Friday, December 28, 2012

NRA News Conference.

View it for yourself, if you haven't already, before further comment.

Monday, December 24, 2012

Merry Christmas

When this posts, it'll be Christmas in the Northwest - damp, soggy and perhaps with a coating of snow (or not).

In the morning I'll continue the preparations (wrapping, cleaning, organizing and such) for the Christmas I'll celebrate some days hence. In the afternoon, in the interests of domestic tranquility, I will go forth and tolerate an event.

For those of you that are close with your siblings and your families, be grateful. The rest of us envy you a tad, even as we struggle to move on in a way that works.

May each of us in our own way and time find a moment of joy during the holidays.

Sunday, December 23, 2012

" The perfect is the enemy of the good" - Voltaire

Sebastian makes an excellent point - that as a community of gun owners and civil rights activists we are at war with an unprincipled and ruthless opponent for which no depth is too deep to sink to and no gutter is to foul in which to swim.

We don't get to have the idealized and perfect versions of the NRA or any other organization, or even the ones we might like better. We get the ones we have today - as they are - warts and all. The NRA, SAF, CCRKBA, GOA, JPFO, NAGR and the many other local/state/regional/national pro-gun groups we have today are what we get to take to war with us.

Our blood dancing opponents will not be pausing while we perfect the moral and philosophical positions of our organizations or while we stage leadership purges. If they are not going to wait for the bodies to cool, whyever would they wait for us to organize a coordinated opposition to their emotion-driven tragedy-exploiting irrational trespasses upon fundamental human rights?

We are, after all, dealing with folks who have openly declared a desire to do SOMETHING before emotions cool and people become rational again...and who have been utterly clear about their ultimate desire to "take them all" (Feinstein).

So. For now, if you are really serious about our rights and not having BATFE or some other agency show up on your doorstep to collect your guns...put the NRA-HATE and other divisiveness on the back burner till we're out of the gator-infested swamp with velociraptors around the borders.

Monday, December 3, 2012

Christmas Bullies

Two years ago, my younger brother refused to allow his family to attend Christmas at Mom's house. It was his house or nothing. It seems he knew better than Mom what she wanted or would enjoy, and would hear of nothing else despite Mom's tears, pleading, and general extreme unhappiness. We did Christmas at our house without them, refusing to give in to emotional blackmail. The gifts that had been already purchased were delivered to his doorstep and left.

Last year, he made Mom promise that this year that she would do Christmas at his house this year before he would allow his family to attend that years Christmas festivities. She agreed, and is sticking by that extortionate agreement.

I cannot bring myself to support an event at which my Mothers attendance is extorted by blackmail. I had initially planned to simply go ahead and do a later dinner at Mom's house and ignore the other event. Regrettably, my guest list is falling apart due to other commitments and various ailments imposed by the fates on some of the intended guests.

Pondering options, I have a 14-15lb Turducken reserved that I've already paid for...but cooking it for just myself seems a bit silly. As does making up the whole Christmas dinner for just myself.

Barring a new set of invitees, I am contemplating other options. Given that attending any event created through blackmail is deeply offensive to me,  that rather rules *that* out as an option. It is quite bad enough that such a thing occur and that Mom not only go along with it, but try to make excuses for it.

At this late date expanding my social circle either to garner an invitation elsewhere or alternatively to gather bright shiny new guests seems both a bit self-serving for my tastes and - given my basically introverted nature - a bit unrealistic.

That, I suspect, leaves dining out as a moderately less cheerless choice than staying in for a grilled cheese sandwich.

Merry Christmas.