Properly Said

I know that it rings when thought of as literature. I know that it's firmly part of the American lexicon. I know that I'm playing with alternate history even. But I wish Thomas Jefferson hadn't said that our inalienable rights were 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness'. I wish he'd stuck with the original terminology.

The philosopher John Locke coined the phrase 'Life, Liberty, and Property' which Jefferson supposedly adapted for use in the Declaration of Independence. Locke's point? That life and liberty can't mean much if you can't own. You have no real control of your life and freedom of movement and thought if you cannot say about your home, your land, hell, even the shirt on your back, 'This is mine'. You must be able to control what is near and dear to you for freedom to be possible. You can't do that if society owns all.

I doubt that you can pursue happiness either. But softening the language gives folks such as, oh, socialists, a wrench to take property away. The US isn't founded on that, it's founded on happiness, they may say, and then proceed to instruct you on what manner of happiness you may pursue, dependent of course on what they like at the moment. If that means your business or farm, c'est la vie.

Only the person can make a better world. Only a person who can control what is within his grasp can learn the responsibility of stewardship. Change the world? You want to make the world a better place? Then clean your room, Jordan Petersen remarked quite profoundly. But you have to own it to appreciate responsibility for it.

Basic morality requires the 'rugged' individual over the 'warm' collective, Mr. Mamdani. Ye speak with forked tongue.

Not Quite Winners

About a month after me son Charlie mustered out of the Army, as we sat anticipating some waste of time on TV one night, we decided we wanted pizza. As we drove to the pizza parlor we came across dozens, maybe a hundred, small pieces of paper strewn across the street. "What are they?" Charlie wondered allowed.

"They look like lottery slips," I responded. While Michigan like many other states still has scratch offs, many lottery tickets by then were printed by computer and had bar code identification.

My son asked, "Want to pick them up?" I knew what he thinking, because I was curious about the same thing. But I said, "They've gotta be losers or they wouldn't be all over the street." Still, an overlooked small winner might pay for our food, and lottery tickets are bearer items. Maybe we might luck up.

I pulled over the van and we began collecting what were indeed lottery slips. And there were several dozen. Once gathered, we went to a nearby party store to check them out.

Fortunately, with the bar codes, we were able to check the tickets at a scanner rather than be pests to the clerk. With each scanned paper I think Charlie and I both held our breaths slightly, hoping for some bit of good news, our anticipation oddly building with every loser. Perhaps the next would be the one! Sadly, there were no major or minor winners. Our effort was for nil.

Still, the thought that maybe we had passed up on some small windfall would have haunted me, and maybe my son, until this day. I'm glad we at least tried. And we did get all that litter off the street. 

From Thought to Praise

I've said before that I have been very much affected by the book Death on a Friday Afternoon by Fr. Richard John Neuhaus. It fairly shattered all my previous thoughts about God, sacrifice, and mercy. I still find myself ruminating over Neuhaus' words, having read the book twice now and working on a third pass.

One concept he introduced to me, and I'm shocked I had never came across it before, is the idea that Theology becomes Doxology. In less academic terms, thinking honestly about God turns into praise of Him, His grace, and His glory. A doxology by the way is typically a short hymn of praise.

It works like that, you know. When you think about all God has done for you, when you consider 'All the works thy Hands have made', seen the stars, heard the rolling thunder, 'Thy power throughout the universe displayed' you cannot help but proclaim How Great Thou Art!

Theology becomes doxology. I think this is very true.

What Difference Does it Make?

There was once a plumber who came to our Shop who was a bit rough around the edges. I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name. Cloyce was a good guy and a good plumber just, as I said, rough around the edges. Gruff. He was also from England. Not that that matters, except to the story.

One day as he waited for me to put a new cord on his Electric Eel Model C (Electric Eel: for all your drain cleaning needs) I decided to engage him in conversation and to satisfy my curiosity about a question. "So where exactly in England are you from, Cloyce?" I asked.

He asked in return, "Do you know England very well?"

"No, not really," I replied honestly.

"Then what the (insert common expletive here) difference does it make?"

I was initially surprised, then I laughed out loud. It was vintage Cloyce.

He was from Norwich, just so you know. Although I don't know what the (insert common expletive here) difference it makes.

Reviewing Reviewers

I spent most of this morning reading reviews of my own books. It's a valuable way to measure how good or bad they may be. Of course, I like my writing. But my opinion of me is quite skewed.

The extremes you can toss off without much thought. There's the occasional one which gushes as though I've written the Great American Novel. I haven't. My books are decent enough but won't be mentioned in literature courses two hundred years from now. Then there's reviews which rip a book to shreds. I pass over those equally. I think I can honestly say nothing of mine is shallow or amateurish. Yet for whatever reason the reader was horribly offended. Oh well.

It's the ones which are constructive, or at least are obviously trying to be, which are the most useful even where I disagree. I've been told I use too many adverbs. I'm not sure that I do, but the issue comes up enough that I need to consider it. Similarly, a book is occasionally dinged as in need of a professional edit. That might be useful, I admit. Yet those things cost (one to two thousand dollars is not unusual), and I'm not sure there's a real return on investment there, at least at this stage of my literary career. As I'm doing this writing thing mostly on a hope and a prayer, I'm set to do what promotion I can on the cheap and see how it all plays out.

On the whole, things look good. Each book (five are currently available) ranks between 4.3 and 4.7 on Amazon's five star scale, and the general interest readers appear to like them. And that's my intended audience. Not grammar geeks, though grammar is far more important than we think, but folks who just like to read. Enough so to give even my scribbles a chance.

By the way, my books are available online. It's true! Just click any of the following: David Gideon A Subtle Armageddon Michael's Story The Interim Generation and Family Lore

Rudolph's New Year

We're in that special time of year where there are specials. Many, many specials. Most of them are Christmas shows, repeated in many cases for eons. Some of them probably should never again see the light of day. But the television schedule must be filled, so the good is repeated with the bad.

Rankin-Bass (purveyors of many holiday programs, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer likely the most well known and loved) in an obvious attempt to take advantage of sentimentality, in 1975 created a New Year's special featuring our nasally powerful friend.

It isn't good. I caught it on last night (New Year's Eve) and could have spent my time better. But one thing about it left me laughing. It was surely unintentionally funny, and maybe only my warped mind thinks so. 

To cut to the chase, when a new year rings in 'old' year retires to an individually chosen island where it stays his year forever. The island of 1889, for example, stays locked in 1889 for all times. It serves the plot, I suppose. You don't want to kill off a character, in this case an old man who represents the passing year, in a kid's show.

My question is this. If each island stays a given year, does that mean that the island of 1352 repeats the Black Plague forever? In 1883, must Krakatoa constantly erupt? Does 1943 live the Battle of Stalingrad over and over again? How about Rome getting sacked day in and day out by barbarians on island 476? Must Bill Buckner constantly have that ground ball hop through his legs from the 1986 World Series for all times, for crying out loud? None of that sounds like retirement. It sounds like Hell.

I'm just asking.