[Granville-Hough] 2 May 2009 - Apply Here

[Trustees and Executors for Granville W. Hough]

The messages I get from the Republican Party by the internet, and the 
lead articles in some newspapers, remind me each day of who got us into 
a state of economic ruin, and who made every effort to rescue Wall 
Street in 2008. We have Dick Cheney and Rush Limbaugh yearning for the 
good old days of weapons of mass destruction, off-shore 
interrogation/torture centers, alternative but favorable intelligence 
sources, falsified accounting methods, etc, etc.

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Apply Here! No Brains Required. (Freely adapted from Robert West)

At West Point, we paid careful attention to Napoleon’s Maxims; and at 
one point or another during my initial (plebe) year of training, I 
learned all of them. At least I could recite them on demand from some 
upper-classman. Robert West had a takeoff from one of them.
“Napoleon said that the man who never makes a mistake never makes war. 
Those who content themselves with pointing out the mistakes and blunders 
of those who are in the struggle, are making, themselves, the greatest 
of all blunders. Nothing is easier than fault-finding. No talent, no 
self-denial, no brains, no character are required to set up in the 
grumbling business.”

Now, I do remember some grumblers and fault-finders when I was growing 
up in Sullivan’s Hollow. Some were almost as talented as the Republicans 
in their deflections of blame. I would agree with Thoreau that some 
would have found fault with beautiful red glows of the morning sunrise 
if they had ever gotten up soon enough to see them. Some may even now be 
finding fault in Paradise.

But on reflection, I am a little more charitable. Some of those I 
specifically remember as grumblers and fault-finders were actually 
terminally ill and died within a few months or years. They did not feel 
well, and, because they either knew, or did not know, the nature of 
their illness; they vented their wrath on any and all in their path. 
People would avoid them, even to the extent of finding excuses not to 
visit them in their final days. Words of criticism lasted a long time in 
the memory of victims who did not feel they were merited.

So we could place a billboard in Sullivan’s Hollow, or anywhere else for 
that matter, which states: “New Site for Grumbling Business: Apply Now! 
- No Talent, No Brains, No Character Required, Republicans Especially 
Welcome.”