It’s getting ugly out there on the campaign trail, but I am determined to keep running for president, as long as no actual physical running is involved, because I love my country enough to write a blog essay about it.
In a stunning act of political courage, I would like to go on record: I am for sex. Sex is nice, as long as it’s confined to drunken grown-ups who love each other very much at least temporarily. If God didn’t want us to have sex, He wouldn’t have written all that stuff about “begat.” God has written a whole bunch of books like The Torah, The Bible, The Koran, and probably some others that I would have to look up on Wikipedia, and I would like to point out that not once in all His books did God say anything about keeping an aspirin between your knees. As far as I know.
(Which reminds me: God is on my side because we are both writers. Newt Gingerich is a writer, too, but I feel quite sure that God likes me better.)
I am also for the Earth. Not only am I a religious recycler of metal, paper and plastics, I have a worm composting system in my garage. Unlike any of my opponents, I have written about a different planet and found out that some really nasty stuff went on there. Plus, it was far away, and fictional. So we need to love the Earth and take good care of it, and no matter what my opponent Mr. Santorum says, the Pope thinks so, too. That’s got to count for something.
I am against mud-slinging. I am against mud in general because it gets tracked into the house, especially if you have a golden retriever like Leo who liked to run out into the backyard, and belly into a puddle with a big smile on his face, and then come bounding back into the house with mud up to his ears. Golden retrievers have an almost mystical capacity to get filthy and then 15 minutes later, they’re clean, which means that the mud is all over the house, and since the previous owners of our house didn’t have pets or kids, they had a lot of off-white carpeting installed, which we have not replaced. Try to imagine.
Which brings me to jobs, jobs, jobs. We are very good customers of Coit Carpet Cleaners. At the request of our regular cleaners Will and Angie, we will soon adopt another golden retriever whose secret Indian spirit name will be “Provides Job Security for Will and Angie.” We also helped to employ a bunch of guys who work for Compass Consulting and Construction — and we’ve got the new bathroom to prove it.
Then there are the books. I write them, and from that point on, lots and lots of jobs are generated. My agents, the acquiring editor, the production editor, the copy editor, the jacket designer and book designer, the publicist, and all their assistants, plus the marketing and sales people, the paper manufacturer, the printers and binders, the distribution centers, the shipping companies, the bookstores and libraries — all the people who work there have jobs, too.
(I would like to point out that actual physical paper books generate most of those jobs, which you might want to consider when you decide between an e-book and a real one. Admittedly: I might have a conflict of interest because my royalties have tanked now that half the sales are e-books.)
So if you live in Arizona or Michigan, I’d appreciate it if you would write my name in on the presidential primary ballots. I would like to point out that I have recently visited Arizona quite a bit, and that I got my doctorate at the University of Michigan, where the trees are just right and where I used to drive a 1976 Pontiac Trans Am with a manual transmission, a 455-cubic inch V8, functional hood scoop, dual carbs and headers. It only got 3 miles to the gallon, but they were very exciting miles.
Full disclosure: I drive a Honda Fit now, which gets 13 times better gas mileage (see “I love the Earth,” above) but all my cash is in banks right here in Cleveland, Ohio. I don’t even know where the Cayman Islands are because I didn’t bother to read this Wikipedia article about them. I am in the 35% tax bracket and actually declare Miscellaneous Income even if I got paid less than $600 and don’t have a 1099 on it because I’m brave, and honest, and frightened of the IRS.
If you’d like to bribe me or purchase some influence in the future Russell Administration, I will remind you that we in the Russell campaign cheerfully accept donations to the Doc Holliday Memorial Fund at Smile Train. Thanks to all of you who contributed in the first year of Doc‘s publication. So far, the fund has provided cleft palate and cleft lip surgeries, free of charge, to 55 children. Each surgery costs only $250, and you can’t get more bang for your buck than that.