{"id":3014,"date":"2002-08-22T06:51:30","date_gmt":"2002-08-22T11:51:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/?p=3014"},"modified":"2002-08-22T06:51:30","modified_gmt":"2002-08-22T11:51:30","slug":"thoroughly_thur","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/08\/22\/thoroughly_thur.html","title":{"rendered":"Thoroughly Thursday"},"content":{"rendered":"

And while I wait for someone to come fix my e-mail system, let’s hit The Thursday Thumb-Twiddler<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

1. If you were to discover that your closest friend is a heroin dealer, what would you do?<\/b><\/p>\n

Actually, I would find it hard to believe that any of my friends were that stupid.<\/p>\n

I’d certainly discuss it with Margie. Because the biggest question — dropping said friend like a wormy apple not being subject to debate — would be whether to drop a dime, too.<\/p>\n

Heroin is bad stuff. We’re not talking pot here. It’s not just illegal to sell it — and thus participate in the whole violent world of heroin dealership — but the stuff is wildly destructive to those who buy it, who are addicted to it, who end up doing whatever they can in order to get more. Anyone who would willingly support that is certainly nobody I want around my family, and probably nobody I want on the streets. <\/p>\n

It would be difficult to narc on a former friend, and by and large I don’t see many circumstances when I’d do it. But I might make an exception for something like this.<\/p>\n

2. Having learned to a moral certainty that the world is going to end in six months, what one thing would you do for the first time?<\/b><\/p>\n

Well, it all sort of puts it into perspective, doesn’t it? The temporal positive consequences of some actions (writing or finishing a novel, for example) and the negative consequences of others (any bad action you can think of) are mitigated by having only that long to benefit\/suffer from it.<\/p>\n

I might go out and buy a gun. If it becomes public knowledge before the end, public order might seriously break down (for the above reasons).<\/p>\n

As to what else I might do? Well, I’d probably indulge in some of my pet vices more (though that doesn’t qualify as “first time”), such as gaming, reading, eating, etc. I might quit my job, in order to do so, and to spend more time with the family.<\/p>\n

But going out in a wild orgy of immoral behavior is not my cuppa, if for no other reason than the “end of the world” doesn’t qualify as the “end of personal existence” in my book. And there aren’t a lot of other vices I’d really like to do, and a lot of the “like to do this before I die” stuff would be a bit too poignant (or, conversely, meaningless) if it All Ends in six months.<\/p>\n

3. If you could create a memorial to yourself in a city park, what would it be?<\/b><\/p>\n

A fountain. A big fountain, with lots of waterfalls and noises about it. And a large endowment to (a) keep it in good shape, and (b) keep it running.<\/p>\n

I like fountains. Another reason to hate the drought.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

And while I wait for someone to come fix my e-mail system, let’s hit The Thursday Thumb-Twiddler….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3014","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal-qa"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":41963,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/05\/11\/good-news-bad-news-in-the-war-on-drugs.html","url_meta":{"origin":3014,"position":0},"title":"Good news, bad news, in the war on drugs","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 11-May-14 11:04pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Good news: Mexican drug cartels are increasingly getting out of the pot business because legalized recreational and medical marijuana in the US have caused the demand to dry up and the price to plummet.Good news: US efforts to crack down on prescription painkiller abuse are apparently having an effect in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5498,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/03\/03\/responding_to_c.html","url_meta":{"origin":3014,"position":1},"title":"Responding to customer demand","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 3-Mar-04 10:26am","format":false,"excerpt":"That's just great. A UN drug agency notes that apparently too many people, particularly middle-class Americans, find the idea of injecting heroin to be too icky. The result? Drug traffickers...","rel":"","context":"In "Homeland Security"","block_context":{"text":"Homeland Security","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/homeland-security"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":42045,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/05\/17\/for-the-love-of-money-is-the-root-of-all-evil.html","url_meta":{"origin":3014,"position":2},"title":"For the Love of Money is the Root of All Evil","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 17-May-14 9:40am","format":false,"excerpt":"Not the love of having enough to feed your family, or saving to send your kid to college, but the love of money itself, avarice, which seems to far too easily become an addiction just as mind- and mood-altering as heroin. \u00a0Except that while a heroin addict can only rob\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6054,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/06\/02\/news_flash_3.html","url_meta":{"origin":3014,"position":3},"title":"News flash!","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 2-Jun-04 7:18am","format":false,"excerpt":"Paul McCartney admits that he and the Beatles (gasp) did drugs! Former Beatle Sir Paul McCartney has revealed he once tried heroin at the height of the legendary band's success....","rel":"","context":"In "Media & Culture"","block_context":{"text":"Media & Culture","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":16785,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2010\/02\/22\/unblogged-bits-for-mon-22-feb-2010-802pm.html","url_meta":{"origin":3014,"position":4},"title":"Unblogged Bits for Mon, 22 Feb 2010, 8:02PM","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 22-Feb-10 6:02pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Links (most recent first) that caught my eye, but did not warrant full-blown blog entries .... Laptop surveillance kid was disciplined when spying authorities mistook candies for pills - I don't care if he was frelling shooting up heroin -- that does not justify secret spying of this sort. And\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Potpourri"","block_context":{"text":"Potpourri","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/potpourri"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":14479,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2009\/04\/08\/what-is-wrong-with-these-people.html","url_meta":{"origin":3014,"position":5},"title":"What is wrong with these people?","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 8-Apr-09 9:10am","format":false,"excerpt":"Because taking a birth control pill at school, with the parent's permission, certainly should be an expellable offense, right? When a Fairfax County mother got an urgent call from school last month reporting that her teenage daughter was caught popping a pill at lunchtime, she did not panic. \"It was\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "School Daze"","block_context":{"text":"School Daze","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/school-daze"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3014"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3014\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}