Political Suicide
by Steven Wells
Politicians and newscasters refer to “political suicide” as an excuse for the lack of progress toward a necessary political, legal, or societal goal. Why should a politician risk his career, alienation of his cohorts, and public scorn just to do the right thing? Indeed, why?
I submit that such a politician is a depraved coward, and that anyone who uses the term political suicide as reasonable for voting against good legislation or avoiding its creation is either likewise depraved, ignorant, or recklessly stupid.
Several election cycles ago I ran for the US House of Representatives, and with due reflection considered what would actually happen to me if I voted for good legislation or to repeal bad legislation, particularly if other representatives, the media, or the general public decried my vote as political suicide. I’d get bad press, and I probably wouldn’t get reelected. I might even be impeached. Just for doing the right thing.
I submit that such a politician is a depraved coward, and that anyone who uses the term political suicide as reasonable for voting against good legislation or avoiding its creation is either likewise depraved, ignorant, or recklessly stupid.
Several election cycles ago I ran for the US House of Representatives, and with due reflection considered what would actually happen to me if I voted for good legislation or to repeal bad legislation, particularly if other representatives, the media, or the general public decried my vote as political suicide. I’d get bad press, and I probably wouldn’t get reelected. I might even be impeached. Just for doing the right thing.
A simple thought experiment informs my morality. I imagine that I’m standing in front of an audience of others who had put their well-being or their lives on the line for their jobs, with dire consequences. Convenience store clerks who had been shot in robberies, suffering permanent injury. Firefighters whose faces had been burned into scarred horrors. Soldiers who had lost arms or legs or their sight or their sanity. Imagined spirits of those who died trying to do the right thing.
I stand before that ghastly group and tell them, “I cannot do good because that would be political suicide.” Not real suicide—I’d still be alive. Physically unharmed—hale and hearty.
“I cannot do the right thing. Someone might speak inhospitably of me. I might lose my cushy job full of riches and power.”
After offering such an obscenity, I’d wait for those in my audience who were still physically able to beat me to a bloody pulp. And I’d tell them they were doing the right thing.
Consider your politicians who avoid doing good because to do so would be political suicide. Now, go reelect those immoral cowards and wonder why things don’t improve.
After offering such an obscenity, I’d wait for those in my audience who were still physically able to beat me to a bloody pulp. And I’d tell them they were doing the right thing.
Consider your politicians who avoid doing good because to do so would be political suicide. Now, go reelect those immoral cowards and wonder why things don’t improve.
Limiting the First Amendment in the Style of anti-Second Amendment Rhetoric and Law
Satire by Steven Wells
The government has long recognized that the pen is mightier than the sword. Centuries ago, the printing press amplified the pen to create printed books. Further, Gutenberg printed the first movable-type book: his Bible, a religious book. Awesome new technology of laser-guided printing can place this mighty power in the hands of almost anyone, threatening great danger. We must keep this power out of the wrong hands, away from the mentally unbalanced and religious fanatics.
Many unnecessary and painful injuries and brutal deaths, including deaths of children, have resulted from the improper use of doctrines contained in religious books: beheadings, crucifixions, selling daughters into slavery, stoning, and burning at the stake.
Therefore, for the public safety, we require a 10-day waiting period between the date of purchase and the date on which someone may physically acquire a prayer book or other religious book, and only from a licensed dealer. This provides sufficient time for authorities to verify preregistered purchasers against federal and state databases. It is crucial to close the loopholes by which attendees at open religious shows and events might purchase a prayer book without a background check.
Special application must be made and approved to openly carry a prayer book, otherwise such a book must be transported in a locked safety container. As a further safety measure, no such books may contain more than 10 pages. That number is quite sufficient for any peaceable purpose.
High capacity prayer books containing more than 10 pages or books printed in unusually large typefaces are prohibited. Such high-capacity books that were previously owned had been grandfathered in. But the new laws going into effect make these illegal. You must turn in any such books currently in your possession by January first or face a substantial fine and imprisonment.
We prohibit the sale to ordinary citizens of prayer books of the types normally used by professional clergy, in which many words are released with a single reading of a sentence. There is no reason that an ordinary citizen needs to release more than one word at a time. Regardless, we ignore the distinction between semi-read content and fully-read content.
Certain words carry great weight and are dangerously offensive; some are hollow, pointed, defensive words and equally dangerous, so these must be prohibited from use by private citizens; that is, only active military service members and authorized police officers may use those words. Likewise prohibited are civilian purchases of more than three religious books of any type, whether civilian or clergy, in any one month period, except by licensed authorized dealers.
Ad nauseum!
Many unnecessary and painful injuries and brutal deaths, including deaths of children, have resulted from the improper use of doctrines contained in religious books: beheadings, crucifixions, selling daughters into slavery, stoning, and burning at the stake.
Therefore, for the public safety, we require a 10-day waiting period between the date of purchase and the date on which someone may physically acquire a prayer book or other religious book, and only from a licensed dealer. This provides sufficient time for authorities to verify preregistered purchasers against federal and state databases. It is crucial to close the loopholes by which attendees at open religious shows and events might purchase a prayer book without a background check.
Special application must be made and approved to openly carry a prayer book, otherwise such a book must be transported in a locked safety container. As a further safety measure, no such books may contain more than 10 pages. That number is quite sufficient for any peaceable purpose.
High capacity prayer books containing more than 10 pages or books printed in unusually large typefaces are prohibited. Such high-capacity books that were previously owned had been grandfathered in. But the new laws going into effect make these illegal. You must turn in any such books currently in your possession by January first or face a substantial fine and imprisonment.
We prohibit the sale to ordinary citizens of prayer books of the types normally used by professional clergy, in which many words are released with a single reading of a sentence. There is no reason that an ordinary citizen needs to release more than one word at a time. Regardless, we ignore the distinction between semi-read content and fully-read content.
Certain words carry great weight and are dangerously offensive; some are hollow, pointed, defensive words and equally dangerous, so these must be prohibited from use by private citizens; that is, only active military service members and authorized police officers may use those words. Likewise prohibited are civilian purchases of more than three religious books of any type, whether civilian or clergy, in any one month period, except by licensed authorized dealers.
Ad nauseum!
From a Joke About Chromosomes
by Steven Wells
How can you tell male chromosomes from female chromosomes? Pull down their genes!
That’s just word play. Jeans sounds like genes. But why is that?
Jeans is a novel spelling based on the sound of the English vulgarization of Gênes, which is the French name of Genoa. That’s the Italian port city, 75 crow's-flight miles from modern France, that was a source of the heavy sailcloth used for making jeans. Jacob Davis invented the sturdy work pants and Levy Straus marketed them for miners of the 1849 California Gold Rush. Dye from the indigo plant produced the Blue Jeans color.
The transformation from Gênes to Jeans is similar to the way the military General Purpose vehicle or G.P. shortened in speech from gee-pee to jeep.
Another major sailcloth source was Nîmes, France. Pronounced Neem, it's not quite a port, being about 20 miles from the coast. Its serge cloth, serge de Nîmes, became serge denim and simplified to the modern word denim. Denim cloth was used since the mid-1600s.
For completeness, another word for those heavy pants comes from India: Dungaree, circa 1605-15, from Hindi dungrī, a kind of coarse cloth.
Did the “I, Robot” Movie Follow Isaac Asimov’s Book?
By Steven Wells
Vinter & Goldsman’s screenplay of the I, Robot movie bears little resemblance to the book. The rampaging robots and the radical destruction shown in the movie do not exist in the book. All but two of the book’s stories involve robots that obey the well known Three Law of Robotics, with primacy of the First Law.
To be clear:
The Three Laws of Robotics
From the fictional “Handbook of Robotics, 56th Edition, 2058 A.D.”
- A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
- A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
- A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
The stories present subtle issues relating to these laws, which the robots indeed follow.
The story Little Lost Robot provides interesting complications where an NS-2 (Nestor) series robot had been manufactured with a modified First Law, No robot may harm a human being.
The book’s final story The Evitable Conflict depicts minor economic anomalies from an effectively expanded First Law, elsewhere called The Zeroeth Law because of its precedence over the other three: A robot may not injure humanity or, through inaction, allow humanity to come to harm. The story revolves around the wider philosophical issue of whether a culture under the profound influence of benevolent computing machines leaves humanity in control of its own destiny, or if humanity ever had true control of its destiny under inevitable conflicts.
This last issue is the key theme behind the 1970 movie, Colossus: The Forbin Project, in which the Colossus computer system (and its Russian counterpart, Guardian) kill a relatively few persons to achieve a peaceful humanity that will live productively without war.
The story Little Lost Robot provides interesting complications where an NS-2 (Nestor) series robot had been manufactured with a modified First Law, No robot may harm a human being.
The book’s final story The Evitable Conflict depicts minor economic anomalies from an effectively expanded First Law, elsewhere called The Zeroeth Law because of its precedence over the other three: A robot may not injure humanity or, through inaction, allow humanity to come to harm. The story revolves around the wider philosophical issue of whether a culture under the profound influence of benevolent computing machines leaves humanity in control of its own destiny, or if humanity ever had true control of its destiny under inevitable conflicts.
This last issue is the key theme behind the 1970 movie, Colossus: The Forbin Project, in which the Colossus computer system (and its Russian counterpart, Guardian) kill a relatively few persons to achieve a peaceful humanity that will live productively without war.
What’s the Best James Bond Movie Theme Song from a non-Bond Movie?
By Steven Wells
- It’s a matter of taste, thus this ancient Latin phrase: DE GUSTIBUS NON DISPUTANDUM EST. (They didn't have lower case letters.) That is literally, “About tastes, it should not be disputed.”
- I assert the best non-Bond song is Who Can You Trust sung by Ivy Levan in the action comedy Spy (2015) directed by Paul Feig.
- You can judge for yourself. Play the Spy opening credits (1:33).
And this plays the Who Can You Trust song video (4:54).
