Chaos Manor View, Tuesday, February 9, 2016
Sunday I broke a tooth, Monday was devoured by locusts and fiction, and Tuesday I spent the day at the dentist. No serious problem other than lost time and the finances, but it was annoying. The good news is I drove there, in my SUV, by myself and navigated from the parking lot to the dentist with a cane, not a walker. To those for whom this is a regular event, I can only advise you to be thankful, and contemplate that some years from now that ability may be a big deal; it certainly was for me.
Saturday night I went down to Author Services/ Galaxy Press, as a guest; they were doing a dramatic reading of L Ron Hubbard (writing as Rene Lafayette): the first Ole Doc Methuselah story, published in Astounding Science Fiction in 1947; I read it when it came out. I was in Christian Brothers College High School in Memphis at the time. The Brothers pretended not to notice I had Astounding inside one or another text book. Roberta wasn’t feeling quite up to going out, and I wasn’t daring enough to drive at night – still am not – so Michelle drove me in her car. Goo performances. Good show all around.
Having used up the day at the dentist, I’m obviously going to be brief.
The New Hampshire primary has one glaring lesson: Neither the Republican nor the Democratic voters are very interested in returning business as usual to power. An aging Independent Socialist Senator bested – thumped – Hillary, Mr. Trump won first place among the Republicans, and while Kasich was an unexpected second on the Republican side. The top three traditional Republicans together did not out-draw Trump even with a record turn-out. I wonder if the RNC got the message, and how they will act on it; probably by doubling down on their support for Jeb Bush.
In normal times, Bush would seem the most attractive candidate; his problem is that with Jeb Bush you get all his relatives, and all of their friends; you get the Republicans who got us in this mess in the first place. That, I think, just won’t do. Of course I am prejudiced; I was a Reagan Republican Party County Chairman, and Bush The First promised “Read my lips. No new taxes.” Then he fired every Reagan supporter he could find in the Executive Branch within hours of being inaugurated, and agreed to new taxes. Read my hips…
I notice that Jeb is bringing his mother to his campaign.
It’s late. I have a lot of interesting mail and hope to get some of it up tomorrow. I also have more on modern technology. Volume Nine of The There Will Be War anthologies will be released this week. Like all of the TWBW series, there is an introductory essay, and introductions to each story, all by me; as well as other non fiction. Volume Nine was compiled as the USSR was reeling, and the world watched: would USSR break up peacefully, or would there be nuclear war launched in the death throes? Om Amazon sometime this week. Look for it.
Freedom is not free. Free men are not equal. Equal men are not free.
