Thanks to everybody who wished me a happy birthday today. You are all good people. I'll be incomunicado in the blogging for a few days while I move into my new house.
...woah, MY new house....freaky.
In a smidge over 8 hours, I'm scheduled to close on the house. I doubt I'll get any sleep. So what else is new?
The nationalist in me wants to scream, "It’s not our fault!", but that would be a lie. It is our fault, along with every other country in the room. The philosopher in me wants to burst into exposition on why self-interest is the only reason worth doing anything, but I’m not rolling down that lane today either.
Instead I’ll turn my bleeding heart’s attention and point out the real losers of this failed deal: the poor.
Not just "the poor", I’m talking the poorest sect of the poorest region in the world, Sub-Sahara African farmers and ranchers. African poverty has had countless billions of dollars of ‘relief’ thrown at it over the last 30 years, but is further from self-sufficiency than ever. The answer isn’t help; it’s trade, always has been. Free trade has the capacity to change what hundreds of billions in direct aid did not.
Sending food and medicine in an effort to advance an entire society 3 full centuries is just asking for unsustainable population, famine, and death. Hell of thing to do in the name of "compassion". If you really did care, you’d drop the facade and teach them to fish, and show them the value of productivity.
With productivity comes prosperity, with prosperity comes education, with education comes knowledge, and with knowledge comes life. That is what was really at stake in these talks; lives, millions of them. It’s easy to think of it as a large room of international diplomats arguing over which companies billionaires is getting a bigger piece of the pie, but its not. It’s about free trade.
Free trade, like all other free associations of people, is beautiful. It brings efficiency and productivity. It raises the tide and creates real understanding. Most of all, free trade saves lives.
As a jaded and cynical bastard, very few things sadden me. This is one of them. With the chance to affect actual change that would actually help people; the world decided against free trade and against the life it brings.
Me: I heard the high for Saturday is 93 with a chance for some nasty thunderstorms.
Shop Foremen: Thank god, we could use the damn relief.
Weather...its a Kansas thing, You wouldn't understand
The suspense was probably giving you all ulcers, so calm down and behold:
Yeah, it's not that great of a picture, but it's not that great of a house...yet. In fact, you probably wont' recognize it in a few months. I've got to put on new siding and shingles, so the exterior will eventually look totally different.
In related news, this past week was of note. During the official house inspection a few interesting things showed up. No termites or massive structural failure, but I've got my concerns, So further negotiations on price and condition are going down. Closing is less than 2 weeks away, and I'm crazy anxious/nervous/aneurysm'd. I've still got to line up insurance, utilities, and such.
I've also got to furnish the damn thing. Just 14 months ago I was sharing a semi-furnished 12' x 15' room with another person. Now I've got to fill 1600+ square feet and I've got no freaking idea what I'm doing. Paint, furniture, window treatments, new appliances, landscaping, and even more stuff I haven't thought of yet. It all makes me wonder what exactly I've gotten myself into.
What do you get when you are a bad neighbor to the TOG?
To get locked out of your apartment for 2 hours at midnight in 90 degree heat and 70% humidity while a bumbling locksmith attempts to find your place, let you in, and charge you exorbitant amounts of money for the "emergency non-working hours" call.
You also get to watch me come home from work and go directly into my wonderfully air-conditioned apartment and relax while watching a movie and drinking a Cold One.
Awesome.
Holy Swiss Cheese, Pinky and the Brain is coming out on DVD July 25th. 22-episodes of laboratory mice whose genes have be spliced? Yes, Please.
In honor of my earliest evil-genius influence. I challenge all the TOG groupies to a "complete the sentence" contest. The funniest response gets something...not sure what yet, but it'll definitely be better than a poke in the eye.
"Pinky. Are you pondering what I'm Pondering?"
If you weren't lucky enough to see the show as a child, I'll provide you some nice sample answers:
"Uh, I think so, Brain, but burlap chafes me so."
"Uh, I think so, Brain, but we'll never get a monkey to use dental floss."
"I think so Brain, but isn't that why they invented tube socks"
this confuses me:
I'm paradigm shifting with no clutch and my brain is ready to 'splode. Obviously a serious point is attempting to be made, but since when is the Pointy Haired Boss the voice of reason?
I'd much rather see jokes about engineers and leave this subject matter to the excessively dry Doonesbury.
I challenge you to find a better looking set of store-bought apples. I challenge you all!
TOTALLY RANDOM APPLE UPDATE: Those babies are delicious too!
General exclamation and hyperbole brought no one with the exception of Katie out of their shells and into the comment section. Maybe just the straight dope will:
I bought a digital camera too take pictures of the house.
I filled out most of the mortgage paperwork this morning.
A property inspection is scheduled for next Tuesday.
The closing date is currently set for the 27th of this month.
I fear that I might miss something in the whole process and will suffer because of it.
…boring, but when you talk my smooth typing and seamless philosophical exposes for granted, they get taken away from you. Now comment damn it, COMMENT!!!
Long have I abhorred the generic "4th of July" Label. If there exists a holiday worthy of its name, Independence Day is it. When facing other holidays we’re often asked to stop and consider the reason for the season. St. Valentine’s Day, Christmas, Thanksgiving, Memorial and Veterans Days all have their moments of well-deserved contemplation. But rarely is our true national holiday revered with more than simple “Happy Birthday, America” sentiment.
To truly observe the holiday, it’s important to realize significance is more than name-deep. It’s not ‘founding day’ or ‘establishment day’. It’s Independence Day, and for good reason.
It’s a nice thought, to hearken to day of less, when every man was an island, in every metaphor of the word. We look back on our own idealized history, and feel a yearn from the corner of our hearts for the independence of existence, independence of action, independence of society, and independence of need that so characterized our heritage. Most think that such isn’t the case today, everyone needs everyone, and there’s nothing independent about that. It’s a seemingly unfortunate fact that all must come to grips with, a truth indeed.
A truth which we need no quarrel with, because that brand of independence is not what we celebrate on the 4th Day of the Month of July. That brand of independence has never existed. True independence isn’t of nations or men; true independence is of thought and consent.
The power of independence isn’t the power of exile; it’s the power of choice. The idea that everyone is entitled to choose their own life is the power. It seems simple now, but up until that point years ago, no one had bothered to write it down. So on a warm Thursday in July in Philadelphia; truth, justice, and the American way were born.
So light a sparkler, blow up a tin can, eat a steak, and drink a beer in the name of independence. Enjoy the fruits of your life, for we now know that a nation so conceived and so dedicated, can in fact, long endure.