Elizabeth Moon's Blog, page 24
July 12, 2013
Texas GOP continues War on Women by Confiscating Tampons, etc. Part 1
A warning: this post consists of multiple parts, including emails sent to the Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives, and to the Lt. Gov of Texas, who runs the Texas Senate. I also emailed my state Rep and State Senator. All four of these persons are staunch Republicans in favor of anything that will harm women in general, and nothing that gives women autonomy in their own lives (except being held responsible for misdeeds...)
So there will be some rude things and some crude things in here and if your ears are sensitive...go somewhere else. When grown men who claim to be gentlemen search women's bags for tampons and menstrual pads and Depends, and take diabetic supplies away from a woman with diabetes, while cointinuing to disrespect women, dictate to women, and just generally act like over-entitled arrogant narcissistic assholes...all desire to be polite and ladylike has gone up in flames.
Here's what I sent to the Speaker of the House (and this after blowing off the first blast to my state Senator and my state Rep without thinking to copy/paste from the webforms you have to use):
What the everlasting daughters of Zion were you thinking when you authorized the Texas DPS to confiscate tampons and pads from women attending a session in the Capitol? And yet let those with guns bring them in? How (I am searching for some other word than ''stupid'', but that fits best) stupid can you guys be? (That stupid, obviously.)
Do you really think a tampon is more dangerous than a bullet? If so, I suggest an immediate visit to a shrink for a reality check. Nobody's ever gone into a school and massacred a bunch of people with a box of tampons.
Do you really think a group of men who wimp out at the thought of a tampon are stable enough to make good decisions about health care for women? (Or anything else for that matter.) I certainly don't.
Let me make this very, very plain, in short words, just in case. Women are human, just like you. Women are citizens, just like you. If you believe God created humans, then according to the Declaration of Independence, God endowed humans (I am aware that in the 18th century ''man'' might apply to both sexes--it was the Age of Reason, which we have unfortunately left) with certain inalienable rights, among other things, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Women have a right, that is, to choose what they perceive as best for them. We are not your property.
When you propose laws that risk women's lives, that limit their freedom of choice, that curtail their pursuit of happiness you strike at the roots of our nation's reason for being. Suppose women decided to control *your* reproductive lives? After all, if you treat women like mere breeding livestock, we might decide men should be treated like that too...and you probably know how few bulls and stallions reach adulthood with their cojones intact.
And you also look, pardon my French, damned silly when you flinch from the very possibility that you might confront a tampon. (We stick them up our tender vaginas..come on, how bad can they be?)
And here's what I sent to the Lt. Gov, David Dewhurst, who in the last session refused to recognize a female Senator who was a Democrat:
Sir:
Are you out of your pea-pickin' mind? Whatever made you think authorizing the DPS to confiscate women's sanitary products was a good idea? Because it wasn't.
If you seriously think tampons in the gallery are more dangerous than guns in the gallery (or that everyone who has a carry permit is your friend) you need to consider voluntarily committing yourself to a mental institution for a reality and sanity check. I suggest you look up the relative lethality of bullets and tampons. Let along pads, which don't even have decent aerodynamics.
Or do you guys think tampons and pads are so full of girl cooties that if one comes near you your boobs will swell up, your pride and joy will shrivel up and fall off, and someone will mistake you for a girl? In which case--grow up. Your weenie is safe from cooties.
What it boils down to is a bunch of men deciding that they should make all the decisions about women and health care as if women were not fully human or full citizens under the law. But we are. You don't own us, or our bodies, and this country is not ruled by Sharia law--which is pretty much what you're trying to impose, in controlling women's access to the health care they need and want.
Life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness are root ideals of this country. When you deny them to some, you make it possible to deny them to all.
And for what it's worth, I think the whole lot of you arrogant SOBS should end up in hell as women. Women having periods, cramping and bleeding and bloated, blood dripping down your legs, with a lot of little demons laughing and pointing and reminding you that you can't have any tampons or pads because you had them confiscated. Women pregnant for a millennium or two, and then in labor for a millennium or two, and then it all starts over, because "as you judge, so shall you be judged."
And you've made the state a laughingstock once again, as well as making a USMC veteran mad enough to spit nails. You need to get out of government. You need to dissolve the legislative session, go home, all of you sit in a corner and think about how stupid you were, and how much harm you've done. You're a disgrace.
So there will be some rude things and some crude things in here and if your ears are sensitive...go somewhere else. When grown men who claim to be gentlemen search women's bags for tampons and menstrual pads and Depends, and take diabetic supplies away from a woman with diabetes, while cointinuing to disrespect women, dictate to women, and just generally act like over-entitled arrogant narcissistic assholes...all desire to be polite and ladylike has gone up in flames.
Here's what I sent to the Speaker of the House (and this after blowing off the first blast to my state Senator and my state Rep without thinking to copy/paste from the webforms you have to use):
What the everlasting daughters of Zion were you thinking when you authorized the Texas DPS to confiscate tampons and pads from women attending a session in the Capitol? And yet let those with guns bring them in? How (I am searching for some other word than ''stupid'', but that fits best) stupid can you guys be? (That stupid, obviously.)
Do you really think a tampon is more dangerous than a bullet? If so, I suggest an immediate visit to a shrink for a reality check. Nobody's ever gone into a school and massacred a bunch of people with a box of tampons.
Do you really think a group of men who wimp out at the thought of a tampon are stable enough to make good decisions about health care for women? (Or anything else for that matter.) I certainly don't.
Let me make this very, very plain, in short words, just in case. Women are human, just like you. Women are citizens, just like you. If you believe God created humans, then according to the Declaration of Independence, God endowed humans (I am aware that in the 18th century ''man'' might apply to both sexes--it was the Age of Reason, which we have unfortunately left) with certain inalienable rights, among other things, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Women have a right, that is, to choose what they perceive as best for them. We are not your property.
When you propose laws that risk women's lives, that limit their freedom of choice, that curtail their pursuit of happiness you strike at the roots of our nation's reason for being. Suppose women decided to control *your* reproductive lives? After all, if you treat women like mere breeding livestock, we might decide men should be treated like that too...and you probably know how few bulls and stallions reach adulthood with their cojones intact.
And you also look, pardon my French, damned silly when you flinch from the very possibility that you might confront a tampon. (We stick them up our tender vaginas..come on, how bad can they be?)
And here's what I sent to the Lt. Gov, David Dewhurst, who in the last session refused to recognize a female Senator who was a Democrat:
Sir:
Are you out of your pea-pickin' mind? Whatever made you think authorizing the DPS to confiscate women's sanitary products was a good idea? Because it wasn't.
If you seriously think tampons in the gallery are more dangerous than guns in the gallery (or that everyone who has a carry permit is your friend) you need to consider voluntarily committing yourself to a mental institution for a reality and sanity check. I suggest you look up the relative lethality of bullets and tampons. Let along pads, which don't even have decent aerodynamics.
Or do you guys think tampons and pads are so full of girl cooties that if one comes near you your boobs will swell up, your pride and joy will shrivel up and fall off, and someone will mistake you for a girl? In which case--grow up. Your weenie is safe from cooties.
What it boils down to is a bunch of men deciding that they should make all the decisions about women and health care as if women were not fully human or full citizens under the law. But we are. You don't own us, or our bodies, and this country is not ruled by Sharia law--which is pretty much what you're trying to impose, in controlling women's access to the health care they need and want.
Life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness are root ideals of this country. When you deny them to some, you make it possible to deny them to all.
And for what it's worth, I think the whole lot of you arrogant SOBS should end up in hell as women. Women having periods, cramping and bleeding and bloated, blood dripping down your legs, with a lot of little demons laughing and pointing and reminding you that you can't have any tampons or pads because you had them confiscated. Women pregnant for a millennium or two, and then in labor for a millennium or two, and then it all starts over, because "as you judge, so shall you be judged."
And you've made the state a laughingstock once again, as well as making a USMC veteran mad enough to spit nails. You need to get out of government. You need to dissolve the legislative session, go home, all of you sit in a corner and think about how stupid you were, and how much harm you've done. You're a disgrace.
June 6, 2013
Disappearing Comments
So...I had an older post onto which a lot of spam (44 spams) had been dumped, ending up listed as "suspicious comments." I carefully marked each one, then used the "mass action" control to get rid of them. Selected the right choice, so that only the marked comments would be deleted, and went on from there. But instead, ALL comments were deleted. Every single one of them, the innocent non-spam as well as the guilty spam.
So if you had a comment on the post about spoiler space for Kings of the North, and it's gone, it wasn't my intention. If LJ's mass actions on comments keeps malfunctioning, I won't be able to use it, and the alternative is the much slower process of deleting the spam comments one by one.
So if you had a comment on the post about spoiler space for Kings of the North, and it's gone, it wasn't my intention. If LJ's mass actions on comments keeps malfunctioning, I won't be able to use it, and the alternative is the much slower process of deleting the spam comments one by one.
March 13, 2013
The Latest Socks
The Isle of Sky (Cascade 220 Paints, discontinued) socks are now finished. You may remember the start picture:
The yarn has a lovely, firm but cushy feel. I loved the colors, and the feel in my hands, and was happy every stitch of the way. However, I made a mistake in the decreases on the left gusset of the right sock that I'd never made before, and it took several days of experimenting to figure out a solution for it. So the socks were finished and wearable four or five days after they came off the needles. At last the day came for wearing them for the first time:
They haven't been washed in this picture--they're right off the needles onto the feet. And the feel is wonderful, exactly what I like.
Here's a close-up of the left sock, with shadows helping to show the cuff, leg, heel flap, and gusset as well as the foot. This is not the gusset I had trouble with.:
And here's how they look laid out on the bench of the picnic table.
They've now been worn a day, washed (no problems there) and are in their plastic bag in the sock drawer, part of the regular rotation...now ten pairs are in that rotation. As usual, they softened a bit in washing, but they didn't go all limp and wishy-washy like the purple ones did (the purples are still comfortable, however.) I have enough yarn for four more pairs like this. The next pair of socks, a soft blue-green, is on the needles, still on the cuff ribbing, and the pair after that (another emerald green) is also started, but under an inch long. Purple will probably follow the blue-green, and one of the yarns on order will follow the emerald. I have four pairs to go to reach fourteen--the two-week rotation. Then another seven pairs to reach the three-week rotation, and so on. I'm guessing that different yarns of different brands will produce socks with different durability...some may last only 50 wearings, and some will last 100, maybe even more. But the more pairs, the fewer wearings per year, and thus the more years that pair will last. And eventually, I'll have enough socks to slow down on the knitting of socks (and do something else as well) and just knit replacements for longer rotations.
And I really, really, REALLY like these socks. They're very comfortable for my feet.
The yarn has a lovely, firm but cushy feel. I loved the colors, and the feel in my hands, and was happy every stitch of the way. However, I made a mistake in the decreases on the left gusset of the right sock that I'd never made before, and it took several days of experimenting to figure out a solution for it. So the socks were finished and wearable four or five days after they came off the needles. At last the day came for wearing them for the first time:They haven't been washed in this picture--they're right off the needles onto the feet. And the feel is wonderful, exactly what I like.
Here's a close-up of the left sock, with shadows helping to show the cuff, leg, heel flap, and gusset as well as the foot. This is not the gusset I had trouble with.:
And here's how they look laid out on the bench of the picnic table.
They've now been worn a day, washed (no problems there) and are in their plastic bag in the sock drawer, part of the regular rotation...now ten pairs are in that rotation. As usual, they softened a bit in washing, but they didn't go all limp and wishy-washy like the purple ones did (the purples are still comfortable, however.) I have enough yarn for four more pairs like this. The next pair of socks, a soft blue-green, is on the needles, still on the cuff ribbing, and the pair after that (another emerald green) is also started, but under an inch long. Purple will probably follow the blue-green, and one of the yarns on order will follow the emerald. I have four pairs to go to reach fourteen--the two-week rotation. Then another seven pairs to reach the three-week rotation, and so on. I'm guessing that different yarns of different brands will produce socks with different durability...some may last only 50 wearings, and some will last 100, maybe even more. But the more pairs, the fewer wearings per year, and thus the more years that pair will last. And eventually, I'll have enough socks to slow down on the knitting of socks (and do something else as well) and just knit replacements for longer rotations.
And I really, really, REALLY like these socks. They're very comfortable for my feet.
February 28, 2013
Country Living: Bones and CSI for amateur naturalists
Country living, for those at all interested in Nature Red in Tooth and Claw, provides evidence of same. We first found the obvious big bones: cow bones, from when this was a pasture, piled in the back corner of the place. Forensic evidence: more than one bovine, probably died elsewhere and the carcass dragged to this more remote spot for scavengers to take care of. Next came a deer shoulderblade with shreds of ligament and one leg bone nearby. Wounded, maybe, or small enough for a coyote to take. Gradually we found (and in come cases brought home) the skulls of gray fox, raccoon, feral cat...the shell of a turtle, and saw many bones we didn't bring back. We found fur, feathers, the scattered remains of small animals clearly taken by a predator, and once a cluster of vultures chowing down on a dead raccoon. Wary city dwellers, alert to the possibility of anthrax or tularemia from handling dead animals or even old bones. As part of our wildlife management duties, we kept some track of mortality (feline distemper got a lot of raccoons one year, as well as the gray fox family) and in some cases found a probable human cause (bloodstains in one raccoon's teeth indicating clotting problems, and quite possibly the result of one of the rat poisons.)
Not the skull with the stained teeth--most teeth here are gone. Found in creek woods in 2006.
However, we had not found the remains of domestic livestock other than the old cow bones. Until this week.
Two days ago, R-, who has been working fence all winter, found an unfamiliar animal skull--fairly large--on the fence line, the cleared area to either side of a fence in work. He thought, from the evidence of the teeth, that it was probably a pig of some sort (wild, domestic, feral, cross?) but had no experience with pig skulls previously. Just---what else has tusks top and bottom that stick out at an odd (for other animals) angle, both upper and lower incisors, and plenty of big complicated molars at the back of the mouth?
Yesterday, he brought the skull back to the house, and by that time I'd been online looking up skulls in the whole pig family. (There are times the internet is wonderful; this was one. By the time he arrived with the skull, I had at least a general idea of the difference between a domestic pig skull, a wild boar skull, and a feral wild boar/domestic pig cross skull. Also a Vietnamese pot-bellied-pig skull. So this is the skull, all in one glance.
Note the shape of the front of the skull (to R)--neither straight nor deeply indented.
R- had noticed that the skull sutures were not fully fused, indicating (as in humans) a young animal. But still pretty big. Not a baby pig you'd keep in a shoebox. I photographed the dentition, upper and lower, concentrating more on the front of the mouth, so I could look for wear marks on the tusks and the incisors.
Lower jaw. Tusks show wear, so have been used for rooting. Lower incisors are relatively straight, very thick, like chisels
Upper jaw: Note in-pointing incisors, like little shovels. Tusks show wear near tips--from rooting or pushing brush & rocks aside--but also from rubbing against lower tusks, the self-sharpening mechanism.
This is not a mouth you'd want some part of your body caught in.
This pig's head was severed from its body by a sharp tool--an axe is most likely, but it might have been a heavy cleaver, from the marks it made on one of the cervical vertebrae. Our first thought was a saw, but there were none of the telltale back and forth grooves: the blows of the tool made clean, but uneven, marks. Since we had not seen signs of rooting, or pig tracks, or pig scat, in the woods, our guess is that this is the head of a pig killed elsewhere, possibly just thrown out after butchering, and brought where it was found by one of the local predators or scavengers--or somebody's dog, for that matter. We think it is a cross between a true wild boar and the domestic hog, not someone's livestock show project--the skull profile suggests quite a bit of wild hog because it's not straight, but it's almost so...the long, straight profile fits the wild boar and more indented, concave profiles fit domestic breeds.
An interesting find, anyway, and since we already knew there are feral/wild hogs causing havoc only a short distance away, we'll be on the alert for "sign."
Not the skull with the stained teeth--most teeth here are gone. Found in creek woods in 2006.
However, we had not found the remains of domestic livestock other than the old cow bones. Until this week.
Two days ago, R-, who has been working fence all winter, found an unfamiliar animal skull--fairly large--on the fence line, the cleared area to either side of a fence in work. He thought, from the evidence of the teeth, that it was probably a pig of some sort (wild, domestic, feral, cross?) but had no experience with pig skulls previously. Just---what else has tusks top and bottom that stick out at an odd (for other animals) angle, both upper and lower incisors, and plenty of big complicated molars at the back of the mouth?
Yesterday, he brought the skull back to the house, and by that time I'd been online looking up skulls in the whole pig family. (There are times the internet is wonderful; this was one. By the time he arrived with the skull, I had at least a general idea of the difference between a domestic pig skull, a wild boar skull, and a feral wild boar/domestic pig cross skull. Also a Vietnamese pot-bellied-pig skull. So this is the skull, all in one glance.
Note the shape of the front of the skull (to R)--neither straight nor deeply indented.
R- had noticed that the skull sutures were not fully fused, indicating (as in humans) a young animal. But still pretty big. Not a baby pig you'd keep in a shoebox. I photographed the dentition, upper and lower, concentrating more on the front of the mouth, so I could look for wear marks on the tusks and the incisors.
Lower jaw. Tusks show wear, so have been used for rooting. Lower incisors are relatively straight, very thick, like chisels
Upper jaw: Note in-pointing incisors, like little shovels. Tusks show wear near tips--from rooting or pushing brush & rocks aside--but also from rubbing against lower tusks, the self-sharpening mechanism.
This is not a mouth you'd want some part of your body caught in.
This pig's head was severed from its body by a sharp tool--an axe is most likely, but it might have been a heavy cleaver, from the marks it made on one of the cervical vertebrae. Our first thought was a saw, but there were none of the telltale back and forth grooves: the blows of the tool made clean, but uneven, marks. Since we had not seen signs of rooting, or pig tracks, or pig scat, in the woods, our guess is that this is the head of a pig killed elsewhere, possibly just thrown out after butchering, and brought where it was found by one of the local predators or scavengers--or somebody's dog, for that matter. We think it is a cross between a true wild boar and the domestic hog, not someone's livestock show project--the skull profile suggests quite a bit of wild hog because it's not straight, but it's almost so...the long, straight profile fits the wild boar and more indented, concave profiles fit domestic breeds.
An interesting find, anyway, and since we already knew there are feral/wild hogs causing havoc only a short distance away, we'll be on the alert for "sign."
February 23, 2013
This Is Not Survival Training
http://blogs.reuters.com/photographers-blog/2013/02/22/an-amendment-revisited/
To a man with a hammer, everything is a nail. To a man (or a woman, or a 9 year old girl) with a gun, everyone is a potential enemy.
Being a gun owner myself, I know the seductive pleasure of holding something that can kill whatever-it-is (other than someone armed with a longer-range firearm) before it kills you. Before anything (you think) can hurt you. Before it touches you. Holding a firearm you know how to use fills the chest with a sense of power. BLAM. Targets on a range acquire holes. Bark leaps off trees. Glass shatters. Tin cans dance. Birds fall. Deer fall. A .22 makes killing the sheep you're going to process for the freezer a one-shot job. Know the right spot in the skull, and BLAM it's done. A 9mm takes down a 2000+ pound bull just fine, same way. BLAM. (Big bulls kick longer and harder. Just sayin'.) If you are of that mind (and not all gun owners or hunters are) you imagine the "bad guy" meeting your bullet and his/her gun falling from his/her hand, and you alive, senses tingling with adrenalin rush. BLAM. You got the drop on him/her. You got the shot. You won.
When I was a child, right after WWII and overlapping the Korean War, children playing war games were common. Not just boys, either. We dug (much too shallow) foxholes and trenches in vacant lots. We pretended to shoot each other, pretended to be the one shot but with one last dirt-clod grenade to throw at the enemy. We were dramatic about it, too, using all the movie moves we'd seen to indicate "really dead" or "only partly dead." We did not have much clue about the reality, our parents and their friends carefully not talking about it in front of the children. But the theory, and the mythology, we had down pat.
What we did not have at all were real weapons, until about age ten, when boys and the rare girl were allowed to learn to use the family varmint rifle. (Invariably, in those days, a single-shot .22, most commonly bolt-action. Heavy, with a dark, well-used walnut stock that might have an uncle's or grandfather's initials carved into it.) Some kids (I was one) had a Daisy BB gun before that--known to be dangerous to eyes and windows, but a way to tell if this particular kid, at eleven or twelve, was ready for graduation to the family .22. Farm kids learned earlier than city kids--they had places to shoot that didn't involve neighboring houses, people, and pets.
The real weapons--the varmint rifles, the deer rifles (then also mostly single-shot, because "real hunters don't need automatics"), the "bird guns" (shotguns) and the handguns were all for adults only. Touching an adult's firearm without permission led to a thrashing, no question about it, in every family I knew. You might get away with other misconduct, but not sneaking in to handle a firearm. I was forbidden to open the drawer my mother kept her target pistol in, or rummage for sewing supplies under the bed, where the Smith & Wesson .38 revolver was. And I didn't.
Many of us came from families that camped out (the old way--no camping trailers) and hiked and so on. We learned basic survival skills for the area in which we lived: how to set up a camp, dig a latrine (however small), recognize edible plants, find water if any was around (it was a dry country, so often it was "better carry a lot, because it's a long walk to the next well and cactus juice will give you the runs.") We knew not to sleep in arroyos (flash floods) and recognition of and response to all the dangerous critters, from rattlesnakes to feral cattle. Some of what we were told turned out to be more myth than reality (the murderous nature of the collared peccary, for instance--stories of being trampled to bloody ribbons by herds of furious javelinas mistook these animals for feral hogs), but quite a lot was useful.
None of this involved handing children loaded assault weapons and having them practice military patrol form in the guise of "survival" and "defending the Constitution." That's not survival training. That's training little kids for war. Little kids playing war games is one thing. Adults teaching children to handle or use military weapons--teaching children that they must someday use those weapons against fellow citizens--that is not about survival. That is about preparing children to kill in a civil war. EXACTLY what terrorists have done in country after country. That is about dishonest, disloyal, intention to subvert the legally elected government, about planning to force the majority of the citizenry to live under the militia's rules...which are, unfortunately, all too often rules the old Confederacy would like, in which white men control everything because there are no laws, and no law enforcement, to keep them from their tyranny.
I have long said, and still believe, that if these self-styled militias and survivalists (misnamed) get the war they so obviously want--if they manage to destroy civil society along with this nation--the only real survivors will be old women with the skills to survive (the hundreds of skills "survivalists" with their concentration on guns and ammo and fancy camo outfits do not even know exist) and to protect children from stray bullets, meanwhile keeping them fed and clothed and sheltered until things quiet down. If they ever do. The survivalists will run out of fancy gear and camo clothes and freeze-dried food and will have killed all the game they know how to shoot and eat. But the very last one will, with his last lying breath, claim he was defending the Constitution and liberty...and he will be wrong, as they are wrong now.
When a cute 9 year old grows up surrounded by adults who fully believe that Guns Are The Answer....that a person of color in the White House is evil....and that having and using guns is the answer to whatever you don't like about law, order, rules, government....more massacres are on the way. When little Brianna (or any of the other kids in that group) gets mad at some perceived unfairness from her parents, or her teacher, or some other kids in the class, when the hormones and impulsivity meet in adolescence, and takes Dad's loaded weapon to school and kills 5 or 10 or 20 or 30 of her classmates...will the North Florida Survival Group accept responsibility for what it created? Hell, no, they won't. They'll make the same lame excuses they make now for their obsession with guns and killing, and their paranoia about the government and people of color and anyone who disagrees with them.
It is people like this who create the countering fear of all guns. People like this who make it harder for responsible gun owners to convince neighbors they're safe to live alongside, who increase the cost of gun ownership and create ridiculous shortages of ammunition by having panic attacks and mobbing gun stores and gun shows. (Thanks SO much, guys, for making it harder for me to buy ammunition.) Sneaking around in the woods in camo pretending to stalk enemies that are, in fact, one's fellow citizens is clearly behavior that causes alarm among those fellow citizens. Labeling those who don't agree with you as "Communists" or "sheep" or "shills" is a way to alienate, not convince these citizens, and so is making it so very, very clear that your main objection to President Obama is the color of his skin. It should be obvious to the North Florida Survival Group that this will happen...that they themselves and others like them have created and are creating the environment they don't like. But it's not, because they're blinded by the certainty that paranoia induces...the certainty that they're right, everyone else is wrong, and thus everyone else is probably their enemy.
Real survival training is not about being determined to start a war and kill your neighbors because they voted for someone you don't like and support rules that constrain your (obviously very dangerous) behavior. Survival training is about learning the skills (not the kills) that will keep you (and your family, if you have one) alive, healthy, and able to contribute to the welfare of the community that sustains you....and in a world that is rapidly changing, both physically and socially. Starting with the simple natural challenge--the storm that knocks out power, the earthquake, the flood--and going on to survival in larger disasters of all kinds--real survival training teaches not just how to dig a latrine or purify water or grow a garden--but how to cooperate in groups to get these and other necessary things done--how to conserve the human resources left after something goes haywire, not shoot someone for being the wrong color or voting for the wrong person. A firearm is a handy tool for a few of the tasks that may show up in a life lived long and well in a difficult world. It is not however the One Big Thing. It's lousy for digging post holes, no good for cutting down trees, useless for digging, planting, working a garden, and while you could (but I don't recommend it) wedge a rifle barrel in a gap between branches and use it to hold one end of a lap-loom for weaving, another branch would be better. Even with the current scourge of wild hogs in our area, if they became a necessary source of food for the population they annoy, they'd be gone in a year. ..and without game to shoot, a firearm isn't a tool for providing food. Or water. Or anything else you really need. (Oh, sure, you can become a bandit and hold people up for whatever food, water, clothing, and shelter they have. But trying to justify that as "defending the Constitution" is downright silly, and either you'll run out of ammo or you'll run into a better shooter eventually. Including the old guy who used to be in the SCA and still has a crossbow with some broadhead bolts.)
I know that nothing I say will convince the True Believers in the various militias and the NRA...True Believers have drunk the paranoid poison. But I say what I say about gun control and these so-called militia/survival groups to let the world know that not everyone with firearms in the house is like that. I don't daydream about shooting my neighbors (even the ones who probably dream about shooting me) or the FBI, or my idiot legislators (whom I didn't vote for and think are arrogant, ignorant, greedy, power-mad pissants, to be plain about it. Tell them so, yes. Shoot them, no. Not worth the paperwork and the waste of a perfectly good bullet that might be used on a rabid raccoon lurching across the yard in broad daylight.) I have sworn an oath to uphold and protect the Constitution more than once--as Marine Corps officer, as an elected official--and in my understanding of both the Constitution and the real meaning of the oath, it did not mean defending the right to use guns to train people to overthrow the government of the United States. We've had a Civil War. I would rather not see another one. If, however, it comes, my loyalty is to the Constitution in its entirety and the government which it set up.
Comments: All comments will go to moderation. The moderator has a life and will get to comments when there's time. The moderator, having paid for this space, feels no obligation whatever to put up with trolls, hornets, or other unpleasantness. Disagreement is fine, but courtesy is mandatory. Anonymous comments will either contain identity or be deleted. Hot issues bring out the pile-ons and we're not having one here.
To a man with a hammer, everything is a nail. To a man (or a woman, or a 9 year old girl) with a gun, everyone is a potential enemy.
Being a gun owner myself, I know the seductive pleasure of holding something that can kill whatever-it-is (other than someone armed with a longer-range firearm) before it kills you. Before anything (you think) can hurt you. Before it touches you. Holding a firearm you know how to use fills the chest with a sense of power. BLAM. Targets on a range acquire holes. Bark leaps off trees. Glass shatters. Tin cans dance. Birds fall. Deer fall. A .22 makes killing the sheep you're going to process for the freezer a one-shot job. Know the right spot in the skull, and BLAM it's done. A 9mm takes down a 2000+ pound bull just fine, same way. BLAM. (Big bulls kick longer and harder. Just sayin'.) If you are of that mind (and not all gun owners or hunters are) you imagine the "bad guy" meeting your bullet and his/her gun falling from his/her hand, and you alive, senses tingling with adrenalin rush. BLAM. You got the drop on him/her. You got the shot. You won.
When I was a child, right after WWII and overlapping the Korean War, children playing war games were common. Not just boys, either. We dug (much too shallow) foxholes and trenches in vacant lots. We pretended to shoot each other, pretended to be the one shot but with one last dirt-clod grenade to throw at the enemy. We were dramatic about it, too, using all the movie moves we'd seen to indicate "really dead" or "only partly dead." We did not have much clue about the reality, our parents and their friends carefully not talking about it in front of the children. But the theory, and the mythology, we had down pat.
What we did not have at all were real weapons, until about age ten, when boys and the rare girl were allowed to learn to use the family varmint rifle. (Invariably, in those days, a single-shot .22, most commonly bolt-action. Heavy, with a dark, well-used walnut stock that might have an uncle's or grandfather's initials carved into it.) Some kids (I was one) had a Daisy BB gun before that--known to be dangerous to eyes and windows, but a way to tell if this particular kid, at eleven or twelve, was ready for graduation to the family .22. Farm kids learned earlier than city kids--they had places to shoot that didn't involve neighboring houses, people, and pets.
The real weapons--the varmint rifles, the deer rifles (then also mostly single-shot, because "real hunters don't need automatics"), the "bird guns" (shotguns) and the handguns were all for adults only. Touching an adult's firearm without permission led to a thrashing, no question about it, in every family I knew. You might get away with other misconduct, but not sneaking in to handle a firearm. I was forbidden to open the drawer my mother kept her target pistol in, or rummage for sewing supplies under the bed, where the Smith & Wesson .38 revolver was. And I didn't.
Many of us came from families that camped out (the old way--no camping trailers) and hiked and so on. We learned basic survival skills for the area in which we lived: how to set up a camp, dig a latrine (however small), recognize edible plants, find water if any was around (it was a dry country, so often it was "better carry a lot, because it's a long walk to the next well and cactus juice will give you the runs.") We knew not to sleep in arroyos (flash floods) and recognition of and response to all the dangerous critters, from rattlesnakes to feral cattle. Some of what we were told turned out to be more myth than reality (the murderous nature of the collared peccary, for instance--stories of being trampled to bloody ribbons by herds of furious javelinas mistook these animals for feral hogs), but quite a lot was useful.
None of this involved handing children loaded assault weapons and having them practice military patrol form in the guise of "survival" and "defending the Constitution." That's not survival training. That's training little kids for war. Little kids playing war games is one thing. Adults teaching children to handle or use military weapons--teaching children that they must someday use those weapons against fellow citizens--that is not about survival. That is about preparing children to kill in a civil war. EXACTLY what terrorists have done in country after country. That is about dishonest, disloyal, intention to subvert the legally elected government, about planning to force the majority of the citizenry to live under the militia's rules...which are, unfortunately, all too often rules the old Confederacy would like, in which white men control everything because there are no laws, and no law enforcement, to keep them from their tyranny.
I have long said, and still believe, that if these self-styled militias and survivalists (misnamed) get the war they so obviously want--if they manage to destroy civil society along with this nation--the only real survivors will be old women with the skills to survive (the hundreds of skills "survivalists" with their concentration on guns and ammo and fancy camo outfits do not even know exist) and to protect children from stray bullets, meanwhile keeping them fed and clothed and sheltered until things quiet down. If they ever do. The survivalists will run out of fancy gear and camo clothes and freeze-dried food and will have killed all the game they know how to shoot and eat. But the very last one will, with his last lying breath, claim he was defending the Constitution and liberty...and he will be wrong, as they are wrong now.
When a cute 9 year old grows up surrounded by adults who fully believe that Guns Are The Answer....that a person of color in the White House is evil....and that having and using guns is the answer to whatever you don't like about law, order, rules, government....more massacres are on the way. When little Brianna (or any of the other kids in that group) gets mad at some perceived unfairness from her parents, or her teacher, or some other kids in the class, when the hormones and impulsivity meet in adolescence, and takes Dad's loaded weapon to school and kills 5 or 10 or 20 or 30 of her classmates...will the North Florida Survival Group accept responsibility for what it created? Hell, no, they won't. They'll make the same lame excuses they make now for their obsession with guns and killing, and their paranoia about the government and people of color and anyone who disagrees with them.
It is people like this who create the countering fear of all guns. People like this who make it harder for responsible gun owners to convince neighbors they're safe to live alongside, who increase the cost of gun ownership and create ridiculous shortages of ammunition by having panic attacks and mobbing gun stores and gun shows. (Thanks SO much, guys, for making it harder for me to buy ammunition.) Sneaking around in the woods in camo pretending to stalk enemies that are, in fact, one's fellow citizens is clearly behavior that causes alarm among those fellow citizens. Labeling those who don't agree with you as "Communists" or "sheep" or "shills" is a way to alienate, not convince these citizens, and so is making it so very, very clear that your main objection to President Obama is the color of his skin. It should be obvious to the North Florida Survival Group that this will happen...that they themselves and others like them have created and are creating the environment they don't like. But it's not, because they're blinded by the certainty that paranoia induces...the certainty that they're right, everyone else is wrong, and thus everyone else is probably their enemy.
Real survival training is not about being determined to start a war and kill your neighbors because they voted for someone you don't like and support rules that constrain your (obviously very dangerous) behavior. Survival training is about learning the skills (not the kills) that will keep you (and your family, if you have one) alive, healthy, and able to contribute to the welfare of the community that sustains you....and in a world that is rapidly changing, both physically and socially. Starting with the simple natural challenge--the storm that knocks out power, the earthquake, the flood--and going on to survival in larger disasters of all kinds--real survival training teaches not just how to dig a latrine or purify water or grow a garden--but how to cooperate in groups to get these and other necessary things done--how to conserve the human resources left after something goes haywire, not shoot someone for being the wrong color or voting for the wrong person. A firearm is a handy tool for a few of the tasks that may show up in a life lived long and well in a difficult world. It is not however the One Big Thing. It's lousy for digging post holes, no good for cutting down trees, useless for digging, planting, working a garden, and while you could (but I don't recommend it) wedge a rifle barrel in a gap between branches and use it to hold one end of a lap-loom for weaving, another branch would be better. Even with the current scourge of wild hogs in our area, if they became a necessary source of food for the population they annoy, they'd be gone in a year. ..and without game to shoot, a firearm isn't a tool for providing food. Or water. Or anything else you really need. (Oh, sure, you can become a bandit and hold people up for whatever food, water, clothing, and shelter they have. But trying to justify that as "defending the Constitution" is downright silly, and either you'll run out of ammo or you'll run into a better shooter eventually. Including the old guy who used to be in the SCA and still has a crossbow with some broadhead bolts.)
I know that nothing I say will convince the True Believers in the various militias and the NRA...True Believers have drunk the paranoid poison. But I say what I say about gun control and these so-called militia/survival groups to let the world know that not everyone with firearms in the house is like that. I don't daydream about shooting my neighbors (even the ones who probably dream about shooting me) or the FBI, or my idiot legislators (whom I didn't vote for and think are arrogant, ignorant, greedy, power-mad pissants, to be plain about it. Tell them so, yes. Shoot them, no. Not worth the paperwork and the waste of a perfectly good bullet that might be used on a rabid raccoon lurching across the yard in broad daylight.) I have sworn an oath to uphold and protect the Constitution more than once--as Marine Corps officer, as an elected official--and in my understanding of both the Constitution and the real meaning of the oath, it did not mean defending the right to use guns to train people to overthrow the government of the United States. We've had a Civil War. I would rather not see another one. If, however, it comes, my loyalty is to the Constitution in its entirety and the government which it set up.
Comments: All comments will go to moderation. The moderator has a life and will get to comments when there's time. The moderator, having paid for this space, feels no obligation whatever to put up with trolls, hornets, or other unpleasantness. Disagreement is fine, but courtesy is mandatory. Anonymous comments will either contain identity or be deleted. Hot issues bring out the pile-ons and we're not having one here.
February 16, 2013
Two Pairs at Once?
When I bought some gorgeous yarn in skeins, I finally broke down and got a ball winder and swift. I already had some yarn in skeins, and had even used some, making balls myself. But it takes longer, and time is short as I'm in the homestretch of a book. But I also have a lot of yarn bought as balls...and suddenly was faced with a beautiful blue-green (sort of rich aqua color) already in balls, and the gorgeous deep blue variegated, now in balls I had made myself (OK, with a ball winder and swift.) How could I resist starting...well...both?
Clearly, I didn't resist. Now all four socks, both pairs, are on the needles at once. Which should I pick up any time I sit down? How long will it take to knit two pairs semi-simultaneously? Or will I give up that (nonsensical?) notion and go straight to these:
This is Cascade 200 Paints "Isle of Sky", a discontinued color. I have enough for five pairs of socks. Now that I've seen it in person, felt it, started knitting with it, I'd buy a lot more, but it's already off the menu at WEBS. Sigh.
On the other hand, I have only enough for one pair of these:
Cascade 220 Superwash, not (so far) a discontinued color, and also feels "lighter" than the other. No real hurry necessary here (you might not think there would be with the discontinued color, but...it's the one I really want to go with.
Clearly, I didn't resist. Now all four socks, both pairs, are on the needles at once. Which should I pick up any time I sit down? How long will it take to knit two pairs semi-simultaneously? Or will I give up that (nonsensical?) notion and go straight to these:This is Cascade 200 Paints "Isle of Sky", a discontinued color. I have enough for five pairs of socks. Now that I've seen it in person, felt it, started knitting with it, I'd buy a lot more, but it's already off the menu at WEBS. Sigh.
On the other hand, I have only enough for one pair of these:
Cascade 220 Superwash, not (so far) a discontinued color, and also feels "lighter" than the other. No real hurry necessary here (you might not think there would be with the discontinued color, but...it's the one I really want to go with.January 28, 2013
A Year In Socks
One year two days ago, January 26, 2012, about this time in the evening (late to start anything) I decided to start knitting socks. I had never knit socks before (my mother had) and I had no actual pattern...but, I thought, I have feet, and feet will be my guide--plus various sources online and in a book I had recently acquired, by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, otherwise known online as Yarn Harlot. The hour had come--I knew if I put it off it might be days or weeks before I felt so strongly again. And so began the adventure of the Year of Socks. My first post about it was January 28, and had a picture of a tiny frill on the needles.
I've posted from time to time about the progress in knitting socks, but I thought it would be fun to do an anniversary post. Tonight (later than the anniversary due to mistakes and interruptions) I finished the ninth pair since I started...Purple One. The pictures of the Year of Socks show Purple One about half-finished, on a clear sunny day last week. I knew from weather forecasts that it was the last day I could put all the socks outside and hope to get good photographs of the Sock Family.
The first eight pairs draped over the line, in order of production from left to right. The second blue (between the second red and the turquoise) is actually several shades lighter--it was still very damp. I wear only the hand-knits now, because they're so very comfortable, which means I will have to knit a black pair to wear with my concert blacks before a Mozart mass our choir's going to sing. Somehow I suspect that any of these will manage to peek out and ruin the effect.
Here's a comparison of the first pair (red) and the eighth pair (red) which shows how the sock shape has changed as I fitted it better to my feet. Also...I make fewer (never no) mistakes:
Red One had too short a ribbed cuff, too wide a ribbed cuff, almost no stockinette between the ribbing and the gusset, no heel reinforcement, and a foot that was too big around and barely long enough. Yet it functioned as a sock, and has been worn around 100 times in these nine months--I loved the feel and wore it as soon as it dried after washing until I had knitted enough socks that it could be on my feet only once a week. Red One is now showing considerable wear (though no holes, but visible thinning of the wear areas.) Red Three has narrower, taller ribbing (I like 5 inches), an inch and a half from ribbing to heel flap (where the gusset starts), reinforced heel flap, a foot that is narrower and a bit longer--and a right and a left sock, fitting more smoothly around my toes.
Here are all eight pairs complete last week, with the partly knitted purple socks on the needles:
The order of production is L to R on each row, with the first row the earliest and the bottom row the latest. The third pair was the first on which I tried reinforcing the heel flap. The fourth pair, Red Two, lacked that reinforcement but took another two stitches off the foot circumference. To that, I added heel reinforcement in all subsequent pairs. The first eight pairs were knitted with Ella rae Classic; the turquoise was also Ella rae, but Classic Superwash. All are worsted-weight, knit on US 5 needles. I like thick socks. On its second machine washing (delicate cycle, cold water) the turquoise fuzzed up and shrank a little, becoming denser. So I went back to hand-washing. It's not that hard.
The purples were knitted with Cascade 220 Superwash and will get one experimental trip to the washing machine after they've been test-hand-washed. I love the color. In fact, I like a lot of the colors in that brand, so I'll be knitting more socks in it.
I like knitting socks (and even more, wearing hand-knit socks) and find it relatively easy. Socks are handy project to take places like hospitals and on trips. I knit them in pairs (casting on the same day, turning heels the same day, finishing the same day.) In between the days when I want to do certain bits together, they're kind of like a horse race--one sock gets ahead, then the other sock gets ahead. In terms of time, the first pair took me two months...and the eighth pair took me three...while most took about a month to six weeks, and the purples were done in two weeks. It all depends on what else is going on. Some people are faster knitters; some people have more time to knit; some people are slower knitters...and clearly my knitting speed varies from "reasonable" to "snails that slow die of old age between one rosebush and the next."
But to keep wearing hand-knits--which I hope to do for the rest of my life--I need to knit more...quite a few more. If 100 wearings is the approximate lifespan of a 100% wool sock knit the way I knit them, then 7 pairs, each worn once a week, would last about two years. 14 pairs, worn in a once-every-two-weeks rotation would last 4 years. And so on. The thinning areas of Red One remind me that these socks, like all socks, will wear out, and there's no place to buy socks that fit like these socks. So the Sock Project continues, with the aim of getting a lead on the socks wearing out, so I will (in a year or so) be able to handle replacements at an easy knitting schedule. In aid of that goal, I've been buying more yarn (sure, that's the only reason I ever buy yarn...more socks totally explains the hand-painted rayon lace-weight, the wildly colored cotton/silk/wool blend...) Here are some of the yarns (except two that snuck into the picture by mistake) that are on the "to be socks" stack:
The little dark red ball in front is too small (I have larger feet than that will cover) and the dark blue behind the rest is too loosely spun for socks (I think.) Both are colors I want to find in 100 g balls in tougher yarn. This bunch does not include additional balls of the yarn the first nine were in...I want more of all of them, plus some new ones for variety. Some have been...er....ordered already. I found this gorgeous discontinued-on-sale selection with the *perfect* variegated blue....(yes, the stash is growing. Not yet beyond lifespan, even given my age, but....it's an incentive to knit it down.)
If I get a picture of the purple socks complete soon, I'll add that to this post. (now to see if THIS TIME I've gotten the LJ cut to cooperate...)
.
I've posted from time to time about the progress in knitting socks, but I thought it would be fun to do an anniversary post. Tonight (later than the anniversary due to mistakes and interruptions) I finished the ninth pair since I started...Purple One. The pictures of the Year of Socks show Purple One about half-finished, on a clear sunny day last week. I knew from weather forecasts that it was the last day I could put all the socks outside and hope to get good photographs of the Sock Family.
The first eight pairs draped over the line, in order of production from left to right. The second blue (between the second red and the turquoise) is actually several shades lighter--it was still very damp. I wear only the hand-knits now, because they're so very comfortable, which means I will have to knit a black pair to wear with my concert blacks before a Mozart mass our choir's going to sing. Somehow I suspect that any of these will manage to peek out and ruin the effect.
Here's a comparison of the first pair (red) and the eighth pair (red) which shows how the sock shape has changed as I fitted it better to my feet. Also...I make fewer (never no) mistakes:
Red One had too short a ribbed cuff, too wide a ribbed cuff, almost no stockinette between the ribbing and the gusset, no heel reinforcement, and a foot that was too big around and barely long enough. Yet it functioned as a sock, and has been worn around 100 times in these nine months--I loved the feel and wore it as soon as it dried after washing until I had knitted enough socks that it could be on my feet only once a week. Red One is now showing considerable wear (though no holes, but visible thinning of the wear areas.) Red Three has narrower, taller ribbing (I like 5 inches), an inch and a half from ribbing to heel flap (where the gusset starts), reinforced heel flap, a foot that is narrower and a bit longer--and a right and a left sock, fitting more smoothly around my toes.
Here are all eight pairs complete last week, with the partly knitted purple socks on the needles:
The order of production is L to R on each row, with the first row the earliest and the bottom row the latest. The third pair was the first on which I tried reinforcing the heel flap. The fourth pair, Red Two, lacked that reinforcement but took another two stitches off the foot circumference. To that, I added heel reinforcement in all subsequent pairs. The first eight pairs were knitted with Ella rae Classic; the turquoise was also Ella rae, but Classic Superwash. All are worsted-weight, knit on US 5 needles. I like thick socks. On its second machine washing (delicate cycle, cold water) the turquoise fuzzed up and shrank a little, becoming denser. So I went back to hand-washing. It's not that hard.
The purples were knitted with Cascade 220 Superwash and will get one experimental trip to the washing machine after they've been test-hand-washed. I love the color. In fact, I like a lot of the colors in that brand, so I'll be knitting more socks in it.
I like knitting socks (and even more, wearing hand-knit socks) and find it relatively easy. Socks are handy project to take places like hospitals and on trips. I knit them in pairs (casting on the same day, turning heels the same day, finishing the same day.) In between the days when I want to do certain bits together, they're kind of like a horse race--one sock gets ahead, then the other sock gets ahead. In terms of time, the first pair took me two months...and the eighth pair took me three...while most took about a month to six weeks, and the purples were done in two weeks. It all depends on what else is going on. Some people are faster knitters; some people have more time to knit; some people are slower knitters...and clearly my knitting speed varies from "reasonable" to "snails that slow die of old age between one rosebush and the next."
But to keep wearing hand-knits--which I hope to do for the rest of my life--I need to knit more...quite a few more. If 100 wearings is the approximate lifespan of a 100% wool sock knit the way I knit them, then 7 pairs, each worn once a week, would last about two years. 14 pairs, worn in a once-every-two-weeks rotation would last 4 years. And so on. The thinning areas of Red One remind me that these socks, like all socks, will wear out, and there's no place to buy socks that fit like these socks. So the Sock Project continues, with the aim of getting a lead on the socks wearing out, so I will (in a year or so) be able to handle replacements at an easy knitting schedule. In aid of that goal, I've been buying more yarn (sure, that's the only reason I ever buy yarn...more socks totally explains the hand-painted rayon lace-weight, the wildly colored cotton/silk/wool blend...) Here are some of the yarns (except two that snuck into the picture by mistake) that are on the "to be socks" stack:
The little dark red ball in front is too small (I have larger feet than that will cover) and the dark blue behind the rest is too loosely spun for socks (I think.) Both are colors I want to find in 100 g balls in tougher yarn. This bunch does not include additional balls of the yarn the first nine were in...I want more of all of them, plus some new ones for variety. Some have been...er....ordered already. I found this gorgeous discontinued-on-sale selection with the *perfect* variegated blue....(yes, the stash is growing. Not yet beyond lifespan, even given my age, but....it's an incentive to knit it down.)
If I get a picture of the purple socks complete soon, I'll add that to this post. (now to see if THIS TIME I've gotten the LJ cut to cooperate...)
.
January 17, 2013
The Good, the Bad, and the Downright Braindead Stupid
First the ritual disclaimer, before the hysterical foaming at the mouth gets started. I own guns. I come from a family that owned guns, that were good shots, that hunted, and guns were carried in my grandfather's hardware stores. There were rules about guns--a culture (not limited to our family) of gun safety, of responsible gun ownership, gun use, gun maintenance. And in my household, particularly, there was a culture that denied "accidents" as a way of evading responsibility. "Accidents don't happen: they are caused." And the cause was, my mother insisted, 99% of the time human error--carelessness, laziness, forgetting to follow the rules, or letting emotion get the better of you, so that in anger (for instance) or excitement you failed to be mindful of safety. I learned the rules of responsible gun ownership and use before I ever touched so much as a BB gun. It's always loaded. Always look past your target--know what's beyond it, to the limit of the range of your weapon and ammunition. So I own guns, and I know how to use them, clean them, store them. I have killed animals with one of them, and butchered and cooked and eaten those animals. I'm not anti-gun.
What I am against is gun-hysteria--the hysteria of the people who've been jittering from foot to foot waiting in lines to buy more and more guns and ammunition in the last month: the downright paranoid hysteria that has been bred and fed for the sole purpose of profit--from scaring people into thinking they "need" a lot of guns right now to protect themselves from mostly-imaginary dangers. Dangers which--if they exist (and some of them do) will not be ended by having guns, because (as numerous people with actual experience in tactical situations have pointed out) a firefight with dozens of shooters who are not trained in such things will end up killing and injuring more than the original "bad guy." (Especially in the dark. Once you've got more than one muzzle flash going, you don't know which is which.)
What I am is angry with the people who have been deliberately fueling the hysteria...because it profits them to have all those lines of frantic buyers for their wares. That includes the NRA, which at this point is nothing but a shill for arms manufacturers. Which has, over the past 25-30 years, repeatedly blamed victims for getting shot, rather than shooters for being irresponsible, careless gun owners. My first awareness of this came in the mid 1980s, when the NRA spoke in defense of a hunter who'd shot a woman hanging up laundry in her back yard. She, the NRA said, should have realized it was hunting season and been more careful. (Right--like clothes shouldn't get dirty during deer season?) The hunter was not responsible--she was. http://bangordailynews.com/2008/11/14/news/bangor/twenty-years-ago-two-shots-rang-out-forever-alteringlives-and-laws/
Over and over again, the NRA has spoken out in defense of shooters, blaming innocent victims for being careless...or, if the shooters were actually committing criminal acts, blamed them for not being armed and defending themselves. And they did it again in the Newtown tragedy. No expressions of sympathy, of compassion...just the crass and unfeeling comment that if only the staff had been armed, or armed guards posted, those children would not have died. If only everyone had guns, and always had enough guns with them, all the bad guys would be instantly shot, with no collateral damage, and all the good guys would be safe. That's essentially what the president of the NRA said, in his comments on the tragedy..
The evidence is against this self-serving idea....there were armed guards at Columbine High School and they did not prevent the massacre. Even well-trained, experienced law enforcement personnel sometimes miss--and the bullet goes somewhere other than into the intended target. Even well-trained, experienced law enforcement officers and military personnel sometimes drink too much, get too angry, and shoot someone in the course of an argument. Even "good guys"--fine upstanding lawyers, doctors, accountants, engineers, police officers, business owners--have pulled their guns and shot a family member (commonly a spouse, ex-spouse, present or ex-girlfriend) or friend in a rage. The presence of guns increases the chance that guns will be misused in the course of any emotional scene. Holding a gun increases the chance that the person with the gun will assume anything in someone else's hand is another gun. And that includes people with training.
This idea that anyone should be able to get any gun he wants instantly with barely a moment's background check means that most of the people so eager to run out and buy guns and more guns--are not well-trained and experienced in tactical situations. Take these guys: your typical (from my experience) over-excited, under-experienced, irresponsible gun owners. Notice that they aren't kids: they're 45 and 53 years of age. Notice that they aren't persons of color (for those of you who might think like Ann Coulter.) They're white guys. Middle-aged white guys. They managed to shoot up houses, missing killing people by sheer blind luck...and shot up houses not because they were defending themselves, or defending their property, but because they were braindead stupid...too stupid to know that "a field" is not a proper shooting range, that aiming downhill is not the same thing as shooting into the ground, that a paper target does nothing to stop a bullet in its path, and that their combination of weapons and ammo could kill someone twice as far away as the houses they hit. Also they were drinking while shooting, which lowered their already not-very-stellar intelligence even more. "Hey, Bubba, hold my beer and watch this."
And this is the kind of person that the NRA insists should not only be able to buy all the guns and ammo he wants, but be allowed to claim "It was an accident, Officer" if he ups and kills someone. Because after all, there's no reason a shooter should be held responsible if some careless ordinary citizen, maybe in the kitchen making coffee or getting a glass of milk and some cookies for a grandchild, gets between that shooter's bullet and its final resting place in the microwave. This is the kind of person that Greg Abbott, our state Attorney General of Texas has invited to come on down. (Speaking of braindead stupid ideas. Like we don't have enough of that kind here already. )
Now some people will tell you that some or most NRA members don't agree with their leadership...and if that is true, fine...but if that is true it's time for those members to grow a pair (of what, I don't care--it depends on gender, after all) and either walk out of the NRA taking their money with them or take back their organization from the sleazeballs that run it now. Sitting silent while letting their numbers be used to pressure elected officials is cowardly. Despicable. It's also time for elected officials who disagree with the NRA to grow the same or alternate pair, refuse NRA money, kick NRA lobbyists out of their offices, and start exercising some common sense.
No, the American people are not safer because drunken bozos can have assault rifles. Leaving aside the occasional mass shooter, the presence of high powered firearms and a boatload of ammunition in the hands of drunks, people on mind-altering drugs, people with anger-management issues, people who are paranoid about anyone who doesn't look like them, and so on and so on, does not make any of us safer. They aren't going to make good guards for the local school (do you really want these guys guarding your kids?) They are not going to pop up from nowhere and save you from a burglar. They aren't going to rescue you from bank robbers or someone who goes postal in the supermarket. They don't have guns to contribute to the safety of the community--they have guns to have fun with, as if they were toys. They shoot because it's fun. They'll do stupid things with them, like the guys in Ohio. They won't kill you on purpose (unless they're a mean drunk and get mad when you ask them to stop putting holes in your house) but you'll be just as dead, if you catch one of their bullets.
Common sense. Private citizens do not need this kind of firepower. Those who think they do are buying into the conspiracy theories and paranoia--and making the arms dealers rub their hands in glee at the profits rolling in. Anyone who buys any firearm should prove proficiency with it and knowledge of both safety rules and the applicable laws and discuss the situations in which they might use it. They should show that they know how far their pistol/revolver/rifle/shotgun shoots with whatever kind of ammo they're planning to use and what thickness of wall it will penetrate. They should show that they know how far that is in various kinds of terrain. The military doesn't just hand recruits a loaded weapon and say "Here--go learn to shoot this somewhere on base." They take recruits to the range and put them through a careful period of training--not just so they can shoot an enemy, but so they don't shoot each other, kids at play, or the base commandant by mistake. It is perfectly reasonable to restrict access to these deadly weapons if someone has a history of explosive behavior, drunkenness, drug use (including, for some classes of drugs that affect judgment, prescription drug use.) It is perfectly reasonable to hold shooters responsible for their acts. The Second Amendment is not a license to kill.
Common sense...uncommon, as is often said. But needed in this, nonetheless. Not hysteria. Not paranoia. Not the arms dealers' propaganda. Just common sense.
What I am against is gun-hysteria--the hysteria of the people who've been jittering from foot to foot waiting in lines to buy more and more guns and ammunition in the last month: the downright paranoid hysteria that has been bred and fed for the sole purpose of profit--from scaring people into thinking they "need" a lot of guns right now to protect themselves from mostly-imaginary dangers. Dangers which--if they exist (and some of them do) will not be ended by having guns, because (as numerous people with actual experience in tactical situations have pointed out) a firefight with dozens of shooters who are not trained in such things will end up killing and injuring more than the original "bad guy." (Especially in the dark. Once you've got more than one muzzle flash going, you don't know which is which.)
What I am is angry with the people who have been deliberately fueling the hysteria...because it profits them to have all those lines of frantic buyers for their wares. That includes the NRA, which at this point is nothing but a shill for arms manufacturers. Which has, over the past 25-30 years, repeatedly blamed victims for getting shot, rather than shooters for being irresponsible, careless gun owners. My first awareness of this came in the mid 1980s, when the NRA spoke in defense of a hunter who'd shot a woman hanging up laundry in her back yard. She, the NRA said, should have realized it was hunting season and been more careful. (Right--like clothes shouldn't get dirty during deer season?) The hunter was not responsible--she was. http://bangordailynews.com/2008/11/14/news/bangor/twenty-years-ago-two-shots-rang-out-forever-alteringlives-and-laws/
Over and over again, the NRA has spoken out in defense of shooters, blaming innocent victims for being careless...or, if the shooters were actually committing criminal acts, blamed them for not being armed and defending themselves. And they did it again in the Newtown tragedy. No expressions of sympathy, of compassion...just the crass and unfeeling comment that if only the staff had been armed, or armed guards posted, those children would not have died. If only everyone had guns, and always had enough guns with them, all the bad guys would be instantly shot, with no collateral damage, and all the good guys would be safe. That's essentially what the president of the NRA said, in his comments on the tragedy..
The evidence is against this self-serving idea....there were armed guards at Columbine High School and they did not prevent the massacre. Even well-trained, experienced law enforcement personnel sometimes miss--and the bullet goes somewhere other than into the intended target. Even well-trained, experienced law enforcement officers and military personnel sometimes drink too much, get too angry, and shoot someone in the course of an argument. Even "good guys"--fine upstanding lawyers, doctors, accountants, engineers, police officers, business owners--have pulled their guns and shot a family member (commonly a spouse, ex-spouse, present or ex-girlfriend) or friend in a rage. The presence of guns increases the chance that guns will be misused in the course of any emotional scene. Holding a gun increases the chance that the person with the gun will assume anything in someone else's hand is another gun. And that includes people with training.
This idea that anyone should be able to get any gun he wants instantly with barely a moment's background check means that most of the people so eager to run out and buy guns and more guns--are not well-trained and experienced in tactical situations. Take these guys: your typical (from my experience) over-excited, under-experienced, irresponsible gun owners. Notice that they aren't kids: they're 45 and 53 years of age. Notice that they aren't persons of color (for those of you who might think like Ann Coulter.) They're white guys. Middle-aged white guys. They managed to shoot up houses, missing killing people by sheer blind luck...and shot up houses not because they were defending themselves, or defending their property, but because they were braindead stupid...too stupid to know that "a field" is not a proper shooting range, that aiming downhill is not the same thing as shooting into the ground, that a paper target does nothing to stop a bullet in its path, and that their combination of weapons and ammo could kill someone twice as far away as the houses they hit. Also they were drinking while shooting, which lowered their already not-very-stellar intelligence even more. "Hey, Bubba, hold my beer and watch this."
And this is the kind of person that the NRA insists should not only be able to buy all the guns and ammo he wants, but be allowed to claim "It was an accident, Officer" if he ups and kills someone. Because after all, there's no reason a shooter should be held responsible if some careless ordinary citizen, maybe in the kitchen making coffee or getting a glass of milk and some cookies for a grandchild, gets between that shooter's bullet and its final resting place in the microwave. This is the kind of person that Greg Abbott, our state Attorney General of Texas has invited to come on down. (Speaking of braindead stupid ideas. Like we don't have enough of that kind here already. )
Now some people will tell you that some or most NRA members don't agree with their leadership...and if that is true, fine...but if that is true it's time for those members to grow a pair (of what, I don't care--it depends on gender, after all) and either walk out of the NRA taking their money with them or take back their organization from the sleazeballs that run it now. Sitting silent while letting their numbers be used to pressure elected officials is cowardly. Despicable. It's also time for elected officials who disagree with the NRA to grow the same or alternate pair, refuse NRA money, kick NRA lobbyists out of their offices, and start exercising some common sense.
No, the American people are not safer because drunken bozos can have assault rifles. Leaving aside the occasional mass shooter, the presence of high powered firearms and a boatload of ammunition in the hands of drunks, people on mind-altering drugs, people with anger-management issues, people who are paranoid about anyone who doesn't look like them, and so on and so on, does not make any of us safer. They aren't going to make good guards for the local school (do you really want these guys guarding your kids?) They are not going to pop up from nowhere and save you from a burglar. They aren't going to rescue you from bank robbers or someone who goes postal in the supermarket. They don't have guns to contribute to the safety of the community--they have guns to have fun with, as if they were toys. They shoot because it's fun. They'll do stupid things with them, like the guys in Ohio. They won't kill you on purpose (unless they're a mean drunk and get mad when you ask them to stop putting holes in your house) but you'll be just as dead, if you catch one of their bullets.
Common sense. Private citizens do not need this kind of firepower. Those who think they do are buying into the conspiracy theories and paranoia--and making the arms dealers rub their hands in glee at the profits rolling in. Anyone who buys any firearm should prove proficiency with it and knowledge of both safety rules and the applicable laws and discuss the situations in which they might use it. They should show that they know how far their pistol/revolver/rifle/shotgun shoots with whatever kind of ammo they're planning to use and what thickness of wall it will penetrate. They should show that they know how far that is in various kinds of terrain. The military doesn't just hand recruits a loaded weapon and say "Here--go learn to shoot this somewhere on base." They take recruits to the range and put them through a careful period of training--not just so they can shoot an enemy, but so they don't shoot each other, kids at play, or the base commandant by mistake. It is perfectly reasonable to restrict access to these deadly weapons if someone has a history of explosive behavior, drunkenness, drug use (including, for some classes of drugs that affect judgment, prescription drug use.) It is perfectly reasonable to hold shooters responsible for their acts. The Second Amendment is not a license to kill.
Common sense...uncommon, as is often said. But needed in this, nonetheless. Not hysteria. Not paranoia. Not the arms dealers' propaganda. Just common sense.
December 31, 2012
That Was the Week That Wasn't
(No, that ugly header image of sort of grayish beat-up buildings wasn't my idea.)
This week wasn't in the plan. I wasn't feeling too great earlier, but Christmas afternoon, I got sicker and sicker and by Tuesday morning was definitely really sick. Fever, chills, a throat you could have used for a blast furnace, and increasingly strange noises coming from my chest. So much for increasing the bike ride distances to 4 miles/day last week. I completely lost my voice for several days, thanks to the throat pain. I couldn't sleep but in very brief 15 minute snatches (and not enough of them) so spent hours lying still and reminding myself that this sort of thing never lasts forever.
Still having fever spikes (not as high today, yay) and though the fiery throat now allows swallowing that doesn't feel like a hot coal going down, it's been replaced by violent spasms of coughing and even more interesting sounds in my chest. This morning's most striking was a sort of siren...wailing up, wailing down, three or four repetitions per breath. Whee-oooo-whee-ooo-whee-ooo. The afternoon's (so far) was a deep organ tone, the kind that's almost below hearing but shakes everything gently. There are, however, quiet breathing spaces between the sound effects.
The resident doctor allowed me to know that I had a fine case of viral bronchitis and the duration of both the initial illness and the "tail" of coughing would depend on which virus it was. Being voiceless at that time, I did not say what I was thinking, which was "I don't care which foraminiferous virus this is, [rude words of choice] I just want it GONE." I am now better enough to complain (like about the header image...why does LJ insist on imposing images up there when what I want is plain. dark. blue??? Since I can't choose to put up one of my own photos...) Presumably, the time from "well enough to complain" to "well enough to get up and do useful work and ride miles on the bike" is shorter than the time from the onset of this thing to "well enough to complain." I certainly hope so. The October illness went by so fast it spoiled me. 48 hours and I was almost well; 72 and I was on the bike churning out distance.
This was not the week that was planned. I had a lot of work to do between Christmas and New Year's, and none of it has been touched. Maybe tomorrow I'll be able to type at speed with no more than normal mistakes (I'm typing this slooooowly and having to retype at least every third word.)
So I hope everyone reading this had a wonderfully healthy week between Christmas and New Years, and a great set of holidays (whichever ones you celebrate) and that you have a happy and healthy 2013.
This week wasn't in the plan. I wasn't feeling too great earlier, but Christmas afternoon, I got sicker and sicker and by Tuesday morning was definitely really sick. Fever, chills, a throat you could have used for a blast furnace, and increasingly strange noises coming from my chest. So much for increasing the bike ride distances to 4 miles/day last week. I completely lost my voice for several days, thanks to the throat pain. I couldn't sleep but in very brief 15 minute snatches (and not enough of them) so spent hours lying still and reminding myself that this sort of thing never lasts forever.
Still having fever spikes (not as high today, yay) and though the fiery throat now allows swallowing that doesn't feel like a hot coal going down, it's been replaced by violent spasms of coughing and even more interesting sounds in my chest. This morning's most striking was a sort of siren...wailing up, wailing down, three or four repetitions per breath. Whee-oooo-whee-ooo-whee-ooo. The afternoon's (so far) was a deep organ tone, the kind that's almost below hearing but shakes everything gently. There are, however, quiet breathing spaces between the sound effects.
The resident doctor allowed me to know that I had a fine case of viral bronchitis and the duration of both the initial illness and the "tail" of coughing would depend on which virus it was. Being voiceless at that time, I did not say what I was thinking, which was "I don't care which foraminiferous virus this is, [rude words of choice] I just want it GONE." I am now better enough to complain (like about the header image...why does LJ insist on imposing images up there when what I want is plain. dark. blue??? Since I can't choose to put up one of my own photos...) Presumably, the time from "well enough to complain" to "well enough to get up and do useful work and ride miles on the bike" is shorter than the time from the onset of this thing to "well enough to complain." I certainly hope so. The October illness went by so fast it spoiled me. 48 hours and I was almost well; 72 and I was on the bike churning out distance.
This was not the week that was planned. I had a lot of work to do between Christmas and New Year's, and none of it has been touched. Maybe tomorrow I'll be able to type at speed with no more than normal mistakes (I'm typing this slooooowly and having to retype at least every third word.)
So I hope everyone reading this had a wonderfully healthy week between Christmas and New Years, and a great set of holidays (whichever ones you celebrate) and that you have a happy and healthy 2013.
December 25, 2012
While breakfast cooks....a variety of short things
It's Christmas morning, and I didn't get to bed until around 2 am (singing late service, then driving back from city) so this morning has been s...l...o...w, and I'm still tired. Good music, good singing, but I'm a natural lark, not an owl. A little rain last night--just enough to make the dry dust sticky--but the main rains passed well north of us, and now it's sunny and clear. Which means when the streets dry off, I need to ride the bike today.
On the fitness side of things, besides being in the week of 3 miles or more a day (leading to the next week of 4 miles or more a day, and so on and so on) the "numbers" are doing what they should. Blood pressure's down, also resting heart rate, and recovery from exercise is much faster. It takes more (distance, time, intensity) to raise heart rate. BP's maybe halfway to where it should be, and resting heart rate ditto.
On the work side of things, I was able to get the last bits of work on Limits of Power off to the publisher last week, so all that should be in hand. There's a contest for an ARC over at the Paksworld blog -- poetry or verse on a related topic--with lots of fun entries. The drawing will be sometime next week, when my brain's finished with the holiday stuff. Some parts of the ARC are...um...quite different from what will appear when the book comes out in June, perhaps even more than usual with ARCs (which are printed before the page proofs have been corrected. Anyway, I'll be back at work on the final book of Paladin's Legacy tomorrow.
On the knitting side of things, the third pair of red socks (Red Three) is now poised at the heel turn (one done, one to be done today) and the very first pair of socks is now showing some wear. I suppose learning to darn is my next task, but I think I'll try simple reinforcement first. It's clear where I wear out socks, and that will help to pre-protect others. I might even consider going down another needle size for a denser fabric (but I like breathable socks...hmmm.) The last of the gift scarves made it to its intended recipient before Christmas, and she likes it. Wore Christmas Eve, in fact.
Christmas dinner isn't in the oven yet (very late night, headache, moving slowly this morning) but will be soon. Soon-ish. I want breakfast before I start cooking dinner. Thanksgiving is the only time I'll put a bird in the oven before breakfast, and only because that's two birds and with lots of company coming. This is a turkey breast, so it shouldn't take that long. It'll feed the three of us, even with one of us being very tall and capable of eating an immense amount without gaining weight. (When I was his age, I could eat an immense amount without gaining weight too. Almost 40 years makes a difference.)
Update half an hour later: Christmas dinner IS in the oven now. Bacon and a sausage are inside me and the headache is less while the brain seems to be stuttering towards fully awake. I think a piece of pie would complete the cure. SOMEbody has to make the sacrifice and more room in the fridge...
Update again: Slice of pumpkin pie eaten (yum!) Presents opened; I got quite a few opera recordings and a small DVD player to play them. Husband got the new chain saw he wanted. Son got the usual shoes, slacks, etc. and a gift card to his favorite source of hamburgers. And now, time for a bike ride.
On the fitness side of things, besides being in the week of 3 miles or more a day (leading to the next week of 4 miles or more a day, and so on and so on) the "numbers" are doing what they should. Blood pressure's down, also resting heart rate, and recovery from exercise is much faster. It takes more (distance, time, intensity) to raise heart rate. BP's maybe halfway to where it should be, and resting heart rate ditto.
On the work side of things, I was able to get the last bits of work on Limits of Power off to the publisher last week, so all that should be in hand. There's a contest for an ARC over at the Paksworld blog -- poetry or verse on a related topic--with lots of fun entries. The drawing will be sometime next week, when my brain's finished with the holiday stuff. Some parts of the ARC are...um...quite different from what will appear when the book comes out in June, perhaps even more than usual with ARCs (which are printed before the page proofs have been corrected. Anyway, I'll be back at work on the final book of Paladin's Legacy tomorrow.
On the knitting side of things, the third pair of red socks (Red Three) is now poised at the heel turn (one done, one to be done today) and the very first pair of socks is now showing some wear. I suppose learning to darn is my next task, but I think I'll try simple reinforcement first. It's clear where I wear out socks, and that will help to pre-protect others. I might even consider going down another needle size for a denser fabric (but I like breathable socks...hmmm.) The last of the gift scarves made it to its intended recipient before Christmas, and she likes it. Wore Christmas Eve, in fact.
Christmas dinner isn't in the oven yet (very late night, headache, moving slowly this morning) but will be soon. Soon-ish. I want breakfast before I start cooking dinner. Thanksgiving is the only time I'll put a bird in the oven before breakfast, and only because that's two birds and with lots of company coming. This is a turkey breast, so it shouldn't take that long. It'll feed the three of us, even with one of us being very tall and capable of eating an immense amount without gaining weight. (When I was his age, I could eat an immense amount without gaining weight too. Almost 40 years makes a difference.)
Update half an hour later: Christmas dinner IS in the oven now. Bacon and a sausage are inside me and the headache is less while the brain seems to be stuttering towards fully awake. I think a piece of pie would complete the cure. SOMEbody has to make the sacrifice and more room in the fridge...
Update again: Slice of pumpkin pie eaten (yum!) Presents opened; I got quite a few opera recordings and a small DVD player to play them. Husband got the new chain saw he wanted. Son got the usual shoes, slacks, etc. and a gift card to his favorite source of hamburgers. And now, time for a bike ride.
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