It’s Saturday morning. I’m going to veg out with Boo, eat cold cereal, and watch cartoons. Life’s not worth living if you don’t see someone get an anvil dropped on their head every once in a while.
Today’s Earworm
Posted by daddybear71 on September 21, 2013
https://daddybearsden.com/2013/09/21/todays-earworm-412/
Welcome Home, Brother
Recently, a family in Clarksville, Tennessee, was given news that they have been waiting for since 1964. The remains of Staff Sergeant Lawrence Woods, a member of the 5th Special Forces Group who disappeared after his aircraft was shot down in Cambodia, have been identified, and I imagine that he will soon be given the burial that he richly deserves.
Currently, there are 83,343 people listed as Missing In Action. They are soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines from World War II, Korea, The Cold War, Vietnam, and Iraq and the War on Terror. There is one prisoner of war from Afghanistan that we still owe repatriation, Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, who has been in captivity since 2009.
These are the sons, brothers, husbands, and fathers who never came home, and their final resting place is not known to their families. They are the men who are still owed their burial flag, folded into a tri-corner, and given to their family as a memorial to their service. They are owed the plaintive sound of “Taps”, and the sound of three volleys of rifle fire ringing across the hills of Virgina, the mountains of Colorado, and the prairies of Kansas.
Today is National POW/MIA Recognition Day, and I hope you will join me in adding these men and their families into evening prayers. The debt we owe these men is to never forget them, and to be there for those they left behind.
To SSG Woods and the other servicemembers whose remains have been found and are being identified, I offer welcome back to our homeland. To SGT Bergdahl, I pray that you are delivered safely back to your loved ones and a country that cherishes you. And to my brothers who are still out there beyond the light of our fires, remember that we honor you, we will never forget you, and we will never stop looking for you.
Posted by daddybear71 on September 20, 2013
https://daddybearsden.com/2013/09/20/welcome-home-brother/
Thoughts on the Day
- I took a computer based training module the other day on “effective communication”.
- I was encouraged to use “positive” language, and “I am positive that the maker of the CBT should be dipped in egg batter, rolled in corn flakes, and french fried” is not what they were looking for.
- It included a scenario where I was in charge of a team of people, all of whom had a unique style of communication, and had to find the best ways to communicate my expectations to them when my managers found that the project was a shambles.
- Apparently “If you people don’t pull your head out of your lower alimentary canal and start producing in a very short time, I will fire the lot of you and replace you with the next crew of house-trained simians.” wasn’t the correct response to elicit peak performance from my team.
- This is why DaddyBear refuses to be in charge of people unless he can absolutely help it.
- It would seem that my leadership style, while appropriate for a group of self-motivated, competent professionals, doesn’t fit well in a world where you have to care about “feelings” and “self esteem” and worry about people who look to others for direction in their lives.
- My ancestors would be proud that I had the emotional control to attend a church festival tonight and do it stone cold sober.
- Boo has developed a taste for hot dogs, pepperoni pizza, and lime snow cones. He can also vibrate at a frequency that almost lets him walk through walls.
- On a more positive note, I was successful in revising the curriculum for one of the classes I teach at work with less than two hours notice before teaching it today, and it went quite well.
- Here’s a hint, folks: If the corporate safety department devotes a few moments in annual training telling us to not do something, and we continue to do it, they will make it a company policy and add a 15 slide mandatory lecture to said annual training on the subject.
- What used to be done in less than 2 hours, including class time, breaks, and hands-on demonstration of competence in not bumping into aircraft, now takes almost 3 hours.
- I successfully retrained 10 people about not driving down taxiways and runways, as well as avoiding collisions with stationary airplanes and the jet blast of moving airplanes this week.
- You know how there are parts of your life that you wall up and walk away from? It’s never fun when someone comes out of left field and tries to smash down those walls because they think they’re doing the right thing.
Posted by daddybear71 on September 20, 2013
https://daddybearsden.com/2013/09/20/thoughts-on-the-day-173/
On Open Carry
Since all of the cool kids are doing it, I might as well jump on the bandwagon and air out my opinions on open carry.
Here we go:
Your right to swing your fist ends where your fist impacts the nose of others.
Clear enough? I don’t care if someone wants to open carry a pistol, a rifle, a shotgun, a bazooka, a slingshot, or an AC-20 from a BattleMech that’s been in their family for generations, so long as they are not acting in such a way that either breaks the law or makes life hard for the rest of us who want to be left alone to buy our groceries while carrying a defensive firearm and writing run-on sentences.
I’m not sure who said it first, but the first rule of open carry, as it should be in most things in life, is “Don’t be a dick.” There are circumstances where open carry is appropriate and there are circumstances where open carry is inappropriate. It’s your responsibility, which comes with the right to carry, to know the difference.
I mostly carry concealed, but I do open carry on occasion. Those occasions are not limited to when I am going to a gun-friendly environment, such as going to the range or meeting with like-minded people. It includes going to a semi-rural home improvement center, a suburban grocery store, or whatever. To me, having a pistol on my hip is no different from having a multi-tool or a cell phone on my hip. I’ve only been asked about it on two occasions. Once was a little old lady who asked me if it was legal, and the other was a police officer who asked which model of 1911 it was and where I bought it.
So, in my environment, people just don’t seem to care about open carrying a pistol, or if they do, they’re not challenging me on it. So I guess, at least in suburban Louisville, that battle either has been won, or never needed to be fought in the first place.
There are circumstances where carrying a rifle or shotgun is appropriate, but those circumstances are, for me, very limited. I live in a semi-rural, semi-suburban environment. It’s just not in the social norm for me to carry a long gun with me as I go about my daily business, so I don’t. In an other environment, I might, but it just doesn’t come up in my routine.
The same cannot be said for open carry, either of a pistol or a long arm, in other environments. You have to decide what is appropriate all on your own.
So basically, if it works for you, and what you do doesn’t make my life harder, it’s none of my business.
But please, before you put on your bad attitude tee shirt and slip the patrol sling over your head, please consider whether what you’re going to do is going to harm the rest of us. Is making a political or social statement worth the risk to our place in the commons of ideas when it comes to gun rights? Is the payoff for carrying your shotgun into a library worth the recoil that will inevitably happen, mostly on the part of people who otherwise wouldn’t care about guns?
So basically, aggressive open carriers have their rights, and that’s a beautiful thing. But please remember the responsibilities that come with them. Don’t make life harder for the rest of us while you’re trying to express your rights.
Posted by daddybear71 on September 20, 2013
https://daddybearsden.com/2013/09/20/on-open-carry/
Thoughts on the Day
- To whomever made copies of my debit card and distributed it to several other people who all tried to buy gas in multiple states on September 12, I hope your grandmothers all die when their bordello catches fire.
- Luckily, only one relatively small transaction made it through my bank’s fraud protection.
- i do not, however, have a debit card at the moment as a new one is being made by my bank and shipped to me.
- It’s a good day when I get to use quotes from “Quigley Down Under” not once, but twice, in conversation.
- For those playing at home, they were “I said I never had much use for one. Never said I didn’t know how to use it.” and ” don’t know where we’re going, but there’s no sense being late.”
- It was parent’s night at Boo’s school tonight. We were happy to hear that his new teacher seems to have him in hand already.
- Not paying attention during a staff meeting can be very embarrassing.
- Is it cruel to check your daughter’s grades on-line, see that she’s doing very well, and draw out the “We really need to talk about your performance in school” speech at the table before breaking down into a smile that tells her it’s OK?
- Summer pushed back a bit today. It got hot and muggy enough that we’ve closed the house back up and turned on the air conditioner. Oh well, highs in the 70’s will return shortly.
- I’ve seen five wooly worms that are almost all brown. If folklore is accurate, that means a relatively mild winter.
- My bones, on the other hand, are advising that I stock up on buffalo meat, firewood, and fur coats.
- Peter has a new book out. It’s going into the “Read as soon as you can” pile. He’s a great writer, and this is a subject that is near and dear to his heart. I’m really looking forward to reading it.
- My co-workers complimented me on the portraits of the kids that I have on my desk. I’m proud to say that they were all taken by my lovely Irish Woman. If I could only get her in front of the camera more often.
Posted by daddybear71 on September 19, 2013
https://daddybearsden.com/2013/09/19/thoughts-on-the-day-172/
Chilling
I’ve been following the news about the Navy Yard shooting pretty closely. Like a lot of people, I’ve been horrified by the number of brushes with the law the guy had and no-one did anything, and I’ve been just shaking my head about how the DOD seems to have dropped the ball on giving him access to installations and a security clearance.
But, after I made sure that everyone I know who does work for the Navy in the DC area was OK, my interest has been pretty academic.
That is, until this morning.
Back in August, I did a business trip to Norfolk, Virginia. I flew in on Friday and out on Sunday. As I was sitting in the Southwest terminal waiting for my flight home, there was a black guy a couple of seats down from me on the phone. He was rather loudly and quite profanely talking to someone at his employer. (I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but people on the other side of the terminal were looking over to see why someone was shouting.) He specifically mentioned having to deal with airport security and the police. I mentioned it here.
So, this morning, I checked the news and saw this.
According to Rosalind Baugh, Wallis Boyd and Glynda Boyd, the incident began when Baugh laughed at an innocent joke among loved ones and the man they now believe be Aaron Alexis angrily approached the group. Things quickly escalated, with Alexis screaming profanities and motioning at his side as though he were carrying a weapon. Unable to calm the stranger down, family members called security, who spoke with Alexis in front of a terminal of terrified travelers.
That also happened in the Southwest terminal at Norfolk on August 4. Now, I’m not absolutely sure that the guy in the picture on the news sites is the guy who was throwing a temper tantrum three feet away from me, but what I remember of him roughly fits the description.
Nothing real to add here. It’s just a weird coincidence. If it was indeed the same guy, and if that was his everyday behavior, then the fact that the Navy and law enforcement let him slip through so many cracks becomes even more puzzling.
Posted by daddybear71 on September 19, 2013
https://daddybearsden.com/2013/09/19/chilling/
For the Love of Peets
To Howard Schulz of Starbucks,
It appears that Starbuck’s, purveyors of coffee and desserts served in cups, has had enough of us and the anti-rights crowd using your stores as a place to get in each other’s business. Your official policy has been, and as far as I can tell still is, one of neutrality. If I wanted to carry my gun into your store and not bother anyone else, then you’ve been happy to take my money and give me caffeine. What’s changed from what I called ‘silent neutrality’ is that now you’d rather that we not bring our guns with us when we patronize your establishment.
To that I say: OK, but if you’d rather I not come into your store doing something that makes you uncomfortable, then don’t plan on me coming into your store, period. Would y’all object if an inter-racial couple came into the store, arm in arm? What about a same-sex couple canoodling on the couch while playing one of your conveniently placed board games? I honestly don’t care one way or the other about those two situations, but there are people who would be bothered by seeing couples whose composition is not what they approve of. Some of them might even get vocal and complain to your staff about it. In turn, some of the other side of the argument might turn their behavior up to 11 just to get under the skin of the people who object. I tend to call all of those people “jerks” and ignore them, but apparently you find it impossible to do that when it comes to those who want people like me driven from the public eye or those who want to make a public demonstration of their carrying of firearms.
Yeah, I know that some of us were more in-your-face about guns than others, and the same goes for the anti crowd. And yes, I know that you’re just trying to sell caffeine and sugar and don’t want your private property to become the local shouting ground. I get it. Your place, your rules.
But the figleaf of “You can come in with a hogleg on your belt and no-one will challenge you because we’re afraid of asking our employees challenging someone who’s armed” is, to me, the same as saying “We’re not going to tell gay people they can’t come in here, but we’ll politely ask that they act straight when they’re on the premises.” It’s cowardice to take a stand without really taking a stand, and the silent neutrality I respected before has now become soft hostility.
So, in the future, I won’t be taking myself or my children to Starbucks for a treat. Honestly, that’s all it’s become over the past few years anyway. My coffee monkey is currently satisfied with a morning cuppa made on the kitchen counter, and I can buy good coffee beans anywhere.
Hopefully this all blows over and we can all find an equilibrium where coffee shops are a commons to sit and have a quiet moment without people on one side or the other getting too rowdy. But until you drop your pretense of wanting to take our money but also telling us to stop doing something that makes you feel icky inside, that’s not going to happen.
Sincerely,
Daddy J. Bear
Louisville
Posted by daddybear71 on September 18, 2013
https://daddybearsden.com/2013/09/18/for-the-love-of-peets/
Today’s Earworm
Posted by daddybear71 on September 18, 2013
https://daddybearsden.com/2013/09/18/todays-earworm-411/
Quote of the Day
Because like it or not, the folks spraying our cities with bullets are not NRA members or legal gun owners. And despite the tendency to tie it all together, they have nothing to do with the Adam Lanzas of the world. — LZ Granderson, in his CNN opinion piece “Gun Control Is Not The Answer“
Read the whole thing.
In a few hundred words, Mr. Granderson makes the point that I and others have used gallons of ink to make. The problem is not the implement; the problem is the person wielding it. But since people problems are thornier, the easier path of attacking lumps of metal and plastic, along with those who peacefully own and use them, is taken.
How we find a solution to the people problem is going to be harder than anyone can imagine. It will require looking at how people act, how they raise their children, and how we choose to spend our national resources, and honestly looking at all of us and saying “you have erred, and you need to do better”. Until we do this, violence, no matter how it happens, will continue to be a plague on our society.
Posted by daddybear71 on September 18, 2013
https://daddybearsden.com/2013/09/18/quote-of-the-day-119/
Thought for the Day
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. — Preamble to the United States Constitution
Posted by daddybear71 on September 17, 2013
https://daddybearsden.com/2013/09/17/thought-for-the-day-203/
DaddyBear
DaddyBear’s Den 