On May 29, 2011, I was fifty-four and a half years old. And I was seriously irritated at the GOP in Congress. You see, they had announced that they were going to take away Medicare from those then under 55 years old. And that meant me. I spouted off about it to anyone who would listen.
They’re gonna take Medicare from ME! I’m 54-1/2! That’s where they’re gonna start!
After the first 528 times I mentioned this fact to each and every person I could corner, I still felt unsated. I wanted to tell more people of my irritation. Whether or not I knew them.
And so I heard a voice inside my head (something I rarely admit to):
Go forth, it said, and start a blog.
Oh and give it a stupid name to keep yourself humble.
And so I did. Both of those things. FiftyFourAndAHalf was born with this post.
Blogging has been a completely different experience than I expected.
My original plan was to do a political/humor blog. But in spite of a never-ending source of fodder, I found that I wanted to write about other things, too. That part didn’t really surprise me.
What surprised me was that blogging, and Word Press, became a place where I met new friends, discussed topics important to me. Where I laughed and cried along with folks I will probably never meet.
Thanks, everybody. And while I’ve been writing less than usual and reading less than usual, I love the special place that is the ‘sphere. So, yeah, thanks for being out there, for reading, and for giving me stuff to read too.
You will be surprised to learn that I didn’t plan on posting about this.
I figured that anybody who has ever read my blog knows precisely where I stand on this issue. So I left it in that barren wasteland where all unused posts go — DRAFTS.
But then tonight I read a blog post that broke my heart.
Most of you know my bloggin’ buddy, TwinDaddy of Finding Twindaddy. He has a new job doing tech-ie stuff at a school, and he wrote about ALICE at his school in a post called “A Sad State of Affairs.”
Alice? Who’s ALICE?
Alice is an acronym that stands for: Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, Evacuate. The drills that students, teachers and administrators of our American — Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition — schools must perform periodically so that everybody is ready in the event that an active shooter comes to their school.
High School Students, Teachers and Administrators
Junior High School Students, Teachers and Administrators
Elementary School Students, Teachers and Administrators
Somehow, I don’t think this has gone down to the nursery school level. Give it time.
Anyway, deleted what I had drafted because it was lame. But after reading Twin Daddy’s post, I thought I’d show you the algorithm that one school in Michigan came up with. It’s quite creative.
Because, you see, not only do they (and folks in other states) have to worry about some nutcase coming through the door blasting, but they have to worry about other nutcases. Yup, folks in many states need to figure out how to deal with potential crisis situations because of the folks who have been dubbed “ammosexuals.” Ammosexuals are those particular nutcases who believe that their right to openly carry any fucking gun they please, and to waive it around, proclaiming their god-given/NRAsponsored right to bear arms, trumps your kids’ rights to, well, you know, breathe.
Because, of course, in states where it is legal to “open carry” guns, how can you tell the “good guys” from the “bad guys.” So they had to come up with a decision tree:
Credit: Americans for Responsible Solutions
(Click to Enlarge)
Of course, by the time any school administrator could figure out that, well, that’s a bad guy, they’re probably dead. Not a whole lot of help, then, is it? Oh well, what’s a few more gun deaths in America? It’s what we’re becoming famous for worldwide. Once folks thought our streets were paved with gold — now they are paved with blood and bullet casings.
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We really need to figure out, as a society, how to get a handle back on our brains, so that we can protect, at a minimum, our kids.
Growing up at the beach, I never had much use for those little dweebes who would pan for gold in Long Island Sound. All they ever got was a plastic container of cigarette butts.
Well, it is Connecticut’s “Gold Coast” but that’s not quite what they mean. (Google Image)
And on my one trip to California when I visited a ghost gold town, well, I was still not all that impressed. But at least they got them some gold. Some of them.
I can’t even remember if this is the gold miner statue I saw. (Google image)
But more recently, I’m thinking that maybe I’ll try my, ummm, hand, at gold mining.
Yeah — me!
In fact, it might just be an opportunity for me to work from home. I may actually be sitting on a gold mine. Really! Who knew!
More than for personal gain, however, I will do it in the name of science. You see, scientist now think that this type of mining may just save the planet! It could reduce the need for more environmentally harmful types of mining.
Oh, I guess I forgot to explain the rest. You see, I just read that scientists are, ummm, mining for gold in unexpected places. Silver, too. And you know, they’ve found some platinum, too. A veritable jewelry store of precious metals.
Wanna know where?
In poop. People Poop.
Really! They’re finding all sorts of shit in there! I just read about it in an article entitled:
Every year, Americans are flushing a fortune down the toilet. Literally. More than 7 million tons of biosolids—treated sewage sludge—pass through US wastewater facilities annually. Contained within our shit are surprisingly large quantities of silver, gold, and platinum.
I am prodigious poop producer. I figure, well, I’m golden.
Google Image
I’m hiring pan sterilizers if anybody is looking for a job.
We all thought it would be different, didn’t we. After Columbine. After Aurora. After Sandy Hook.
But no. Nope. Nada. Didn’t happen
We’ve all gotten used to thinking the unthinkable: Not a chance for change. Not with the money the NRA has behind them. Not with the gun folks getting progressively crazier.
So some creative thinking was called for.
BAM!
Right to the Heart!
Naturally, the gun nuts are going, well, nuts. As reported in the Huffington Post where I found the video:
The National Rifle Association’s New York affiliate immediately condemned the stunt and called for an investigation into whether the organizers violated New York’s gun laws.
“[It is a] felony violation of the Sullivan Act for a person to possess a handgun anywhere in New York without a license. The video clearly shows individual ‘customers’ handling various handguns and doing so in an unsafe manner,” New York State Rifle and Pistol Association President Thomas King said in a press release.
Because, you see, it’s not OK to “handle” a gun, but the 2nd Amendment gives us all the right to own them. And use them.
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Timiny Cricket, a commenter, said that he’d
like to hear about some of the positive examples where a gun scared away someone about to commit a crime or even was used in self defense and saved the owner’s life.
A group of 47 Republican Senators are trying to thwart international negotiations with Iran! What fun! You know, the ones where we are trying to prevent them from developing and holding on to nuclear weapons?
“It has come to our attention while observing your nuclear negotiations with our government that you may not fully understand our constitutional system … Anything not approved by Congress is a mere executive agreement,” the senators wrote. “The next president could revoke such an executive agreement with the stroke of a pen and future Congresses could modify the terms of the agreement at any time.”
Among the signers of this letter were three GOP Senators who are running or are expected to run for president in 2016: Rand Paul, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio. And naturally, former GOP Presidential nominee John McCain signed it as did his shadow, Lindsay Graham.
Because, as you know, we can’t have peace. And we can’t have anything positive come out of the evil Obama Administration, now can we.
But more importantly to voters of this country, this group of Senators has no real idea of how either international agreements work. They don’t they quite have the details of the Constitution down, either. It’s kind of like when you sneak the keys to the car from your parents and take the car out on the road before you know what you’re doing.
It was a good thing that somebody else understood how American international agreements work, though. And what powers the Executive Branch of the U.S. Guv’ment has under the Constitution. And what ones are given to the Legislative Branch. Yup. It’s a damn good thing. Here is the schooling these boys received from a source that likely sits in their craw (as it should):
Asked about the open letter of 47 US Senators to Iranian leaders, the Iranian Foreign Minister, Dr. Javad Zarif, responded that “in our view, this letter has no legal value and is mostly a propaganda ploy. It is very interesting that while negotiations are still in progress and while no agreement has been reached, some political pressure groups are so afraid even of the prospect of an agreement that they resort to unconventional methods, unprecedented in diplomatic history. This indicates that like Netanyahu, who considers peace as an existential threat, some are opposed to any agreement, regardless of its content.
Zarif expressed astonishment that some members of US Congress find it appropriate to write to leaders of another country against their own President and administration. He pointed out that from reading the open letter, it seems that the authors not only do not understand international law, but are not fully cognizant of the nuances of their own Constitution when it comes to presidential powers in the conduct of foreign policy.
Foreign Minister Zarif added that “I should bring one important point to the attention of the authors and that is, the world is not the United States, and the conduct of inter-state relations is governed by international law, and not by US domestic law. The authors may not fully understand that in international law, governments represent the entirety of their respective states, are responsible for the conduct of foreign affairs, are required to fulfil the obligations they undertake with other states and may not invoke their internal law as justification for failure to perform their international obligations.
The Iranian Foreign Minister added that “change of administration does not in any way relieve the next administration from international obligations undertaken by its predecessor in a possible agreement about Irans peaceful nuclear program.” He continued “I wish to enlighten the authors that if the next administration revokes any agreement with the stroke of a pen, as they boast, it will have simply committed a blatant violation of international law.
I would say that these Senators were “caught with their pants down,” because we haven’t had a good sex scandal in a while. Penis problems however, don’t start wars. Stupid actions by traitors do.
And that what this is. Members of the Senate, including some who have or who plan to run for the highest office in the United States, try to interfere with international agreements to stop wars. These folks don’t even know how our government works, and have to learn about it from the very folks they are trying to threaten. And they want to be in charge. Hell, they are in charge of too much already.
Which song do you prefer?
Or this one:
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I would like to write good things about the current crop of Republicans. Really I would. Feel free to send me links to anything good they have done. Anything that helps people. Anything that helps our country.
FiftyFourandAHalf 