The Electricians: Day 12

[poliphilo]

Khalid and his crew have been here, but it's the window boys who took centre stage. At the end of the day we have power everywhere- except in the kitchen- and four new windows have been fitted, plus the kitchen doors.  It's been a bright, sunny day- and perishingly cold.

A right-wing LJ friend who assured me that our political differences would never come between us has unfriended me- presumably over my Afghanistan poems. I'm a little disappointed.

 I'm reading Ophelia Field's history of The Kit Kat Club.

Tomorrow is Eid. The window boys will be coming in, but Khalid is having the day off; he's earned it.

Comments

[michaleen.livejournal.com]

Of course. Jefferson was peculiarly hated because of his religious views -- or rather the distinct lack thereof -- and because he liked the French.

What Jefferson and Adams said of each other during the campaign was nothing compared to the Alien and Sedition Acts, one of the most appalling chapters in US history. Basically, a law was passed that made criticism of the President -- Adams -- and Congress illegal, while leaving it okay to criticize their principal critic, Vice President Thomas Jefferson. Ben Franklin's grandson published an editorial, expressing his outrage, and he was promptly thrown in jail and his paper shut down. That is why Jefferson ran against Adams a second time and won.

US politics tends to extremes because of the national character. We are a nation of peasants, who like peasants everywhere are principally motivated by fear. The fact that some of the peasants have a lot of money and run the government for their personal benefit does not alter the fact that they are still peasants and terrified of every hobgoblin that happens along, however absurd. In 1800 it was the French. In the 20th century it was Bolshevism. In 2010, it is our black Moslem President that has them pissing themselves on every channel.