Category: Politics

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Can we now safely say its gone too far?

I caught this headline yesterday, the NRA picked it up this morning on Twitter.

7-year-old Maryland boy suspended for shaping pastry into gun – (via @WashTimes)

This boggles my mind. It’s almost as bad as the boy being suspended from making a gun with his index finger.

Or the Canadian boy last year whose parents home was raided because the boy drew a picture of a gun in school on a piece of paper. Uh… hello? It was a picture! (There’s more to the story and I’m oversimplifying the Canadian case a little. If you’re interested, you can find the original article in the archive section of this blog.)

20130303-094656.jpg Folks lets get a fucking clue!

Guns are in our culture, they are in every cop show, they’re romanticized, demonized, and endlessly discussed in the media.

As an aside, I happened to catch an episode of Hawaii Five-O a few weeks back.

There was a very interesting exchange between the two main characters, I don’t remember the whole thing exactly but it was something like “you’re a cop how can you not like guns?”, The other characters said “I use a gun as part of my job but that doesn’t mean I have to like guns.”

I remember that caught my attention because it was unusual for a cop show to address the gun issue and I wondered if the actor(s) or writers were taking a bit of a stand. I wondered if the actor who played the character not liking guns was making a personal statement for himself in the show with the help of the writers.

Either way, I liked the delivery. I thought it was reasonable, not preachy and pretty adult in it’s message. It also happened that it mirrors my own opinions about guns. They’re tools. Shooting at a target range is fun, a gun is a tool that facilitates shooting at the target range. I might like a particular gun, or a certain gun might have sentimental value to me. But that’s about as far as it goes. I am by no means and don’t anticipate becoming a collector / ammo hoarder with a walk in gun safe

There are pictures of guns almost daily in the newspapers in this country.

We shouldn’t be surprised that our kids would be curious.

The problem I see with the irrational behavior exhibited in these instances is that we add to the mystique of guns.

What lesson are we teaching a 7 year old by suspending him? Are we saying that guns are mysterious, forbidden, frightening, and therefore ultimately desirable?

Will this child learn the lesson that he can get out of school anytime he wants by presenting any remotely pseudo gun like object in class? Where will that lead?

Will this child and his peers ultimately decide that a gun is the most sought after object they can acquire? If so, doesn’t that logically increase the probability of children accidentally shooting each other?

20130303-094712.jpg It’s time for us to dial it down a few notches.

Water pistols will soon be making their annual appearance.

How do we as a society justify water guns being sold at Toys r Us and Walgreens, as toys and at the same time suspend kids for making croissant or finger guns?

I personally think making gang hand signs is far more damaging and deserving of sanction but that’s my opinion.

How about the schools, instead of freaking out, do something like actually teach the kids why they’re concerned?

Why not teach children what guns are used for, (hunting, law enforcement, military actions,) etc?

How about teaching kids the dangers of guns and that they’re loud and smelly. (Gunpowder smoke isn’t all that pleasant, when I was a kid I didn’t like the smell, now… Well it’s not a problem.)

I’d say get law enforcement involved, have them speak to the kids about guns and why they carry them.

Have local gun clubs or ranges put on demonstrations so the kids have a very clear idea about what a gun is, how much damage a gun can cause and why the children should be very careful if they find themselves around guns.

Even if none of the above was possible, I think it would be far more responsible for schools to teach kids something useful, like what to do if they happen to find an unattended gun or even just bullets.

Useful information like;

Don’t touch
Leave the area
Go find an adult and tell them where the gun/bullets are.

It’s not necessary to dwell on the negative. Criminals will provide ample examples of misuse via the daily news.

Instead of increasing the mystique, lets dispel it.

Lets teach the kids that a gun is a tool. Most children are less than interested in operating a shovel, rake, or lawnmower.

If we could put guns in the same context it would be far more effective at curbing children’s curiosity than completely disproportionate and frankly silly responses from adults and educators.

I swear! I’d no sooner pressed “Publish” on this entry when I saw this in Twitter.

A sixteen year old student has been suspended for disarming another student on a school bus.

But wait it gets better! Our suspended student was one of three suspended for disarming a fellow student that was pointing a loaded .22 caliber at another students head and threatening to kill him.

The gun toting student was arrested.

The referral slip for the kid that disarmed the would-be shooter, stated that he’d been suspended for being involved in an incident with a gun.

Ok… WTF?

Again what are we trying to teach our children? We say you should be responsible, get involved, prevent bullying, and when kids actually do behave bravely and with honor doing what we tell them is the right thing…

We punish them!

Folks this really is not the way to instill higher values in our children or in our society.

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This makes me wonder…

woodward… How many more lies the Obama administration is selling and just how compromised the media is when it comes to the Obama White House.

This morning I caught a couple of Tweets about Bob Woodward being under attack from the Media and one tweet said he’d been threatened by the White House over a story.

I thought Whoa!!!! Something is up.

In this case Woodward is at the center of a journalistic feeding frenzy of his so called colleagues.Woodward is famous for breaking the Watergate story and I’ve always enjoyed his writing, so I started trying to track down what the whole story is.

Mr. Woodward’s crime is that he pointed out, the Emperor has no clothes.

He caught the White House red handed in a bald lie. Then he published what he found.

In this case contrary to the White House spin, Which has been saying  that Congress and specifically the Republicans are responsible for the upcoming sequester

According to Woodward, the truth is that the Sequester was suggested and approved by the Obama administration.

This isn’t the first time Mr. Woodward has caught the White House in a lie… I seem to recall President Nixon resigning as a direct result of a Woodward story. At least Mr. Woodward is non partisan!

The whole article from The Washington Post is Here.

An interesting analysis of the feeding frenzy and comments from the “Balanced Media” can be found on Breitbart Here.

The upcoming cuts, according to Breitbart represent only 2% of the Federal budget.

Yet the Federal government is asking it’s employees to take furlough days that will account for a loss in their paychecks of as much as 5%.

I’m a “whats good for the goose is good for the gander kind of guy” and think if the Government expects their employees to accept a 5% cut in pay, then the government shouldn’t be bitching about a lousy 2% loss in theirs.

It’s a foregone conclusion that the people furloughed are folks can least afford a 5% pay cut.

They’ll be used as poster children demonstrating the evil that the bastard Republicans have caused. It will be the secretaries, clerks, phone operators, and maintenance people.

The management and the politicians themselves will not be losing at all.

Why would the furloughs be concentrated in those areas? So that the American people have the false impression that the sequester really is doing something that’s hurting average Americans.

I’d bet you that 2% of the Federal budget is toilet paper and office supplies. ( I might lose that bet but I wouldn’t be surprised with all the waste in govt. if the cost was that high. I’m sure they’re using $10 rolls of TP in Congress.)

Unfortunately, the story has become Woodward, instead of the lies and misrepresentations from the White House.

According to this NPR piece  Woodward has described a contentious conversation he had with a White House aide wherein the aide yelled at Woodward for a half hour, then followed up with an “Apology” email that said, “You’ll regret staking out that claim”.

Woodward said, “I mean, it makes me very uncomfortable to have the White House telling reporters, you’re going to regret doing something that you believe in,”.

And he’s right.

It may be overstating it to say that this was a direct threat from the White House with the full backing of the President.

But in times like these, when the President can make you a terrorist by simply calling you a terrorist, and when your travel can be impeded because your name or someone with a similar name appears on a no-fly list.

Woodward’s discomfort may have more basis in fact than paranoia.

I think it’s very unfortunate that the real story has been eclipsed by the sidebar.

On the positive side of the scale is that we clearly can see just how deep the color yellow of “Yellow journalism” in America has become.

I find myself asking if this had been a Bush Administration gaffe… Had Mr. Woodward caught former President Bush in a similar lie, would Mr. Woodward have been a hero?

Sadly, I think the answer is that he’d have been a media darling.

President Obama and his administration are just as likely to lie, misrepresent, and abuse power as any other administration.

The old saying, “Power corrupts…” is just as applicable to a Black President as it is to a White one.

I  often find myself asking, Is President Obama getting special treatment because of racism? Is the media still laboring under some misguided guilt that an African American needs “Special” treatment?

If the people who are supposed to be the publics watchdogs are in fact spinning the news, if they’re reporting only one side of the Obama Presidency – that President Obama can do no wrong… We lose objectivity.

With that loss of objectivity we also lose our ability to question, formulate, or even express differing opinions.

It’s ironic as hell that the first amendment could in fact be undone by the very people operating most under it’s protections. Bundled in that irony is that journalists will devour their own for exercising freedom of speech.

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SOTU, not really impressed

There was a headline from a Florida Newspaper that said, “More of the same”, referring to the Presidents speech.

I tend to agree.

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Rubios rebuttal was interesting because of the points he made, not that he needed a little water to finish his speech.

The media was showing it’s bias in a big way this morning. 

Had Obama taken a drink mid speech, the Media would probably have said little if anything other than “Well The President has been in meetings all day…”

But the way they were losing their minds this morning, you’d have thought Rubio grabbed a bottle of Scotch or something.

There was one CNN crawler that asked the question “Career Ender?” superimposed over a picture of Senator Rubio drinking some water.

Come on people. If you were listening to what Rubio was saying you could hear that he was getting dry throat.

How about we drop this insanity of our politicians being held to inhumanly high standards. 

President Obama isn’t the second coming of Christ.

Republicans aren’t the spawn of Satan.

Isn’t it enough that our politicians aren’t cheating on their wives (most of the time)? Isn’t it enough that they’re not embarrassing us as a nation (most of the time).

So Senator Rubio needed a little sip of water… Big Deal!

The more important question is did what he said make sense?

Is that why the Media seized on his drink?

Did someone in the media say “Hey, wait a minute… This guy just said the right things to galvanize the middle class into swinging Republican…” 

I hope not, I hope it’s something as simple as the Media being stupid and petty.

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Nice day even with a heck of a drive

Had a dental appointment today. The last under my current insurance plan.

Thankfully I’ve got good teeth. Otherwise I’m sure that insurance would decline to cover me calling it a “pre-existing” condition.

My teeth, and gums are a bit sore. But I’m going to be fine even if I just want soft food tonight.

I barely missed all the excitement coming home, I passed a sign saying that “all the mountain roads were closed” it was a bit of a concern.

As it turns out CALTRANS was overstating the issue. The mountain roads into the Big Bear area were closed. Not all mountain roads.

The police say that they’ve cornered Christopher Dorner. Apparently, Mr Dorner has been killed in a fire in a cabin.

I’ll wait until the forensic report comes out.

I’m amazed that the Dorner issue has preempted the POTUS State of The Union Address on some of our local TV stations.

This is the first time I’ve created a blog post on an iPad. So if there are any really goofy typos… I’m blaming the iPad!

Signing off to watch the State of the Union.

Should be interesting.

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The difference between Republicans and Democrats

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I know the political season is very much over. But snow season isn’t.

What does snow have to do with Republicans and Democrats? Let me explain.

When it snows the road that I live on is covered as are all the other roads in town. The difference is that my road is private and therfore not maintained by the county. (There’s a whole other story there)

This means that unless the road is cleared by the residents on the street it can quickly become impassable.

A decade ago when the majority of the people living on the street were Republicans we’d all be working in shifts with our shovels to keep the road clear.

If the storm was really bad we’d all pitch in and hire a local guy with a skiploader to clear the street, and if we kept him warm with hot chocolate or coffee and the occasional batch of cookies, brownies or cupcakes. he’d do the street, and all our driveways for about $150. We’re talking about 2 to sometimes 3 hours of work.

If the snow was light (meaning less than 8″), working together we could clear the road and all our driveways in about 45 minutes to an hour and in the process we talked and enjoyed each others company.

We’d have fun clearing the street, there was the occasional snow ball fight and neighborly camaraderie. We’d share tools, and news, and speculation about how long the storm was going to be.

In short we were a neighborhood and we were all working toward a common goal that served all our needs.

We looked after each other too. It’s not a really good idea to be alone shoveling snow. You can slip, fall and hurt yourself.

Imagine falling breaking a bone and having to crawl 100 yards back to your house because no-one can hear you yelling for help.

We’d have older folks out with their shovels too, and often the younger folks would take care of the older folks walkways and driveways just because it was the right thing to do. The older folks in return would keep warm beverages at hand (sometimes with a little extra kick.)  and they’d look after the smaller children while the rest of us were clearing the snow.

We learned too that if we got the snow off the street before it was driven on or had a chance to pack down then the first sunny day after the storm we’d have a dry ice free road. This was safer and more convenient for all of us especially when you wanted to have friends from below the snow level come up for a visit.

In all it was a nifty system that worked.

Over time, one family after another moved, to be replaced by other people and families. Nothing much was said about the first family living at the end of the street that never joined us in our snow clearing activities. They had small children, and it was no skin off our noses to clear the street and their drive.

It was looked upon as a social duty. After all, suppose one of the children needed to see a doctor during the night? Since the road was clear Mom & Dad could get the child out to a doctor if they needed to.

As a matter of civic duty especially for the older folks, we wanted to make sure that paramedics had unrestricted access to all the homes on the street.

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Then another family moved and was replaced.

Now we had two homes that weren’t assisting in snow removal and they also weren’t pitching in any cash on those rare occasions when we needed a skiploader to clear the street.

We still said nothing, and the rest of us still cleared the street.

Over time this replacement of families continued.

Then it was only a 70 year old woman and myself clearing the street. Meanwhile the 20- 40 somethings sat in their homes and in the morning enjoyed the fact that the road was passable and they could drive their kids to school. (After all children shouldn’t have to walk or ride a school bus should they? Yeah, a little sarcasm there.)

It was my 70 year old neighbor who first observed that all the neighbors that weren’t contributing to the common good had bumper stickers for Democratic candidates on their minivans or SUVs.

Her observation came in the middle of a snowstorm while we were arguing about whether she was going to go back inside and let me keep shoveling.

She could be a salty lady and her assessment of the situation was “Typical fucked up Democratic yuppies!”, as she glared at the warmly lit windows on the street.

I lost the argument about her going inside. She pulled the “I’m your elder! routine… Who can argue with that?”

The next year she purchased a home near Palm Springs and killed two birds with one stone. She was warm year round, and didn’t have to shovel any snow.

She’d come back to her home here in the mountains around April just in time for her garden to begin sprouting.

This left me the last Republican on the block, during the winter.

For years I’ve continued to clear the street alone.

I’ve got a 4wheel drive truck so I don’t really need to clear the street in most storms. My truck is good to about a foot and a half of snow.

I still think clearing the street is the responsible thing to do.

This last snow fall, I was clearing my drive and it occurred to me no-one asked me to clear the street. So I shouldn’t be annoyed that absolutely no-one will come out and help even if only for a few minutes.

Following that logic, if no-one asked me to clear the street I shouldn’t. Instead I’m going to clear only that which I feel responsible for and leave the rest to the other people on the street.

That’s exactly what I’ve done.

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I’ve already been asked questions. “Why isn’t the street clear?”, “Why is the berm so high? I can’t drive over it and my plastic shovel broke because it’s a wall of ice.”, “Why is the street so icy?”

The topper was this one, “I think you’re being mean by not clearing the street. How am I supposed to get to work?”

That ladies and gentlemen sums up the difference between Republicans and Democrats.

Republicans will shovel the snow off an entire street unasked, because they see the common good in doing it. Democrats expect someone else to do the shoveling.

Republicans will eventually get tired of being taken advantage of and let others around him sink or swim “each to their own ability“.  The Democrats will call him mean and angry.

When a Republican, through planning, takes care of himself and doesn’t need “The System”, the Democrats accuse him of an “I’ve got mine and fuck the rest of you attitude”

Food for thought…