over this:

    Just-Like Fallacy.  SF story which thinly adapts the
trappings of a standard pulp adventure setting.  The
spaceship is "just like" an Atlantic steamer, down to 
the Scottish engineer in the hold.

       [Emphasis mine]  See, there's the problem with your damn' spaceship/steamer: get that darned Scot outta the hold (where she is likely checking the cargo from the Auld Sod for volatiles and consuming same) and back into the engine room!

      Mr. Kipling, your imitators have much to answer for. Mr. Sterling, on the other hand, didn't grow up in a steamship world;* he's excused on grounds of being otherwise highly competent.
_______________________________
* I'm reminded of a recent recording of a 1930s Raymond Scott swing tune, "Reckless Night On An Ocean Liner" -- yes, the pun's intentional -- that, while a very well-recorded performance by very talented musician, fails because they don't seem to have caught on that the underlying beat is the sound of a small marine steam-engine (like the SFX used in Afrcan Queen, scaled-up).  As a result, the lower-quality '30s recording, with Scott leading the band, beats it hands-down.  Thus doth time make fools of us all.

Wrong Holiday, But...

     ...Sometimes it's nice to be reminded that shock-pop in the manner of Lady Gaga isn't the only direction to go.  There are places on this Earth where "weird" has been carefully nurtured to a level Gaga and her ilk can only envy:

     Such as, of course, Japan.

July The Tooth!

     L. Neil Smith likes to point out today is the actual anniversary of the unanimous approval of the Declaration of Independence by the representatives of the people.  They didn't manage to all sign the thing until 2 August.

     Me, I just say, "Nice try, Mr. Jefferson!  Nice  try, but it didn't work; they started nibbling away at it before it even hit the ground."  Still, we gave it a heck of a run.  One heck of a run.

     History lesson: "Some colonies held back from endorsing independence. Resistance was centered in the middle colonies of New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Delaware."  And, as Tam just remarked, "It still is."

What?

     Da-yum.  Is "Party City" running TV ads featuring a Stars & Stripes Gimp Suit on the TV (in front of children and everything) in your town, too, or is Indianapolis just uniquely weird?

     I mean, really -- I live in Broad Ripple.  I see more odd individuals and things before lunch than most people see all week and I'm still telling you, that's freaky.

     Possibly appropriate for our times, but still, it ain't right.

Secure The Border! --The Illinois Border

Sorry, guys, but your Governor's a frikkin' menace.  Also, he thinks he is The Law.

Skynet Sez...

 

I'm wearing my "Bombs" T-shirt as I write this.  Tsk.