Observations from the Road 12.27

I never did get back to my emotional response to guns but I still plan on doing it at some point. That doesn't mean it will ever happen, my head is full of posts I plan on getting back to but never do. This is more like a mid-week post Christmas edition of Sunday Observations which is going to seem more like an economics lesson.

I hope you had a good Christmas because it seems Congress has a very special New Years celebration planned this year.

And so I give you this fiscal cliff thing, something I'm totally tired of hearing about. Here is the fiscal cliff in a nutshell; Congress can't seem to do anything, with over 200 votes Congress passes a draconian law that automatically does its job for it, Congress figures it will have to do something before its own law takes effect. Now, and this is the surprising part, Congress can't force itself to do anything to stop what Congress itself has created. Is it any wonder said Congress has an approval rating slightly lower than the Communist Party's? I didn't know the Communist party still existed.

Meanwhile the government will once again hit the debt ceiling on New Years Eve, something else to add to the cliff. I agree with former President Bill Clinton on this one. President Obama should just raise the debt limit by executive order and let the republicans take him to court if they want to. As Clinton said why should Congress be allowed to vote on expenditures they already passed? It's like you went out and bought a Christmas present on credit and than when the bill came decided not to pay it. What makes this even crazier is that the government currently pays 1% interest on new loans so borrowing now to pay for projects is probably the best investment they can make. The Treasury department says they can put off the ceiling for a few months by using accounting methods, I think I'll try that when it's income tax time.

A quick note on White House petitions. Some people have been complaining that 'joke' petitions are taking away from serious politics in this country. It is beyond me how that is possible given the state of Congress but that's what they say. Anyway there are some serious petitions to look at. One would have the President "Legally recognize Westboro Baptist Church as a hate group." It was started by a member of the hacker group Anonymous after the WBC announced it was going to protest at the funerals of the Newtown shooting victims. As of now it has 263,000 signatures so will get an official response which should be interesting. You can read it here.

Also there was a good but sad article about the complete disconnect between those who fight our wars and the rest of the country in Christmas day's edition of The New York Times. The article, "With a Parent Off Again at War, a Holiday of Pride and Isolation," included this line; "No one really cares,” Tyisha Smith, a 19-year-old senior, said of the outside world."

I'm sure Congress will get to Afghanistan after it gets past its Thelma and Louise moment.

Finally, and once again, where have you gone NHL?

12/28 update - I just read a Reuters article about the Westboro petition and it said 475,000 people has signed it. I was thinking 200,000 more signatures can't be possible in one day so I checked it out. Seems there are three petitions; the main one has 287,000, another to investigate Westboro's tax exempt status has 69,500 signatures, and a third to revoke its tax exempt status and label it a hate group has 63,000 signatures.

Katie's 12 Days Of Christmas

So what could be so good I saved it till Christmas night? It's a bit of country music, yes I said country. I first saw this video maybe ten years ago when music TV still played music. It was on one country channel or the other and Sean and I left it on all day so we wouldn't miss this anytime it played and laugh as we sarcastically pointed some part of it out to our own family. I think every family has small part of this Christmas in them and can relate, I like to think they do anyway. Than again maybe it's best if they not.

Merry Christmas everybody, I hope it was a good one.

Robert Earl Keene's Merry Christmas from the Family

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Merry Christmas

Palace of St. Nicholas
In the Moon
Christmas Morning

My Dear Susie Clemens:

I have received and read all the letters which you and your little sister have written me by the hand of your mother and your nurses; I have also read those which you little people have written me with your own hands, for although you did not use any characters that are in grown peoples' alphabet, you used the characters that all children in all lands on earth and in the twinkling stars use; and as all my subjects in the moon are children and use no character but that, you will easily understand that I can read your and your baby sister's jagged and fantastic marks without any trouble at all. But I had trouble with those letters which you dictated through your mother and the nurses, for I am a foreigner and cannot read English writing well. You will find that I made no mistakes about the things which you and the baby ordered in your own letters, I went down your chimney at midnight when you were asleep and delivered them all myself--and kissed both of you, too, because you are good children, well trained, nice mannered, and about the most obedient little people I ever saw. But in the letter which you dictated there were some words which I could not make out for certain, and one or two small orders which I could not fill because we ran out of stock. Our last lot of kitchen furniture for dolls has just gone to a very poor little child in the North Star away up, in the cold country above the Big Dipper. Your mama can show you that star and you will say: "Little Snow Flake," (for that is the child's name) "I'm glad you got that furniture, for you need it more than I." That is, you must write that, with your own hand, and Snow Flake will write you an answer. If you only spoke it she wouldn't hear you. Make your letter light and thin, for the distance is great and the postage very heavy.

There was a word or two in your mama's letter which I couldn't be certain of. I took it to be "a trunk full of doll's clothes." Is that it? I will call at your kitchen door about nine o'clock this morning to inquire. But I must not see anybody and I must not speak to anybody but you. When the kitchen doorbell rings, George must be blindfolded and sent to open the door. Then he must go back to the dining room or the china closet and take the cook with him. You must tell George he must walk on tiptoe and not speak--otherwise he will die someday. Then you must go up to the nursery and stand on a chair or the nurse's bed and put your car to the speaking tube that leads down to the kitchen and when I whistle through it you must speak in the tube and say, "Welcome, Santa Claus!" Then I will ask whether it was a trunk you ordered or not. If you say it was, I shall ask you what color you want the trunk to be. Your mama will help you to name a nice color and then you must tell me every single thing in detail which you want the trunk to contain. Then when I say "Good-by and a merry Christmas to my little Susie Clemens," you must say "Good-by, good old Santa Claus, I thank you very much and please tell that little Snow Flake I will look at her star tonight and she must look down here, I will be right in the west bay window; and every fine night I will look at her star and say, 'I know somebody up there and like her, too.'" Then you must go down into the library and make George close all the doors that open into the main hall, and everybody must keep still for a little while. I will go to the moon and get those things and in a few minutes I will come down the chimney that belongs to the fireplace that is in the hall, if it is a trunk you want, because I couldn't get such a thing as a trunk down the nursery chimney, you know.

People may talk if they want, until they hear my footsteps in the hall. Then you tell them to keep quiet a little while till I go back up the chimney. Maybe you will not hear my footsteps at all, so you may go now and then and peep through the dining-room doors, and by and by you will see that thing which you want, right under the piano in the drawing room-for I shall put it there. If I should leave any snow in the hall, you must tell George to sweep it into the fireplace, for I haven't time to do such things. George must not use a broom, but a rag, else he will die someday. You must watch George and not let him run into danger. If my boot should leave a stain on the marble, George must not holystone it away. Leave it there always in memory of my visit; and whenever you look at it or show it to anybody you must let it remind you to be a good little girl. Whenever you are naughty and somebody points to that mark which your good old Santa Claus's boot made on the marble, what will you say, little sweetheart?

Good-by for a few minutes, till I come down to the world and ring the kitchen doorbell.

Your loving Santa Claus
Whom people sometimes call "The Man in the Moon"

(Mark Twain to his daughter, 1875)

Katie's 12 Days Of Christmas

Oh Tannenpalm


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Katie's 12 Days Of Christmas

A public service message from Lewis Black ....

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Katie's 12 Days Of Christmas

One of the most intriguing Christmas stories you will ever here is about the World War I 'Christmas Truce' of 1914. I know I'm showing more weirdness but yet I'm not. If you study art history you can't help but like history and it's something my grandfather first told me about years ago. It was only five months into the war and nobody yet understood industrialized or total war so a few leaders suggested a Christmas truce, the generals refused. On Christmas Eve some German soldiers began decorating their trenches with candles and trees and, generals be damned, the truce was born. The two sides sang carols together, exchanged gifts, and one group even played soccer in the no mans land between the trenches. The truce, mostly between German and British troops in Belgium, was never recognized by higher ups and the first official histories of the war ignored it completely. It never happened as far as they were concerned.

"O ye who read this truthful rime From Flanders, kneel and say:
God speed the time when every day
Shall be as Christmas Day."

From "A Carol from Flanders" by Frederick Niven

Snoopy vs. The Red Baron


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Katie's 12 Days Of Christmas

One for my mom ....

"The holiest of all holidays are those
Kept by ourselves in silence and apart ....
White as the gleam of a receding sail,
White as a cloud that floats and fades in air,
White as the whitest lily on a stream,
These tender memories are; a fairy tale
Of some enchanted land we know not where,
But lovely as a landscape in a dream."

"Holidays" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Trans-Siberian Orchestra, "Christmas Canon"

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(Sorry, You might have to watch this on YouTube. Atlantic Records, in its infinite wisdom, allows you to have an embed code but doesn't always allow it to work.)

Katie's 12 Days Of Christmas

This video has it all so it had to be used, there was no choice in the matter. Carols, a tree, presents, Santa's helpers. Best get it out of the way now before the final four.

The Victoria's Secret Angels Sing "Deck the Halls"

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Katie's 12 Days Of Christmas

This is a video a friend sent me last night and not one of my 'official' 12 days of Christmas posts or that would make it "Katie's 13 Days of Christmas" and christ what with the Mayans and everything who needs the bad luck? Just think of it as a bonus post.

Now anybody that knows me knows how much I like Anne Hathaway but this short hair of hers, I just don't know about that. I'm not about to kick her out of my dreams over it though. And yes, yes that is my princess saying motherf*cker in the video, you were warned.

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Katie's 12 Days Of Christmas

The Killers star in elves gone wild.

"A Great Big Sled"

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Observations 12.19

"Silently, one by one, in the infinite meadows of heaven,
Blossomed the lovely stars, the forget-me-nots of the angels."
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Charlotte Bacon, 6. Daniel Barden, 7. Olivia Engel, 6. Josephine Gay, 7. Dylan Hockley, 6. Madeleine Hsu, 6. Catherine Hubbard, 6. Chase Kowalski, 7. Jesse Lewis, 6. Ana Marquez-Greene, 6. James Mattioli, 6. Grace McDonnell, 7. Emilie Parker, 6. Jack Pinto, 6. Noah Pozner, 6. Caroline Previdi, 6. Jessica Rekos, 6. Avielle Richman, 6. Benjamin Wheeler, 6. Allison Wyatt, 6.

And I don't even have to tell you who they are.

Katie's 12 Days Of Christmas

I don't know, my whole little Christmas project just isn't as enjoyable as when I started it. Some clips I was going to use like Die Hard, yes it is a Christmas movie, and the Home Alone black and white gun scene just seem wrong. So I'll go with a modern classic suggested by my brother. U2's first Christmas tune ....

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Observations on Guns

The more I thought about what I wanted or needed to say about guns the more notes I had and the greater the threat of some massive post that made no sense to anybody. I decided I would break it into two parts. There is just too much swirling around in my head so first I'm going to get out some basic "facts" about why I think about guns the way I do. Maybe in the end it will be that long awkward post broken in two but I have to start somewhere.

At times it is a very emotional issue for me, at other times very fact based, which is very hard to explain to some people. Before I go any further let me get this out of the way, it has to stop. Every year more Americans die in this country from gun violence than died in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. Yes the second amendment guarantees the right to own guns but that right shouldn't override the most basic of Jefferson's rights, the right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." When the Constitution was written muskets couldn't hit the side of a barn from 100' and there was no such thing as a semi-automatic musket. Does the second amendment give me the right to a nuke? I don't think so, so why a semi-automatic assault rifle with a hundred round magazine? Nobody needs to go to Cabella's for armor piercing bullets to go duck hunting. It's just insanity.

I grew up in a small town ruralish county in Pennsylvania, a state which has more NRA members than any other state other than Texas. In the fall the thoughts of a large part of the state doesn't turn to Penn State football but to hunting. Pennsylvania has more hunting seasons than I can remember. Small game, deer, bear, archery, and musket come to mind. All my uncles hunt and my dad does too although I always had the feeling he hunted more to be with his brothers than for any other reason. I love my uncles but I argue with them all the time and doing that has taught me two things about gun control. Like global warming it's just a bad term and if there is ever going to be a rational gun policy in this country it has to soothe the very real, if somewhat irrational, fear of rural Americans that somebody is going to come and take there hunting rifles.

For years I owned gun, a completely legally purchased and licensed hand gun. My one uncle taught me how to shoot it, took me to a safety class, and often took me to a shooting range where, to be brutally honest, I quite enjoyed shooting it and did much better than hit the side of a barn. Why did I enjoy it? Have you ever played a shooter computer game? If you have you and enjoyed it you understand even if you don't want to admit it to yourself. It's the same feeling just a 'real' feeling and not a 'virtual' one. Beyond that I wont get into it because it's one of those no win emotional issues of the gun debate. One extreme will say I'm evil because I enjoyed firing a gun and the other will say I'm bad because I got rid of my gun to prove a point.

Why do some people react with near hatred of the right when it comes to gun control? Because they have to deal with people like Texas Governor Rick Perry who yesterday told a wingnut meeting that teachers should be able to carry guns. Then there is former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee who thinks a mass shooting in an elementary school is the natural result of taking god out of schools. If his god is that spiteful it would allow twenty children to die to prove a point I'm so glad I don't believe in it. As for the National Rifle Association I'm not sure I can discuss them, least at the national level, without a touch of loathing. There answer to everything seems to be more guns. Guns in school, guns in church, more guns everywhere as if 300 million weren't enough.

But now it all comes down to one simple fact, twenty small children died in a way nobody deserves to die. As I wrote somewhere last Friday, what does it say about a country when it kills its children?

So you can see that, even when I'm trying to not be emotional, when it comes to guns in America emotion is never far away for anybody.

Katie's 12 Days Of Christmas

Saturday night "Saturday Night Live" paid tribute to the victims of the Newtown shootings with a rare serious opening by the New York Children's Chorus.

"Silent Night"

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