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rupted his reverie so how is mao doing these days nixon shrugged beats me i only went to look him up once and that was nearly fifteen years ago he considered the brandy a moment but this time didn t drink hell is full of special places you know that but there is a really exceptionally special place in hell for leaders who murder millions of their own people mao s sepulchre is amazing enormous bright red you can see it for miles it s made entirely of wrought and cast iron and decorated with these incredible huge ornate carved dragons and bas reliefs of heroic workers and all that very chinese very communist very peking opera it s just beautiful except that when you get closer to it you realize that s not red paint it s red hot and in the very center of it all underneath tons of red hot iron and perched right in the middle of the perpetual flame there is a small plain red hot iron casket just slightly larger than the body of a man inside which mao screams and sizzles in his own body fat for the rest of eternity it s revolting beyond nauseating the entire area reeks of rancid pork fried rice and i thought the disgusting syphilitic old bastard stank when he was alive he had a strange phobia about bathing you know nixon rolled the thought over in his mind for a few more moments and then rinsed it away with another sip of brandy the level in the glass i noticed was diminishing with each sip i wondered if i even could refill his glass or if doing so would violate some psychic ectoplasmic spiritual something or other i guess both of our wishes were granted he said softly mao died wretchedly just a few years after that and my life certainly got a lot more interesting for a minute or more after that nixon seemed inclined only to muse sip and sigh i was tired and cranky already it got on my nerves so i said at last to what do i owe the honor of this visitation nixon seemed momentarily startled to notice me there and then recovered quickly and offered up a small smile farewell visit after all this is how the ranting room began with you channeling for me he smiled again weakly this time and shrugged word gets around so when i heard that you were retiring i am not retiring i protested i m just reordering my priorities there s the new blog you re retiring he said or at least retiring as the creator and chief writer of the ranting room you re getting onto that big old helicopter throwing one last great big v to the crowd and riding off into the sunset oh you re not really retiring he added your type never does tomorrow or maybe the next day you ll be starting up something new you can never just relax never stop to smell the roses without noticing that they need to be dusted for aphids even when you re not working you re thinking about working you ll be starting up some new project on the morning of the day you die that stopped me cold oh you peeked nixon shook his head i told you i can t tell you it s against the rules i can only tell you about possible futures i can t tell you which one is the real one this time it was my turn to be silent and thoughtful for a minute or more a good strong whiff of your own mortality will do that to you i guess nixon took the opportunity to empty his glass when i noticed it was empty by reflex i got up got the brandy and poured him another two fingers only after i capped the bottle did i register that i had not poured it through the spectral glass and onto the chair a most remarkable display of solidity indeed it was his turn to break the silence so he said at last you re telling everyone you re going off to write a novel will this be an entirely new one or are you finally going to finish nixon s inferno i shook my head nah not that one anyway my agent said it was hopelessly unsellable the only way to make it work in today s market is by depicting me as being even worse than satan and philip roth flogged that one to death back in 71 yes i remember nixon frowned and shook his head still it seems a shame i mean i always thought a conspiracy of cats was one of the best extended multi part posts you ever did for this blog except that it kind of crapped out at the ending my turn to scowl at him yeah well if you d given me a good ending to work with in the first place instead of the one you did give me he switched back to his disarming smile i told you it s against the rules possible futures only he took a rather larger slug from his glass this time and then lifted it in a sort of salute you must admit though as demented as that ending was it didn t begin to compare to what really happened honestly would you have believed me if i d told you back in january of 07 that that woman would lose the primaries the nomination and ultimately the election to zaphod beeblebrox what talk about your neck snapping sharp turn into dimension x nixon shook his head oh bruce and here i thought you knew douglas adams line and verse let us now turn to the hitchhiker s guide to the galaxy chapter 4 the president in particular is very much a figurehead he wields no real power whatsoever he is apparently chosen by the government but the qualities he is required to display are not those of leadership but those of finely judged outrage for this reason the president is always a controversial choice always an infuriating but fascinating character his job is not to wield power but to draw attention away from it nixon finished his recitation smiled and then set down his glass and clasped his hands in his lap hence president barack beeblebrox and secretary of state that woman you are definitely living in some very interesting times now it was a good decision on your part to close the ranting room you wouldn t have been able to maintain your no politics rule much longer and sooner or later you d have written something that would have gotten you into real trouble i was still shaking my head president bee no wait a minute secretary of state that woman in all these years you ve never told me what exactly is your problem with hil shh nixon shushed me with a warning finger do not mention that foul name in this fair place i blinked in astonishment several times look it s very simple nixon said that woman was a lawyer working for the house judiciary committee during the watergate investigation according to her former boss jerry zeifman a lifelong democrat by the way and the career civil service attorney who was general counsel and chief of staff for the judiciary committee she was put on the staff as a favor to teddy kennedy and then did her best to sabotage the investigation she violated confidentiality confiscated public documents lost files and wrote fraudulent legal briefs all in an effort to keep me from having the right to legal counsel and to cross examine witnesses in the end she was fired and zeifman recommended that she never again be put into a position of public trust by this point nixon s jowls were quivering with anger and he abruptly seemed to realize that this was happening and forced himself to relax and lower his voice he picked up the glass of brandy again slowly carefully methodically he took another sip he swallowed he chuckled and now secretary of state oh yes interesting times indeed i went back to shaking my head i don t know this sounds so paranoid oliver stone paranoid jim garrison grade paranoid why nixon set his glass down sharply and snapped forward because they wanted to make sure i didn t put e howard hunt on the witness stand under oath he caught himself again forced himself to relax again sighed before he came to work for me hunt was an old school spook he explained wartime oss postwar cia bay of pigs and then he became kennedy s chief of domestic covert and black bag cia ops hunt had the dirt on jfk like you wouldn t believe he knew where all the bodies were buried because he d buried them himself he knew things about jfk and johnson that made watergate look like a schoolboy prank and if you were say teddy kennedy and you were looking at a run for the presidency in 1976 well we wouldn t want anything coming out that might besmirch the memory of the blessed saint jfk now would we nixon looked at his glass again decided against another sip and then looked at me with a frustrated smile i was a fool he said i thought the nation couldn t stand the shock of knowing any of that the country was fractured reeling you were there you remember there were literally battles in the streets i thought that if the people ever got a good look at what was really going on inside the machinery of government nixon s voice tapered off and so for the good of the nation i allowed myself be talked into resigning just as twelve years earlier for the good of the nation i d agreed not to contest the 1960 election even though we all knew it was the legendary voting dead of cook county that put jfk into office and now here we are forty eight years later with a first class product of the cook county democratic party machine the most provably corrupt political organization since tammany hall sitting in the oval office and i thought my times were interesting this time nixon lifted the glass and took a long slow deliberate drink when he set the glass down again i noticed it was getting low and uncorked the bottle of brandy again but he waved me off almost done he said he paused do you know what my greatest mistake was nixon asked i couldn t resist you got involved in a land war in southeast asia nixon barely mustered the energy to scowl at that no that was kennedy and johnson s mistake and you know it kissinger and i got us out of that mess and that s what s shaved a couple eons off my time in purgatory i nodded then it must have been all the keynesianism and wage and price controls nixon shrugged the jury is still out on that he pursed his lips and drew a deep breath no my greatest mistake was that i gave them a sword ah i said as a tiny dim bulb of recognition lit up the david frost interviews nixon gagged audibly dear god i hope people aren t mistaking frost nixon for history you have frost s book why don t you read it sometime i tried i said i couldn t stick with it frost is such a self absorbed git a talking head who imagines he s making news not reporting it nixon nodded too true but you did recognize the quote i gave them a sword i said quoting nixon back at himself from memory and they stuck it in and they twisted it with relish and i guess if i d been in their position i d have done the same thing that s right nixon said i gave my enemies the sword with which they did me in he nodded again and then took one last gulp from the glass finished it off set it down and stood to leave but do you know what is an even greater mistake and one i never made it s not giving them a sword he said as he began to fade away whenever you say or do anything you put weapons in the hands of your enemies and your critics but whenever you re so afraid of those hypothetical weapons in the hands of hypothetical critics that you say and do nothing that is a greater folly still in fact it goes beyond folly it s a crime nixon had become just an outline now a rippling shape of a man between me and the bookcase especially for a writer if you are not putting your heart and soul out there on the line every time you sit down to write if you are not every day putting new swords in the hands of your enemies and critics then you are not doing your job and you are not a writer you re merely some sort of craven timid creature that looks and smells like a writer and mimics the motions all that remained of him now was his voice and it was fading quickly as if into a vast distance that is your greatest mistake bruce you always try to play it safe and give no offense but thankfully you still have time to correct that his voice was just a whisper now or less than that the ghost of an echo of a whisper i belong to history these are your interesting times you have a lot of good books in your collection maybe now that you ve retired you can read some of them maybe you ll learn and he was gone leaving behind a filthy old glass that looked like it hadn t been cleaned in fifteen years a small wet spot of spilled brandy on the seat cushion of the comfortable chair and a book from my collection that i d always intended to read but never found the time to opened to a particular page i was almost certain of what it would be even before i looked at it but i picked it up and read the marked passage all the same it is not the critic who counts not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done them better the credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood who strives valiantly who errs who comes short again and again because there is no effort without error and shortcoming but who does actually strive to do the deeds who knows great enthusiasms the great devotions who spends himself in a worthy cause who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst if he fails at least fails while daring greatly so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat theodore roosevelt the man in the arena posted by brb at 9 00 am friday january 30 2009 the friday challenge has moved are you looking for the friday challenge workshop slash writing contest slash therapy group beginning today you ll find it at its new permanent home thefridaychallenge com posted by brb at 7 00 am thursday january 29 2009 final thoughts part 3 hmm in cleaning out all the bits and half baked drafts and ragged ends of ideas i ve accumulated during the four years i ve been doing this blog i accidentally turned up this undated note to myself which to judge by the strata it was found in is from about three years ago lucas s law a well executed creative project is like great sex always end with a good climax and leave em complaining you finished too soon and begging for more not complaining that you went on too long and begging you to stop already i can t imagine what i was thinking about when i wrote that posted by brb at 7 00 am wednesday january 28 2009 final thoughts part 2 ktown kvetches the new site looks a lot like the old site i expected some different furniture and paint on the walls does anyone have an opinion on blogspot vs wordpress i m impressed by wordpress it s a powerful tool that enables you to do some amazing things there s no question but that wordpress can be used to create a gorgeous blog as a few minutes spent snuffling around their showcase proves but wordpress also requires that you download the software and install it on your own web host and there s a learning curve which i have neither the time or patience for right now if i had the time i d definitely be looking into it further but then if i had the time there are a whole lot of other things i d also be doing correction the foregoing paragraph is true for 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