Today’s guest post comes from Congressman Loomis Beechly, representing all the water surface area in the State of Minnesota.

Greetings, Constituents!

Tonight marks the umpteenth time I will have attended the President’s annual State of the Union address.

Many times I have wondered about the appropriate way to behave in such an historic setting, and each time I come away with the feeling that I’ve somehow missed the boat. I sit when I should stand. I stand up when I should remain seated. It’s very confusing. Then as soon as the president is done speaking, the word spinning starts and when I look at my newspaper the next morning I’m surprised to see what the speech was really about, even though I was there!

As your congressman, I try not to be starstruck by all the famous people. They’re completely ordinary – right up to the president himself! A lot of Representatives will fall all over themselves anyway, jockeying to be on the aisle so they can shake his hand as he goes by and possibly get their picture in the paper. I can assure you – you won’t see me making such a spectacle out of myself. I don’t have the seniority to get that close to the aisle. And anyway, I’m not some giddy teenager. I’ve been to the dance a few times now.

Tonight, I expect the president will make a strong case for his proposed new policy on guns. He’ll present it as a measure to improve safety for our most vulnerable citizens, and his opponents will fight him on the grounds that holding powerful firearms insures the safety of those who disagree with a vindictive and too-powerful government.

Some people would say these differences can’t be bridged, but I say “Hey, at least they agree that everyone is threatened to the point of needing to take deadly action against a stranger!” That’s a start, even if it’s make-believe. Perhaps somewhere down that contentious road they will find a compromise. Or settle it with a shoot out at twenty paces. In a violent culture, anything is possible!

I, for one, don’t care much about guns. I just hope the president doesn’t listen to his power hungry advisors who want him to extend his safety compulsion to fishing lures. That’s a touchy subject for me and my constituents. A rumor went around the other day that he was going to require that everyone use Safety Lures – not just children.

That’s insane! Imagine not only the expense but the great inconvenience for people like myself who already have a tackle box full of pointy things! All I can say, is, the president can have my exposed-hook lure when he is willing to pull the rusty barb out of my cold, dead finger.

And if he’s willing to do that, it means he’s probably in my boat with me. Imagine, me and the president, fishing!

I hope he’ll have a few beers and spend the afternoon!

Your Congressman,
Loomis Beechly

Name a safety measure or device that has spared you some amount of pain.

Today’s guest post comes from perennial sophomore Bubby Spamden.

Hey, Mr. C!

I think I found my career, finally.

I know I’ve said that about some other things, like being a planet hunter, and watching things blow up. But this time I think I really mean it because the job I have in mind is a real one that people actually do every day, and I already have some experience with it.

I want to be a Forensic Electrical Engineer.

In case you’re wondering what that is, I didn’t know either. Not until I saw this article about why the lights went out at the Super Bowl last Sunday. It turns out the blackout was caused by this very expensive electrical relay that was put in to keep a blackout from happening.

I think that is so cool! Mostly because it is totally ironic.

And now people are arguing about whose fault it was, really. The power company says it wasn’t their fault, and the New Orleans city leaders are kind of hoping it wasn’t the fault of anybody in Louisiana. They’re hoping it can be blamed on the company that made the relay. But the company that made the relay says their relay worked fine – it was the people who messed up.

So there!

And here’s the best part – Forensic Electrical Engineers are going to be really important in deciding who to blame. That’s why I’d like to be one – you get to be the finger pointer instead of having the finger pointed at you all the time, and believe me, I’ve been on the receiving end a lot! So having an important job in the blame placing industry would be great.

I found this job description online – the most important part is highlighted – by me!

“… forensic electrical engineers have investigated the causes of events such as the 1979 accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant and the widespread blackouts across the Northeastern United States and Canada in the 1960s and in 2003. They also work on smaller scale incidents such as an individual being electrocuted by her toaster. They are usually called in when death or injury has occurred, or a large sum of money is at stake.”

Imagine that – I’d get to cast blame on other people in cases where there’s a dead person, or tons of money, or both! I know I’d be great at this because I’m really good at being exasperated at things other people have done, so I could work on my tut-tutting, my eye rolling and my heavy sighing, especially when one person has really, really screwed up.

Please tell me this is a great idea!

That way, if it turns out that I don’t like it or am not very good at it, I can always say you pushed me into the field!

Your Pal,
Bubby

I told Bubby there is a lot of math involved in being an electrical engineer, and that the people he would be dumping blame on would have their own lawyers with sharp criticisms of himself and his methods. When it is your job to find responsibility in cases where there has been a death or “a lot of money is at stake,” you are not allowed to pass through unscathed, and if your testimony winds up costing someone money, a counter-suit is possible. Blame placing has its own risks.

I suggested it might actually be safer for him to look for a dull career in the Blowing Up Things Industry.

When you place blame on someone other than yourself, how’s your accuracy?

I’m fascinated by the first entries in Paul Salopek’s Walk Out of Eden, his seven year project to travel by foot from Africa’s rift valley to Tierra del Fuego at the southern tip of South America. In one of his recent posts we discovered that African nomads, who live lives very different from our own, are increasingly reliant on their cell phones.  One catch is the absence of an electric grid for re-charging, so services are springing up to provide desert plug-ins.

Let that be a lesson for the American luddite who has every new tool at his disposal but refuses to use them. You may see computers and smart phones as meaningless and inauthentic, but nomadic Ethiopian shepherds are using digital technology to stay current on the price of goats. They’re also walking great distances in light, inexpensive plastic sandals – to such an extent that the footwear has been memorialized by a public sculpture in Eritrea.

While the nomads are leaping forward technologically, Salopek is turning back time when it comes to modes of travel, abandoning modern conveyances for the most basic transport of all. It’s an attention-getting move to decide to take a long walk in the modern western world.  

It got my attention, anyway.

Taking a Big Walk is still an eye-opener here in the “developed” west – as surprising in our culture as it would be to the nomads if one of their own loaded his goats into the back of a Hummer and drove off into the sunset.  A remarkably long list of people have trekked across the USA to lose weight, change their attitude, honor a friend or relative, or raise money for a cause.

If you are thinking of doing the same thing, there is plenty of advice available. But it appears the stakes are rising.

When I was still a teenager, Dan Walker walked almost 1,200 miles across Illinois and wound up winning the state’s top political office. I think people were impressed that he managed to actually set a goal and accomplish  it – a rare feat in some political circles.   Walker later became one of Illinois’ imprisoned Governors – not a great distinction but I suppose he can take some pride in the knowledge that his jail-able offenses were committed AFTER he was in office.  Apparently on his long walk one thing he did NOT think about was whether or not there’s a significant difference between a federal law and a banking regulation.

Regardless, you have to respect the magnitude of the walk.

It would be hard to match the outsized significance of Salopek’s pilgrimage, but if you had the time, the stamina and the shoes for it, where would you take your 1,500 go 3,000 mile walk?