Miscellaneous Chatter
Non-topical discussion here.
A list of known errors in the original Wizard of Oz movie.
"We the people" are the first three words of our nation's Constitution, but who were those people in 1787? Dr. Howard Zinn, the renowned, honest historian, states in his best-selling book, A People's History of the United States: "The majority of the 55 men who framed the Constitution were men of wealth in land, slaves, manufacturing or shipping." Clearly, most people were not included in that original draft of the Constitution; no women, Native Americans, poor white men; and, absolutely, no enslaved Africans.
So, for a while now, we've had Pascal's Wager, which said that a rational person should live as though God exists and seek to believe in God. Because if God actually does exist, such a person will only lose their opportunity to posess material things by swearing off this physical world and only concentrating on the next world; wherefore they stand to receive infinite gains in heaven and avoid infinite losses in hell.
The God of the Bible is a genocidal asshole who created a flawed and degraded world of reduced resources and pain, yet he refuses to do anything beyond punish its population for not kowtowing to him in worship. In the Christian Bible he has to send a portion of himself, rendered physical, as a way of teaching the humans of his creation to love him better, and possibly love themselves. Yet his powers are so reduced this god-thing mostly fails in his mission and has to die to sacrifice himself to gain attention.
"Fremdschämen describes the almost-horror you feel when you notice that somebody is oblivious to how embarrassing they truly are," writes Daniel Hawes in Psychology Today. "Fremdscham [the noun] occurs when someone who should feel embarrassed for themselves simply is not, and you start feeling embarrassment in their place."
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAH!
Is there an imaginary cutoff period when Offspring become accountable For their own actions?
Is there some wonderful moment when Parents can become detached spectators in the lives of their children and shrug,
'It's Their life,' and feel nothing?
A successful business man was growing old and knew it was time to choose a successor to take over the business.
Name's Francis Pumphandle, but everyone calls me 'Pip'. Cheeseballs are one of my all-time favourite foods. I always seem to meet the most interesting people when I'm around them, too. In fact, cheeseballs bring to mind the time I met Bob Barker_. Yes, indeed. Bob Barker. Star of the most popular morning game show. He's a host, an emcee, and a celebrity, all rolled into one. Anyway, eight months ago -- it was Tuesday the seventeenth, I believe -- or it might have been the eighteenth...no, no, it was definitely the 17th, because it was precisely one week after my aunt Lucretia's birthday, which is the tenth. Aunt Lucretia's quite a woman. Loves to cook. She prepares a fabulous war shu a. That's a Chinese duck dish. I love Chinese food. I once went to a party where they served Chinese food and cheese balls. Now that was a Catch-22 situation. "Catch-22" was a movie, you know. It was long, very long. They say the book was better, but it was a novel and I never finish reading those things. Of course, a lot of people don't read much nowadays. They watch television. I caught a program on PBS last night. A very good show on chimpanzees. They had a clip of J. Fred Muggs, that chimp from the TODAY show. But it was Fred's chimpanzee girlfriend that had me stumped. I couldn't remember her name, so I looked it up. Her name was Phoebe B. Beebee. Anyway, as I was saying, eight months ago, Tuesday the seventeenth, I went downtown on a nice, relaxing stroll. I love to relax. In fact, relaxing is a pastime of mine. Some people play golf. Others like tennis, horseshoes, bridge, canasta, and other such fancy hobbies. Now, another hobby enjoyed by many is knitting. My grandmother was a great knitter. Knitted this sweater I'm wearing. It's red, which is not my favorite color. I prefer mauve or mustard yellow. Now, don't get me wrong: red is okay for ties and suspenders, but with sweaters I prefer more neutral colors. But when I'm relaxing, I don't care what I wear: long pants, Bermuda shorts, T-shirts, or formal attire. You name it, anything goes. Now, on the seventeenth, during my relaxing stroll, I recall wearing my herringbone jacket, my Laughlin, Nevada souvenir tie, and my charcoal gray slacks. Or was it the navy slacks? Oh, I suppose it doesn't really matter, does it? What matters is comfort. You know, I once stayed at a Comfort Inn. Warm,cozy, comfortable. I love comfort. It goes along with that pastime of mine, relaxing. Now, for me, there is nothing more relaxing than a nice leisurely stroll, like the one I took eight months ago on the 17th. It was a bright, sunny, which of course is the optimum condition for relaxed strolling. I found myself humming a haunting melody. I kept humming and humming and humming and humming. I couldn't get the tune out of my head. I racked my brains to come up with the title, but to no avail. You see, I'm not terribly musical. And yet, I'd always wanted to play an instrument and be like my musical hero, Leo Sayer. But who can compete with Leo? I think I was just scared that I'd fail. Well, I decided right then and there to go buy a musical instrument. So on the particular Tuesday the seventeenth to which I was referring, I went down to the Sixth Street Music Emporium to buy a new tambourine, a terribly soothing instrument, contrary to popular opinion. And as I was strolling along, I detected a wonderful scent in the morning air.What could it be, I asked myself. So I went toward that marvelous scent, distracted by its aroma from my musical mission. The odor was a mix of orchid flowers and bologna, which of course is one of the world's most under-appreciated luncheon meats. That and pimento loaf. I love a good pimento loaf and mayo sandwich -- the more pimentos, the better. Why, just the mention of pimentos makes my taste buds stand up and say, "Howdy." Now there's an interesting word: "Howdy." Is it from "How areyou" or maybe "How you doing"? "Howdy"'s one of those strange words that really has no origin. I like saying "How do" more than "Howdy" -- more formal, I think. Not too flowery. But the flowery aroma of that particular Tuesday morning carried me on my fragrant quest. Now, the smell was actually less bologna and more orchid -- the beautiful flower found on the island state of Hawaii. Of course, I wasn't in Hawaii, so I needed to search out the location of the nearest orchid. So, I visited every florist's shop in town. Well, to make a long story short, not a single flower shop in town had any orchids in stock, which seemed mighty curious to me. Now, as we all know, curiosity killed the cat, but since I'm not a feline, I wasn't too worried. Felines are funny creatures, don't you think? I had a cat once. It used its claws to tear my living room couch to shreds. It was a comfy couch, too. Had a sleep-away bed in it with a foam rubber mattress. Now, I bought the couch and the mattress at Levine's Department Store on Third Avenue, the very same afternoon of that relaxing stroll aforementioned. I also bought myself a lovely tambourine on that same shopping expedition. Anyway, I didn't want to pay extra for the delivery of the couch, so I decided to carry the couch home myself. It was quite cumbersome. And getting it through the store's revolving doors was a bit of a challenge. And just as I emerged onto the street, by accident I bumped into a well-dressed man with an orchid in his lapel. It was Bob Barker and he was eating a bologna and cheese balls sandwich.
Well, it's been nice chatting with you.
'Watch out! You nearly broad sided that car!' My father yelled at me.
'Can't you do anything right?' Those words hurt worse than blows. I
turned my head toward the elderly man in the seat beside me, daring me
to challenge him. A lump rose in my throat as I averted my eyes. I
wasn't prepared for another battle.
PEOPLE ASK WHY??
Why I Carry a Gun
My old grandpa said to me son,' there comes a time in every mans life when he stops bustin' knuckles and starts bustin' caps and usually it's when he becomes too old to take an ass whoopin'.
I don't carry a gun to kill people.
I carry a gun to keep from being killed.
I don't carry a gun to scare people.
I carry a gun because sometimes this world can be a scary place.
I don't carry a gun because I'm paranoid.
I carry a gun because there are real threats in the world.
I don't carry a gun because I'm evil.
I carry a gun because I have lived long enough to see the evil in the world.
I don't carry a gun because I hate the government.
I carry a gun because I understand the limitations of government.
I don't carry a gun because I'm angry.
I carry a gun so that I don't have to spend the rest of my life hating myself for failing to be prepared.
I don't carry a gun because I want to shoot someone.
I carry a gun because I want to die at a ripe old age in my bed, and not on a sidewalk somewhere tomorrow afternoon.
I don't carry a gun because I'm a cowboy.
I carry a gun because, when I die and go to heaven, I want to be a cowboy.
I don't carry a gun to make me feel like a man.
I carry a gun because men know how to take care of themselves and the ones they love.
I don't carry a gun because I feel inadequate.
I carry a gun because unarmed and facing three armed thugs, I am inadequate.
I don't carry a gun because I love it.
I carry a gun because I love life and the people who make it meaningful to me.
Police Protection is an oxymoron. Free citizens must protect themselves.
Police do not protect you from crime, they usually just investigate the crime after it happens and then call someone in to clean up the mess.
Personally, I carry a gun because I'm too young to die and too old to take an ass whoopin'.
Human beings only have two ways to deal with one another: reason and force. If you want me to do something for you, you have a choice of either convincing me via argument, or force me to do your bidding under threat of force. Every human interaction falls into one of those two categories, without exception. Reason or force, that's it.
In a truly moral and civilized society, people exclusively interact through persuasion. Force has no place as a valid method of social interaction, and the only thing that removes force from the menu is the personal firearm, as paradoxical as it may sound to some.
When I carry a gun, you cannot deal with me by force. You have to use reason and try to persuade me, because I have a way to negate your threat or employment of force. The gun is the only personal weapon that puts a 100-pound woman on equal footing with a 220-pound mugger, a 75-year old retiree on equal footing with a 19-year old gang banger, and a single gay guy on equal footing with a carload of drunk guys with baseball bats. The gun removes the disparity in physical strength, size, or numbers between a potential attacker and a defender.
There are plenty of people who consider the gun as the source of bad force equations. These are the people who think that we'd be more civilized if all guns were removed from society, because a firearm makes it easier for a [armed] mugger to do his job. That, of course, is only true if the mugger's potential victims are mostly disarmed either by choice or by legislative fiat--it has no validity when most of a mugger's potential marks are armed. People who argue for the banning of arms ask for automatic rule by the young, the strong, and the many, and that's the exact opposite of a civilized society. A mugger, even an armed one, can only make a successful living in a society where the state has granted him a force monopoly.
Then there's the argument that the gun makes confrontations lethal that otherwise would only result in injury. This argument is fallacious in several ways. Without guns involved, confrontations are won by the physically superior party inflicting overwhelming injury on the loser. People who think that fists, bats, sticks, or stones don't constitute lethal force watch too much TV, where people take beatings and come out of it with a bloody lip at worst. The fact that the gun makes lethal force easier works solely in favor of the weaker defender, not the stronger attacker. If both are armed, the field is level. The gun is the only weapon that's as lethal in the hands of an octogenarian as it is in the hands of a weight lifter. It simply wouldn't work as well as a force equalizer if it wasn't both lethal and easily employable.
When I carry a gun, I don't do so because I am looking for a fight, but because I'm looking to be left alone. The gun at my side means that I cannot be forced, only persuaded. I don't carry it because I'm afraid, but because it enables me to be unafraid. It doesn't limit the actions of those who would interact with me through reason, only the actions of those who would do so by force. It removes force from the equation...and that's why carrying a gun is a civilized act.