there is no left. there is no right

There's free and unfree, whole and partial. Etc and etc. So I sunk into one of my dramatic metaphorical probing places (you know, the prophecy parts, the lunatic fringe of the gray nation between my ears) and the little cluster of neurons thinking about Peak Oil hooked up with the ones thinking about freedom and our long slither into fascism. Bingo: what if we've seen peak liberty? (posted as a comment to dadahead). Much to my surprise, a libertarian blogger named Brad picked it up and ran with it. Proving again that liberty knows no party or brand affiliation, we're just in this thing together to kick some fascist ass. Hopefully we can remember that before we're marched into the boxcars.

Touched by the blogosphere. I hope I can remain ritually clean. We all get exactly what we deserve.

My brother is a libertarian, and although I count myself a Wellstone Democrat or Christian Democrat-cum-anarchist, I also like guns. So I usually get on pretty well with the libertarian set. The nice thing about nodding my head along to the libertarian beat is, it comes at a fairly low price ideologically speaking: I'm permitted to believe in whatever I believe in and I can count on them to pretty much leave me alone. Even if a whole bunch of libertarians were suddenly swept into power, I can rest knowing I'm permitted to believe in whatever I believe in . On the other hand, a lot of them are big Ayn Rand fans and that kind of makes my skin crawl. (Eating your cake is having your cake!) I'm way too interested in how my liberty is a function of each one's liberty (in true strategolutions fashion I call this "interindependence." Take that, English language!). Such anarchist froth would not be much use to the hard core individualist libertarians. Yet who can be free while the world remains in chains?

But consider that sort of dizzy whirling sensation you get when you hear Clarence Thomas essentially decreeing pot smoking is okay by him and and and John Paul Stevens saying it's okay for the city council to raze your house for a mall. And that despite all these wranglings, nobody but nobody (but everybody) wants to admit it's about abortion; and even fewer want to hear about my theory that the supreme court should crush Roe v. Wade and instead uphold legality of abortion on the basis of the 13th amendment (yeah, that's the slave one). I wonder that we're in an era when human sovereignty and self determination suffers innumerable slings and arrows and nobody can talk about it articulately without either drifting off into hopelessness or being steadily ground under the heel of Emperor Rove's media lackeys.


'Tell me,' he said, 'how soon will they shoot me?'

'It might be a long time,' said O'Brien. 'You are a difficult case. But don't give up hope. Everyone is cured sooner or later. In the end we shall shoot you.'

NorthSidahzzz!

We have a signed purchase agreement on 3026 Queen Ave North (satellite) and have set our closing date for August 23. It's got a lot of nice features, needs some fixing up and trees/shrubs cut back or removed, but all that'll get done without much difficulty. Spacious, decent yard. That neighborhood is actually quite nice. People have this image of North Minneapolis as a kind of kitchen midden to Hell. It's not like that at all. Yes, crime happens, but shoot, so much of it is not random and so much of it is done to people who have a lot of crime in their family or close friends (if you live with a meth dealer, your chances of a break in by wild meth addicts are much higher than the average citizen's).

After driving around the north side for the last month or so, mrs_lovett and I have concluded that, kinda, neighborhoods are neighborhoods. Plus one of my coworkers used to live at 3018 Queen and she liked the street. Whatever. Here's a medium composite or a large composite of the front of the house (same picture, choose your size). Think of that as "before." When we have the housewarming party (mid-september probably), you'll get to see the "after." It's gonna be sweet!

And cheap too! Our payments will probably be less than our rent payments, so that'll be awesome. So we'll haul stuff over after close and move out of the duplex on Washington between August 23 and August 31. I'll be inviting help from any and all takers during that time!

Oh and you should see the bathroom wallpaper. It's a sight to frigging behold. Pictures coming. A-mazing.

It's the American Dream(tm), baby.