• I got an anonymous comment today on my post about the Knightstown High School teddy bear movie controversy. The comment was from one of the four students who was expelled for making the movie - and he thanked me for my support, which I thought was pretty cool. He apparently found my blog post by Googling for information on the brouhaha. Turns out you get about 58 results when you Google the search string [“Knightstown High School” AND “Teddy Bear Master”], and the Blog-O-Rama is one of the hits. Most of them are links back to the article from the Indianapolis Star, which I referred to in my post; and most of the rest are the same story reported in other news media (print, radio, and television) around the state.
• The letter to the editor I referred to in this post was printed in the November 27th issue of the Star, albeit in somewhat castrated form. The Star has a new thing called Talk Back, which is an online forum in which readers can offer their feedback on items on the Star’s web site. My letter can be found here, and the comments to it can be found here - a total of 38 comments the last time I checked. Reading some of these comments - and believe me when I say it’s only necessary to skim them in order to get the point - only reaffirms my belief that very angry people should not, under any circumstances, have access to guns.
• Not to take anything away from the joyous orgy of rushing that was Joseph Addai's day in the Hoosier Dome on Sunday, but here is something that annoys me. There are no pictures in today's paper of Reggie Wayne's one-handed sideline catch from the first quarter. There is a picture of Reggie Wayne giving the first down signal with his arm AFTER the catch - but no pictures of the catch itself. Nothing, Nathan, Nada. Plenty of pictures of Addai, as there should be, but none of Wayne's catch.
2 comments:
How about you refute the first poster's first paragraph, then complain about the rest?
I guess it's easier to skim and ignore any valid points that might make you think.
Simplistic "banning" views are signs of a lazy mind. Especially since those that are the "most serious" about the bans have the highest crime rates.
I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on this one. Like many ideas - cable TV, cell phones, the NBA - owning guns had some utility once, but has been blown so far out of proportion by increasingly sedentary Americans that it has shot straight past reason and into a Carroll-esque wonderland of absurdity.
The best example would be automatic weapons. No one but a soldier needs an automatic weapon. That they are available to non-soldiers is ridiculous and demonstrates that Americans are out of control and need to be reined in.
Yes, it is simplistic to think that banning guns outright would work, or even be a good idea - but it is not simplistic to imagine a world in which guns do not exist. Utopian to a fault, yes, but it leaves an ideal as a goal; and even though we bleeding heart liberals shall surely fall short of eliminating guns altogether, a world with less guns will be far better than the joke of a civlization in which we now live.
Of course, the issue of using guns in self-defense is a valid one, too - thus, in order to making getting rid of guns a more viable idea, it would also be necessary to address the issues people feel they need to defend themselves against. Reducing crime and drugs would go a long way toward a more secure world, and a more secure world would make the argument for banning guns much more palatable.
I could have suggested any of those little baby steps, rather than suggesting an outright ban on guns. The problem is that the gun people are never going to give the anti-gun people the time of day in a meaningful debate if the anti-gun people refuse to demand substantive change.
Was my choice of words meant to irk the gun people a little bit? Sure it was. I also hoped that it would get the more liberal folks talking, too. I don't think there are enough liberal voices in the debate here in Indiana - mostly because I think that they don't have the energy to say anything in the face of such an overwhelming conservative majority. There are liberal voices out there, and I hope that maybe some of them will see my ramblings and realize that they aren't alone.
I deleted your first comment literally because of where it was placed. I wanted to post a comment back to the Knightstown kid and didn't want your comment right in the middle of that. I suppose there might be a way to add a comment in such a way that it slips between two other comments, but if that is possible, my blog-o-verse skills haven't advanced that far yet.
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