The Do-Nothing Society

Danger.  Sheer Cliff.  Stay back.
Where I feel the election is heading.  

Last Saturday I did something.  Something I have never done before in my life.  I donated to a political party, the Democratic party (DNC), to be precise. 

I deplore that money seems to be so important in elections, but here we are in the real world. (The real world is seeming quite bizarre and alarming these days.)  In the real world, money can make a lot of difference in many arenas.

I donated money because I felt it was important to me to make a concrete statement about who I am firmly backing in the upcoming elections.  I am in favor of Mrs. Clinton for president, and now I have backed it up with my pocketbook.  I donated to the party because I also believe that the congressional elections are very important.

Others have presented the case for Mrs. Clinton far more eloquently than I can.  I simply believe that a vote for Mrs. Clinton is a vote for decency, stability, compassion, intelligence, and strength.

If you wish to argue against my choice, please make your argument on your own blog, not on this one.

Perhaps you are opposed to the DNC.   Instead, please consider the DNS – the Do-Nothing Society.  I have this proposal, written by my father in 2007.  I guess I am not eligible for membership.  Because I did something.

The Do-Nothing Society

If you desire freedom from work, this is for you. A group of men, content with languor, have formed The Do-Nothing Society [DNS].  If you are satisfied with inactivity of any kind you may be received into its fellowship.  All who sit on the porch just rocking and thinking are Do-Nothing eligible, more so if you just rock.  Energy conservation is a big thing now, and we think it our civic duty to cut back on work, all the way back.

The Do-Nothing-Society is not gender specific, though only males have joined so far.  Apparently the supply of good-for-nothing women is inadequate to meet the need.  The DNS is environmentally friendly, resolved never to scrub, wash, sweep, dry mop, wet mop, dust, or otherwise alter the natural order. All who abandon work, foreign or domestic, are welcome.  Do Nothing is committed to Equal Unemployment Opportunity (EUO), and is not sexist in the least.  We are interested in anyone who yearns for worklessness.

We have no card-carrying members.  Actually, none of us carries anything. In physics, work is mass times the distance through which it acts.  For example, if you have a fifty-pound sack on your shoulder, no work is performed unless you move.  Even Einstein agreed to this tenet of classical physics.  Albert Einstein daily trudged from his home on Mercer Street across campus to his Princeton University office.  Once, pausing to talk to a student, he forgot his direction and walked home.  Mrs. Einstein turned him around and sent him forth again.  Great minds think great thoughts, and are not stuck with petty details.

The Do-Nothing Society has developed a hypothesis more basic than Einstein's Relativity.  This teaches  (a) mass even if it doesn't move is work, and (b) motion even without mass is work. Thus, never joining mass with motion or motion with mass will eliminate work.  How to accomplish this is a detail, since the hypothesis is established.  The DNS thinks only great thoughts like Einstein.  This is a great thought.

Nothing in the DNS is organized.  It is purely a do-nothing happening: no dues, no dress-up, no committees, no speaker, no program, no bylaws, no planning and no purpose.  If you are of like mind or of no mind, or have nothing better to do, think about joining DNS.

I took a brave new step towards DNS when we came to [the retirement home].  Here, our meals are prepared for us, the lawn is mowed, snow is removed, and you don't need a driver's license.  A barber shop, bank, massage parlor, and movie theater are all on the premises.  To hear intelligent speakers on controversial subjects one need only walk to the auditorium; one need not get involved in the controversies.    To vote one need only don bedroom slippers on election day and a bathrobe and schlep to the room where they have brought all the voting machines.  [Partisan statement removed by the Common Household Mom.]

{written by my father on Oct 12, 2007}

Responses from the family:

Dear Dad,

Get off your lazy butt and get to work.  Be of use.

Please write a book, or at least a paper, or a letter to the editor of the NY Times, explaining our Founding Fathers’ take on religion.

- {my brother}

P.S. Where do I sign up for this Do-Nothing Society?

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Dear Dad,

It must have taken you a lot of work to put together your proposal for The Do-Nothing Society.  Doesn't that make you ineligible for membership?

Love,

Carolyn

P.S.  I'd like to suggest this song for your Society Anthem:

TITLE: The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything

ARTIST: Mike Nawrocki

 [Veggie Tales]

{Refrain}

We are the Pirates Who Don't Do Anything

We just stay home and lie around

And if you ask us to do anything

We'll just tell you, we don't do anything

{etc.}

Liberty and reason are threatened

The world seems bizarre.
This is the "bizarre" setting on my camera.

A different bizarre camera setting.