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World politics is up Schmitt creek
Nathan
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« Reply #25 on: February 25, 2012, 05:36:51 PM »

There's something almost Leibowitzian about this (maybe it's just the title+the author+foreboding quasi-dystopian situation). I approve. Please continue!
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« Reply #26 on: February 25, 2012, 05:55:04 PM »

You mean  a society intentionally destroying itself?
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World politics is up Schmitt creek
Nathan
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« Reply #27 on: February 25, 2012, 09:00:39 PM »
« Edited: February 25, 2012, 09:02:59 PM by Nathan »

You mean  a society intentionally destroying itself?

Yes. (Incidentally, I maintain that Walter M. Miller should be required reading for anybody interested in politics, religion, and sociology.)
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Jerseyrules
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« Reply #28 on: February 26, 2012, 01:05:09 AM »

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Jerseyrules
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« Reply #29 on: February 26, 2012, 01:06:42 AM »

This is great! I see the Fed is finally dying Smiley

This as well Wink.  I'm really enjoying this TL!  Who are the house independents?
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Jerseyrules
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« Reply #30 on: February 26, 2012, 01:07:54 AM »

You mean  a society intentionally destroying itself?

Yes. (Incidentally, I maintain that Walter M. Miller should be required reading for anybody interested in politics, religion, and sociology.)

This miller?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_M._Miller,_Jr.
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World politics is up Schmitt creek
Nathan
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« Reply #31 on: February 26, 2012, 01:13:07 AM »

You mean  a society intentionally destroying itself?

Yes. (Incidentally, I maintain that Walter M. Miller should be required reading for anybody interested in politics, religion, and sociology.)

This miller?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_M._Miller,_Jr.

The very same. (Also, interested that they have a picture of him now; he was very reclusive.)
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Jerseyrules
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« Reply #32 on: February 26, 2012, 01:15:35 AM »

You mean  a society intentionally destroying itself?

Yes. (Incidentally, I maintain that Walter M. Miller should be required reading for anybody interested in politics, religion, and sociology.)

This miller?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_M._Miller,_Jr.

The very same. (Also, interested that they have a picture of him now; he was very reclusive.)

In an abnormal way?  Because that's usually a sign of eccentric, and I like eccentric in an author Wink
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World politics is up Schmitt creek
Nathan
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« Reply #33 on: February 26, 2012, 01:17:14 AM »

You mean  a society intentionally destroying itself?

Yes. (Incidentally, I maintain that Walter M. Miller should be required reading for anybody interested in politics, religion, and sociology.)

This miller?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_M._Miller,_Jr.

The very same. (Also, interested that they have a picture of him now; he was very reclusive.)

In an abnormal way?  Because that's usually a sign of eccentric, and I like eccentric in an author Wink

Well, he lived out on the desert in Texas for most of his life so he was reclusive by default to an extent, but he also almost never gave interviews and he's only known for one novel that he wrote, after which he spent decades working on another, undergoing a constant slow-motion trainwreck of a crisis of faith, and eventually killed himself to 'test God's mercy' right after finishing the first draft of the second novel, so yes, I'd certainly describe him as eccentric.
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Jerseyrules
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« Reply #34 on: February 26, 2012, 01:19:19 AM »

You mean  a society intentionally destroying itself?

Yes. (Incidentally, I maintain that Walter M. Miller should be required reading for anybody interested in politics, religion, and sociology.)

This miller?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_M._Miller,_Jr.

The very same. (Also, interested that they have a picture of him now; he was very reclusive.)

In an abnormal way?  Because that's usually a sign of eccentric, and I like eccentric in an author Wink

Well, he lived out on the desert in Texas, and he's only known for one novel that he wrote, after which he spent decades working on another, undergoing a constant slow-motion trainwreck of a crisis of faith, and eventually killed himself to 'test God's mercy' right after finishing the first draft of the second novel, so yes, I'd certainly describe him as eccentric.

I like what I hear, except the whole suicide thing; anyway, what's he talk about?
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World politics is up Schmitt creek
Nathan
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« Reply #35 on: February 26, 2012, 01:24:47 AM »
« Edited: February 26, 2012, 01:29:06 AM by Nathan »

You mean  a society intentionally destroying itself?

Yes. (Incidentally, I maintain that Walter M. Miller should be required reading for anybody interested in politics, religion, and sociology.)

This miller?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_M._Miller,_Jr.

The very same. (Also, interested that they have a picture of him now; he was very reclusive.)

In an abnormal way?  Because that's usually a sign of eccentric, and I like eccentric in an author Wink

Well, he lived out on the desert in Texas, and he's only known for one novel that he wrote, after which he spent decades working on another, undergoing a constant slow-motion trainwreck of a crisis of faith, and eventually killed himself to 'test God's mercy' right after finishing the first draft of the second novel, so yes, I'd certainly describe him as eccentric.

I like what I hear, except the whole suicide thing; anyway, what's he talk about?

A Canticle for Leibowitz is about an abbey of Catholic monks in the New Mexico desert over the course of the first millennium and a half after a nuclear holocaust that reduced the world to Migration Period technological and political levels. It's a book about historical memory and its failures, both personal and social self-destructive instincts, change and continuity, Original Sin, and atonement. It'll break your heart.
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Jerseyrules
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« Reply #36 on: February 26, 2012, 01:27:04 AM »
« Edited: February 26, 2012, 01:28:59 AM by Jerseyrules »

You mean  a society intentionally destroying itself?

Yes. (Incidentally, I maintain that Walter M. Miller should be required reading for anybody interested in politics, religion, and sociology.)

This miller?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_M._Miller,_Jr.

The very same. (Also, interested that they have a picture of him now; he was very reclusive.)

In an abnormal way?  Because that's usually a sign of eccentric, and I like eccentric in an author Wink

Well, he lived out on the desert in Texas, and he's only known for one novel that he wrote, after which he spent decades working on another, undergoing a constant slow-motion trainwreck of a crisis of faith, and eventually killed himself to 'test God's mercy' right after finishing the first draft of the second novel, so yes, I'd certainly describe him as eccentric.

I like what I hear, except the whole suicide thing; anyway, what's he talk about?

A Canticle for Leibowitz is about an abbey of Catholic monks in the New Mexico desert over the course of the first millennium and a half after a nuclear holocaust that reduced the world to Migration Period technological and political levels. It's a book about historical memory and its failures, both personal and social self-destructive instincts, change and continuity, Original Sin, and atonement. It'll break your heart.

Ima get the free version on iBooks now!

EDIT: unbelievable!  The fartknockers don't have it!
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World politics is up Schmitt creek
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« Reply #37 on: February 26, 2012, 01:31:21 AM »


EDIT: unbelievable!  The fartknockers don't have it!

Really? That's weird. It's incredibly influential. In any case it's available on Amazon for pretty cheap.
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Jerseyrules
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« Reply #38 on: February 26, 2012, 01:33:42 AM »


EDIT: unbelievable!  The fartknockers don't have it!

Really? That's weird. It's incredibly influential. In any case it's available on Amazon for pretty cheap.

I'll take a trip down to Barnes and Noble tomorrow - I'll read it for free there, maybe, and I've gotta be there for school anyways.  Thanks, by the way!
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World politics is up Schmitt creek
Nathan
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« Reply #39 on: February 26, 2012, 01:35:14 AM »


EDIT: unbelievable!  The fartknockers don't have it!

Really? That's weird. It's incredibly influential. In any case it's available on Amazon for pretty cheap.

I'll take a trip down to Barnes and Noble tomorrow - I'll read it for free there, maybe, and I've gotta be there for school anyways.  Thanks, by the way!

You're very welcome.
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« Reply #40 on: February 26, 2012, 12:17:39 PM »

Or you could just get it on ebook on your computer. A lot of good free resources, especially through your local university library. Smiley Anyways, can we continue the story. Things are really beginning to hit the fan.
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Jerseyrules
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« Reply #41 on: February 26, 2012, 01:25:59 PM »

Or you could just get it on ebook on your computer. A lot of good free resources, especially through your local university library. Smiley Anyways, can we continue the story. Things are really beginning to hit the fan.


Stupid ebooks isn't working.  Anyway, I'm looking forward to the rest of TTL.
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RI
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« Reply #42 on: June 26, 2012, 03:23:43 AM »

Chapter Five – Chorus Romance Says Goodnight

The following reprints a portion of Michaels Darian’s autobiography Something There In Between (2040).

If I could make but one memory everlasting in the record of time, it would be the look on my wife’s face over dinner that chilly Monday evening. I’d never before seen her so enthusiastic, so content, so proud of me as we sat at a relatively well-off restaurant in downtown Phoenix. The campaign was finally drawing to a close; these long, endless months of stressing about money that we didn’t have, walking myriad miles along the depressed suburban sprawl, and spending eternal sleepless night begging people I’ve never seen nor will ever know for some ounce of validation in the form of their money and their vote were at an end.

I think Diana was much more excited about my potential election than I was. She believed in me even when I couldn’t bear to hear the words coming out of my mouth. Even when we couldn’t afford another month’s rent for our apartment, she refused to let me quit.

“You have something special, Mike. You have something that no one out there could dream of matching. You have a heart that I fell in love with, and it’s that heart that this world so desperately needs.”

We married young—I was only 22 then—but I would’ve done it sooner if I could. There were those that swore it would never work, that it can’t be true because we’re too young, but our will was stronger than their doubt. The past five years had easily been the best of my life. Even as the Depression hit, and we could barely afford a modest two-room apartment on two meager salaries, I knew we were lucky in more ways than one. We met each other at the University of Arizona despite neither of us originating here; her family was the progeny of timber workers in Eureka, California, while I came from an upper middle class family in Renton, Washington. Neither of us wanted to stay were we came from, though Arizona certainly wasn’t our first choice of destinations.

“Mike, you’re staring off into space again”

I snapped back to the present, saying, “Sorry, I’m just a bit overwhelmed at the moment” before sticking my fork into the small steak in front of me.

“There’s nothing you can do about it now. You’ve done all that you can. Just enjoy the calm before the storm tomorrow. Not that you can,” she said teasingly.

I smirked slightly before taking a bite. “I mean, how can we know that? How do we know that I made enough signs, hits enough houses? How do we know I targeted the right areas? How do we know they didn't do it better?”

I sighed. She was right about me, not that it was anything new.

“Don’t be getting depressed on me. It’s out of our hands now, you know that,” she said before pausing momentarily. She reached across the table and grabbed my hand. “Look, no matter what happens, we’re in this together. If this time tomorrow, the results come in and we lose by a single vote, nothing changes. People don’t hate you. I won’t hate you. I won’t give up on you, but you can’t give up on yourself. Promise me you won’t just give up?”

I nodded, somewhat resigned. “I promise you I won’t let down.”

After dinner, we walked back to our small car in the twilit evening. While driving back through town, Diana fiddled with our iPod car player, picking out random songs. The song “Give Me the Sky” suddenly came on, and she declined to skip forward. “I think this is a bit apropos for us,” she said with a cheesy grin.

I’ll give the world to you / and I’ll mean it / but only if you give me the sky / so I can watch over you all day / and keep the clouds away.

After we got back to our apartment and I changed out of my button-up shirt, my cell phone began vibrating. I glanced at the screen; the call was from Dan Rennec.

“Hey, how’s it going?” I asked.

“I was about to ask the same thing. It’s pretty crazy here. Rubio’s been out stumping against me the past few days, but I think we have it under control.”

“I heard about that. Pretty harsh to come in at the last second on you like that,” I responded.

“Yeah, but that’s the way the game’s played,” Dan said before rapidly changing tone, “Say, do you and Diana want to meet up after this is all over? I know I could sure use a vacation…”

“Only if you promise not to hit on my wife this time,” I muttered.

“Hey, that was a joke. Sheesh, you know me better than that. Anyway, think it over. I’m sure you could use a break too.”

“Alright, we’ll talk it over. Well, anyway, I still expect you to win tomorrow, despite Rubio’s best efforts. Just don’t go pull a Coakley on us,” I quipped.

“You too! See you in the House,” Rennec said before hanging up.

Even if I had wanted to, I couldn’t sleep a second that night. All these thoughts flowed free as I lay awake in bed; every dream and aspiration and doubt and fear would finally come to life tomorrow. I couldn’t help but imagine the speech I’d have to give if I lost, and I couldn’t help but feel a twinge of excitement at the thought of the speech I’d give if I won. But tomorrow was the event horizon, and everything afterward was imperceptible, impossible to envision. Such a world was so unlike this one that I simply couldn’t conceive of it.

“Congressman Michaels Darian”. I think I could get used to that, I thought with a smirk.
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« Reply #43 on: June 26, 2012, 03:24:39 AM »
« Edited: June 26, 2012, 03:27:26 AM by realisticidealist »

The sun rose on November the 4th as it had innumerable times before. I sprang out of bed at 6 am, barely able to contain my nervous anticipation any longer. I called Paul Knight, my campaign strategist, jarring him out of bed just to ask him if everything was ready for the evening, which it seemed to be. We had rented the high school gymnasium a few miles away as the location of our election night headquarters, as that was the most extravagant we could afford. It wasn’t the best part of town, but it would do.

Around noon, my wife and I headed over to the high school to meet with Paul and our campaign’s one intern, Corey Whitman. The gymnasium was lightly adorned with our campaign banners, and Paul had set up a small station for us to watch the results on some laptops and a small television. A couple hours later, a single reporter from the Arizona Republic arrived, although he scoffed at the venue’s production and fumbled mindlessly on his smartphone the majority of the time, occasionally stopping to ask when the candidate was going to show up and other sarcastic questions.

As five came and went, some members of the general public began to trickle in, but not many. I paced around in a hallway next to the gym, checking the clock on my phone every few minutes, but time refused to budge from its crawl.

Diana walked into the hallway and up to me.

“I’m pretty sure you’re going to wear a hole in the floor at this rate,” she said, wrapping her arms around me. She rested her head on my shoulder and swayed me gently. I smiled weakly, my heart still pounding. After a minute, she pulled her head back a simply smiled at me. She leaned in a kissed me briefly, before walking back toward the gym.

“The polls are closing in five minutes,” came Paul’s urgent voice from the doorway.

Sighing, I walked back to the viewing table. On the television, CNN ticked down the seconds until the polls closed at the top of the hour. Wolf Blitzer’s voice came through the set, “In just a few moments, the polls will be closing in a number of western states, and it looks like we’ll be able to make some calls in races for both the House and the Senate.”

“…and in Arizona, the Democrats pick up the governorship with the victory by Gabrielle Giffords following Jan Brewer declining to run for a second term. The Democrats will also retain the seventh and ninth districts by fair margins while the Republicans easily defend the first, fourth, sixth, and eighth seats. As for the remaining seats, the second district, Giffords’s old seat in Tucson, appears to be leaning toward the Democrat Ron Barber but is too early to call. In the fifth district, where young Democrat Michaels Darian is attempting to take the seat back two years after a Republican up-swell there in 2012, the race is too close to call.”

I slumped back in my seat; it was going to be a long night. The results on the Arizona Secretary of State’s webpage began to trickle in. In the first batch, I was trailing with 46%, but I soon led at 52%. Later, I fell down to just over 50% with about two-thirds of the vote in, a raw vote lead of only three thousand. However, as ten o’clock rolled around, the lead, expanding for the last half hour, grew to fifteen thousand votes, and, with 88% reporting, I was declared the winner by 51%-47%.

I pumped my fist a couple of times and my wife gave me a massive hug. Paul and Corey high-fived each other and then me. The small, tired crowd cheered and a few came up to me to shake my hand in congratulations. I reached into my coat pocket and grabbed the two pieces of paper I had prepared, each with a speech on it. I balled up the paper with the concession speech on it, and tossed it in the trash. With a grand smile on my face, I walked up to the podium on the small constructed stage to address the few diehard supporters who stuck through to the victory call.

“Wow. Thank you all for sticking it out with me, both tonight and in this campaign. First, I really want to thank a couple of people, because that’s how political speeches tend to start after all,” I said in jest, “but seriously, I owe a tremendous debt to my campaign manager Paul Knight for running this hard-fought campaign and providing a young politician with the organizational know-how needed to win a seat in the United States Senate.

“Most of all, though, I want to thank my wife Diana for her support throughout this entire process. I know all politicians come up on stage and say that, but I truly, deeply mean it. Without her unending faith in me and persistence, this day could never have happened in any sense of the word. Please give her all the thanks she deserves for this accomplishment; it truly is our accomplishment, not mine,” I said, gesturing for her to join me on the platform. Diana quickly walked up to the podium and gave a wave. She tried to talk into the microphone, but received a bunch of audio feedback. Shrugging, she moved back to my right, standing at my side and ushered for me to finish my speech.

I again leaned forward to the microphone, and opened my mouth to speak, but something was wrong. There was a slight commotion in the crowd, and a disheveled-looking man stepped forward from the crowd. He drew out a small handgun amid screams and fired two shots as his arm was hit by a crowd member to his right. The man was quickly tackled to the ground.

For a second, I simply stood there in stunned silence. I couldn’t process what had happened. I slowly looked down and did not see any blood on my shirt or pants, but from the corner of my eye I noticed bright scarlet coming from Diana. She had been struck just below her left breast. Her mouth gasped at words, but none were forthcoming. She crumpled to the ground, and I was powerless to catch her.

I don’t remember much of the next few hours. At some point in the following minutes, an ambulance arrived and whisked Diana to St. Luke’s Hospital. Somewhere in my consciousness exists the memory of waiting in shock in the waiting room. Somewhere in my mind exists the recollection of the surgeon coming to tell me that they had stabilized her, but that unreachable bullet fragments still threatened her heart. Somewhere these things exist, but I do not feel them, I do not own them, I do not know them.

I do remember that I went into her room as soon as I could, around 4 am. I pulled up a chair right next to her bed, held her hand, and laid my head at her side, feeling the slow, faint pulse of her veins in her hand. I struggled to stay awake, but I simply couldn’t manage.

I felt her hand squeeze mine what seemed like an eternity later. I looked up to see her eyes looking at me half-opened.

“I love you,” I said as soon as I could.

She smiled faintly, whispering, “I love you too. I don’t know how much longer I can hold on. I can feel the bullet scraping toward by heart.”

“Don’t say that. You’re awake! That’s a good thing. You can make it; you have to make it,” I pleaded.

“I’d rather spend my last moments awake with you than asleep in a few hours,” she said softly.

I tried as hard as I could, but I couldn’t stop the tear from welling up and running down my cheeks. “I don’t know how I could make it without you. You are my life’s plan. I’m…I’m lost without that.”

“Oh Mike, you’re so much stronger than you think. You have a beautiful heart and the most caring soul I’ve ever known. You’ve loved me more than I ever deserved, and I’ve tried to give you all that back. Promise me something, will you?”

“Anything,” I said.

“Promise me you’ll never give up, no matter what, and that one day you’ll show all the world our love just as you’ve shown me yours.”

“I…I…I won’t let you down, I promise,” I stammered.

“You never have,” she said, closing her eyes.

I shut my eyes as the tears continued to pour out of me. The slow pulse in Diana’s hand grew fainter and fainter unless I could no longer feel it. Her pulse flat-lined soon after, but the only sound I heard was silence.

Whatever you believe about me, my policies, or my beliefs, I have tried only to live up to my last promise to Diana with every word and every action every day of my life. I’ve never told anyone this until now, but that promise was the inspiration for everything in my life. Nothing more and nothing less. Ideologies are playthings for the benefactors of fate, but for me exists but this one motivation.

It is my only wish that history sees something there in between me and my legacy, and that the man you know be always greater than the man I hope to be.

Next: How the Rules Became Unwritten
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Jerseyrules
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« Reply #44 on: June 26, 2012, 08:39:44 PM »

Cool Wink
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