Hoovervilles

I’m ok now. It took getting old before my time and being declared permanently and totally disabled with bad heart problems...and the existence of “safety nets” called disability and Medicare and Medicaid and Food Stamps, but I’m ok. I have enough food. I have a place to live...a little up from being in a “Hooverville” but alright. I can go to docs and get meds. And like the line from the song says, “I get by with a little help from my friends” to whom I am deeply grateful. I don’t have it as bad as the homeless, or the severely hungry, though watching the Food Stamps be decreased and the food prices continually increase, I don’t know how long that may last. I am as lucky as I am, primarily because of dumb luck...it damn sure was not due to the decades of working my ass off.

You ever heard of a “Hooverwille”? If not you should know more about your history. During the Great Depression there were thousands of people all over the country in “shantytowns” because they had nowhere to go, often because they had been evicted because they had no money to pay rent. These shantytowns were called “Hoovervilles” by many because many blamed the president at the time, Herbert Hoover, for doing nothing at all to help people who had nothing, especially after the stock market crash of '29 which happened only eight months before he became president. He seemed to willfully disbelieve that things were that bad in the country and, like many politicians today, if things were that bad, it was only because people were lazy bums wanting handouts. There were no “safety nets” at that time...no Social Security, no unemployment benefits, no Food Stamps, no Medicare or Medicaid. Many historians agree that if this condition had not been remedied somewhat by the next president Franklin Roosevelt, there would have been a major revolution in this country.

Some politicians today, mostly Republicans but not all, say those things...it would be a huge disservice to poor people to continue their unemployment payments or Food Stamps or Medicare, et al. It is hardly only the politicians though. I will never understand the mentality - if you can call it that - of people who themselves are very poor, who have tried for months or even years to get a job and cannot, but who agree with those politicians. There are always some people who seem downright gleeful at the misery and suffering of the poor, and feel nothing for them except maybe pure hatred. Case in point: State Representative Tom Brower of Hawaii who has literally, personally taken a sledgehammer and destroyed the meager possessions of homeless people...an act which would gotten most other people arrested. He expresses his hatred for the poor and homeless. No, he’s not a Republican but a Democrat.

There may not be quit as many as there were then, but there are plenty of “Hoovervilles” all over the USA as you read this. And “around the world close to one billion people live in informal settlements or “slums.” By some estimates that population is expected to double by 2030." Source. In the '20s people came from all over the country to Detroit because they had heard that Henry Ford paid the huge sum of five dollars a day for workers. He did, for a while, and that was more than most regular jobs, but some did not realize that this job meant hard labor for 10-12 hours a day at least six days a week and there were NO breaks for food, drink, toilet or anything else without the permission of a supervisor...otherwise you were on the street again. One black man in one of the videos I watched, who lived at the time, said you could get a huge chunk of bacon, maybe a foot square or more, for something like 19 cents. You could get a 24-pound sack of flour for 19 cents. But, he asked, where you gonna get the 29 cents?

About 35 years or so after the five dollar a day at Ford, I knew first hand from direct personal experience about the five dollars a day...if you were lucky. Mine was not in a factory but cotton fields, and of course I could never make that much money because I was a little boy then. A strong man in an abundant field might manage to get $5 a day...by picking five hundred pounds of cotton. It’s been around fifty years since I did that. I didn’t fully understand then...but I would never wish that on anyone...except the billionares.

TRB

Beard

Beard For a time I sawed and scraped
away parts of myself to swirl
away and down the drain for
fear of feeling social pain
at being somewhat natural.

Slip of hand, sting of steel
another flow of crimson red
and it came into my head
of all the things to be feared
was surely not just a beard. -TRB

Therefore I must get some wine...

Therefore I must get some wine... “The abuse of buying and selling votes crept in and money began to play an important part in determining elections. Later on, this process of corruption spread in the law courts and to the army, and finally,...” This is part of a quote I found in a Bill Moyers piece I just read. I left off the rest of it because it might date the quote a little. It is a quote from Plutarch, a man who lived in Rome just after the supposed time of Jesus. The point is to show that this so-called ‘class warfare’ we are in the midst of now, especially in America, is nothing new. It has been here for at least about two thousand years and likely much longer. The rest of the quote is... “...when even the sword became enslaved by the power of gold, the republic was subjected to the rule of emperors.” It is has been called a political lobbying group) Citizens United . This ruling established, in simple terms, that “corporations are people" for the political purpose of shoveling huge amounts of money into political campaigns...part of what Plutarch called “the abuse of buying and selling votes”. It probably is not too surprising to the more politically astute that such has been going on in our country for quite some time, but it was usually referred to, if referred to at all, as shady dealings in smoke filled rooms. The court ruling essentially eliminated any need for secrecy as far as the buying and selling of votes was concerned. It is now perfectly legal, because the highest court in the land said so, to buy and sell all the votes you want. Therefore it should hardly be surprising that many of the billionaires and huge corporations quite literally run the country. They can dictate what the vote shall be on most legal matters of concern to them, and there are even documented instance of corporations literally writing the bills to be ‘voted on’ by Congress. One of the major differences between the times and places in the past where the rich have ruled the peasants with an iron fist is technology. The ability to literally transfer any amount of money to any all places on the globe within seconds is a fact...that will not go away short of a major catastrophe. Global corporations are gradually (and at an increasing rate) merging with governments so that soon it will be silly to refer to those as two different things. There will absolutely be, at some point, a global government/corporation. It is as inevitable as sunrise...in my humble opinion. There is good news and bad news. This too shall pass...nothing, not even the universe, lasts forever. Perhaps more importantly, certainly more immediate, is that YOU too shall pass. So....which is the good and which is the bad? TRB 3 Here’s what is so bad about everything that happens on this earth. Death catches up with all of us. Also, the hearts of people are full of evil. They live in foolish pleasure. After that, they join those who have already died. 4 Anyone who is living still has hope. Even a live dog is better off than a dead lion! 5 People who are still alive know they’ll die. But those who have died don’t know anything. They don’t receive any more rewards. And they are soon forgotten. 6 Their love, hate and jealousy disappear. They will never share again in anything that happens on earth. 7 Go and enjoy your food. Be joyful as you drink your wine. Ecclesiates 9:3-7, (New International Readers Version)

Who, When and Where am I?

Personal log, stardate: Unknown. I find myself in what appears to be - what is claimed to be - early 21st century Earth. There are several indicators which support this, but then nearly everything now seems to be in question. Perfunctory research suggests that much of what is...or had been...known to me, is viewed as fiction in this period. The materials I find here indicate that the stardate system either did not begin until more than a century from ‘now’, or that the dating system and many other things I thought I knew are entirely fictional, even including the Q and the Continuum. But then this period itself may be fictional. A snippet from an Earth writer called Shakespeare comes to mind: All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts,... Even Klingons have been known to quote Shakespeare.

I wondered if some computers here insert bits of information in one’s ‘stream of thought’ to further the stream. Yet computers here seem annoyingly primitive, as do many other things I find here. The computer I’m using now has such a tiny processing and storage capacity...I cannot use it at all except with manual input devices. But I suppose it is better than the time of Shakespeare who apparently was restricted paper, ink and the feather of a bird (shudder).

I have begun to question whether anything I have ever known in my life is truth or fiction. I cannot even specify a reliable ‘earthdate’ at this point because the date depends on which system one uses: Is this the year of the rat, of the dragon, of the monkey, etc. But those are parts of a much larger system. In what is called “the West” here, there was the Julian calendar, superceded by the Gregorian, which I am now supposed to use and which seems to be the standard for this planet at this time, though several other calendars exist and are used in various places. This Gregorian seems to be based on some amalgam of much older pagan deities, a “Christian” deity, and some degree of local astronomy, based on this planet’s moon and star, known as 'Sol’ or 'the Sun’. The current earth year is said to be 2013, but this is based completely on the supposed birth of the central character in the currently dominate religion here known as Christianity, and has nothing whatever to do with the actual age of the planet, though many here do know the age of the planet with a good degree of certainty.

It is often difficult or impossible to determine correct information on some things. I thought I had found a reference work on stardates but, as with many things here, it was not as I thought. This one seems to have reasonably accurate astronomical information, at least as viewed from this point, but I see nothing about the stardate system. The place with the most information about that is inconsistent with other claimed information, and also claims the entire enterprise is a fiction. It is called Memory Alpha which would suggest that it was written by someone at a later time than the time period mentioned. Can one have “memories” of the future or of things that never existed but in fiction or dreams? Am I somehow stuck in a holodeck program which I do not remember entering? Even here, claims of both fiction and fact.

Even my own name has become suspect. As unusual as it is the only references to Temy I find that do not refer to me seem to refer to females, often Asian; a rather disconcerting claim. Perhaps all of life for everyone everywhere in all times is only an illusion. I am tired now so I will try to rest.

TRB

Imagine That!

Now they tell me
we’ve had a coop de tat
Imagine that
Like I didn’t already know

Now they tell me
genes make you fat
Imagine that
Like I didn’t already know

Then they’ll tell me
Don’t eat yellow snow
Imagine that
Like I didn’t already know

Oh...

Now they tell me
It’s raining glass
Holy shat!
Naw, I didn’t already know.

TRB

Daffynitions

daffynitions Almost since humans have been humans there have been some referred to as servants. Logically, the ones they were servants FOR were masters. Again, logically, the masters had more of just about everything, certainly power, and the servants were to follow the orders or instructions of their masters. (They even built entire social constructs around the idea, called ‘religions’.) That is basically the whole POINT of having servants. Eventually there came a time when a different kind of ‘servant’ came to exist, and when this happened, it turned the entire master/servant relationship on its head; now the ‘servants’ with ‘public’ in front of the ‘servant’ became the ones who gave the orders or instructions and the ‘masters’ were expected to be obedient. The strangest thing was that the former ‘masters’ seemed too dumb to realize that this shift had occurred, and they went right on calling themselves the masters, even as the ‘servants’ became very rich...much richer than the ‘masters’ for the most part, and some ‘servants’ came to be called lawmakers. Imagine that.There were a few of the former masters who had some inkling of what had happened but it was much too late...the ‘servants’ were the ‘masters’.

Eventually the ‘servants’ became almost the entire ‘ruling class’ and virtually none of the ‘masters’ had any actual power; though they were deluded into thinking that they were still the masters with such silly ideas as ‘votes’. For a very long time, money has been the ultimate arbiter of power among humans; generally, ‘he who has the gold makes the rules’. Consider that as a percentage, about 48% of the ‘servants’ (in Congress), have more than one million dollars...while 0.97769% of ‘us’, i.e. masters, have more than one million dollars. Srsly? Who are the masters again? Remember this refers only to Congress; there’s also the Executive Branch, the Judicial Branch, and then mini-me’s of them all on lower levels.

There is also one other group whose numbers are tiny but whose power is vast. To be fair, almost none of them even claim to be ‘servants’, which makes them slightly more honest than those who do claim to be servants. This group is sometimes now called “the one percent”. Of course they are the true masters because if one has enough money one controls not mere politics but every other aspect of the human condition as well. They sit upon a metaphorical Mount Olympus and play their games among themselves; the planet is their board game; nations are simply “playing areas” on the board. Individuals, most of whom still amusingly think themselves ‘masters’ are miniscule, barely noticeable ‘pawns’ on the board and none of the players gives the slightest whit when millions or tens of millions of these ‘pawns’ vanish...they are a self-replicating lot and there will always be an abundance of them to fill the board.

A few of the dust grain ‘pawns’ wonder how long it will be until the masters tire of using them as part of the game. After all, these pawns CAN be irritating at times because they sometimes cos players money in order to keep them in play or move them as desired. Perhaps the players will soon tire of such problems and replace the biological pawns with things that are called AI and robots, which will be far more durable and compliant. Unless we vote against it....HAhahahHHHahahha.

TRB

Smile...it'll all be over soon.

I think this country is in trouble. That’s hardly a new thing though; many others have thought it in trouble for many decades and for very different reasons. This is not “about” the Zimmerman trial; I mention it only as the most recent example of what I mean. I think that most people think that if only he or she could see or know the evidence they would agree with me. Tain’t necessarily so, though. Most people can see exactly the same pieces of information but come to completely opposite conclusions about it and what it means.

I have no problem with disagreements; of course I wish I could convince others to agree with me, but if they don’t they don’t and I accept that. What I don’t find acceptable at all, is people becoming so incredibly emotional about a thing that they resort to name calling, losing friendships, or even physical violence. Here’s what I mean, re the Zimmerman thing. I completely agree with the verdict and I see no evidence at all that Zimmerman committed any crime at all. Some of my friends come to the opposite conclusion, I grant, based on their own reasonable understanding or interpretation of the questions at hand. Then there are other people, a friend or two, several acquaintances, whose virulent emotionalism causes them to delete me, call me terrible names, etc. One example:

I know nothing at all about the atheist blogger Greta Christina except from reading pieces she has posted and a video or two. I have sometimes commented on those, I think always positively, certainly not ever in any negative way. Surely she knows even less of me (not that she should know me) and yet, upon reading in some thread that I didn’t see where Zimmerman was wrong, she said, “You are a moral monster. Get out of my life”. *sigh* That kind of thing is very trying and very tiring...not to mention completely false and uncalled for. So okay, the worst thing that has happened to me regarding that is being called names and being deleted. Some other people have had much worse things happen to them.

Of course I know that the lynch mob mentality is hardly new and it surprises me that it surprises me...but it does. I also get called a racist scumbag among other jewels by people who don’t know me and I think that some of them, even if they knew me well, would still do that if I disagreed with them on something like this. It’s not like the only people who agree with the verdict are the KKK. Is Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz a racist Jew scumbag because he also agrees with the verdict? Is Charles Barkley a racist because he agrees with the verdict? No, he’s just an ignorant Uncle Tom. Are all black people who support Zimmerman stupid race traitors?

Remember ‘the trial of the century’ and how that came out and how so many white people rioted against an obviously unjust verdict?

This should give you some idea of how mainstream media plays the masses. If people (especially black people) really were interested in justice, then where are the protests against an absurdly unjust sentence against a woman who fired a gun in self defense but hit no one and ended up sentenced to 20 years in prison for that? This case has nothing whatever to do with the Zimmerman trial, though many people try to make it so. I have no idea whether there were any racial issues involved in the Alexander case, but either way, it’s a ridiculous sentence which should not stand. It made a few headlines..no biggie. Why not? I don't think the news people saw anything really 'juicy' in it; nothing to stir the masses to violence.

I do find it a bit disheartening that most if not all the support for Zimmerman has come from the conservatives...if you happen to know of a liberal anywhere (besides me) who supports the verdict please let me know. Anyone who knows me at all knows I am way more of a libtard than a conservatard, so whassup? I totally support the libtards on things like abortion rights, gay marriage, etc. I think it’s reprehensible that so many Republican/conservatives seem so determined to get all up in peoples’ personal private lives on those two things. I think it’s just as reprehensible that so many Democrats/liberals want to get all up in peoples’ lives about what words they are allowed to say, whether they can own a gun, etc. I find it reprehensible that Libertariantards don’t think they have any responsibility to society to share the wealth and take care of the poor.

Will there ever be ‘racial harmony’ on a large scale? No, of course not...it is not in the human genome. Will there ever be equality between the rich and the poor? Same answer. Birds of a feather flock together.

Is there ever any escape from all this? Yup: Ecclesiastes 9:5,6. 5 For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten. 6 Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished; neither have they any more a portion for ever in any thing that is done under the sun.

Sweet dreams...while you can. :)

TRB

Sidetracked

Any ol’ redneck can say he had a mater sammich, a glass of milk and is gonna snore, but a real, card-carrying (I got so many cards in my wallet I walk funny...I said ’funny’ not swishy) Innalekshul Redneck - worth his Wellbutrin - ort 2 spout a tad more colorful bull hockey.

I was gonna just leave a status saying I had ingested Xitomatl Aztec name for plump thing with a navel and imbibed bovine udder fluid and trundle off to snorage. But. Wait...a lot of things are plump with a navel...there are navel oranges and heck, I’ve known plump girls with a navel...why, one I knew had a navel so deep...eh, um. ok. Honest, I didn’t ingest any girls...well, HUMAN girls anywho. Then they tell me that if you ask a botanist what a tomato is (that would be the Xitomatl - the tomato not the botanist), he will tell you it’s a fruit, a berry even; the ovary (along with its seeds) of a plant. But if you ask a chef what a tomato is he will tell you it’s a vegetable. The Supreme Court of the United States agreed with the chef in 1893...but then SCOTUS says corporations are people too, so...

“Tomatoes have been designated the state vegetable of New Jersey. Arkansas took both sides by declaring the "South Arkansas Vine Ripe Pink Tomato" to be both the state fruit and the state vegetable in the same law, citing both its culinary and botanical classifications. In 2009, the state of Ohio passed a law making the tomato the state's official fruit. Tomato juice has been the official beverage of Ohio since 1965....”

Sure, I wanna try some buffalo milk (the second biggest source of milk for humans) but first I wanna watch someone milk a wild buffalo....soaked in Xitomatl juice. At full gallop. Through the SCOTUS chambers.

Conclusions: Never focus on only one thing...you can’t learn much that way. You (also) can’t roller skate in a buffalo herd, especially while milking one...oh, wrong song. Anywaze...all people lie, especially courts and corporations, so; eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow (figuratively) you WILL die (literally, dude)”. This last is a mergering of Ecclesiastes 8:15 and Isaiah 22:13, as corrected by Atheist Pastor Temy.

Or...I just wrote a blog a couple days ago, the entire contents of which, aside from the title, was incomprehensibility. Which Miles Cole immediately pronounced to be “Absolutely and without a doubt the most profound blog I've read thus far today.” D’oh! Well, ye takes yer jest and ignores the rest.

Au revoir

TRB

The Temyist

The Temyist

in which I explain about the state of my health

especially the boom boom boom of my heart

to any who care.

Well, not so much boom boom boom any more...closer to kerflufflebzzt kerflufflebzzt kerflufflebzzt. I have a list of unfixed maintenance problems (biology is a piss poor design all ‘round) including diabetes, emphysema, chronic bronchitis and COPD. Oh wait, those last three are the same thing. Cardiomyopathy, congestive heart failure, and coronary artery disease are where I am now, according to my cardiologist. He says that I MUST have had many heart attacks in the past, though if I have I knew nothing of it. He says there is no other way the entire heart muscle could possibly have as much scar tissue on it as mine. In a fairly healthy heart, coronary bypass surgery and or angioplasty can help a lot. In my case, doc says that even if had either of those done, the suddenly increased blood flow through the heart would cause it to completely fail because it is so weak and damaged. There is nothing that will make the heart any better, short of a transplant.

My ejection fraction (EF) (I promise this is not sex related) is staying around 15% -20%. This refers to the amount of blood the heart is pushing through itself. It’s not quite as bad as it sounds because even a perfectly healthy heart has an EF of about 55% -70%.

In 2008 I had one of these internal defibrillators installed in my chest. This acts just like those paddles a person grabs in a medical show and yells “CLEAR" and shocks the poop out of the patient, only the internal ones are much smaller and work 24/7 permanently. Apparently there was little or no activity from it, other than the monitoring, until this year. It saved my life in March and again last month. My heart went into defib (I’m not sure whether mine is atrial or ventrical though I think the former) which means the heart stops beating normally and starts jittering about like a terrified jellyfish. This is a kind of arrhythmia (note the illustration of the installed defibrillator).

The device requires being connected to a land line phone and regularly sends status reports to the doc. When my arrhythmia happened in March I was precisely halfway between a standing and a sitting position, in the process of sitting down on the couch. I went out, quite literally like a light, pitched forward and sent my computer monitor and its makeshift stand crashing to the floor. I crashed with it of course. The next awareness I had was of lying on my back on the floor, wondering what I was doing there and Melinda standing over me shouting my name as though she were in the next county. The device worked, though it simply didn’t occur to either of us at the time that this is what had happened. I didn’t feel anything. I just got up and went about doing as I was before. We didn’t learn that this is what happened till May when it went off again.

This time I was sleeping. It went off once and apparently had no effect so it ramped up the voltage I guess and shocked again. I still was not really aware of feeling anything but it did wake me up and I had an odd taste in my mouth. I was wearing my CPAP mask (cannot sleep at all without that) and Melinda said I screamed like someone was skinning a cat alive. Given that rather negative review of my sleep-singing skills, I decided to call doc’s office and see if the jumper cables activated. The PA said, “YES! Get thee to a nunnery...er, ER NOW!” So Melinda hauled me over there.

They kept me in a room 2.5 days, did another heart cath and charged me about 17,000 dollars, which, I must say, seems a bit steep even for having a couple of pretty women shave me pubes (though that did beat the hell out of 6 foot 5 Bubba who did it the last time I had one). Hey, I’ve stayed in the CNN Plaza Hotel in Atlanta and it was only about a hundred per night and way more comfy with better room service (not to mention the little bar fridge in the room). Even if I had ordered some pube shavers I think it wouldn’t have been so much.

So, in one sense I have died twice this year so far. When my heart goes fib, apparently the blood flow to the brain, or at least to the “conscious” parts, is instantly stopped and I am instantly turned off. The defibrillator turns me back on again (so far). Were it not for that little device I would be permanently dead now because where we are, there’s no way in hell an ambulance or EMTs would get here in time to save me with their portable defib.

In a few days, a bill arrived aimed at giving most normal people a heart attack...as follows:

cor care post ccu 2.................................3100.00
pharmacy general 14.............................. 841.00
m/s supply general 5.............................. 772.45
m/s supply sterile supply ....................... 172.70
laboratory general 5............................... 170.90
laboratory chemistry 8........................... 703.60
lab hematology 4................................... 286.05
radiology diag chest xray....................... 186.50
respiratory svc general 3........................ 265.20
emergency room general........................1028.65
cardiology cardiac cath..........................8982.60
drug spec id detail coding 5................... 321.50
drug self adminsterable 40..................... 233.00
ekg/ecg general..................................... 131.60

Total charges.......................................17195.85
Luckily, such things do not faze me...add another billion to the bill, what do I care, I ain’t paying a dime of it either way. I’m still miffed I didn’t get any milk with my meals too.

TRB

Guns, honesty, fairness, fear...oh my.

I am a person of reflection. When I discover or realize things about myself that I’m not sure I fully understand, as with most things in the world, I tend to investigate. In this case, I wished to find out why I have such a strong emotional reaction to the very notion of “gun control”.

I don’t own any guns. I don’t have any particular desire to own any. I am not a religious nut, I am atheist. I am not a conservatard, but more a libtard....though I try to avoid all herds. I am not a Republican or Libertarian...I am independent with a small ‘i’ and anarchist. I am not a hunter or sport shooter or collector or ‘gun enthusiast’, whatever that means. I think using the Second Amendment as a legal reason to own guns is just stupid. First, no legal reason to own guns for self defense is needed...it is an innate fundamental human right, not susceptible to any laws against it. Second, an honest reading of that Amendment and understanding the time and context in which it was written, tell me that the only reason for the existence of the Amendment was so that citizens (at least wealthy white men) could suppress or overthrow their government by force of arms. That ship sailed as soon as the government had canon and the citizens did not.

I think one reason is that I don’t see it as “gun control” at all but people control. Just as extremists on the right think they have, or should have, sayso in what other consenting adults do to and with each other, who they can marry, whether they can have an abortion, etc., most of the left seems to think they should have sayso about who and whether anyone can can have any guns, what kinds, etc., etc. People being able to buy and own guns harms absolutely no one, ever; any more so than people owning any other kinds of weapons or potential weapons or pressure cookers. Only if a person uses a gun to kill or wound other people without just cause is there a problem. Doing that is illegal in all places in the US, and anyone who does that, whether they had a “legal” gun or not, no matter what kind it may be, will almost certainly be arrested and tried. Unless...

It is pretty close to impossible to punish a dead man for crimes he has committed (as with Adam Lanza, the Sandy Hook killer). In that case, it was not even possible to find some way to punish his mother, who had acquired the guns used in a completely legal manner. Lanza had seen to that by already killing his mother as well. I think a great many people come completely unhinged in frustration in such a state of affairs and, seeking “justice” they decide that ALL people who own guns or ever want to have guns should be punished...vicarious atonement.

It astounds me no end that otherwise intelligent people fall into a herdthink with this, and say “gun violence” a lot, as though that were something special. It isn’t. It hardly matters, unless you are very strange indeed, whether your loved one was killed by someone using a gun or by someone using a knife, or hammer, or rock, or pressure cooker. Some people who see the folly of “the banners”, might post tongue-in- cheek things about banning knives; Yes there have been real calls to ban knives or, as I have mentioned, pressure cookers.

I understand the urge to DO SOMETHING when something bad happens. People are simply going to have to learn that shit happens in life and often it is flatly impossible to DO SOMETHING in the way that they mean...to prevent any future thing of that sort from happening again. Life comes with an absolute guarantee that things much like that WILL happen again...you might think people may start to realize this after Columbine and several other school shootings, Virginia Tech, Aurora, Sandy Hook, etc, etc., but the notion never seems to stick somehow. Consider Virginia Tech; One guy comes onto a college campus, shoots and kills 32 people and wounds 17 others in not one but TWO separate attacks two hours apart. That was illegal. Bringing the guns on campus was illegal. Obviously that saved a lot of lives, right?

Even most of the people who would rail about changing gun laws, making it harder for law-abiding people to get guns, would have thought it great had there been an armed police officer in the building at the time this began. They would probably think that the cop would have taken this guy down soon and fewer people would have been killed. This is almost certainly true. But why does it have to be a police officer; if it were legal for those students and faculty WHO WISHED TO DO SO, and who were legally qualified, surely one of them would likewise have taken the shooter down, saving many lives. But so many people seem to think, for some inexplicable reason, that anyone who is not “official” who has a gun would be as bumbling, inept and stupid with the gun as they themselves would probably be.

It seems a huge number of people have a completely irrational fear of guns and of all people who own or carry guns. I remember a story about how in one Starbucks there were two men sitting at a table, both with guns visible on their hips. Some customers claimed they were terrified and left and vowed they would not return unless Starbucks said guns were not allowed in their stores. Did the fearful people know anything at all about the men? For all they knew the men may have been cops...not all cops wear uniforms. The men were doing nothing at all illegal or remotely threatening...to reasonable people. Suppose the men had gone with “concealed carry” instead...they would still have had the guns, they just would not have been readily visible to everyone. As far as I know Starbucks has not changed its policy allowing all persons who wish and are legally allowed to do so to carry guns in their stores. I have never been in a Starbucks and probably never will be (I’m not that rich) but I appreciate the company stance on this.

I find a huge irony in people belittling gun owners as cowardly terrified fools who cling to their guns, while they themselves so often exhibit extremely irrational fear of guns - inanimate objects - and the people who have them. It's bad in schools...little kids are being suspended from school for drawing a sketch of a gun, for having a water pistol, for forming their finger and thumb into the shape of a gun and...really people? Arresting an eighth grader for wearing a t-shirt with NRA and a picture of a gun on it? Should we review that thing about which side of this issue is irrationally paranoid and fearful?

Talk of “gun control” hurts me; my response vacillates between anger and tears. It is placing completely superfluous and unnecessary burdens on me (and every one else) who might want to legally buy a gun sometimes. It feels like a very personal assault on my personal liberty for no sensible reason whatever. It has a Minority Report feel about it, attempting to punish people for possible crimes that have not yet been committed. I vividly remember once in second grade Mrs. Johnson said we were not allowed to chew gum in class. She thought someone had because she found gum on her desk. She didn’t know who, but everyone in class had to sit still in our desks all through recess. I cried because it was not fair to be punished for something someone else did. I still feel that.

Many of my liberal friends tend toward a kind of paganistic outlook and some even quote some version of “An ye harm none, do as ye will”. Why does it seem so hard to apply this notion to people with guns who have never harmed anyone?

I do hope, though am pessimistic, that people can get a grip on reality in this issue and just stay out of the lives and personal affairs of people who own guns - if they have committed no crime - just as you would wish the political right to stay out of the lives and personal affairs of others regarding their sexual orientation, who they want to marry, etc. The urge to control others can become very strong in people sometimes and it is never a good thing and can become an extremely dangerous thing. Just try to chill, ok?

TRB

NOTHING!

I have not read Lawrence Krauss’ book A Universe From Nothing , but I have seen several videos in which he speaks about it and explains the idea. I think virtually all lay readers will not like the notion, nor understand it, and even many fellow professional scientists shake their heads about it. In my opinion, most of this confusion is because Lawrence did not lay out that the “nothing” he means is not truly Nothing at all.

I find it useful to separate Nothing from nothing. We know that Nothing never existed at all because if it did then it still would, and therefore the existence of Something would be utterly impossible. Since Something exists, obviously Nothing never did. But Nothing is not the nothing Lawrence means. Nothing would be absolute..it would contain, not only no matter or energy, but also no quantum fluctuations, no virtual particles popping into and out of existence, no potential of any sort whatever, no time, no boundaries or limitations of any sort.

In the following two hour debate, we see how other scientists, including Neil deGrasse Tyson, have a lot of trouble with Lawrence insisting that “nothing” nonetheless contains potentials, laws of nature, etc.

TRB

Why?

Why is Martin Luther King the ONLY person who has a Federal holiday named after him? The only other “person” in that category is Jesus, and he was probably fictional. We did have presidents, right? What, no one in all of American history is worthy of having his own holiday besides this one man? Why not a scientist? Why not Ben Franklin? Why not George Washington Carver? And by the way, this “nonviolence” preacher (MLK, not Carver) had his own guns for protection...see, neither MLK nor the Pope were/are quite as stupid as those people who really do have religious faith. MLK had his guns and this article says the latest Popemobile “is fitted with 3-inch-thick bulletproof glass and enough Kevlar to outfit a Navy Seals team.” Source. Religious faith...just warms yer cockles, eh?

Why did people think things would be so much better in the country if there were a black President? To be fair, I really can’t say yet, since we have not yet had a black President (the correct term for Mr. Obama is Mulatto). You’re not a racist? But you think things would be better with a black President? Why? I think you’re paying too much attention to the “black” and too little to the “President”. “As a black man who plans to eventually start a family with my white girlfriend, I'm going to tell them that Obama was the first man of color in the White House and that America’s 44th president was biracial.” Source. (Seeing as all Presidents before him were utterly transparent, with no color at all) But it will be oh so much better when we finally have a woman President. I think we should do this....disqualify all future presidential candidates, for at least one election cycle, who are not female, lesbian, Muslim/atheist, black (no Mulattos please), (or possibly Hispanic - whatever that means), who have had an abortion...she would surely fix things, right? Actor/actress, prince/princess, President/Presidentress...why not?

Why do we allow such things as private prisons in the USA? Why do we allow the Supreme Court to say corporations are people? Why do we allow this stuff? Because “we” don’t have a damn thing to say about it, that’s why. Like “we” don’t have anything to say about the fact that tobacco kills over 400,000 Americans every single year...plus costs billions a year in medical costs, lost work time, etc., whereas (lawyers say that sometimes) in more than 5,000 years of documented history no one can produce a single individual who has ever died from smoking marijuana, yet the USA will go to war with other countries to force them to allow tobacco in the “free trade” agreements, but will sentence ordinary Americans to life without parole in one of the private prisons, for marijuana. “When someone is convicted of an offense punishable by a mandatory minimum sentence, the judge must sentence the defendant to the mandatory minimum sentence or to a higher sentence. The judge has no power to sentence the defendant to less time than the mandatory minimum. A prisoner serving an MMS for a federal offense and for most state offenses will not be eligible for parole. Even peaceful marijuana smokers sentenced to "life MMS" must serve a life sentence with no chance of parole.” Source.

Protests? Of COURSE you can protest (as long as you remain inside a Free Speech Zone)...you can also scratch your balls (scratch ‘em if ya got ‘em), or use your dildo (unless you’re in a place where that’s illegal too), and juggle running chain saws, but it won’t change any of those laws. Does it occur to you that there’s a REASON why them folk in the various Congresses are called “lawmakers”....and you ain’t?

The Union 1:44 about marijuana and laws.

TRB

Guns, Freedom and Communication

I am not religious believer - a ‘nut’ or other wise. I am not a ‘right-winger’. I am not paranoid or full of fear. I do not hate any groups of people. I have no desire to hurt or kill anyone. I am not ‘pro-gun’. I am not a gun enthusiast, a ‘sportsman’, ‘outdoorsman’, collector, etc., nor am I a hunter or fisherman. I certainly do not ‘worship guns’. I am not a Limbaugh ‘ditto-head’, nor do I watch Fox News except once in a while....probably much less than I watch MSNBC, CNN, Current TV, and other outlets. I sometimes read right-wing or conservative material online, such as Town Hall and Human Events in the same way I read the left-wing Alternet and The Huffington Post. I do not support the Second Amendment as a reason for private gun ownership. I am not in favor of “states rights”, secession, and I am certain that no group of citizens, no matter how well-armed they may be, could ever have any successful (from their point of view) confrontation with the government. And, I do not own any guns. So... tell me please, just what horrible box will you put me in so that you can justify dismissing my opinions and arguments as merely the rantings of a....what? If this is your modus oprandi, I’m sure you’ll think of something.

If you are a more thoughtful, reflective person than that, perhaps we can talk.

I have friends on Facebook of many different ‘stripes’; conservative, libertarian, liberal-progressive, anarchist, Christian, agnostic, atheist, black, white, hispanic, male, female, gender-neutral, straight, gay, etc. I don’t know of a single one of these people with whom I can’t talk about something, even if we do best to avoid particular topics, since we know each other’s position and that they are not likely to change.

Regarding the so-called ‘gun debate’ in our country, if you care enough to read on, allow me to explain why I totally support the idea of people having the right to own guns. First, as I said, to me, the Second Amendment is totally irrelevant to the issue. I figure that life, all life, has innate within it, a natural right to attempt to defend itself from harm or death to the best of its ability. In the case of modern humans, this is best accomplished in most cases with guns. They are the tools which, in one sense, are the true equalizer; your physical size and strength has little to do with being able to defend yourself with a gun.

We might get into flinging statistics back and forth about how many people are killed with guns, or how often having a gun saved many lives, but these are, at best side issues, with little relevance to the main issue...which is the ability to defend yourself. There are MANY side issues which have little or nothing to do with the main issue...which is the ability to defend yourself. Why does he need a semi-automatic weapon, why does he need a 30-round clip, why does he need a hundred different guns, etc. The bottom line on all such questions is that A) “need" is not the issue and, B)it is simply not your business why he wants them. ‘Should everyone have nukes too’ is an argument ad absurdum, completely off the topic...which is the ability to defend yourself with PERSONAL weapons, not weapons of mass destruction.

There is much insulting vitriol thrown toward all gun owners that they are full of hate and fear; this seems especially ironic to me, since it seems to me most of the people who call for more gun laws have a good deal of hate, for lack of a better word, toward their stereotypes of gun owners, and a fundamentally irrational fear of guns themselves and all people who own them. I read a story sometime back about some customers getting bent out of shape because a couple of men who were also customers in a Starbucks, were openly carrying their weapons. The weapons and their method of carrying them were completely legal. If they had been concealed carry people, no one would have even known....just as they didn’t know how many of the customers had concealed completely illegal guns.

“Guns are made only to kill people”. First, that is only a bias....I can equally say guns are made to protect people; or it is simply incorrect because some guns are made for hunting or sport shooting or for collecting, etc. Also, even if taken at face value that guns are made for killing people, this is NOT a bad thing....some people very much need killing. Such as one who takes a gun into a public place and begins killing innocent people. It’s fine with me if some people have no desire to defend themselves. Pacifists exist (though not for long should an enemy attack them).

There is one question in particular to which I have not yet seen any answer: Why do you think more laws would prevent certain people from having guns? I am dismayed and astounded that so many of my liberal friends seem to think that passing a law against X puts an end to it and we don’t have to worry about it any more. This is just not very rational at all. There are ABUNDANT laws on the books about legal gun ownership, and don’t forget the ones about murder being illegal too, but none of these, so far, seem to have put an end to murder.

Many of the people on the right, certainly not all, think it is their business if gay people can legally get married or women can legally have an abortion. It isn’t. Unless some gay person is trying to force you to marry them, it is simply not your business whether gay people get married or not. Unless some woman is trying to abort YOUR baby against your will, then it is simply not your business whether she has an abortion or not. Likewise, unless someone is trying to force you to have guns in your house or on your person, or unless someone is assaulting you with one, it is simply not your business if someone else wants to own guns. That’s the long and short of it...bottom line. It’s simply not your business. On this, the right-wing sites are correct; it’s seldom ABOUT guns at all, but about control. Unfortunately, the same is true of them re the gay marriage and abortion issues. Could it be that, we might have just a little better national discourse if we all stopped screaming about what other people do, whether we like it or not, as long as they are hurting no one?

TRB

GUNS

This is one of my attempts to write a piece on the whole issue of “guns and gun control” based on reason rather than raw emotion, which seems to pervade most of the “debate”, in this case, especially from the “left” and sometimes from the “right”. This is just my personal reasoned opinion...I will not attempt to cite any statistics or “facts” to support my position, though I will give some links you might use if you have further interest in the subject.

Let’s start with the Second Amendment...for the record, here is the full text of that:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

In MY opinion, this amendment has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the “gun debate”, either in favor or against. Here’s why: IF the amendment stated simply, “The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed”, it would be flatly and unequivocally a Constitutional right. But it doesn’t say that. It has those two modifying clauses in front. It seems abundantly clear to me, given the time and circumstances in which this was written, that the REASON the Founders had for legally guaranteeing the people the right to bear arms was so that, if necessary, ‘the people’ could rise up in armed revolt against their government and overthrow it. I think that was perfectly sensible at the time, although. even then, it was no cut and dried matter that such a revolt would be successful. After all, cannon had been around a long time by then, it seems obvious that the government, if it wanted, could and would have access to far more cannon than ‘the people’ either individually or in militias would have.

At the very least, by the time nuclear bombs were available, the ship had sailed as far as ‘the people’ being able to militarily resist their government, if the government was determined enough to put down any revolt. By NOW the notion of any successful armed revolt of ‘the people’ against the government is so far beyond absurd it is downright delusional. I very seriously doubt there is any other nation on this planet with ANY chance of defeating the US military machine. Rationally and realistically, there is zero chance of any 'citizens militia’ defeating even civilian law enforcement apparatus (local police, state police, FBI, etc.), never mind anything about the military.

I remember when I first encountered the word ‘freethinker” and found the definition of it given by the FFRF: free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. As a newly minted atheist/freethinker, I embraced this, though there was that niggling thing in the back of my mind that we should be able to remove the “about religion” part to make the whole idea of freely thinking much broader. Sadly, it didn’t take long to find out that many “freethinkers” had interest ONLY in the term as it applied to religion, but not in any other aspect of life. Though I am aware of several atheist and non-religious folk who have a more reasonable view of the “gun debate”, I find it a bit alarming that the majority seem as mired in mindless social dogma on that issue as the “religious nuts” they so excoriate about religious beliefs. One notable exception is Sam Harris.

I find it troubling that so many of the same people who rightly point out many of the ridiculous claims and arguments made in favor of God-belief and religion, cannot seem to see that many of THEIR claims and arguments in the “gun debate” are just as ridiculous and without merit. As Sam Harris puts it in his article The Riddle of the Gun, “I am surrounded by otherwise intelligent people who imagine that the ability to dial 911 is all the protection against violence a sane person ever needs.” I am not in lockstep agreement with Sam Harris, or anyone else, on atheism, guns, or anything else, but so far, I find his arguments on these issues in general remarkably cogent and reasoned.

The issues of guns and gun control are the only ones I know of which have so many of the arguments ad absurdum so often found in religions.

I encourage you to read Sam Harris’s The Riddle Of The Gun, a more eloquent treatment of the issue than mine, from a nationally known liberal atheist...not a “religious gun nut”.

TRB