Ever find politics as clear as Mississippi Mud?

Robert A. Heinlein wrote Take Back Your Government in the 1940's, probably because he really loved American Democracy.

It's based on his experience as a Grass Roots Candidate for State Assembly in Southern California.

Reading it, I was fascinated by how little some things have changed, and how much others have.

That half hour note in the background I traded to a guy named Jason for a bright blue LED flashlight for my keyring. I used it to show a lot of people in dark rooms my favorite state quarter before moving on to another one. I seem to recall that I threw in a family sized box of green Jell-O.

The first piece of science fiction that Heinlein wrote was For Us, The Living. He wrote it the winter after he lost the election the above book was based on. I think he began the project by contemplating this quote in many ways. (As I write this, Heinlein himself has been dead for at least fifteen years. It is for us, the living, to carry on...)

I find myself hoping that the redwoods will outlast Stranger, but at this point it looks dubious.

Too much short term thinking in the political system.

I gave the "green party" pin to Matt Gonzalez a week or two before he got elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 2000. It was given to me by Goods For Greens for promotional purposes. My feeling was that he would get the real promotion when people saw it on him. I haven't seen the pin since, but Matt has gone on to do many things that have been good for the Green Party.

The SELMA pin was given to me by the acting City Manager of Selma, California. During our conversation he mentioned that some scenes from the 1994 movie version of Heinlein's The Puppet Masters were made in his town.