Me,Myself and Guns

A year or so ago, I was talking to someone about a fellow in a popular reality show about alligator hunters in Louisiana.  We share the same name, but  he lives in a homemade shack in the Bayou and lives by hunting and fishing.  Someone chimed in with "isn't it great that we live in a country where you have the freedom to live that way?"   In fact I think it is.  Looking at the success of the dozens of "off the grid" shows and books and movies, Others probably do too. Looking at the number of "survival" shows, I think many of us wish we had the skills and the opportunity -- and the nerve.

"I love the power of guns and the elegance and precision of the engineering, especially in the revolvers and side-by-side shotguns. The machining is so fine, the fit of the parts so precise, the movement of the parts so smooth. The gun itself can be a work of art, whatever you might think about its purpose, usefulness or danger. For an admirer of the mechanical craft, a well-made gun is a thing of beauty."

Juan F. Thompson: Stories I tell Myself

I really have no recollection of it as I was less than a year old in 1945 after the War ended,  but my Father, still a naval officer, and my young, city girl mother would take target pistols and go out to a creek and shoot at bottles in the water.  There apparently was little  else to do in that  remote area of Northern California and since my dad grew up in Wyoming, that's the sort of thing a boy and his girl did on a sunny weekend. If you've never done it, you'd be surprised at how relaxing it is.  But I was exposed to the sound of gunfire early in life and like an old  gun dog.  I've never been gun shy.

The quote is from Juan Thompson, the son of the famous and notorious Hunter S. Thompson; Gonzo journalist, Colorado ranch owner, Liberal Activist and aficionado of recreational shooting.  One of the few ways they could endure each other's presence was while shooting or cleaning firearms.

My dad collected antiques and antique firearms for many years.  He still has some of them, hanging on the wall of his den.  Few if any, are operable and those which are,  haven't been fired since he acquired them 50 years ago. They accompany an interest in 18th and 19th century American history which we have shared, but I'm interested in fine mechanisms in general, tools, cameras, knives. Vintage motor vehicles:  I have and have had a whole lot of those things as well as some firearms, most of which are historical items.

When I dare to mention that I have  perhaps 75 vintage cameras: finely made and finished metal objects by Leica, Minox, Hasselblad, Linhof, Nikon, Rollei, etc. most people think it's odd to cherish those obsolete things.  My hundred or so pocket knives make me only a little bit more so, but guns?  Face it, after years of demonization, after a long, steady and often virulent association with madmen and especially rampage shooters there's a stigma, attached not only to me, but to the objects themselves. I'm not a guy nostalgic about things, I'm a menace, a potential murderer and madman. It was not always so.

When I went off to summer camp and when I became a Boy Scout in the mid 1950's one of the primary lessons one was expected to learn was  how to shoot safely. It was one of those "pioneer skills" one was urged to acquire. Like making fires or shelters, it was a useful survival skill and a discipline akin to archery or fly fishing.  When I visited Colonial Williamsburg in those years I fell in love with the handmade flintlocks being made with antique tools and I never lost my affection.  I still have a couple which have,not been fired since we sold the farm 35 years ago.  It would be tough to part with them.

But the focus of life in this not-so-brave new world is Not the world where people live off the land and with nature, it's urban.  Our paradigm, our standard American is urban, works in an office. Perhaps he commutes, but he's far more Bourgeois than Bayou in fact if not in appearance.  He's more likely to be surrounded by huge numbers of people all the time.  When he thinks of something that shoots lead and goes bang, he thinks of bloody crime and wanton destruction.  He's been taught that association all his life despite endless TV and movies where guns are universally there. He has fear and all out of proportion to the risks, yet there's a titillating fascination. He's no longer the man of open spaces or endless forests and mountains for whom living as he pleases is a matter of pride and joy.  We're suspicious of such men these days. Suspicious and contemptuous of his unfamiliarity with the urban slang, the street culture, the popular fears and obsessions.  In the city, guns are sinister things.

Are we in greater danger of being shot in our daily lives than we once were?  Probably not.  But fear is in the air. Fear is in the marketing of everything from food to constitutional law.  It's not the Daniel Boons, the Meriwether Lewis and William Clark we Liberals admire, it's the deliberately helpless passive vegan gluten avoider who won't own a car, is terrified of "preservatives and cooked food and is made nervous by a Swiss Army knife..  It's the guy who thinks of cars not as liberators but polluters, it's the mother who thinks of cars only in terms of crashes and their survival and safety above liberty..

How much of our changing perception of safety and civilization are really changes in us, not in circumstances?   Is the fear that someone will shoot us today really on the same rational level as the fear that headache is brain cancer or that pain a heart attack or that we're likely to get diabetes or any of the things that are certain to kill us?  How more likely is it that Mom in her SUV will kill me than some crazed movie theater shootist?  A lot. Are we after Detroit to stop selling these things?   How much gun violence is alcohol violence?   I could go on, but not one person anywhere will consider his founding rears or attitudes and no one wants to leave the safety of his opinions and certainties and so we have more anger, more shouting, more malediction and denunciation  and more fear. Fear that makes us line up to buy more guns and fear that makes us terrified about other people who own them. Fear that makes us dress up the story, makes us frame, makes us present things tactically rather than objectively. It's fear that will end our idealism and our love of democracy and our passion for freedom and the ability to live the way we want rather than the way some corporation wants.

I have a dream.  No really I have it often and usually I'm walking on  a dirt path in what looks like my old farm or crossing that ruined stone bridge .  I'm always carrying a rifle, like the "boys" rifle I had a lifetime ago, or that 1873 Remington I never actually fired and I'm at peace with the world as I never am in reality.   I don't have the farm or those rifles any more or the dog who sometimes appears.  I'm afraid I don't have the country where those things still happen, but the dream never dies..

THE PRICE WE PAY

Another shooting spree in America and so another year of violence and death begins. http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2016/02/21/reports-gunman-kills-least-6-michigan/80694468/

There are those who want to believe that our country is not getting more violent, we are just becoming more aware due to the internet. This is a lie and here are the statistics:

( I eliminated any domestic motivated killings and I have not counted the wounded which is some cases was a mind numbing number)

During the whole of the 1970s there were 3 mass killings leaving 12 dead. This does not include the Kent State massacre or any other government sanctioned shootings of that era. US population in 1970 was 203 million.

During the 1980s there were 8 mass shootings, including 5 committed by postal workers (coining the term "going postal") 58 dead. Population in 1980 was 226 million

During the 1990s there were 19 mass shootings leaving 130 dead. ( this included the Columbine shooting that left 28 dead, mostly high school students).

Population in 1990 was 248 million.

During the 2000s there were 21 mass shootings including the worst one in US history (VA Tech - Hokies forever RIP - 58 people killed, mostly college students) A total of 150 dead.

Population in 2000 was 281 million.

Too many people are dying, they are someone's children, someone's Mom or Dad, brother or sister. For every number in the dead column is a name and a face and a life cut short.

We have to do better. We have to do better in vetting those who are buying guns and ammo. We have to do better at catching up the mentally ill before they reach a critical state. We have to do better in this country to be compassionate and inclusive of all our citizens. We need to stop shutting people out, of our lives, of society, of community. This is a complex trend that is escalating and will not be solved by any one intervention. We can't just add more gun laws without addressing mental health and hate and prejudice. Many of these shootings were motivated by hatred of religious sects, gender, orientation, race, exclusion. Hate that is fostered in unstable minds by flaming rhetoric and twisted doctrine and escalates in isolation. Interestingly, in the 1970s there began a process of deinstitutionalizing mental patients by closing pysch hospitals and defunding many mental health programs. Today it is difficult to get mental health services for those who are ill and perhaps homeless and unemployed. We tend to ignore unstable behavior we see in our communities - someone else's problem, not ours. We are quiet on the verbal and physical attacks on those in our society who are being targeted, be it for their religion, sexual orientation, etc. And each year we pay the price. If not your friend or relative this year maybe some time in the next 5 years you will be affected by a mass shooting, losing someone you know and love.

We really have to do better

Brilliant, Just Brilliant!

I wonder what the world "Brilliant" means in our time. Lately I've heard it applied to people who insist we drill enthusiastically for oil in the midst of a glut which has disrupted the world economy. I've heard it applied to a mind convinced the Great Pyramid is full of wheat, to a candidate who thinks  that the Constitution allows us to outlaw a religion and round up its adherents. I heard another talk about winning "for the greater glory of God."  I've heard all sorts of puzzling words and I might speculate that things have become identified with their opposites, not only in our popular usage but in matters of law.

Not only does shall not mean must, but the strict interpretation of the Constitution's intent according to a prominent legal mind is to praise God and  it never was intended to protect the citizen from the requirements of a religion not of his own choosing.  Nor should the government grant as much freedom to those of non-established beliefs as it does to the favored faiths. I'm talking here about the brilliant legal mind of Antonin Scalia.

"I think the main fight is to dissuade Americans from what the secularists are trying to persuade them to be true: that the separation of church and state means that the government cannot favor religion over non-religion… We do Him [God] honor in our pledge of allegiance, in all our public ceremonies. There’s nothing wrong with that. It is in the best of American traditions, and don’t let anybody tell you otherwise. I think we have to fight that tendency of the secularists On this day, when we’re celebrating our constitutional heritage, I urge you to be faithful to that heritage – to impose on our fellow citizens only the restrictions that are there in the Constitution, not invent new ones, not to invent the right because it’s a good idea.o impose it on all of us through the Constitution."

He's concerned here with the argument that having an official US religious oath is legal because of a tradition from the 1950's and that those who object to acknowledging someone elses god as America's official god need to be "fought." We need, says he, to persuade people that the prohibition against the government taking a position on one religion or another, is something else -- something that favors one religion or category of religions over another according to the acceptability of its beliefs. If you have a god, you're OK, if you have something else; a philosopher, a hero, a stone tablet an idol or an ethical principle. If you have faith in the teachings of the Dharma and the Buddha to lead you to the extinction of your ego -- if you have the body of science and the blood of mathematics within you, that doesn't count. Secular views are not protected because it's not a religion unless we officially establish it.  Establishment clause?  Maybe you're not Brilliant!

So OK, we can't establish a religion, but we can establish its tenets, myths and superstitions because, well, it's traditional and it's all our responsibility to honor a God we may not believe in -- and honoring God is a good thing because the Constitution says so, doesn't it?  So making my kids bow to your god and have an allegiance to it and perform public ceremonies honoring it is within the government's power and not within my power to prevent. Yes, indeed, the government may function as an instrument of worship, and of course that's the original intent of the Constitution, never mind what its creators said. A fine legal mind indeed. This is the incisive, sharp-edged razor that tells us so often that the United States is based on Christianity and therefore its laws must be interpreted, not by the firmly secular writers' intentions but by some ecclesiastical kind of ventriloquism where Tony's God speaks through the law. A brilliant mind indeed,  if dishonest and a bit stupid.

Its a word game. It's equivocation, it's a trick. It's flim-flam.  It's taking a theistic belief to be a religion and another belief to be the antithesis instead of an equal alternative. It's a deceptive way to call one belief legitimate and another not. Neither is actually constitutional. It's our right to have a government with no religious affiliation. Preaching from the bench is Judicial affiliation with a religion. It's unconstitutional.

"On this day, when we’re celebrating our constitutional heritage, I urge you to be faithful to that heritage – to impose on our fellow citizens only the restrictions that are there in the Constitution, not invent new ones, not to invent the right because it’s a good idea."

Apparently some of us - people like Jefferson and Madison have invented a provision that forbids the government to say one belief, one idea, understanding or philosophical orientation is the official government one and informs our laws. No, don't look at that piece of parchment, you're not qualified to understand it because you're not an official State priest like Scalia. The government never guaranteed you freedom of anything. This is not the Bill of Rights you're looking for.

"God assumed from the beginning that the wise of the world would view Christians as fools…and He has not been disappointed. Devout Christians are destined to be regarded as fools in modern society. We are fools for Christ’s sake. We must pray for courage to endure the scorn of the sophisticated world. If I have brought any message today, it is this: Have the courage to have your wisdom regarded as stupidity. Be fools for Christ. And have the courage to suffer the contempt of the sophisticated world."

So let's simply ignore the "sophisticated" world - God loves a foolish judge. God smiles when the Judge lies. Let's tell ourselves that error is virtue, that blindness to the truth and to the law is blessed. But sorry, God may give free passes to the fool, but the law does not. The law requires that justice be unbiased, disinterested, that Judges know the law and precedent and not be carrying a cross or a Crescent or a Torah or a book of any other laws than those of the United States of America. And how would any know what God assumes but from some other foreign code of law? In what part of our body of laws is God's law found?  In what part of our law is it said that arguments need make no sense because God said Christians look like fools?  And where most of all, I ask, is the job description of a Federal Judge that he in fact be a fool?

Obama, Texas Strangler

Well certainly it's reasonable to assert that Obama is behind the very, very suspicious death of a 79 year old fat man well past the life expectancy of his generation.  After all people who weren't there assure us it's suspicious that his pillow was covering his head.  Anyone having smothered him and having covered up all traces of his presence would have been sure to leave it there and the ability of Obama to transform himself into a bat and fly into and out of locked rooms is well known. Case closed.  We can't discount the suspicion because after all, people are asking questions: people like Alex Jones and that foul Fascist piece of human garbage Allen West.

Is it a sign of  some kind of progress in our society that people who once would have been in a straitjacket  and locked in a cell now run for political office and have radio shows and have followings of millions?  There are times when large numbers of people go insane; when whole countries go insane and the result is often genocide, war and the collapse of law and order.  Is this one of those times? How would we even know, when madness is everywhere we look for guidance? The internet, the radio and TV give us propaganda, lies and the ravings of lunatics and get respect for it.  In a world of blind men, the one eyed man gets ripped to pieces.

Ding Dong the Witch is Dead!

Which old witch?  The Wicked Witch!

R.I.P. Tony.  Good timing buddy-boy.

Surfing the Universe

Well, it seems that we have experimental confirmation that cataclysmic changes in gravity ripple across space at the speed of light, just as Einstein predicted. This will cause many to feel elated but to most, it's meaningless, their universes being more circumscribed than the one cosmologists and physicists live in. Everyman's concerns for the way science can confirm or deny opinion and common sense don't run deep..

Our four  dimensions  are expanded or shrunk a very tiny bit as a gravitational wave passes through.  A very tiny bit, a fraction of the width of a proton, which is far too small for the average person to get involved it, or to attach any importance to.  But it's just one small step away from the kind of consciousness Americans want to retreat into, and I'm not only talking only about the Evangelicals with their young and small universe run by miracle and designed by a consciousness.  Americans are searching for, longing for a world without harsh and rigorous scrutiny -- a world trending back to "nature" and away from technology which is somehow safer and healthier, and where  things have meaning on a human scale.

The parts of our brain that run on superstition, snap judgement and frighteningly huge oversimplifications really are in charge and nearly all the time.  Like "outer space"  the views of reality put together piece by piece by scientific method is far away, and abstract and a little silly to most people.  If the LIGO experimental confirmation of the spreading ripples in space-time from a collision between black holes billions of light years away and billions of years ago ever makes it into the public consciousness it will be to sell us gravitational wave receivers, tuned to natural frequencies which will improve your sex life and help you shed unwanted pounds.  People will claim to be getting signals from the universe through gravitational waves and will help you do the same for a fee.

It's certainly been several lifetimes since we proved that Tetanus is not caused by rust and rhinoviruses not caused by drafts of air. It's been enough time for the proof that milk doesn't promote phlegm or that gluten has no negative effects on 95% of the population or that Dr. Oz's weekly miracle discoveries are worthless.  But we know our inherited weaknesses never completely go away. Prayers and curses, personal rituals and lucky socks still matter to us. We still talk of mysterious toxins and desire to have our intestines flushed and something or other done with our Chi or our Chakras. Hardly one in a million will bother to question that the culture of marketing and entertainment is anything but an exploitation, using lies and deception and distraction.

So gravity is associated with a particle and particles have a wavelength and propagate at a finite speed across an infinite void and so we don't care, except possibly to cause us to ask the universe to help us with our love life and to choose a more ritually pure, vegan, paleo, gluten free diet free of "chemicals.".  Science doesn't really mean shit to us and as the men who wrote Ecclesiastes told us, our entire culture and view of ourselves and the universe are just vanity.

Cunning Linguistics (Michigan Style)

Michigan Senate Passes Bill Making Sodomy a Felony Punishable by 15 Years in Prison:

"Some states' sodomy laws specifically target gay relations, but Michigan's is among those that make oral and anal sex crimes illegal regardless of whether they're same-sex or different-sex. Michigan is also one of several states with a sodomy ban that's intertwined with a prohibition on bestiality – effectively equating the two. The law makes it a felony for anyone to commit "the abominable and detestable crime against nature with mankind or with any animal." If the person is already a sex offender, violations are punishable by life in prison."

Since we have turned the focus of attention away from the water crisis in Flint, Michigan, here is a special diversion for you ... unabridged, uncensored insect pornography.  This pair of lurid lubbers making love is an example of beastiality at its best.

Dirty pictures versus dirty water is the latest iteration of an old GOP tactic: Change the the subject and turn the focus of attention. Waste time on utterly stupid legislation to distract you from the REALLY BIG ISSUE.  Like criminalizing insect pornography so we don’t have to think about poisoned children in a dying city.  Nothing like a water crisis to sneak a peek into your bedroom and do something kinky with handcuffs!

Here is a rhetorical question: Which of the two is more obscene!

Postscript:  

Cunning linguistics -- cephalopod style.

It's Always High Noon in Tallahassee

The Florida House has now passed a bill allowing Floridians with concealed carry permits to openly carry firearms, even on college campuses.  Good guys with guns, doncha know. It's what made Deadwood such a peaceful place in the 1870's and Gene Autry rich in the 1950's.  Hey come on, didn't you dream about being a Wild West cowboy when you were a kid?

Many people will of course react in horror and fear and panic and they, like most Americans, don't know that 45 states already allow it and many without any kind of permit needed. 13 states at least require some sort of license and at least Floridians who want to flaunt firearms would  need to be fingerprinted and investigated and to have passed a course of instruction.  Even Hoppalong Cassidy and the Lone Ranger didn't have to do that back when America was great, but  I can't wait for Governor Scott to sign this one.  Hi Ho Silver!

Is it going to cause a bloodbath?  I certainly doubt it, and in my 70 odd years I have only seen anyone carry openly while hunting or walking about their farms or in very remote areas -- except for cops, of course. That still makes me nervous.  It feels a bit odd, I admit, but those who do carry concealed weapons legally can stop worrying that if the wind blows their shirt open and reveals a gun or knife they won't go to jail as the law now provides. It's not all bad.

It certainly provides a further degree of polarization however and reduces the likelihood of the vociferous phobics ever agreeing on anything, and that's not a good thing, but what after all is getting better in our culture of fear and outrage? I'm to the point where I really accept the madness and embrace the horror - or the humor - as an outside observer.

Any mention of the American Gun Problem simply accelerates gun sales. Every rampage shooting lengthens lines at the gun store and every proposal or suggestion or casual mention that something might be done does the same thing. I might do well to sell guns and buy Stock in Smith and Wesson.

No, I don't think much will actually change, except perhaps in the Florida Legislature where another bill passed will allow Florida's Senators and Representatives to bring their guns to work.  As long as we can watch it on TV, I'm all for it.   Legislative showdown?  You ain't seen nothin' yet!

Moon over Iowa

Rafael "Ted" Cruz wins in Iowa.  China releases startlingly clear pictures from their moon rover and Facebook erupts with comments like "where are the stars" and "why do we see tracks where there's no air or water" and "what if China pushes the moon out of it's orbit and it kills us all."  We're reminded that our moon landings were all faked. And then of course comes the prizewinner:  "How come they can do this and not us?"

People are stupid.  People are barely more informed than chimpanzees and the United States Economy and  Leadership thrive on making these people unaware of the magnitude of their ignorance and cognitive disability. These are the people who choose our leaders and legislators. These are the people who demand to force their demented, mean and superstitious beliefs on all of us.  These are the people who wield a huge influence on the most powerful military the Earth has ever known.

The medium that lets you read these words serves more to place the ideas of idiots, madmen and  deceivers in the same shop window as enlightened and informed truth than it does to educate us.  I spent my formative years with the idea that nuclear and military technology was going to kill us all.  Now I'm not so sure that we even need it as we find a way to destroy civilization  and make Mankind great again - as we were when we spent our days wandering the rift valley, eating carrion and picking lice.

We were never great.  We've always been a mean, cruel,larcenous and murderous lot of apes and our greatest ability is to ignore our idiocy while it's killing us.

The Caucasus ...

Do I really give a rat's ass about the caucuses in Iowa, or the regional boundary between Europe and Asia?  Hell, no!  Instead, I'll entertain you with this poem:

Rembrandt, the tenebrous

In the etching's third state

Light slanting down

Is taken for granted.

At the foot of the cross

Soldiers on horseback jostle

A party of burghers

Along with the faithful

(As the Good Book affirms).

In the fourth state,

Figures on the left

Have been smudged

Or burnished out.

Darkness is pulled in

Like a curtain of sacking.

The bad thief is lost.

A wholly different lot soldiers 

Hoards the remainder of light.