Archive for December 2012

The right to bear arms?

Tuesday, December 18th, 2012

The massacre of twenty children and eight adults (teachers, the mother of the shooter, and the shooter) is a tragedy.  In other similar tragedies, gun enthusiasts have warned us about getting too emotional and tampering with a fundamental right guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment…so they say.  The NRA, well-heeled lobbyist organization that it is, often leads the charge.  “Not over my dead body….”  Yes, I’m emotional.  This time the stats are against the NRA.  Twenty children.  I repeat: twenty little, helpless, and defenseless children.

The “fundamental right” these right-wing gun nuts talk about is the “right to bear arms.”  The Second Amendment says:  “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.”  That opening phrase is key:  “A well regulated Militia….”  The whole amendment has become twisted to the point where certain states have returned to the days of Dodge City and allow concealed carry “for protection,” meaning that people like George Zimmerman can shoot an unarmed black kid and claim self-defense.  It has become twisted to the point where anyone can go to a gun show and arm themselves better than SWAT members on a police force, as seen a few years back in an armed robbery in LA (a recent news report on ABC news quoted an FBI statistic: they performed background checks and registered more than 150,000 guns that were sold on Black Friday this year—c’mon people, that’s paranoid, perverse, and obscene!).

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Fundamentalism in politics…

Thursday, December 6th, 2012

Tuesday’s post was about the social singularity that appears in my books and is currently happening in the real world.  One aspect of this is fundamentalism in politics.  Whether human beings are by nature fundamentalist savages or not, it’s clear that fundamentalism across the world is bringing human rights and responsible government to their knees.  Let me elaborate.

The hope of the Arab Spring is being dashed against the rocks by the stormy waters of Muslim fundamentalism.  Mubarak might have been a psychotic sociopath (most dictators are), but he was secular and held the dark forces of Muslim extremism at bay.  The current Egyptian leader, clearly desiring the power of his predecessor, is the other extreme.  It’s obvious that he and his followers want another Muslim theocracy in Egypt.

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Review of Carolyn J. Rose’s Sea of Regret…

Wednesday, December 5th, 2012

(Carolyn J. Rose, Sea of Regret, ISBN 0983735956)

Sea of Regret is the sequel to Carolyn J. Rose’s An Uncertain Refuge.  The theme of the first book was human beings abusing other human beings.  The theme of this sequel is human beings abusing animals.  In this case, unscrupulous business people’s profit motives threaten a wildlife center on the Oregon shore.  There is a quiet intensity to the struggle of the protagonists punctuated by action scenes that clash with the rough-hewn beauty of Ms. Rose’s settings.  You’ll like this book.  Sit back, throw another log on the fire, sip a good whiskey or brandy, and become immersed in the age-old struggle of David versus Goliath.

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