Category Archives: Stupidity

December 5, 2015 · 0:00

The NY Times — Right on Target

On the front page of today’s New York Times is an editorial I could easily have written. If I could write that well. If I worked for the NYTimes. If I had millions of readers who’d nod and say “Right On!”

Image credit: Eiko Ojala – for the New York Times, 12/4/15

Actually I’m mixing this image from an editorial published yesterday in the NY Times. Because like me, the NY Times believes that we need sensible gun laws. And so they, like me, keep beating that dead horse.

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Here’s today’s front page editorial reproduced in full:

End the Gun Epidemic in America

By THE EDITORIAL BOARD DEC. 4, 2015

Doug Mills for the New York Times

All decent people feel sorrow and righteous fury about the latest slaughter of innocents, in California. Law enforcement and intelligence agencies are searching for motivations, including the vital question of how the murderers might have been connected to international terrorism. That is right and proper.

But motives do not matter to the dead in California, nor did they in Colorado, Oregon, South Carolina, Virginia, Connecticut and far too many other places. The attention and anger of Americans should also be directed at the elected leaders whose job is to keep us safe but who place a higher premium on the money and political power of an industry dedicated to profiting from the unfettered spread of ever more powerful firearms.

It is a moral outrage and a national disgrace that civilians can legally purchase weapons designed specifically to kill people with brutal speed and efficiency. These are weapons of war, barely modified and deliberately marketed as tools of macho vigilantism and even insurrection. America’s elected leaders offer prayers for gun victims and then, callously and without fear of consequence, reject the most basic restrictions on weapons of mass killing, as they did on Thursday. They distract us with arguments about the word terrorism. Let’s be clear: These spree killings are all, in their own ways, acts of terrorism.

Opponents of gun control are saying, as they do after every killing, that no law can unfailingly forestall a specific criminal. That is true. They are talking, many with sincerity, about the constitutional challenges to effective gun regulation. Those challenges exist. They point out that determined killers obtained weapons illegally in places like France, England and Norway that have strict gun laws. Yes, they did.

But at least those countries are trying. The United States is not. Worse, politicians abet would-be killers by creating gun markets for them, and voters allow those politicians to keep their jobs. It is past time to stop talking about halting the spread of firearms, and instead to reduce their number drastically — eliminating some large categories of weapons and ammunition.

It is not necessary to debate the peculiar wording of the Second Amendment. No right is unlimited and immune from reasonable regulation.

Certain kinds of weapons, like the slightly modified combat rifles used in California, and certain kinds of ammunition, must be outlawed for civilian ownership. It is possible to define those guns in a clear and effective way and, yes, it would require Americans who own those kinds of weapons to give them up for the good of their fellow citizens.

What better time than during a presidential election to show, at long last, that our nation has retained its sense of decency?

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It’s me again.

Yes I know that I keep beating this dead horse. I know that we are all feeling hopeless. But really, it is up to us. And the remedy can be found in the ballot box. Gun Control must be a make or break criteria for any vote we cast in 2016 and beyond. Because the folks in office today are cowards. They fear the retribution of citizens over gun control legislation. So let’s show them that they work for us. For the US. Not just for the NRA.

Elections Matter.

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Filed under 'Merica, 2016, All The News You Need, All We Are Saying Is Give Peace A Chance, Beating that Dead Horse, Campaigning, Crazy Folks Running, Criminal Activity, Disgustology, Elections, Elections Matter, Gun control, Health, Health and Medicine, Huh?, Humor, Hypocrisy, Just Do It and I'll Shut Up!, Peace, Shit, Stupidity, Vote, Voting, Wild Beasts, WTF?

Tagged as 2nd Amendment Bullshit, Assault Weapons Should Be Illegal, Crazy people, Elections Matter, Gun control, Stupidity, Vote, Who needs thousands of bullets?

December 2, 2015 · 0:00

How To Get Gun Control Legislation Enacted

It was a Sunday night in, I think, 1982, and I arrived home from my late night walk with Goliath at the U.S. Capitol grounds. We’d had a lovely walk, on the always safe grounds.

US Capitol at night. Image Credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/intrepid00/14504378266

When I got home, my roommate Keily met me at the door.

“Are you OK?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I responded, thinking she was weird.

“They just reported on the 10 O’Clock News that a bomb went off at the Capitol.”

“Oh!” I responded, and sat down to watch the news.

If I had heard or seen anything, I would have reported it. But in fact, there was nothing unusual about my walk that night. Nothing at all.

Tuesday morning, I headed to the Rayburn House Office Building bright and early to attend a hearing. I was stopped by the guard on my way in. My briefcase and my purse were searched.

36 Hours Later.

Stupidly, I cracked a joke to a security guard who was suddenly actually guarding security.

“Now why did you have to say that?” he said. “Now I really have to look.”

As the days went on, more and more security was added. No longer could I be at two places at once. I (and half of the other twenty-somethings in DC) had long been leaving my briefcase in one hearing with a tape recorder running while my body attended a second one. That became a thing of the past.

Within a very short time, security increased by leaps and bounds. Metal detectors were installed; the life of a low-level lobbyist became more of a pain in the ass than it had been.

Our Congressional Representatives and our Senators were protected, though. For a long time, I thought that was fine.

Until mass shootings became common. And until those very same Congressmen and Senators refused to act to protect people in the US from the danger of random gunfire. Until fealty to the National Rifle Association (the NRA) and keeping their jobs — became more important than the safety of regular people. More important than protecting students in their schools, shoppers in their stores, workers in their offices.

So here’s my idea:

Let’s take down those metal detectors. Stop paying for them to have security guards at every door.

The real world is a dangerous place. And the folks who refuse to make it less so, should not hide behind shields the rest of us don’t have.

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I am not advocating violence against Congress or against anybody. I oppose violence — and I am strongly in favor of sensible gun control laws. But until the folks who make the laws — or in this case, DON’T make the laws — have the same concerns as the rest of us, well, nothing is going to happen.

And in fact, in the 1960s, Governor Ronald Reagan actually repealed open carry laws when Black Panthers led by Huey Newton made the legislators a wee bit nervous.

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Filed under 'Merica, 2016, 2nd Amendment, Adult Traumas, All The News You Need, Bat-shit crazy, Beating that Dead Horse, Cancer on Society, Criminal Activity, Disgustology, Do GOP Voters Actually THINK?, Elections, Elections Matter, Goliath Stories, History, Huh?, Hypocrisy, Memoir writing, Stupidity, Taking Care of Each Other, Vote, Voting, Washington

Tagged as Assholes, Bat-shit crazy, Elections Matter, Gun control, Stupidity

October 14, 2015 · 0:00

Other Useful Technologies

One of my favorite things about blogging, is that often, my bloggin’ buddies often give me the opportunity to tell stories that I don’t have the opportunity to tell.

Like this one.

Now you know that I had a wonderful childhood. As the youngest of five, somehow, I never felt unwanted, no matter what was going on. Except once.*

As I entered the kitchen, I noticed that my mom and two sisters, Beth and Judy, were sitting at the kitchen table, discussing anatomy. Female anatomy to be precise.. They were discussing “holes.” Their holes.

This might be a good time for guys to switch to another blog.

Yes, Mom, Beth and Judy were sitting at the kitchen table talking about their holes. Both of their holes. The TWO holes in their nether regions.

I was 7 years old, and very confused.

“But …” I started saying …

They didn’t want to listen. They continued talking, ignoring me.

Panic started to rise in me.

“But … but … listen to me!!!” I finally practically shouted.

They all turned to me and Beth said, “OK, Lease. What do you want to say.”

I looked around the table and said softly, in fear:

“I have three holes! There’s the one I pee through, the one I poop through, and one in the middle that doesn’t do anything. Don’t you guys have three?” Panic was building in me as I realized that the three of them just continued to looked at me. Judy rolled her eyes. She smirked.

“Nope. You’re just weird, Lease,” said Judy.

They all looked at me, blankly, until finally I left, taking my incomprehensible extra hole with me. And let me tell you that I was baffled about that opening for years.

For more than 50 years, I’ve wondered what that conversation was actually about. Over the years, I asked many times, but since the incident didn’t scar any of them for life, so they’d long since forgotten.

Now what does this story have to do with blogging and blogging buddies?

Well only yesterday my buddy Alice, of Coffee and a Blank Page commented on my blog piece, Tush Technologies and linked to an article more or less on this subject. Well, on the subject of vaginas, anyhow. Weird technological things about hoo-hahs to be exact.

‘Smart’ menstrual cup sends texts about your flow

Now I didn’t know that there was such a thing as a “menstrual cup” either. Apparently I haven’t changed much since I was 7. These new (to the extent anything used for Eve’s Curse can be considered “new”), more environmentally friendly collection devices. You can shove a cup into your box at the requisite time and, well, fill er up!

But according to the article that Alice sent me, there were draw backs with the cups. I’m sure you saw the problem leaking through, didn’t you.

Well, there was a problem Until Now. Because there is now smart, ummm, cootch, technology to keep that cup from runneth-ing over.

If I’m reading the article right, it will tell your smart phone when you need to, umm, dump.

Ain’t technology grand?

I don’t know exactly why, but this article made me think of something from another bloggin’ buddy, Father Kaine of The Last of the Milleniums.

* OK, I will admit I didn’t feel completely welcome that time when I was pushing into my newly married sister Beth’s bedroom when she’d pulled the bookcase in front of the door, either.