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I've been driving myself crazy today surfing facebook posts at work and reading various news stories in between analyzing consultant cost proposals. It's amazing I'm accomplishing anything workwise. But I am. Although I keep running into the usual roadblocks.
So I talk to my mother on the phone about the fact that the world is ending as we know it, aka the President-Elect from Hell.
Mother: You are hyperventilating again, let's talk about the soap opera.
Me: Ugh. Okay.
Ghod, every time I think this election couldn't get any more absurd or any worse or any scarier it does. I feel like I'm on this runaway train that is about to careen off a cliff and there isn't a damn thing I can do about it. Or anyone else can do about it for that matter. I feel powerless. People are bug-shagging crazy, aren't they? I'm sorry my country has appeared to have lost its collective mind. Not sure how this happened exactly or why, possibly our media-saturated culture has driven people insane?
I've already done what it is in my power to do at this point in time. Not sure what else to do.
The news is driving me crazy.
So, I'm retreating from it.
Thinking of binge-watching "Westworld" and "Poldark" -- both are saved on DVR. Have about 6-7 episodes of one and about 5 of the other. Neither have commercials -- so no risk of running into political sound-bites.
Also, have begun reading romance novels again. Almost done with "Ghost Planet", which was better than expected. The science fiction bits are better than the romantic bits, ie. it works better as a science fiction novel than a romance. Partly due to the lack of character development and relationship development between the characters. The plot is interesting and compelling. So if you are plot oriented, you might like it.
Next up, I think "His at Night by Sherry Thomas", then maybe another Courtney Milan or Elizabeth Hoyt or maybe a sci-fi. As long as it has zip to do about my current world, and isn't depressing. I require a happy ending, humor, wit, and love triumphing in the end.
I did, however read a little more of Lapham Quarterly's Special Edition on Alexander Hamilton -- which basically is a counter to the musical Hamilton. It's fascinating because it discusses thing like the electoral college and executive powers.
A primer on the powers of the executive - because a lot of people don't appear to know what they are including our current President Elect, who is in for a rude awakening.
( The powers of the President of the US )
Okay, now that that is out of the way. Alexander Hamilton wanted the Executive Branch to have a lot more power and this got him into trouble with his compatriots.
James Madison arrived with a plan for a new government based on representation by population and specifying election of the executive by the legislature. The Madison -- or Virgina plan's representational scheme contrasted sharply with that of the Articles, in which each state had a single vote, and it favored, to no one's surprise large states like Virgina. William Paterson of New Jersey countered with a plan that preserved the one-state, one-vote rule that greatly expanded the powers of Congress over taxes and trade.
Hamilton declared himself unfriendly to both plans. The New Jersey Plan allowed the states excessive freedom; the Virgina plan failed by making the executive answerable to Congress and thereby the people. Hamilton believed that the current crisis demanded the creation of the strongest possible central government, which in turn required both that the central government gain power relative to the states and that the national executive be free of popular restraint. "You cannot have a good executive upon a democratic plan."
The final document was a pleasant surprise. Balancing, in the bicameral Congress, the interests of the small states agains the large, it made the executive -- the president - independent of the legislature, albeit for four years at a time, rather than for life. It also gave Congress crucial powers of finance: to levy taxes and tariffs, to borrow money on credit of the United States, to pay the public debt, to coin money and regulate its value. And it denied certain financial and economic powers -- to coin money, to issue paper notes, to interfer with domestic commerce -- to the states.
....A large part of the populace , while not happy with recent trends, feared more from a strong central government than a weak on. A strong government, after all, was what the patriots of 1776 had rebelled against it. - from Lapham's Quarterly, The Aristocracy of Capital, by H.W. Brands.
When discussing the popularity vote or the people making the choice, Hamilton was quoted as saying "
"The people are a great beast."
Hamilton wasn't wrong. The people are a great beast. They are capable of creating a Holocaust, Revolutions, Crusades, and horrors beyond imagination. And when bonded together out of love -- great wonders. I'm praying for the later at the moment.
On a final note, please read this:
Everyone Who is Hurting Please Stop Shutting Down People Who are Trying to Help
So I talk to my mother on the phone about the fact that the world is ending as we know it, aka the President-Elect from Hell.
Mother: You are hyperventilating again, let's talk about the soap opera.
Me: Ugh. Okay.
Ghod, every time I think this election couldn't get any more absurd or any worse or any scarier it does. I feel like I'm on this runaway train that is about to careen off a cliff and there isn't a damn thing I can do about it. Or anyone else can do about it for that matter. I feel powerless. People are bug-shagging crazy, aren't they? I'm sorry my country has appeared to have lost its collective mind. Not sure how this happened exactly or why, possibly our media-saturated culture has driven people insane?
I've already done what it is in my power to do at this point in time. Not sure what else to do.
The news is driving me crazy.
So, I'm retreating from it.
Thinking of binge-watching "Westworld" and "Poldark" -- both are saved on DVR. Have about 6-7 episodes of one and about 5 of the other. Neither have commercials -- so no risk of running into political sound-bites.
Also, have begun reading romance novels again. Almost done with "Ghost Planet", which was better than expected. The science fiction bits are better than the romantic bits, ie. it works better as a science fiction novel than a romance. Partly due to the lack of character development and relationship development between the characters. The plot is interesting and compelling. So if you are plot oriented, you might like it.
Next up, I think "His at Night by Sherry Thomas", then maybe another Courtney Milan or Elizabeth Hoyt or maybe a sci-fi. As long as it has zip to do about my current world, and isn't depressing. I require a happy ending, humor, wit, and love triumphing in the end.
I did, however read a little more of Lapham Quarterly's Special Edition on Alexander Hamilton -- which basically is a counter to the musical Hamilton. It's fascinating because it discusses thing like the electoral college and executive powers.
A primer on the powers of the executive - because a lot of people don't appear to know what they are including our current President Elect, who is in for a rude awakening.
( The powers of the President of the US )
Okay, now that that is out of the way. Alexander Hamilton wanted the Executive Branch to have a lot more power and this got him into trouble with his compatriots.
Energy in the executive is a leading character in the definition of good government. It is essential to the protection of the community against foreign attacks; it is not less essential to the steady administration of the laws; to the protection of property agains those irregular and high-handed combinations which sometimes interrupt the ordinary course of justice; the security of liberty agains the enterprises and assaults of ambition, of faction, and of anarchy.
- Alexander Hamilton from The Federalist Papers
James Madison arrived with a plan for a new government based on representation by population and specifying election of the executive by the legislature. The Madison -- or Virgina plan's representational scheme contrasted sharply with that of the Articles, in which each state had a single vote, and it favored, to no one's surprise large states like Virgina. William Paterson of New Jersey countered with a plan that preserved the one-state, one-vote rule that greatly expanded the powers of Congress over taxes and trade.
Hamilton declared himself unfriendly to both plans. The New Jersey Plan allowed the states excessive freedom; the Virgina plan failed by making the executive answerable to Congress and thereby the people. Hamilton believed that the current crisis demanded the creation of the strongest possible central government, which in turn required both that the central government gain power relative to the states and that the national executive be free of popular restraint. "You cannot have a good executive upon a democratic plan."
The final document was a pleasant surprise. Balancing, in the bicameral Congress, the interests of the small states agains the large, it made the executive -- the president - independent of the legislature, albeit for four years at a time, rather than for life. It also gave Congress crucial powers of finance: to levy taxes and tariffs, to borrow money on credit of the United States, to pay the public debt, to coin money and regulate its value. And it denied certain financial and economic powers -- to coin money, to issue paper notes, to interfer with domestic commerce -- to the states.
....A large part of the populace , while not happy with recent trends, feared more from a strong central government than a weak on. A strong government, after all, was what the patriots of 1776 had rebelled against it. - from Lapham's Quarterly, The Aristocracy of Capital, by H.W. Brands.
When discussing the popularity vote or the people making the choice, Hamilton was quoted as saying "
"The people are a great beast."
One gentleman, whose name I never heard, was an earnest “friend of the people,” and descanted with much enthusiasm upon the glorious future then opening upon this new-born nation, and predicted the perpetuity of our institutions, from the purity and intelligence of the people, their freedom from interest or prejudice, their enlightened love of liberty, &c, &c. Alexander Hamilton was among the guests; and, his patience being somewhat exhausted, he replied with much emphasis, striking his hand upon the table, “Your people, sir,—your people is a great beast!” I have this anecdote from a friend, to whom it was related by one who was a guest at the table. After-dinner utterances have little value, unless, perhaps, their very levity makes them good indicators of the wind. We do not know the qualifying words which may have followed, or the tone and manner of that which was, perhaps, in part or in the whole, a jest.
Memoir of Theophilus Parsons (1859), pp. 109-110
Hamilton wasn't wrong. The people are a great beast. They are capable of creating a Holocaust, Revolutions, Crusades, and horrors beyond imagination. And when bonded together out of love -- great wonders. I'm praying for the later at the moment.
On a final note, please read this:
Everyone Who is Hurting Please Stop Shutting Down People Who are Trying to Help