Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Objective ZED ALPHA
The sadistic part of the Jeopardy! online test is that they do not tell you how you fared, neither objectively nor in comparison to your cohort. Beyond my recollection of the test and self-assessment of my performance, I have no idea how well or how poorly I scored, nor will I unless and until I am contacted for an in-person tryout/audition. "Objective ZED ALPHA" is simple: I will be a contestant on Jeopardy!, provided the show remains on the air for the foreseeable future. I shall try my utmost and, acknowledging that the fulfillment of ZED ALPHA is contingent on many factors outside of my control, if I fail it will not be due to a lack of effort.

Objective ZED ALPHA is a part of the increasingly intricate CADMUS, my renewal and renaissance. The CADMUS effort will last years, if not decades, and I greet with grim determination the cold, hard fact that not every objective may be achieved in the thirty-one years remaining 'fore I shuffle off this mortal coil. But I am busily engaged sowing dragon's teeth, and, by thunder, some of them will birth Spartoi before I am through.

The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day
They Might Be Giants, "James K. Polk" from Factory Showroom (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary: I need to be more austere and severe.

"Austere, severe,
He held few people dear.
His oratory
Filled his foes with fear."


4 x 11 = 44
George Washington / John Adams / Thomas Jefferson / James Madison
James Monroe / John Quincy Adams / Andrew Jackson / Martin Van Buren
William Henry Harrison / John Tyler / James Polk / Zachary Taylor
Millard Fillmore / Franklin Pierce / James Buchanan / Abraham Lincoln
Andrew Johnson / Ulysses S. Grant / Rutherford Hayes / James Garfield
Chester Arthur / Grover Cleveland / Benjamin Harrison / Grover Cleveland
William McKinley / Theodore Roosevelt / William Howard Taft / Woodrow Wilson
Warren Harding / Calvin Coolidge / Herbert Hoover / Franklin Roosevelt
Harry Truman / Dwight Eisenhower / John Kennedy / Lyndon Johnson
Richard Nixon / Gerald Ford / James Carter / Ronald Reagan
George Bush / William Clinton / George W. Bush / Barack Obama

Grover Cleveland was only one man, Mr. President, both the twenty-second and twenty-fourth presidents, but only one man. The president and his speech writers knew of the inaccuracy, but retained it so as to "avoid confusion." Meaning it was not a mistake, it was an intentional deception. Or, rather, it is an elegant statement of something you willfully blind fools would not permit yourselves to see as you worshiped your golden calves of "Hope" and "Change": President Obama will always lie to you if the lie makes for better oratory than the truth. Welcome to the parade of horrors.

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