grw@fortune.UUCP (Glenn Wichman) (02/18/84)
Someone has to dedicate new ships. Let's face it, celebration
& ritual are very entrenched aspects of our society. The British
have very wisely seperated them from running the country by setting
up a seperate section of the government to handle all the social
aspects. Imagine how much more time Ronnie could devote to running
the country if he didn't have to go to all those purely decorative
dinners! It would probably be quite cost-effective to pay a couple
people some outlandish sum just to take those burdens off the president.
Also, since they have prestige but no power, they are much safer people
to send to funerals and stuff.
So we need to find a couple of interesting Americans who
aren't doing anything else important right now and appoint them
Grand Poohbah and Grande Poohbess. How about Alice Cooper and
Ruth Gordon? No, but seriously, Yul Brenner and Katherine Hepburn
would make much more sense.
-Glenngrw@fortune.UUCP (Glenn Wichman) (02/18/84)
Sorry, one thing I forgot to mention. At Andropov's funeral,
Ronnie didn't have time to go (he was too busy running the country --
see my previous article). In his place he sent George Bush, who
is unexciting. The Soviets almost certainly felt put down by not
getting the Top Guy at the funeral. However, certainly a country
could receive no greater honor than the presence of the Grand Poohbah
and Grande Poohbess themselves! Bad feelings would be alleviated and
World War III averted!
-Glenndecot@cwruecmp.UUCP (Dave Decot) (02/19/84)
Ronald Reagan makes an excellent King of the United States, with his magnetic charisma, touching speeches, and great black-tie parties. Now, shouldn't we get somebody to adequately perform executive functions? Dave Decot "Californians are people, too." decvax!cwruecmp!decot (Decot.Case@rand-relay)
richard@sequent.UUCP (02/21/84)
>> ... Imagine how much more time Ronnie could devote to running >> the country if he didn't have to go to all those purely decorative >> dinners! ... >> >> -Glenn Great Idea! Let's get someone to have *ALOT* more functions for Ronnie to attend! I believe the less amount of time a president spends presiding, the better off we all are. ___________________________________________________________________________ The preceding should not to be construed as the statement or opinion of the employers or associates of the author. It is solely the belief... from the confused and bleeding fingertips of ...!sequent!richard
aeq@pucc-h (Jeff Sargent) (02/21/84)
Yes, Royalty serves a purpose. In Robert A. Heinlein's book "Double Star",
the Emperor remarks to the (caretaker) Supreme Minister (or rather, to the
man temporarily impersonating him):
"I relieve your office of a lot of tiresome cornerstone-laying and
parade-watching, you know."
--
-- Jeff Sargent
{allegra|ihnp4|decvax|harpo|seismo|teklabs|ucbvax}!pur-ee!pucc-h:aeq
"Buy the truth and do not sell it; gain wisdom, knowledge, and understanding."spoo@utcsrgv.UUCP (Suk Lee) (02/21/84)
The British didn't "wisely separate"
the true rulers from the real ones!
The Queen got there because way back
when her ancesters were meaner/smarter/
stronger than the rest of the clowns
around, they set themselves up as head
of the shop. Now, billyuns of years
later, they have no power because the
rest of us got smarter, but not smart
enough to kick them out. They're
figureheads, but they still own a
*HUGE* part of the country. And if
you ask me, it's all the better that
Ronnie wastes time at all those
dinners. Could you imagine what would
happen if he had all that extra time
to "run" the country????????????
The mind boggles. )-:
--
From the pooped paws of:
Suk Lee
..!{decvax,linus,allegra,ihnp4}!utcsrgv!spooleif@erix.UUCP (Leif Samuelsson) (02/21/84)
Glenn Wichmann suggested that kings and queens (the royal
kind) would be good substitutes for the president when
it comes to representations at funerals and such.
I agree, to a point. The royal family in Sweden serves two
purposes. First of all, they make the best possible PR for
Sweden abroad, helping the export and tourist industries. Also,
they provide jobs for all the journalists working for the
scandal magazines in Sweden and Germany.
But, and this is important, they are never involved in
political matters. The king was not sent to Andropov's funeral,
instead our prime minister, Olof Palme, went as usual.
(This time he had to directly from his controversial tour in
Central America).
Leif Samuelsson
LM ERICSSON Tel. Co.
S-126 25 STOCKHOLM
SWEDEN
Phone: +46 8 7199734
UUCP: ..{decvax, philabs}!mcvax!enea!erix!leifmike@erix.UUCP (Mike Williams) (02/22/84)
You in the USA don't realize how lucky you are. Kings and queen may be fine
for opening buildings, bridges, after dinner speeches etc but they have one
drawback - they don't go away after max two terms of office.
Europe has official royalty in several countries. Maybe we could fix up some
sort of deal with the USA. When we get fed up we could swap for a few months
so we all learn what we really are missing.
Mike Williams
{decvax!philabs}!mcvax!enea!erix!mikedebray@sbcs.UUCP (Saumya Debray) (02/23/84)
<gah!>
The consensus on the net seems to be that the principal function of royalty
is to attend parades, inaugurate bridges and generally look pretty. For
this, we seem to be willing to spend an awful lot of money keeping these
glorified PR hacks comfortable!
--
Saumya Debray
Dept. of Computer Science
SUNY at Stony Brook
uucp:
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!allegra > !sbcs!debray
{teklabs, hp-pcd, metheus}!ogcvax /
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