In the garden, and RAIN!!!!
POSTED BY: SIGNYM
UPDATED: Thursday, December 25, 2025 04:27
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Quote:I read the story and I couldn't help it - my mind picked at a loose thread that instantly occurred to me. What about height? It's really hard to make a tall person shorter. And then it occurred to me it wasn't about making everyone average. Because you can interfere with someone's brain to make it work less well, but you can't make someone's brain work better to reach at least average. Since the story didn't say anything about raising people up, just handicapping people down, it was about making everyone meet the lowest common denominator, which would be blind, deaf, dumb, ill, and imbecilic. That way nobody would be better. And then I thought about who would I identify with in the story. (Not who you might assume.) And before I knew it, I had picked at so many loose threads, it kind of fell apart.
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
HARRISON BERGERON by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
https://archive.org/stream/HarrisonBergeron/Harrison%20Bergeron_djvu.t
xt
Do Right, Be Right. :)
I guess I'm too literal!
I get that it's about people not being born to the same standard, and that we can't / shouldn't try and erase those differences because it would result in a hideously distorted society. But it didn't carry me along well enough due to its logical inconsistencies, and so I didn't make the emotional leap to agreement.
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Workmen on the roof of an apartment building next door. Have been workmen in my apartment building replacing fire alarms.
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Quote:I read the story and I couldn't help it - my mind picked at a loose thread that instantly occurred to me. What about height? It's really hard to make a tall person shorter. And then it occurred to me it wasn't about making everyone average. Because you can interfere with someone's brain to make it work less well, but you can't make someone's brain work better to reach at least average. Since the story didn't say anything about raising people up, just handicapping people down, it was about making everyone meet the lowest common denominator, which would be blind, deaf, dumb, ill, and imbecilic. That way nobody would be better. And then I thought about who would I identify with in the story. (Not who you might assume.) And before I knew it, I had picked at so many loose threads, it kind of fell apart.
Originally posted by 1KIKI:Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
HARRISON BERGERON by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
https://archive.org/stream/HarrisonBergeron/Harrison%20Bergeron_djvu.t
xt
Do Right, Be Right. :)
I guess I'm too literal!
I get that it's about people not being born to the same standard, and that we can't / shouldn't try and erase those differences because it would result in a hideously distorted society. But it didn't carry me along well enough due to its logical inconsistencies, and so I didn't make the emotional leap to agreement.
Yeah... I don't think it was meant to be taken literally. Vonnegut is a great writer, but the story was only about 3 pages long. Not much you can do in that context. He certainly wasn't going to fit a fleshed out Orwellian or Huxleyian nightmare in just a few pages. But what he did do in 3 pages was drive a point across that has been stuck in my mind for the last 26 years since I first read it.
I'm not sure if you've ever read Vonnegut before, but although I find him to be just as cynical as the two former, I find his writing to be hilarious most of the time. Sure, that story itself wasn't very funny, but it did have some pretty far-fetched and/or comedic elements and visuals of his style interwoven in it. It should be noted that it was written in 1961 as well, so like Orwell and Huxley, he was very ahead of his time. 2 years from now will be that story's 60th birthday, and it will be the halfway point between when he wrote it and when these events are supposed to take place.
But I think you got the gist of it. Until we make pills that make you smart and beautiful and strong, whenever government steps in to make everybody "equal" the only possible way to do it is to lower the bar for everybody and choose inferior candidates for things by quotas that are either mandatory or are adapted "willingly" because of the heavy monetary penalties/rewards that come along with making the "wrong/right" choices.
I should probably also mention that my Jr. Year English teacher (a female) had us read that in class. She made us read a lot of things that weren't in the government approved books, and was always handing out stuff like this that she photocopied for us to read. I didn't appreciate that at the time, but by my mid to late 20's I appreciated very much recollections such as this and things that other teachers went out of their way (and out of the purview of the government approved curriculum) for us to learn about. I'd love to know that teachers still feel safe doing that in 2019, but for some reason I doubt it. (The "penalty" for such wrong-think, of course, the fear of losing their job and being deemed un-hireable anywhere else in their chosen field if they stray one inch off of the government approved learning path that has been mandated).
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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Quote:Just about this in particular, and it's not really a thought, just some semi-related notions I need to think about ...
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
But I think you got the gist of it. Until we make pills that make you smart and beautiful and strong, whenever government steps in to make everybody "equal" the only possible way to do it is to lower the bar for everybody and choose inferior candidates for things by quotas that are either mandatory or are adapted "willingly" because of the heavy monetary penalties/rewards that come along with making the "wrong/right" choices.
We have a conundrum - probably several - here in the US with "All Men* Are Created Equal" (see Ursula K Le Guin's *'I am a Man' https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02nm9cg )
It's pretty obvious that people aren't born physically or mentally equal. So what does equality mean?
One of the ways I've read to interpret "All Men* Are Created Equal" is to qualify that it means 'before the law'. That the laws are set up to govern without fear or favor, and the political systems and justice systems are set up to operate without fear or favor.
But "All Men* Are Created Equal" exists within the context of the Declaration of Independence (not the Constitution, which is the law of the land) and within the context of a larger idea: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men* are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men*, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."
So afaik it means that people of traditional European institutional power (church, royalty) have no special divine right to rule, and that governments are created by people to serve the needs of the people, and can be dismissed or reformulated when they cease serving the people.
This is a very grand statement, but it's NOT within the Constitution.
The closest things I can find in the Constitution re equality are
"Article XIII (Amendment 13 - Slavery and Involuntary Servitude): where slaves get to be men* under the law
"Article XIV - Rights Guaranteed: Privileges and Immunities of Citizenship, Due Process, and Equal Protection" applied variously to 'persons' - persons being legally defined elsewhere in the Constitution, citizens, 'excluding Indians not taxed', male inhabitants/citizens ... being twenty-one years of age'
"Article XV (Amendment 15 - Rights of Citizens to Vote)" applied to citizens
"Article [XIX] (Amendment 19 - Women's Suffrage Rights)" where women get to be men* for the purposes of voting, under the law.
Other limitations, exclusions, exceptions, and reservations are scattered within the Constitution.
(BTW, reading through the Constitution, I have to say they needed a good copy-editor, as whole groups of people are referred to using various terms within the same amendment like citizens/ people/ men, making it questionable whether the groups referred to are meant to be the same - or different.)
So we are supposed to be equal in liberty, representation, and justice, before the law * (*your rights may vary depending on Native status, age, past felony convictions etc).
With so many divots and detours, one wonder what's the underpinning to mess with a simple idea.
I think the unstated assumptions about who got included and who was excluded from this recognition of human*ity has to do with our sense of 'souls'. When we look into the eyes of another h
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I think it's pretty simple here, but it's always made much more complicated than it needs to be.
If you're an American born citizen OR a legitimately naturalized citizen, male or female, any race, any religious belief, yada yada yada, then you are privy to the same laws as everyone else and entitled to the same rights as anyone else. Period.
At least, that's where it should end.
But it doesn't. At least not today it doesn't.
What I said above is true, and people of certain races, sexes and sexual persuasions absolutely get the benefit of the doubt over others. I won't get into specifics here because overall politics are kept out of this thread and I think we all like it best that way.
I'll just say that I do know that you're a fan of meritocracy as well as I am, and that we both realize that we're not living in a meritocracy today. I believe strongly that this is a reason why it's not.
In an effort to force equality, we've severely lowered the bar and we've made certain groups "more equal" than others.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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Got a ton of stuff done today. All of my documentation over the years is sorted through. I got rid of about 90% of it and it's now destroyed. The rest is organized and filed away in a single small box. :)
Cleaned out and bleached all of the nice containers a lot of this stuff was in as well as two more tool boxes that I'll get to actually use for tools now, so I can sort everything in the garage this week and finally see if I can't find the rest of my countersink set. Here's hoping that I don't have to buy a new one. 
Put about another half-can of junk in the trash.
Really coming down to the end of the stuff to sort and throw out in the house besides my clothes and the rest of the furniture I have to decide whether or not I'm going to keep.
Garage is mostly cleared out of stuff I'm getting rid of. Really need my friend to get out here and take some of the big stuff he wanted.
I'm thinking two more weeks, tops, and I'll be officially de-hoarded now. 
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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Yuck....
Next two nights aren't going to be much relief here heatwise. Low of 70 both nights. Opened the windows and realized it's about the same temp outside right now as it is inside. No point in fanning it up, at least not tonight. Will be in the 80's inside by tomorrow night though, so I'll have to use it then even if it won't cool off much.
Doesn't get much better than that until Thursday night though with a high of 59. That'll be sweet.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Got a ton of stuff done today. All of my documentation over the years is sorted through. I got rid of about 90% of it and it's now destroyed. The rest is organized and filed away in a single small box. :)
Cleaned out and bleached all of the nice containers a lot of this stuff was in as well as two more tool boxes that I'll get to actually use for tools now, so I can sort everything in the garage this week and finally see if I can't find the rest of my countersink set. Here's hoping that I don't have to buy a new one.
Put about another half-can of junk in the trash.
Really coming down to the end of the stuff to sort and throw out in the house besides my clothes and the rest of the furniture I have to decide whether or not I'm going to keep.
Garage is mostly cleared out of stuff I'm getting rid of. Really need my friend to get out here and take some of the big stuff he wanted.
I'm thinking two more weeks, tops, and I'll be officially de-hoarded now.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
Good for you Jack.
I got a bunch stuff shredded on Friday and I took your advice and looked up how long before I can shred old tax information with Canada Revenue. Their site says 6years. So I am okay to shred anything of my mom's I find or anything of mine that is from before 2013.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
Good for you Jack.
I got a bunch stuff shredded on Friday and I took your advice and looked up how long before I can shred old tax information with Canada Revenue. Their site says 6years. So I am okay to shred anything of my mom's I find or anything of mine that is from before 2013.
Nice.
Glad you looked into it. There isn't any sentimental value in tax stuff (or at least their shouldn't be). I knew full well I only needed 7 years, but like everything else I was collecting them like baseball cards. I've only got 3 years in paper forms and the rest are all in PDFs on my computer and backed up to a thumbdrive. That's all the worry I'm ever going to put into them either unless I ever get a good job again. There's just about zero chance of getting audited when you work on a payroll and you make less than the standard deduction 9 out of 10 years. There's simply nothing to audit.
Got a big freaking mess to clean up today. :(
It's unusual for a storm to wake me up. I usually sleep like a baby through them. But my windows were open and the wind was fierce. By the time I closed the windows upstairs I had water all over my hardwood floors. I cleaned that up real quick before I headed outside to pull 2 large tree limbs 200 feet to the driveway in the pouring rain and I had to get my telescoping limb cutter to pull another one down that was hanging like Damocles' Sword right over my front walkway, just waiting for somebody like the postman to walk under it before it struck.
Thankfully, it appears that nothing hit the house. The large one on my doorstep may have glanced it, but I would have noticed the bang if it actually hit it. It looks fine.
I'm wet. I'm tired. I'm sick of the rain and especially the violent storms we've had this year. And I doubt very much that I'll be helping my friend on his house at all again today with thunderstorms predicted well into the evening.
Crap.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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Quote:Wow. You're like a one-person whirlwind. That's tremendous progress!
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Got a ton of stuff done today. All of my documentation over the years is sorted through. I got rid of about 90% of it and it's now destroyed. The rest is organized and filed away in a single small box. :)
Cleaned out and bleached all of the nice containers a lot of this stuff was in as well as two more tool boxes that I'll get to actually use for tools now, so I can sort everything in the garage this week and finally see if I can't find the rest of my countersink set. Here's hoping that I don't have to buy a new one.
Put about another half-can of junk in the trash.
Really coming down to the end of the stuff to sort and throw out in the house besides my clothes and the rest of the furniture I have to decide whether or not I'm going to keep.
Garage is mostly cleared out of stuff I'm getting rid of. Really need my friend to get out here and take some of the big stuff he wanted.
I'm thinking two more weeks, tops, and I'll be officially de-hoarded now.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
In an earlier post you were wondering whether it was the house that was too much for you, or all of the "stuff" that you had accumulated since you moved in. (BTW, it seems quite a few people offloaded THEIR "stuff" onto you. Oh,SIX has got a house. Maybe he could "use" this and then they gave you something totally unuseable.) Maybe a lot of bad associations got purged with the "stuff"? It's kind of like starting fresh when you strip down to what you need.
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Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
You idiots have been oppressing the entire sexual spectrum as long as you have existed. I can't wait for the day your kind is dead - WISHIMAY
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