Although school's out, I have not been free from worries about college. Specifically, how to best make use of one's academic abilities to work toward an actual career. Admitting career concerns to academic decisions has always irked me, though. To be sure, I have an interest in fetching a respectable job- then I could finally give big checks to the good guys whenever election season rolls around- but my material ambitions have never been too great. Armed to the crooked teeth with the philosophy necessary to live the good life, acquired political texts only I could find engrossing, a small but growing collection of mangas, and a few soda pops courtesy of the parents, I have need of little more. And the best men to emulate were happy with equally little. Socrates, remember, could barely afford to offer a one mina fine as an alternative punishment to execution. And Our Lord and Savior lived in His Mother's basement for thirty years.

While I have chosen to develop my talents- I expect I would've done so even without my parents' encouragement, but as for filling out all the loan info without Mom's help, that's another story- there remains an undue amount of pressure on high school graduates to shoot for a high-earning job, any high-earning job, even if they couldn't care less about it or the incumbent higher education. In true Lockean spirit, the greatest sin is no longer to put one's talents to ill use, but to leave them idle (Locke, in his Second Treatise, goes on and on about how developed land is ten, and later a hundred times more productive than undeveloped land. This reasoning, which leaves aesthetics and any intrinsic worth to nature aside, was often used to justify the white occupation of Indian lands, which had not been so optimally appropriated by their former owners). While there truly are goods forfeited when a person doesn't aim as "high" as they could given their abilities, we tend to forget the alternative goods to be had when an intelligent, able, moral, logical person takes on a career of a lower order, which they love and in which their good influence will be experienced by others. A job, after all, is like a vocation: choosing the right one is not a science; a lot of it is simply the choice to which a person can give their happiest volition. A dear friend of mine from high school, for instance, chose to work at a local restaurant for at least a few years before doing anything else; now she brightens my day whenever I drop by, a rose in just the right vase. For her and all the other underachieving non-careerists out there, I have penned

Sonnet CXXI

I am entrusted with a flame, by God,
To lighten the consented wont my feet
Are swinging toward to make my times complete.
He gave autonomy His honest nod,
But prods- the talents, small things handled well-
So I might liberally feed the flame,
That it should glow the fiercer, till the same
Lights everyone their way, a helpful Hell.
The compromise will have to be a pale
Rendition of the possible, to send
My feet to any happy, chosen end.
All those, the fewer, who will find my trail,
Encounter truer hopes for they who might
Be navigating with a lesser light.

If I were to give it a title, it would probably be "A Defense of Willful Mediocrity," but that would be too jovial for the tone, minus line 8. I should disclaim that I do not believe such "mediocrity" really requires a "compromise" of God's desires, but nonetheless living well a lesser life is a concept counterintuitive enough to be considered an "unorthodox" way of following the message of the Parable of the Talents. One must always do their best, never letting the Lord's blessings languish wastefully, but on the other hand God can hardly desire these talents be used in making our lives little Hells unto ourselves.

The Ultimate Irony. Last night a mouse somehow infiltrated our home, and scurried into a closet. When we heard Mom's scream, the rest of us put off watching Rocky and prepared to clobber the rodent if it tried to escape as we cleaned the closet out. The task almost complete, but still no sign of him, we came to an old brown bag containing the implements of my dad's childhood Mouse Trap game. "That would've come in handy," I said to a few chuckles, but no sooner had they laughed than my mother shrieked again. The mouse had climbed into the bag of its ow free will, thereby allowing us to trap it in a larger bag and free it outside. The game has been missing several pieces for as long as I've been alive, so I was quite happy to learn that it nonetheless still worked.

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

In other news, it appears that that sweetest of victories is again coming under assault. The enraged self-pitying hedonists of San Francisco just can't let this one go, albeit this time they have the support of a former member of the Bush administration. Their futile fury, which could have been used almost anywhere else to greater ill effect, brings me the highest joy.

For the longest time I could not think up a sonnet for my friend Jen Gonet. Though we hung out almost daily in the SGA office last school year, I never had an ounce of inspiration. And since I've made it my policy to write at least one poem for each (lady) exec, I owed her one. Then just a few days ago, a memory of a picture on her office computer, of her three dogs in St. Patrick's getup, inspired the below. Unfortunately here it's a bit garbled, but you get the idea. As you may have guessed, a second source of inspiration was The Rockford Files:

Sonnet CXX On Jen Gonet's Answering Machine

Dear Jen, the Dáil called about the dogs.
In these days, Irish culture's hit a low.
They need a patriotic icon, so
They had their Dublin office search the blogs,
And from Assumption's, mention came across
Of three stout hounds dressed for St. Patrick's day.
When I described them, never was 'HOORAY'
So well annunciated. At a loss,
They saw it's not in the public domain,
But for that lofty-hatted pooch, they'll pay
€10,000,000 cash, but first, they say,
They're gonna need- they know this is a pain-
Ten thousand right up front (for payments, ease),
So send the money (and the picture) please.

Actually, I haven't seen The Rockford Files since I was little, and those Nigerian prince con artists also deserve some credit. Only problem was, after I gave the sonnet, I learned that the dogs (Henry, Fiona, and Nellie from left to right) actually belong to Meghan Donague, the exec who shared the computer with her. Oh well. Henry still looks dressed to sit in the Dáil, though!

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

Also, I express my happiness at the ordination of thirteen new traditional Catholic priests by His Excellency Bishop Bernard Tissier de Mallerais at the SSPX seminary in Winona. While I necessarily missed out on the festivities, Catholic Family News compiled a video with interviews of some of the young people present (incentive to watch- the first young lady interviewed is completely gorgeous). In light of which, a fitting slogan for the traditionalist movement as a whole might just be

The Traditional Latin Mass:
The choice of a new generation

Except that I'm more of a Coke man, and apparently we're supposed to be boycotting Pepsi.

A few readings I have done recently have me thinking about that gloomiest of ideas, determinism. A three-in-one book review in Modern Age quarterly encouraged conservatives to grant more significance to economic and social changes in charting the course of political history, as opposed to giving almost exclusive import to the parallel history of ideas. He argues the point well in his limited space, but he still rejects genuine determinism to a degree that could comfort the worst pessimist. Meanwhile, in one of the books I am presently reading, Raymond Aron's The Dawn of Universal History, a collection of his mostly 1950s essays on total war, the totalitarian state, and ideology (I originally purchased this one as a college text, but in my effort to get the full money's worth out of it, it's proven a fascinating leisure text), Aron repeats, again and again, that we must beware the temptation to believe that everything which has happened, had to happen, and that the future is predetermined by some factor x.

A great temptation indeed, in an age where widespread a knowledge of mathematics and physics leads some to begrudge mankind recognition of his free will! The news media, for its part, simply revels in the changes to come due to technology and too easy communication. The coverage of the ongoing rioting and protests in response to the Iranian elections credits Twitter and other technologies with making government suppression almost impossible. There are clearly bad things about the Iranian regime (the present cause of discontent, a possibly stolen election, makes one wonder: why didn't the clerical leaders just reject the unacceptable Mousavi in the candidate approval process? For that matter, how came it about that no one did their homework back in 1979, and realized that the creation of a faithful Islamic society, like any political project striving for some higher goal, is hindered and helped by allowing people to elect their leaders?). However, I do not share the reporters' giddiness at the prospect of mass political movements driven by messages of up to 140 characters. At least on blogs such as my own, one has the option of laying out one's reasoning at length; with Twitter, communication without resorting to soundbites and ideological cliches is not even possible. This may perfect the art of speaking in abstract ideology (what the Modern Age reviewer cautioned us to avoid); such a Twitter-powered political order would be a lexocracy, or rule by just a few words. Or in other words, the world as a whole would come to resemble the interior of your local Urban Outfitters. That possibility has to be the ultimate low in the realm of the political.

Are we all doomed to inhabit a society where meaningful communication is stifled by the very ease of interaction, and the prevalence of new technologies favors ever more dubious ideas? Perhaps. At least that seems to be happening with the unrest in Iran. The libertarian, anti-intellectual property Pirate Bay has launched a project to aid the opposition. In such a world, of course, a person could still live the good life, and nurture their mind with worthy letters. I, for one, often gain solace by reading Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture. The monthly, written from a paleoconservative and usually Catholic perspective (the column by Aaron T. Wolf, a Protestant, is jokingly entitled "Heresies"), is everything the weekly National Review should be but isn't. Heavily philosophical, its articles always serve to lift one's head out of the proverbial clouds of Breaking News, celebrity stories, and other varied flashing lights. [Whether one actually agrees with everything or not. How I was irked when editor Thomas Fleming's recent column, "The Good Life," specifically excluded "Rihanna" and "graphic novels," which I assume includes manga, from such a life. I cannot say I never listen to Rihanna, and certainly see nothing wrong with "graphic novels," so long as they are not all one reads. If there is on excellence I have developed, it is the ability to switch from following up on the struggle among the Rozen Maidens at they try to become Alice, the perfect girl and daughter, to the speeches of Zarathustra or the sober observations of Aron, and vice versa. They can all be part of the complete, good life, which Shinku, the fifth doll, exemplifies, since she reads extensively in her spare time. Like most of the Maidens, she uses French phrases on occasion: who knows, maybe she has read Aron as well.)] But such a life, like the Christian life in general, has to be lived in opposition to the world, out of necessity rather than contrarian's preference. And its difficulty can ward off many who might otherwise follow such a life.

Yet, the history of conservatism points to a possible reassurance that all change will not be for the worse. Actually, my happy meditation began a few days ago, when I was standing downtown in the rain for a few minutes. Water is often connected with death and rebirth, sweeping away the present and christening in a baptismal renewal. I thought of how even the decay of organic matter, often sped up by moisture, occurs because of the flourishing of microorganisms. Water universally vivifies, and torrents of revolution and technology seem to be equally indiscriminate in their effects, even if the most obvious consequences benefit the advance of liberalism. I mean, though industrialization and the French Revolution sped the decline of the old order in the West, it also spurred the birth of conservatism as a reaction. Edmund Burke, the first modern conservative, could never have written his Reflections without a Revolution to think over (happily, Reflections is on the required readings list for one of my classes in the Fall, assigned by the same great prof who selected Aron). The upheaval, destructive and undesirable as it was, made reactionaries aware of the patrimony they were defending, allowing them to understand, and therefore combat effectively, the revolutionary forces and innovations threatening the traditional order. This may be a briefly elaborated reassurance after my reasonable griping, but I can't predict what form such a new awareness would take. Maybe (to speak of society more broadly and not merely the political order) the ever growing disregard for grammar and spelling, not to mention the bubonic plethora of smiley faces used in lieu of words to express one's mood, will lead some to a greater appreciation of syntax, diction, and other elements important to a language. The future of will probably not be quite so glorious as the correspondents at CNN imagine, nor should we expect so a dark night as monochrome as good Thomas Fleming awaits.

A silly, if still good, idea I gave expression to a few days ago has brought to the fore, once again, modern man's misapprehensions about government. The news was on, coverage of the latest in the Carrie Prejean saga. Bored by the rank partisanship, my mind wandered a bit, and I said dreamily, "She should run for some office; it would be a waste for the conservative movement if she didn't take advantage of her celebrity." The thought did not go over well; my critic at hand noted her lack of political experience, and apparent unfitness for public office. I stood stone still for a long while and thought over my intuition.

The objection to my playful idea is rooted in the belief that government is no more than an efficient means to ends that individuals and interests cannot so easily get alone. To be sure, the efficient part of government is its Reason for Being; as Aristotle says, political organization began for the sake of mere life. But to say that government's only role is go-getting is a pertinent modern error. The 19th Century thinker Walter Bagehot, in his The English Constitution, speaks of government as having both efficient and dignified parts. In Great Britain, the efficient part is manifested by Parliament, and the dignified by the Monarchy (some republics, such as Germany, also cleanly separate these parts of government by having a figurehead president and a powerful chancellor or prime minister), while in America the distinction is not incorporated into our political forms. Not that it needs to be, but the invisibility of the dignified part tends to leave it unappreciated; many view it as simple showiness or nonsense, and not as integral to government itself. Bagehot excoriates republicans who would abolish the monarchy at length, for forgetting that government is not exclusively about policy and action. Our modern emphasis on business, however, abhors seemingly illogical and needless grandeur and dignity in government.

That's not all immediately relevant, of course, but it does strike at my conviction that something, something good and human, is missing if government is no more than legislation and the enforcement thereof. Even Machiavelli, the first modern political scientist and the mastermind of the modern, commercial state, admits of a deficiency in a regime which merely fosters prosperity. In The Prince, he enjoins the ruler to

at suitable periods amuse his people with festivities and spectacles.

Given Machiavelli's pragmatic motivations, this implies that his commercialistic regime will, if it does not entertain its people, find them restless and dissatisfied. In spite of the emphasis on wealth and moneymaking!

Taken together, these insights from two of modernity's greatest political minds give a taste of what my intuition was aiming for. [At this juncture I am reminded of the greatest weakness of conservatism: the difficulty of communicating the rationale for even the most commonsense of its convictions. Unlike liberalism, which seeks to engineer society according to a rational plan, conservatism relies heavily upon traditional wisdom and the authority of our forefathers; even though the objective health of society is the end of conservatism, the way a given conservative idea contributes to that health is discoverable only after a much more difficult investigation than the liberal needs to argue the superiority of his ideas. The intuition comes first, the rationale second if ever, since those most attuned to a healthy, good society tend to be rural and less educated in letters. As the present difficulty suggests, I consider my Prejean idea, funny as it is, to be seriously conservative.] How, you might wonder, are bread and circus connected with the reverence and respect due a good politician? Here it might be helpful to use the old likening of the city to the family, and the government to parents and elders, a favorite analogy of mine and one suggested by government's origins. Think of the comedian/grandfather archetype. Our elders do, and should, command respect by their very wisdom and demeanor. Often, this respect is increased and not diminished by the rich sense of humor they have gained over a long life, where a happy survival is often incumbent upon not taking things too seriously. They joke like the class clown, and are revered like the professor.

That sort of disposition is a great virtue in individuals; should not our politicians have the same qualities? Remember, in the Medieval/premodern view of politics, rulers were not merely expected to represent their subjects- they were supposed to embody them. This is close to the sense in which Louis XIV famously said, "L'etat, c'est moi". Additionally, it is also related to the phrase "the body politic;" in a sense, the king's corporeal body was the embodiment of his people. If our aim is to be rule by the best (in Greek aristoi, from which comes the word aristocracy, means "the best"), should not we seek out politicians who have a comic side to them, those whom we might find pleasant and amusing? True, I haven't investigated whether Miss Prejean has that Coulterian sense of humor with which socialites make good use of at cocktail parties- mine was an intuition as I've said- but there just seems to be something funny about her person, after these late weeks of amusing political wrangling under the guise of beauty pageantry, which has itself made her fit for a visible role in our politics.

To the objection that she has no experience with the gruntwork of writing legislation and so on, I answer that making new laws is only a secondary duty of politicians, especially in this day and age. If the end of politicking is a just, stable regime which has no grave deficiencies needing to be addressed- it would be absurd if the aim of political efforts were any regime but a basically good one not requiring frequent tailoring and attention- then the most important job of a politician is the simpler one, voting down bad legislation which will make the regime worse. The requirement for fulfilling that duty well is simply a good moral formation to guide one's votes. Miss Prejean has amply demonstrated her possession of just such a sound conscience. While our regime is anything but moral, actually encouraging vice all too often, and thus is in want of some good laws, the dialectic of democratic republics tends toward ever greater corruption and evil; I would be well satisfied with a politician who placed an emphasis on resisting every new bad idea. One is reminded of how Ron Paul earned the moniker "Dr. No" from his voting record.

My intuition would perhaps have a better place in a monarchial system, where our dear Carrie could simply marry a prince, and delight us with her good looks and virtuously simple manners for years to come, without entering the somewhat dirty realm of practical leadership. But since we don't have a royal family, she should consider running for Senate. As former Miss California and a resident of the same state, she could try her hand at winning either Sen. Boxer's or Sen. Feinstein's seat. With her good looks and radiance (I wouldn't put it past her to win 2/3 of the male vote), she may, when she's old enough, be the Golden State's best hope of unseating one of the just mentioned incumbent undesirables.

While a final review of A Confederacy of Dunces, so strongly recommended to me, must necessarily wait, I am highly impressed. Though I was almost turned off by the first few chapters, I have taken a liking to Mr. Ignatius J. Reilly. As for this being a quixotic tale, he also has something of a Sancho about him- unlike Don Quixote, a moral model, Reilly lies and invents freely, as much out of laziness as anything. Or put more favorably, where Cervantes' hero is immaculate, Reilly shares in the despicableness of his oppressors. Much like Quixote, his insights are profound and expressed often. His foil, however, is not madness, but a blind cynicism and inability to see good in others, and therefore his failings and wrongs done are his responsibility, and not the result of forces beyond his control.

Some of those just-mentioned insights are worth repeating for their sharpness. His description of his former girlfriend Myrna Minkoff, with whom he exchanges antagonistic letters, depicts the essential liberal with photographic accuracy:

Myrna, you see, believed that all humans living south and west of the Hudson River were illiterate cowboys or- even worse- White Protestants, a class of humans who as a group specialize in ignorance, cruelty, and torture...

...When I failed to agree with her braying and babbling, she told me that I was obviously anti-Semitic. Her logic was a combination of half-truths and clichés, her worldview a compound of misconceptions deriving from a history of our nation as written from the perspective of a subway tunnel.

Sounds like a Northamptoner, though we don't have any subways. I could repeat more, but my place is just to offer sneak peeks from this particular garden of delights. Reilly, except that he is as obese as I am thin, reminds me of myself in several spots; he seems to have intuited a reactionary thought paradigm which much resembles my own. I was particularly happy to learn his thoughts on the most desirable form of government. His mother, Mrs. Reilly, asks,

"I read someplace in the paper where they got plenty communiss in college."

"Well, fortunately I didn't meet them... What I want is a good, strong monarchy with a tasteful and decent king who has some knowledge of theology and geometry and to cultivate a Rich Inner Life."

"A king? You want a king?... I never heard of nobody wanted a king."

Neither would I have heard of anyone else wanting a king, I expect, were it not for the Internet. I am almost surprised that this book has not been more spoken of in, and helped to enlarge, American monarchist circles, given that Reilly is so able an exponent of monarchism. I suppose his admirability is somewhat impeded by his appearance. Sadly, looking like an obese Mario is a serious obstacle to renown and popularity, even for fictional characters.

Only a few before those aforementioned European Parliament results come in, and things look good. Rather than spend time detailing the glorious Party for Freedom victory in Holland (the results were released early, illegally), and the yet-to-be-released-but-certain gains for the UK Independence Party and British National Party across the channel, however, I am in the mood to expound upon a matter of negligible relevance to anything once more. Perhaps the hearty dynamism with which I type the following is best captured with the assistance of these lolcats to the right.

Many times I, like many moderns I expect, have wondered: what is the best TV show opening of all time? Among serious contenders I'm familiar with, the winner is (without thinking too hard, or having to think too hard) the Bonanza opening, which has graced TV Land for a good many years. Not too fancy, yet respectable: a perfect display of frontier hospitality. Free of flash or fluster, it is indeed a show of elegant manliness. These qualities ensure that the opening, as with the long-running show, will be remembered for generations, and not fizzle out like a fashionable firecracker.

Thus spoke sound reason, at least before She was silenced by the real winner. As Pascal said, "The heart has its reasons that reaso cannot know," and in this case it seemed the usual criteria for a classic were found wanting. Verily, some few, a very few TV show openings are so spectacular, such perfect phantasmagoria, that the memory of their brilliance will hold every subsequent generations in awe. When I first happened upon the intro to- you guessed it!- Rozen Maiden: Träumend, the second season of the Rozen Maiden anime (träumend is German for dreaming), my immediate reaction was,
"This
has
EVERYTHING!"
In that sense it's sort of like an animated Ulysses, only enjoyable and clocking in at a mere 1:30. In which time, set to Ali Project's "Domain of the Holy Girl," it's hard to dream up anything else the opening could use. In those ninety second, it features: roses on arabesques of vines; a cel shaded shadow metamorphosing into Shinku; a church, crosses, and a graveyard in the background (whatever the Japanese may wish, Japan will become a Catholic country, since it's already aesthetically wedded to Christianity; the artists can't even resist decorating the villain Suigintou with the gothic upside down cross); a maiden being pulled away as by the hand of machinating Fortune or Death; broken, abandoned dolls; a crescent moon, candle silhouettes, text violetwashing the screen on three sides; our lovely doll Shinku lying in state as the song says,


I lie in a bed of a million roses
The scent is more fragrant than my clouded dream
Am I alive?

thereby juxtaposing an arousing image to her maidenly purity. Then she opens her eyes. Then there's STILL a fine thorn scrollwork; Shinku standing undaunted on a cliff edge; the her asleep again within a textile mill matrix of silken ribbons; a dark cloaked figure among a garden of crystals, who unveils herself as Barasuishou, a doll with a cute flower eyepatch; swinging pendulums; sisters Suiseiseki (my favorite, and the origin of the desu Internet meme) and Souseiseki before a stained glass cross; Hinaichigo and Kanaria offering each other roses, as they sit on a chessboard with a nearby gondola; and finally Jun, gallant and well-attired, embracing Shinku and then sitting down to tea with her. Yes, all that: you really must see it to believe it!

Unfortunately, the English subtitled video only has 762 views as I write this. And about forty of those are just me, no joke. Since I have yet to read the manga volumes 5-8, which the show corresponds to, I'm holding off on watching Rozen Maiden: Träumend until I acquire them. A painful wait, but one made bearable by watching that fantabulous intro over and over again...

Like many politicos, I am sure, I shall spend the next few evenings awaiting the results of the European Parliament elections, which began today and are to be released on June 7, to see how the fortunes of my beloved far Right shape up. While elections in the United States of America are so organized as to give smaller parties little to no chance of victory, in Europe, at least at the federal level, seats are awarded somewhat proportionally, giving non-mainstream parties a chance. Although the EU Parliament (rightly) has little power, this makes its elections exponentially more interesting.

No heads of state will change or roll when the votes are all in, and in many ways EU elections serve only as indicators of the political situations in Europe's constituent states. Naturally, I cannot partake in overseas votes, but how I wish I could! Must feel like voting Constitution Party without guilt.

A recent purchase I made, a veritable vote with my too slender wallet, served the causes of monarchy and subsidiarity half way around the world, and undermined the New World Order in one fell swoop. After twenty days- which seemed like twenty Odyssean years- an order I'd made from the Royal Mint of Hutt River arrived in a small mailer with $9.05 in Hutt River stamps affixed and cancelled. The coin, a $30 piece commemorating the 38th anniversary of the Principality's successful secession from Austrailia (they issue commemoratives nearly every year), features the alluring mirror fields and frosted details common to proofs, a portrait of Prince Leonard on the obverse, and the coat of arms on the reverse. Best of all, His Royal Highness included a signed note on regal stationery from his typewriter. This, then, is my first personalized letter from a head of state. Take a look at the loot:












































Neat, to say the least. Silly? You could say that too; I can't refrain from laughing hysterically when I daydream of mirconations and de facto monarchs like Prince Leonard exercising their dominion over tiny areas, and haughtily denied recognition by the United Nations (which, by the way, doesn't even recognize disputed but clearly sovereign Turkish Cyprus- nationhood is apparently quite an exclusive commodity for all the Wilsonian talk of self-determination). But, like many who don't share all my oddball views, I'm so fed up with the modern world that I believe we need something altogether different that the New/Liberal World Order. If our current politicians aren't hearing our concerns, why not, as with micronations, get a fresh set of countries to replace the old ones if we can't make them better? Again, an outlandish proposition, especially considering that the Principality isn't even a specifically Christian or conservative (minus the otherwise impossible upgrade from a nominal to an absolute monarchy). But remember, the Middle Ages, the finest epoch of Christendom, was characterized by the dissolution of the monolithic Roman Empire into a plethora of much smaller kingdoms and their dependencies. The change, a response to necessities rather than actively planned, produced a feudal system wholly grounded upon natural bonds and fealties. I'm not saying we'll get all that good stuff from Hutt River, but if the tiny nation proves profitable, it will create an incentive for other ambitious souls to try their hands at independent statecraft. Should the Sancho Panzas of the world succeed, the result may be a salutary arrangement of small, independent states unburdened by all the legal red tape plaguing the established states of the West. From a humanistic point of view, wouldn't it be nicer to a friendly local potentate who knew you and your concerns by name, and had no need for layers of bodyguards and insulation from the public? Now, I'm not saying all this will happen either, but for those select few who live in micronations, who knows, it just might! From what I've read, the local aborigines are quite friendly with HRH Prince Leonard, and besides since it's a small country in the middle of nowhere, no need to pay taxes for roads! If you like subsidiarity, as Catholics should, you'll love the Principality of Hutt River (its economy is even chiefly agricultural; I'll bet G. K. Chesterton, recently recommended to me, would be all over Hutt River were he around today).

Maybe my next step should be to acquire a coin from the Principality of Sealand, located on this artificial island in the English channel. But since the Principality presently offers no new coins, for which reason a 1994 issue is shown, maybe I could settle for a 40th Anniversary mug.