Life Stories: July 2004 Archives
Proverbs 13:12I guess I don't have much more to say, other than that it sucks to just wait and wait.Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.
Cato University has been great so far -- all the people are really interesting, and I'm losing my voice from all the discussions.
Internet access isn't as easy as I'd hoped, and even when I pay the daily fee I can't reliably get online from my hotel room... so there's going to be less blogging than I'd intended. I can't get to gmail from the business center here because they're using IE 5.0. I'm going to see if I can install Firefox....
One of the things that bothers me a bit about libertarians is that they're deathly afraid of slippery slopes. I agree that they're something to be wary of, but as Eugene Volokh has argued many times, sliding down a slope isn't inevitable. Libertarians want to create a world in which government is so limited that they'll never have to fight for liberty again, but fighting for liberty is inescapable. I'd rather work for the best good (life, liberty, &c.) now, even if it means we'll have to fight against a slope a little more later on. We can win now, and we can win later, because we're right.
I'm here at the Rancho Bernardo Inn for Cato University and using my new Costco laptop. (They have a six month no-questions-asked return policy!)
I'll post some pictures when I've got some. I may not be on much because they charge for internet access in the rooms... $10 per day.
I just saw something strange, something that I've never seen before. A flatbed tow truck with a Porsche in a red zone -- at first I figured the car was being towed away, but as I watched for a few minutes it became obvious that the tow truck driver was unloading the Porsche into the street. The owner of the Porsche was nowhere to be seen.
I asked the driver what he was doing and he said, "I'm just doing my job." I pointed out that he was unloading the car into a red zone, and he said, "Yeah." Which pretty much ended the conversation.
Does anyone have an explanation for this? There wasn't anyone else around within 100 feet, and certainly no one who looked interested in the condition of his $100k sports car. I didn't see the truck drive up with the Porsche loaded, so it's possible that the driver loaded the car and then decided to unload it rather than take it away, but that's not the impression I got from what I observed.
It felt like something the Discordians would be involved with.
The Cato Institute has generously offered me a scholarship to this summer's Cato University seminar, and I'm going to take the last week of July off from work to go! It looks very exciting.
I'm curious to see how my views will be received. I made it plain in my application that I'm a Christian and a conservative (with libertarian sympathies), and I get the impression that Libertarians don't always like Christians very much. I'm not sure about this, however. Perusing Cato's website, it also looks like they want us to pull out of Iraq ASAP, which isn't something I see as being very wise. I'm also wavering on the drug legalization thing, which is strongly supported by libertarians.
Still, I'm sure there will be a lot we will agree on, and I'm eager to engage in debate with all the brilliant people I imagine will be there. I hope I conduct myself well and learn a bunch of new things.
Plus, I hope I meet some beautiful babies.
I'm going to buy a laptop and blog from the resort as much as possible, and take a bunch of pictures. I wonder if any other bloggers will be there? To tell the truth, I don't have any idea how many people will be attending.
I spent my afternoon and evening writing 18 query letters and preparing 12 copies of my manuscript to send to publishers. I scoured the web and Writer's Market 2004 for contact information and submission guidelines, and I think everything is in place. My letter is good. Now I just have to wait six months to hear back from anyone.
