Larry Jones is not a crackpot.
He is a responsible citizen who holds a job. He is a voter who never fails to perform that particular civic duty. He once even worked in a presidential campaign, where he learned that honesty and personal integrity won’t help you at all in such contests.
Larry Jones maintains his yard, both front and back. He is on friendly terms with many of his neighbors, even the retired lady who feeds the pigeons in the alley between their houses, making it a no-man’s land of bird droppings every afternoon at four o’clock. Larry Jones is fond of animals, and feeds strays that wander into his yard, sometimes becoming so involved with them that they move in and stay indefinitely.
He is concerned about the environment and is replacing his incandescent lights with compact fluorescent bulbs, even though the CFL’s give off a weird, inadequate light. He drives a little Honda that would fit in the back of some SUV’s, but he doesn’t think these small actions will reverse global warming.
Larry Jones is pretty smart — he went to college and earned a degree in Semantics (of all things) — but he nevertheless is not climbing the corporate ladder at his job, because he doesn’t know how to suck up. Larry Jones feels that being reliable and doing superior work ought to be enough, so he knows he will never be promoted, and he’s OK with that, even if he kind of wishes he had the money that goes with a fancy title.
In his spare time, Larry Jones plays in a rock’n’roll band, a group that he started because he loves music, but also to keep from feeling like a great big zero (see “job,” above). He is proud of his band, almost as proud as he is of the fact that he has managed to stay married to the same (beautiful, intelligent) woman for 27 years.
Larry Jones is a regular guy. He is not holed up in a primitive cabin with an assault rifle, two years’ supply of canned goods and a portable Smith-Corona, feverishly pounding out 800-page manifestos (manifestoes? manifestum? manifestae?) and paranoiac conspiracy theories.
You might want to take Larry Jones with a grain of salt. After all, he’s been politically liberal since the first time he gave that sort of thing any serious thought. He understands that not everyone shares his world view, and he can live with that. But Larry Jones has been around a long time, he’s lived through various wars, natural disasters, economic ups and downs and multiple swings of the political pendulum, and he’s not kidding when he tells you that things are getting vewy vewy scwewy.
He’s trying not to panic, but chunks of ice the size of Rhode Island are breaking off from the ice caps, hundreds of kilos of plutonium are missing, the United States government is torturing people, the world’s banks are trying to keep the lid on a collapse that will make the Great Depression look like fun, and when he looks around everybody is buying 42-inch flat panel high-definition TV’s and acting as if nothing’s the matter.
So Larry Jones tries to maintain, and asks your forgiveness if he sometimes seems a little jumpy.
Don’t get nervous.
man·i·fes·to (mÄn’É™-fÄ›s’tÅ)
n. pl. man·i·fes·toes or man·i·fes·tos
A public declaration of principles, policies, or intentions, especially of a political nature.
Either/either they said. Can’t make up their minds?
Anyway, stay away from your dictionaries, ’cause that’s where I hid the microphone–don’t wanna make you jumpy.
Ron – The plural of “manifesto” may be the least necessary one in the language. I mean, who has time to write more than one? They tend to be very long, with convoluted logic that’s hard to remember if you want to be consistent when you’re working on the next one. And the primitive cabin setting (or worse, prison) is not one you’d want to get back to a second or third time. Still, if I were a fevered romantic revolutionary I’d go with “manifestae.” Let the privileged elite try to look that up.
I know what you mean! I’m having a conservative Xmas myself. I just have this feeling like something really really bad is just around the corner.
Vikkitikkitavi – Somehow it does not compute that you’re doing anything “conservative.” Heck, I see you’ve even taken the “Christ” out of “Christmas.” Together, let’s continue the War on Christmas, until we have captured it’s capitol and enslaved it’s peoples!
People buy the Bravias to cover up the ozone hole anxiety. Besides, if it’s the End Times anyway, we might as well live it up.
Interesting, isn’t it, that the conservatives and liberals agree on one thing, and that is: End Times. Here we are.
kStyle – I had to Google “bravias” to find out what you meant. I guess I’m not as hip as I thought.
You’re not alone, Larry; I think a lot more people are jumpy than the news reports would lead you to believe.
Actually, I COULD write more than one manifesto. But that’s because I’m a crank.
And for (the December celebration of your choice), would you please learn which “its” to use? It’s easy: if what you mean is “it is,” then use it’s. If what you mean is the thing belonging to something else, then its is the one you want.
It’s clear that the economy is on its way down the tubes.
Jumpy?
That’s what scotch is for. I have a half-full (ever the optimist) bottle of Johnnie Walker green that you may partake of with me as we try to save the world from itself.
Happy holidays, old blog buddy.
I step outside at 7am in this crispy 30 degree weather and look over at the mountains and hills and the clouds creeping over from west, knowing they’ll never get this far, and I tell myself — My god, I’m lucky! “Katy, you wanna run?!” And off we go. The rest of the world may be falling apart, but I’m taking care of my part — that’s all each of us can do.