Tag Me Tuesday

Ishaan over at Ishaan’s Blog nominated me for the Awesome Blogger Award. He has some stories on his site that have captured my interest and some nice poems, but, no offense to him or anyone else, I’m just not crazy about these made-up awards. However, since he was thoughtful enough to think I should have some recognition I will answer the questions he posted with it. The thing that can be interesting about these posts is sometimes there are questions you might not normally think to ask. I think these are things he really wants to know about me so I will think that some of you might find them interesting as well. Here is Ishaan’s list of questions which I shall undertake to answer.

Who is your favourite leader, from the past and from the present?
This is kind of a broad question, actually, it’s two questions. From the past, I would like to meet the Apostle Andrew and ask him what made him bring the little boy with his lunch to Jesus. In the present I can say unequivocally that my pastor is a man of deep and careful thought and extraordinary integrity. We have some similarities in personality that he has successfully overcome and worked to his advantage, inspiring me to want to be better than I am as well.

If you could choose to live in any country of your choice, which would it be?
Without a doubt, I would stay right here in the good old U. S. of A. We may have our problems but I love it here.

Your favourite fiction novel?
Fiction novel is kind of a repetitious redundancy to me. Novels are fiction, but to pick a favorite? This is a hard one to figure out. Just one? Hmmm…Can’t figure out just one. I think everyone on the planet ought to read 1984 by George Orwell but I hated it. I’m thankful I read it and as I said, I believe everyone ought to read it. I guess I hated it because I could see how true it could be. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury is another book everyone should read and I really liked it. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was a lot of fun. I have read all six books in the trilogy and have read the original probably 42 times. I’m currently re-reading Flint, by Louis L’Amour. I picked it up and read the first couple of pages and am totally engrossed. My favorite all-time novel, I think, today only, would have to be Have Spacesuit – Will Travel by Robert Heinlein.

Your favourite nonfiction book?
The King James Bible.

Have you ever liked a post without reading it?
NEVER! I am very suspicious of the Word Press “like” button. That is one of the several drawbacks of the WP reader. I also never just follow somebody that I don’t look at their stuff.

Which is your dream travel destination?
Wow. That’s another tough one for me. There are places here in the U.S.A. that I still haven’t seen, but I’ve always wanted to tour the U.K. as well. Especially since we have ancestors from Ireland, Wales, Scotland, and England. There are a lot of beautiful places all over the world, though. I guess it would depend on if it was an all-expenses-paid trip and how much time I was allotted.

Favourite food.
Lasagna.

Do you find blogging different from other social media? Why/Why not?
Blogging is very different in my opinion. I have complete control over the content on my site, up to and including the comments. The only place I interact with anyone else is in the comments. I don’t have to listen to or read anybody’s gossip or fights either, which are a couple of the plethora of reasons why I’m not on social media.
I have never knowingly deleted a comment, whether they agreed with me or not. sometimes the over-zealous Akismet spam catcher will put comments in spam but I try to diligently fish them out. Your comments do get a better response if you put in your name and e-mail address but I can almost always tell a real one from a fake.

Would you rather act in a movie or write a book?
Write a book, which I am already kind of, sort of, doing. Even though I love being a ham, I could never support hollyweird or the entertainment industry. They are a scourge on the planet and do not reflect my values at all.

What is your favourite sports?
I don’t really have a favorite sport and there’s certainly none I’m good at. I will occasionally throw the ball to our dog, Hey-Boy, or walk around the block.

So there it is. No rules or anything, but if if you’d like to play, these are the questions. Please let me know if you do it or of you are one of my readers that doesn’t have a blog you can answer the questions in the comments.

And, Thank you Ishaan, for thinking so highly of me.

Tag! You’re it!

48 Comments

  1. Nice tag. One thing I like about Fahrenheit 451, and Ray Bradbury in general, is that when I read it I can tell that he had a lot of fun writing it.

    • He was a great writer. I like a lot of his stuff. Fahrenheit 451 is a bit more hopeful than 1984.
      I don’t understand why your comment went to spam, first. I’m glad I looked. It’s a weird system.

  2. I like to say, ‘1984’ is the book everyone ought to read if they have no comprehension of what living in a communist regime looks like. It’s not a cautionary tale. It’s not, “Thus could be us if we’re not careful!” It’s not something that sneaks up on you. It’s a deliberate decision someone made abruptly, and is only possible under certain circumstances. Which, as far as I can tell, never existed here in the States, and never will. Ironically the stupid way our political system works is actually smart enough to prevent it, by design. So the stuff we complain about is exactly as smart as it seems when we’re only considering it at the level of the Founding Fathers. Sometimes smart things look stupid. Cautionary tale.

    • Well, it definitely shows how a Communist regime works, but I have to disagree that it can’t happen here. It may take longer but as our rights are eroded, chipped away at, little-by-little, it can. I can see both 1984 and Fahrenheit 451 happening here.

      • But the whole point of communism, as it works out in real life, is that what appears to be set up for the common good actually funnels to one person at the top controlling literally everything. Everyone at the bottom (which is to say, pretty much everyone) has little to no say about anything, and if they say anything at all they “disappear.” The frightening thing about it, and what separates it from garden-variety dictatorship, is the illusion necessary to keep it working, which is why people have to disappear, why the tragedy of ‘1984’ isn’t the idea of manipulating facts but Winston being taken into custody, which in effect, for everyone who knew him, is Winston disappearing. It’s not facts but people that are the currency of horror. A summary of ‘1984’ would read: “Winston disappeared. It was if he never existed.” In order to convince me this is possible in the United States, you have to tell me how long it would be before this sort of thing we’re possible. The whole history of the country is everyone complaining about everything. That is the opposite of communism.

        • Maybe it’s in what you take away from the story. After they broke Winston’s will, they let him go for quite a while. He could see Julia in the park and it didn’t matter anymore because they both had been broken. Winston’s revelation as the bullet is going into his head along with the last four words is what chilled me to the bone. And yes, it may not be the old Soviet-style or even current Chinese communism, but they don’t need it. In the book, the common people didn’t really care about anything to do with the government except what they could get, either from the government or on the black market. Instead of one individual, we have two houses and an executive but everything funnels up to them and nothing can be done if they don’t allow it. Our system, as designed by the original founders, is a beautiful thing, but the people running it now are, for the most part, don’t care about it. It’s only lasted this long because of the way it’s created, but it has been eroded over time. Perhaps we could call it an oligarchy instead of communism. The opiate of the masses is not traditional religion anymore but the religion of hollyweird and the mass media/entertainment industry which actually rules the common people and tells them what to think.

          • The balancing act between the executive, legislative, and judicial wings has always been interesting. The maneuvering between the executive and legislative wings is always going to be most visible, and probably least understood, and it will look as if the judicial is most relevant as a pawn between them, but they each have crucial roles to play, and it’s that incredible balance that can never be underestimated. The executive often seems as if it’s being held hostage by the legislative, but it’s far more likely to have an election swayed by who’s in the executive wing than who’s in the legislative. And of course the judicial is so contentious because it has the capacity to last longer than either (regardless of how long some stay in the legislative). I think it’s a fool-proof system, and again, the proof is exactly in the fools who have inhabited it.

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