Registering cars and guns

Gun control is at the top of the news lately, and obviously because of the Orlando murders. Myself, I am a firm believer in the Second Amendment. And while I admit (as a personal belief) that I don't see the reason to have rapid fire weapons either for self defense or hunting, I don't see how the nation can logically ban them without violating the Constitution. The debate ends there, so far as I'm concerned. If you want it different, you have to work for an amendment to that Amendment.

Many of the ideas about banning or regulating guns and gun ownership and/or purchase are bandied about just the same. One such argument goes that, well, we have to register our cars with the government. Why can't the government effect gun controls that way? My response to that is, maybe we need to reconsider whether we ought be made to register our cars.

To keep track of ownership, perhaps? But why should the government care about that? If I don't want to title my car I must believe that I should not have to. The government has no right whatsoever to know what kind of car I drive. For a similar reason this is also why I am increasingly opposed to an income tax of any type at any level. Enforcement means having to tell the government how much money I make, and that, quite frankly, is none of the government's business.

To get tax money? That's the only real reason I see for annual vehicle registration. And we do money for the roads. Yet we can get that without title fees or registrations: through sales taxes at the pump. The more you drive, the more you pay for the highways and bi-ways. That seems reasonable enough to me.

For the purposes of fighting crime? Making people have license plates might make solving certain crimes easier, so the argument would go. But isn't that a form of guilty until proven innocent? It presumes that if I own a car I will use it for violence. I've always thought that violated my rights.

Really, though, my overriding point is that simply because we allow the government to do some things in some areas of civil life doesn't mean the government can act similarly in any and all areas of civil life. It may be merely that we've come to accept so much of what government does without question, that we've hit the point where we try to justify new government acts in new areas solely on the fact that government acts likewise elsewhere.

Given a moment's thought, it is really a rather shallow argument.

Sublime, ridiculous, or overthought?

I'm not sure if this qualifies as sublime or ridiculous, or neither. But I think it might qualify as one or the other. Be that as it may, I'm always a bit astounded when such things happen.

I like tonic water. Yes, jokemeisters, I don't mind it with gin either, and a twist of lime. But I like to drink tonic water by itself. I like the vaguely chalky taste. And I held a bottle in my hand on this past Sunday morning, Father's Day, as I stood in the aisle of the grocery store I was in. I hadn't had any in awhile and thought I might buy a couple bottles. But I didn't, just, well, because I didn't.

Several weeks ago, I read an article about a new biography of Ty Cobb, the famous Detroit Tiger and perhaps the greatest hitter in baseball history. It was written by one Charles Leerhsen, and purports to shed new light on the supposedly disliked Cobb. You can read the article here: https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/who-was-ty-cobb-the-history-we-know-thats-wrong/ My apologies if you have to copy and paste; I have yet to learn how to embed links. Anyway, after reading the article I thought, I want to read that book. Then I promptly forgot about it.

Upon arriving back home my daughter and son-in-law asked if I wanted my Father's Day gifts. Sure, why not? I said. I like gifts. And they handed me two bottles of tonic water, and a copy of Lerrhsen's Ty Cobb, A Terrible Beauty.

The tonic water I get: they knew that I liked it yet hadn't bought any in months and figured I wouldn't mind a bit. My question is: why would I have not bought it earlier that day? Why we were somehow, someway, on the same wavelength?

As to the book, to my knowledge I hadn't even told anyone that I'd read the article much less wanted the book. Somehow, then, they found the book and figured dad, being a baseball wonk and huge Tiger fan, would be interested in it.

I realize there are many quite plausible explanations for each of these instances, not the least of which is the happy accident scenario I just offered. I am also aware that there is a bit of a quality to them which doesn't quite register. Sublime, or ridiculous? Or merely overthought?

Question thyself

Be proud of yourself. Be satisfied with yourself. Be happy with who you are. Be you, despite what other people think of you. I hear those vapid platitudes so much that I want to scream. I want to ask, I want to yell at the top of my lungs, 'But what if you're an asshole?'

It is shallow thought my friends. No one, and I mean no one, is justified in what they do only because of who they may think they are. The unexamined life, it is said, is not worth living. And it is not. If I must question myself, and I most certainly must, then why not must you question you?

Answer that question to my debit, and I might allow that your chosen lifestyle may be valid. Yet so long as you direct that question only at me, then I am playing fair to point out that you are merely selfish. And that is not fair to conservatives like me.

F Troop better than Game of Thones

The grim reality of the 2010s versus the goofball racism of the 1960s. I wonder which is worse?

I'm watching the old TV show F Troop this morning and imagining how terribly offensive it must be considered today in some quarters. With its jokes based, in this case, on Red Indians and Japanese culture I'm surprised it's on free TV let alone cable. From Karate with Love is this particular episode, if you care to look it up. F Troop has also parodied Germans, French Canadians, Mexicans, Russians and, shockingly, the US Army. Horrors.

Now let's compare this to the currently popular Game of Thrones, a gore fest in the name of realism, where also an actress has publicly complained that the amount of male nudity must equal the amount of female nudity. There is a double standard here which much be addressed, we are told. And we are not expected to be upset or concerned with such flippant attitudes about propriety anyway.

I don't know about you, but I think screwball comedy mocking almost everybody and anybody without regard to feelings superior to presumed high art made for prurient interests. Give me honest lampooning over gritty reality any day. Quite frankly, it's more honest with itself.

Is vivisection always right?

I remember reading an article years ago about South Korean scientists who had added gene material from another creature to a beagle puppy, causing it to glow red in ultraviolet light. The dog was named Ruppy as I recall, which was short for Ruby Puppy. Cute.

Cute in and of itself only, I should add. There has always been at least moderate debate in the scientific community about the value of animal experimentation, vivisection I believe it's called, and well there should be. Ruppy was part of a series of experiments designed to make dogs more like humans genetically in order to use them in researching human diseases. I am not sure what to make of this. I have no particular qualms about using animals to seek cures for human ills. Yet I have to question the point of a glowing dog, even in that context.

Perhaps it was inadvertent; I don't remember whether the team of researchers intended that effect, or I missed the reason. Maybe it was simply to see what kind of genetic alterations could be effected, as a step on the ladder towards more useful experiments. I can live with that second point; but if it was the first reason, I am not so sure I would agree.

As a moral rule, doing something just to do something, doing 'science' just to see what can be done, is not particularly defensible. That's not to say that such actions are necessarily wrong, only that they seem little more than a waste of time. Especially in areas where public money may be being spent, I would go so far as to say they may be in fact wasteful of the taxpayer's cash.

Not to mention the effects on the animals. Again, I don't mind animal experimentation for the legitimate pursuit of ending diseases. But I don't see where we have the right to experiment on them merely to play with their DNA. If there is no, or within reason expected to be no, real help for human or even animal lives, I cannot see where it is right to mess with any given animal simply to do so.

Perhaps I am speaking out of turn, as I am admittedly shooting from the lip. That said, we must remember that we are not God, even when it comes to our treatment of the lower creatures with whom we share this planet. We have no right, in this area as well as almost all others, to tinker merely to tinker.

What facebook told me on this very day

Hey Pops,

I rolled out of bed at 1:30 this morning to go to the plant, as you had done for so many years and we had done together far too little. I ran through the shower and had a shave to wake myself fully, then thought I'd check my e-mail and facebook right quick before I left. In its 'On This Day' reminder feature it had me remember that three years ago today you had had your surgery. Dang it facebook, you can be a jerk sometimes.

Well by then I had to read my post asking for prayers, feeling sadder every second. Then of course I had to read the comments, well over 40 by the way, of friends promising prayers and comfort. And as I read those posts I actually began to feel better. I saw how many people were in your corner wanting the best for you, even a bunch who never met you. I saw too that there was a support system in place for old Marty. That same support system that got me through the difficult months which followed.

I logged off, and grabbed CDs by Tom T. Hall and Johnny Cash. I thought they'd make good listening today. Nothing like the Storyteller and the Man in Black when out on the highway, right? We sang a couple of their songs together as the dawn broke on route 68. Then I met Mark at the Cracker Barrel for breakfast and we told each other many of the tales you told us over the years. Coming back home I took a big order which I just happened to be able to fill with the stock I had picked up from the factory.

So it's ended up a pretty good day after all. I really can't wait for the next one.

Until then, see ya Pops.

PS: I think you better whisper something to Mom. She's on a fix it kick and carries a hammer everywhere she goes. And as they say, she's eyeing every problem like it's a nail.

I wish I had read more

Many people say this, and I don't doubt that most truly believe it. But the older I get the more I wish I would have read more. I read a lot now but, unless I'm on a short vacation as I am as I write, I don't seem to have enough time to read all I want.

My reading tends to be almost random. For example, since Thursday I've read The Football Hall of Shame (a book about less than stellar or impressive events in the game), and Till We Have Faces, an novel by C. S. Lewis (the second time I've read it, and I liked it better this time). I read The Murderer is a Fox, a decent yet not the most satisfying of the Ellery Queen mysteries, and am nearly finished with Joe, Rounding Third and Heading for Home, a biography of Joe Nuxhall. He was a longtime Cincinnati Red both on the field and in the booth for the team. Did you know he was the youngest player ever to appear in a Major League Baseball game? He was 15 years and 316 days old when he pitched 2/3 of an inning for the Reds against the Cardinals. He was okay until the great Stan Musial lined a single to right off him and rattled him so bad that he walked 5 batters after that. But hey, even in war depleted baseball, for someone just shy of 16 to record two outs at that level of play is not bad at all. And I read the newspapers each day, becaise the Internet is spotty up here in Hessel, Michigan.

So I guess my taste in books qualifies as eclectic. I like mysteries of the more traditional type such as Sherlock Holmes, Ellery Queen, and Lord Peter Wimsey. I can devour most anything about baseball, and I adore C. S. Lewis. His The Abolition of Man is perhaps the greatest nonfiction work ever, quite frankly. Be that as it may, I'll finish this post and go grab a Sunday paper and read some more. And when I come back up north in about 8 weeks, I'll bring several books and start all over again.

So, my advice to you is read, and to read in different subject areas. I find it quite rewarding anyway; you never know what my tickle your fancy.