The Little World

I do not know if Eric Cartman was a scale modeller. If so, I should like to have seen the models he chose to build. Police cars, pie wagons, and wide-bodied jets come to mind, but that may just me being mean.

In any case, Eric was portrayed as a child with a firm grasp of ” Authoritah “. As opposed to authority, command, or responsibility, ” Authoritah ” as the exercise of naked power while still clothed. A dominance of species often higher in the evolutionary scale – though that may not have prevented them from being lower on the food chain. Something has to explain Cartman…

We rarely encounter this in the scale model world…aside from the club scene, contests and exhibitions, hobby suppliers, casual acquaintances, and forums and magazines. These are hells rife with savagery, but otherwise all is serene.

You may point a finger at me and demand that I justify myself. I try not to oppress the masses – not so much from a sense of decency as the lack of time and resources. You can only be mean to a certain number of people in the week before it all becomes too much. Even a tyrant has a right to time off.

And it is not as if they do not ask for it. If they are going to sit quietly and glue pieces of plastic together they deserve all they get. Mostly they get stuck to the table.

I am kind, caring, and reasonable. I’ve read ” Kind, Caring, and Reasonable ” by Genghis Khan and it made perfect sense. I have a motto: ” If I have not dominated someone by bed time, I’ll stay up late. “. I rarely need to go past 10:30.

The moral aspect of this all is simple to understand – no matter who you are you have a social duty to your fellow modellers. If you cannot improve their model for them by wrenching parts off and re-fixing them, you can at least question their decal placement. If you are prepared to hint that the colour scheme is totally wrong and the workmanship shoddy – that the subject is trite and the execution trivial – you may take your place in the pantheon of scale model gods. With luck they will sacrifice a kit to you now and again; the odour of burning styrene rising from the altar is most refreshing.