The Invisible Library

If You See a Barbarian at the Gates, Let Him In

Normally, I try to keep the political commentary to a minimum. There are plenty of bodacious polibloggers out there already doing a great job (see links to the right). But Meteor Blades, Guest blogging over at Daily Kos informs us that Jerry Springer is entertaining the notion of running for Governor of Ohio. (scroll down, it�s there).

He then goes on to suggest a better idea:

I�ve long thought that maybe America needs some royalty. Since the Arnold won, I�m firmly convinced. Some Americans love celebrities so much they WANT them to rule politically the way they rule over our glowing screens. Instead of putting them someplace where they can do real damage, however, let�s crown them.

*snip*

Pick the nation�s top 500 celebrities. Maybe choose them via a weighted average based on how many times they�ve appeared in Premiere, People and the National Inquirer during the past five years. Or some such.

Write their names on slips of paper. Fold. Toss into a caged lottery wheel. Spin. Have some blindfolded groupie select 5 names. Onto a ballot with these. Then the election. No Diebold machines. The winner establishes a bloodline as Duke or Duchess of California. (If a dispute over the outcome arises, so much the better � royalty must have pretenders to the throne.) Henceforth, the Duke or Duchess (and consort) will be our ceremonial heads of state.

They�ll throw out the season�s first baseball when the Dodgers or Giants play. They�ll welcome foreign dignitaries, including the President when he comes to visit. They�ll cut ribbons at remodeled airports. They�ll give the first speech at each new session of the Legislature and be permanent emcees at the Academy Awards.

This will not be without cost. Their annual expense account will probably run a billion dollars. They have to live large. A Frank Gehry-designed palace for everyday affairs, with a summer mansion on Lake Tahoe. Custom-made cars. And, of course, a paid entourage comprising runners-up from the original pool of 500 hopefuls. What’s royalty without a fawning court?

This is an idea I�ve been tossing around for a while as well. And one with merit. Let�s face it, people love the glitz and glamour of Royalty. They are our spirit, our vitality. They live our dreams for us and when they fall, it�s even more fun. And there are some practical benefits to having an American Royal family as Meteor Blades points out as well:

The tabloids and squawk shows will focus on the births of princelings, the courtships and adulteries of the Duke and Duchess and their offspring, the banquets and balls, the outrageous purchases, the stumbles and rehabs and intrigue, the betrayals and turnabouts. In short, the overall splendiferosity that only royalty can provide.

And then, with everyone who loves fantasy over reality well distracted, we can elect people to run the serious end of government.

Meanwhile, in the comments section, the 42nd Man reminds us of Mark Twain’s suggestion:

“�He was sure that a royal family of cats would answer every purpose. They would be as useful as any other royal family, they would know as much, they would have the same virtues and the same treacheries, the same disposition to get up shindies with other royal cats, they would be laughably vain and absurd and never know it, they would be wholly inexpensive; finally, they would have as sound a divine right as any other royal house, and “Tom VII, or Tom XI, or Tom XIV by the grace of God King,” would sound as well as it would when applied to the ordinary royal tomcat with tights on. “And as a rule,” said he, in his neat modern English, “the character of these cats would be considerably above the character of the average king, and this would be an immense moral advantage to the nation, for the reason that a nation always models its morals after its monarch’s. The worship of royalty being founded in unreason, these graceful and harmless cats would easily become as sacred as any other royalties, and indeed more so, because it would presently be noticed that they hanged nobody, beheaded nobody, imprisoned nobody, inflicted no cruelties or injustices of any sort, and so must be worthy of a deeper love and reverence than the customary human king, and would certainly get it. The eyes of the whole harried world would soon be fixed upon this humane and gentle system, and royal butchers would presently begin to disappear; their subjects would fill the vacancies with catlings from our own royal house; we should become a factory; we should supply the thrones of the world; within forty years all Europe would be governed by cats, and we should furnish the cats. The reign of universal peace would begin then, to end no more forever…. Me-e-e-yow-ow-ow-ow–fzt!–wow!” (from Connecticut Yankee, ch. 40)

Hay, they were worshiped in ancient Egypt as divine, so why not? So long as they are beholden to the ghost of Norton I, Emperor of America, Defender of Mexico and Protector of the Jews.

Besides, at his point historians will look back and unanimously agree that Americans officially lost their collective marbles. So why not enjoy the benefits of madness while it lasts?

The King of Knives

I�d like to thank King Camp Gillette for developing the disposable razor in 1901. I just had a haircut at an honest to goodness Barber Shop and the Barber brought out the strait razor to clean up the back of my neck. If I had to shave every day with one of those, I�d grow a beard.

But for a nine dollar haircut, it was worth every penny.

A Brand New Major Tom

By now you’ve probably heard that China’s first Taikonaut, Yang Liwei landed safely after twenty one hours in orbit. Oddly, Washington has had little to say on the matter. We spent thirty years competing with the Russians, who by the way have the only other ongoing manned Space Program (now that ours is indefinitely grounded) yet they can’t be bothered to stick their head out of their hermetically sealed echo chamber long enough even to say, “Hay guys, welcome to the club.”

So I’ll speak for Washington, or at least the few Americans who think a manned space program is still worth maintaining.

It’s been 34 years since we first landed on the moon. Now their are those who say that a manned space program is too dangerous, that it serves only a symbolic purpose and that we should spend the money on other things like blowing up Syria or imposing our popular culture on every other country on the planet. And sure, robots can do a lot of the work in space but there is still much a manned program can accomplish, besides just exploration (as if stretching the boundaries of human knowledge isn’t a noble enough cause in itself).

The Chinese Space Program is looking at another flight in two years, to work on the basics of walking in space, and docking with other ships. Their short-term goals include a manned space lab and a Space Station of their own. Beyond that, we don’t really know. Maybe a base on the moon, maybe Mars. It’s odd to think that the Chinese might be the new Masters of Space while we loose interest and squander our resources on the ancient and feeble wet dream of despots since the dawn of time, terrestrial empire building.

Bush is taking us to Ancient Rome while China is going to the Stars. Which side would like to be on?

For those of you who don’t know it already, we’re rapidly running out of oil. Conservative estimates range between 50 and 75 years worth of reserves left and that’s assuming there’s as much oil under Iraq as we think (And you still think the war isn’t about oil?)

Sure, 75 years sounds like a long time. Even though in reality, it�s more like 50 but that�s still scraping the bottom of the barrel. And keep in mind also that in only 35 to 40 years that oil way, way down there will be cost more to extract than it can be sold for which means that, even to the Darwinian Capitalist�s in the white house, it won�t be worth it. But that�s not something we nee d to worry about since in only about 15 or 20 years, the price of oil will be so expensive that only the ultra wealthy will be able to afford to fill their SUVs and Hummers.

Solar and Wind power are useful alternatives but cannot hope to meet the energy needs of our ever-growing population. Hydrogen fuel cells might be able to meet the demand, if we can find enough hydrogen. It just so happens that there’s an entire planet made of the stuff. Mining Saturn might be several years if not a decade or two off but it could be just one of the ways we’re able to convert our civilization’s driving resource and thus keep from sliding into a dark age when the oil runs out. Now who do you think will be in the forefront of this? It won’t be the US, with our Grounded space program and the Russians are now the only ones who can get to the feeble pipe dream that currently is the International Space Station. But with their economic problems, they can’t afford to go that often. That leaves the Chinese.

Personally, I think that we should have been working on moving most of our industrial production into orbit over the last twenty years, to take advantage of the industrial vacuum and the fact that if there were a toxic leak or nuclear reactor problem, it would be safer to have them Out There rather than Down Here. And if you think the pictures from the Hubble Telescope are spectacular, imagine what we could get with a telescope ten times the size based on the dark side of the moon.

My prediction is that the Chinese eminence in space will be used by Dick Cheney as an excuse to push through his ridiculous Missile Defense Shield. Which is the opposite direction we need to go with this. We need to be partners with China and Russia (and everyone) in Space and on Earth if we want to make it to the twenty-second century. Given China’s new found confidence in the realm of space flight, I suggest we take the high road because the Chinese are determined to get there, with or without us. And these are the people who built the Great Wall. When they set their minds to something, they usually come through. This means we should go out of our way to welcome them to the Space Walkers club as friends. Either that or we all start learning Chinese.