Sounds like fun
by Tom Sullivan
Christmas Eve brought news that a friend was heading home from the hospital “cancer free” after completing treatments for stage 2 pancreatic cancer. Miracles still happen out there. May we all see a few more in 2018.
Writing for Digby and for you each morning is both a privilege and a tonic. Being in the fight instead of just a spectator is empowering, even when things seem pretty dark out there. It’s not out of selflessness. And it’s certainly not for the money. Being in the fight means I’m not a victim. Even when I get run over I don’t feel like political roadkill anymore.
On my way out the door last night, my mother, a child of the Depression, asked (again) when I’m going to get paid for distributing my little primer (below). About the time my sister gets paid for doing community theater, I said.
I’ll never understand the notion that no enterprise is worth doing if there isn’t money in it. Benjamin Franklin turned down a patent for his famous stove, explaining in his autobiography, “That as we enjoy great Advantages from the Inventions of others, we should be glad of an Opportunity to serve others by any Invention of ours, and this we should do freely and generously.”
Given who sits in the Oval Office, that spirit is all but gone. Unless you fight to keep it alive. Some fights are worth fighting regardless of the odds.
Not to encroach on Spocko’s turf, but that recalls a scene from the movie Star Trek: Generations. Captain Jean-Luc Picard encounters Captain James T. Kirk (long presumed dead) inside the Nexus, a realm of pleasing illusion. Piccard enlists him to fight Soran who plans to destroy a populated planet in his quest to reenter the Nexus.
Kirk: I take it the odds are against us and the situation is grim?
Picard: You could say that.
Kirk: You know if Spock were here, he’d say I was an irrational, illogical human being for going on a mission like that.
[pause]
Kirk: Sounds like fun!
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Request a copy of For The Win, my county-level election mechanics primer, at tom.bluecentury at gmail.
It’s the Holiday Season and if you feel like putting a little something in the Hullabaloo Christmas stocking this year it would be much appreciated.
