This day in history:
Minutes before giving a speech on a campaign stop in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Theodore Roosevelt is shot in an assassination attempt.
The would-be assassin’s bullet is slowed down after travelling through a steel eyeglass case and the folded, fifty page speech he intended to give, stopping in his chest. Realizing that he wasn’t coughing up blood, Roosevelt figured he was well enough to go ahead and deliver his speech rather than rush to the hospital.
He spoke for the next 90 minutes, opening with the words:
“Ladies and gentlemen, I don’t know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot; but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose.”
Doctors deemed it too risky to remove the bullet, and Roosevelt carried it with him inside his body for the rest of his life.
October 14, 1912 - 100 years ago today
Far be it for me to dispute what happened 100 years ago, but according to most accounts (including his son, Kermit’s), the first doctors who took those initial x-rays WANTED to remove the bullet.
From what I’ve read, Roosevelt asked for a second opinion after the recommendation, and made it very clear that if removing the bullet would in any way endanger his life, and was not causing any more damage where it was, he absolutely was not going to put himself in the same situation the McKinley ended up in - where the doctors were far more harmful (and deadly!) than the wound itself.
In the end, he of course left it where it was, and while he didn’t go on to be president again, he did complete a bloody hell of an Amazonian excursion after he recovered.
Fucking lad. I mean he was a god-awful president and a racist asshole, but possibly the only man who could ever beat Chuck Norris in a fistfight.
School Thus Far
…has been pretty goddamn tiring. Everyone said the third year would be hard, but I never really expected it to kill me. So far I’ve gotten no more than four hours of sleep on any night, and am rocking a pretty severe caffeine addiction. This is two weeks in. Starting next week, judo meets at six AM, and I wonder how long I’ll be able to hold onto my sanity.
This laptop is weirdly representative of how how I feel. Drab, older than it really is, unchanging. Pulling along sluggishly, the background locked into a painfully monotonous blue. It might be the worst shade of that colour I’ve ever seen. If being stabbed had a hue, that would probably be it.
Anyway, I’m just trying to pull through. It’s been two weeks and I haven’t lost or chewed a single pencil, I’ve turned in every assignment, and I’ve stayed alive. Good enough, right? I’ll get used to it, right?
Just kill me now.
-KO
Let me not marr the perfect dream, in hopes that it may come again.
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Back again.
Hello, all zero followers. Back again. Probably going to be here more often now that the school has so graciously given me a laptop. Anyway. That is all.
-KO
This I believe to be true: that we are all sedate. We will never grow beyond where we are allowed to be. We will never expand beyond the small space allotted to us. And who is the master of this lottery? I think I know.
Crepuscular Old Man. An early Dali painting I love. It’s so haunting. You won’t see his early stuff very often, but I feel it carries just as much emotion and oddity as his later and more well-known art. I’m a huge fan of his work. If you ever refer to the Persistence of Memory as “Melting Clocks” I will disembowel you.
Challenge.
Here’s a challenge for you. When I say you, I mean nobody, as I currently have no followers. But assuming I ever get any and they care to read these early posts, here is your challenge:
Find out why I am called Kid Omega. Now, a quick google search and peruse through Wikipedia will land you on the surface answer, but the meaning lies deeper.
It is inspired by the obvious, but relies not on anarchy. Its base is in confidence. What is Kid Omega’s definition as a person, not a symbol? If you can answer this, you will know why that is my name. Further than that, you will know why it is so important to me.
This requires thought. You won’t find the answer in any search result, any library, any tongue. It is not a definition. Consider the implications of being a chaotic youth. How does that apply to me?
First satisfactory answer wins something. Go.
