It May be Time To Enter The 21st Century

In my very first post in this blog I described myself as a Luddite. By today's standards I certainly am. It's not that I'm against the advance of technology, mind you. After all, I am writing to a blog on a decent laptop computer. I do use tools I need to do things I want to do. But when it comes to things like cellphones, I am very reluctant to get a "smart" phone.

Here's why: while they are incredibly useful things, I think that people don't talk to each other enough. It's a text-based world anymore, and smart phones facilitate that by being huge, clunky machines that aren't particularly good at being a phone but are great at being pocket computers, complete with easy to use keyboards. But texting isn't talking, it's expressionless communication with a total lack of nuance. You can't divine intent on a keyboard. Further, when you don't want to communicate anymore you just stop sending messages. When you talk you have to actually interact, and that teaches people how to engage and disengage from other people. Also, text speak is stupid and insulting to me, and it bleeds over into real world communication far too often. I am bearing witness to the dumbing down of America. I don't know that I want to be a part of that.

I live my life this way. I have used a "dumb" phone from the beginning. Most people send more texts in a day than I have in my entire life. But now my phone has died. After around 4 years with this particular phone it has failed and needs to be replaced. Now seems to be a good time to decide if I want to stick to my principles or accept the utility of a smart phone and learn to adapt to modern life. I find myself leaning that way, but my principles continue to get in the way.

Oh, hell. I'll just get one of the damned things and use it my way. But when I don't use it to text I'll be wasting one of the main capabilities, so what's the point? Damn it, I'm getting a dumb phone. But then when I want to look something up I'll have to borrow someone else's phone. Fine, smart phone, here I come! But I just need a simple communication device... see what I mean? That's what is going through my head over and over again.

What a pain in the ass this decision is going to be. And I need to make it quickly. What shall I do? When it comes to phones I am an analog man in a digital world. It's long since time to join the 21st century. Will I do it? Only time will tell.

The Steelers Are Going To Be Beast This Year

Last year the Steelers started off terribly and then made a monster comeback, missing the playoffs only because Ryan Succop, Mr. Irrelevant 2009, can't kick. Oh, and the refs blew not one but two calls. Yeah, I know, the Steelers should have just won more games, then they wouldn't have needed the Chiefs scrubs to stand on their heads and almost beat the Chargers' first team. Alas, it doesn't work that way, not for anybody.

It's clear, though, that this year's team isn't going to start off the same way. The second preseason game is in progress, all the starters have been pulled, and the backups are fighting for their careers, so now seems as good a time as any to look toward the regular season.

First, Ryan Shazier is everything that was advertised, and then some. He had 9 tackles and a great coverage interception. He seemed to be everywhere. Where he wasn't Troy Polamalu and Jason Worilds were. The starting defense is as swarming as ever, and the secondary looks to be at least adequate to the task. The defense isn't exactly the Steel Curtain, but it should bounce back from last year's letdown and once more be one of the premier units in the league.

As for the offense, Ben Roethlisberger looks to be as good as ever. The team is trying to re-establish the run, and Le'Veon Bell has the skills to go for a thousand yards. That should open up the pass, and Antonio Brown looks like he's primed for a big year. The offensive line, after more than a decade, looks like it might be better than the local high school JV team, with Maurkice Pouncey and David DeCastro anchoring a solid unit. Heath Miller is 100% this year and Markus Wheaton looks like he will fit in well as the 2 receiver. Dri Archer is a rocketship. He'll break a few this year with his speed and shiftiness.

The big question, as always, is the backups. If Ben goes down the Steelers are done. Bruce Gradkowski is just barely capable at best and Landry Jones is a bum. The fill-ins on the offensive and defensive lines will make things very interesting, to say the least. The receivers are a talented grab-bag, you never know who will show up. Of course, if they were good enough to start they wouldn't be backups, so a letdown is expected. Unfortunately, the difference between the starters and the backups seems pretty big, so every game will be an exercise in holding my breath and hoping for the best.

In the end, though, the Steelers ought to win the division. The Browns are still the Browns, the Bengals and Ratbirds are hampered by their average-at-best quarterbacks (especially Baltimore, where Flacco's contract killed their salary cap), and Pittsburgh's third-place schedule is fairly easy. They have the Saints and the division games along with one against the maybe-not-for-real Chiefs and a handful of sub-.500 teams from last year. With their starting roster, aging though it may be in key positions, they ought to win at least 10 games. They could easily start 10-1 if I give a win to the hated Ratbirds. I mean, who will beat them? Cleveland? Jacksonville? Tampa? The hapless Texans? Anything can happen, of course, but come on, those teams chomp royal.

So here's to another division championship. The Steelers are back to being the Beasts of the AFC North, and with that comes the opportunity to make another run at the Super Bowl. All they have to do is make it happen. I, for one, can't wait to find out if it does see it.

Washington DC's Gun Laws: Carry At Your Own Risk

There has been an interesting development this week regarding the state of concealed carry, this time in Washington, DC. In the case of Palmer v. DC, the US Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that DC's ban on carrying firearms is unconstitutional. With this decision, barring a stay, so-called Constitutional Carry becomes the law, meaning that any non-felon resident with a properly registered gun can carry it, and any non-resident can also carry under the same conditions. Additionally, Cathy Lanier, Chief of Police, issued an order allowing for carry under those circumstances. Given the state of DC's laws less than a decade ago this is nothing short of shocking. But, and you knew this was coming, it's still not a good idea to carry in DC.

Let's start with the non-resident. I have my concealed carry permit, and as such I can now carry in DC. But the courts did not say that I could carry on Federal property, which precludes museums, monuments, and the like. Since the only reason the average non-resident would go to DC would be for tourism, it doesn't benefit them. Also, DC is surrounded on 3 sides by Maryland, which complicates things as they don't recognize a CCW permit from any other state. Step into Maryland, even by accident, go the wrong way on the Metro, anything, and you're an instant felon. Sound like a bad idea? It is. Also, who wants to be the first to test the law? I'm certainly not clamoring to be that guy.

The same restrictions go for residents, but they have another issue to contend with: exceedingly few of them have a gun to begin with due to DC's onerous registration scheme. The DC government complied with Heller inasmuch as it is possible to get a gun registered, but they made it as difficult and expensive as possible to dissuade people from actually following through on it. Also, as known gun owners, the potential carriers face harassment from the police. Oh, sure, they're supposed to allow it, but does anyone really think the police will just shrug and act like they're OK with it? Not a chance, not in DC, a majority minority city not noted for its even-handed application of law.

This has a long way to go yet. That said, every state in the Union now has a mechanism for concealed carry, some more permissive than others. There will come a day when every state will be "shall-issue", though. Eventually the Supremes will have to weigh in on the circuit splits given that they Incorporated the right, and when they do it looks more and more like they'll have to use strict scrutiny as anything less will undermine McDonald, and that means either "shall-issue" or unrestricted carry, something I find unlikely to be applied universally due to public policy differences across regions.

So stay tuned, and don't do anything stupid like carry in DC. If you do, you do so at your own risk. Want to be famous? Now's your chance, and good luck to you. Alan Gura's got your back.

So, Who's Been Reading This?

When I started this blog I figured it would be a good place for me to unload some of the more weighty things on my mind, and maybe a few flighty ones. My output hasn't exactly been prolific recently, though it's not from a lack of things to say. No, I've started about 5 other posts that I discarded simply because I couldn't make sense of what I wanted to say. Did you ever have an idea about something that made perfect sense to you yet no sense to everyone else? I got halfway through them when I realized that my ideas were actually not so good, requiring some very tortuous justifications. When that happens it's time to re-evaluate, and that's diminished my output considerably. I suppose that's better than publishing them and pissing everybody off, right? On the Internet every person has a shot at fame, and I'd prefer that my shot not come in the form of someone glomming onto something stupid I wrote and having it go viral.

I mention that possibility because someone is reading this. I got a large burst of readers once when I pimped it to my friends on Facebook, and I put it in my profile on (shameless plug) Fark.com, one of my favorite websites, which resulted in a few looks. My curiosity has gotten the better of me, though. Are the rest of the views just random, or does anybody actually trouble themselves to read what I write? Are there any repeat readers aside from my wife and a couple of friends? What should I be writing about that I'm not already?

In any event, I'm not going anywhere. Tilting at windmills is my thing, and what better place is there to do it than a blog? Maybe I'll look over some of the stuff I scrapped and see if I can make it make sense. Or maybe something will inspire me today. Who knows? Regardless, thanks for reading.

What Is Patriotism?

It's the 4th of July, and as usual we have the patriotic displays, from the reading of the Declaration of Independence to the fireworks to the races complete with military men and women in attendance and flyovers from the local Air Force wing. It's enough to inspire you to think that the US is the greatest nation on Earth and its people are its backbone. That may very well be true, but it still leads me to wonder about it.

It used to be easy for me. Patriotism to me was love for my country and a willingness to do anything for it. I never thought to question its leaders. Why would I? After all, they were elected, thus representative of the will of the people, a perfectly logical conclusion to come to. I did my duty over the course of 12 years, was a constant volunteer, and answered the call every time I was asked to. I thought we were doing the right thing when we invaded Afghanistan, and I believed it when we were told that there were weapons of mass destruction in Saddam Hussein's Iraq. When they failed to materialize I started to have my doubts, and they have not left me since.

That was the catalyst for my questioning of what patriotism really is. Is it unthinking deference to our government and its policies? I simply cannot do that anymore, not with the revelations regarding the NSA, not with the continued existence of the prison at Guantanamo Bay, not with the economic recession, and certainly not with the polarized state of our legislatures and an understanding of how it came to be that way. It's not so much my education that caused me to change my mind as it is my ability to think. It is an uncritical mind indeed that looks at the state of our country and thinks that everything is OK. I'm not blaming anybody for this, there's enough blame to go around, but in the end we still have people who wave the flag, talk about supporting the troops, and hurl jingoistic epithets while claiming that the United States is the best country in the world, a spurious claim in 2014.

None of that really answers the question, though. I now consider it my duty to question my government and its actions, which brings us full circle on this Independence Day as that is precisely what the Declaration of Independence was, a statement of reasons defining the political separation from England. I suppose that makes me as patriotic as the America: Love It Or Leave It crowd, but somehow it doesn't feel that way.

I suspect I'll never really get a satisfactory answer, but until I do I will always have trouble understanding what it means to be a patriot even as I do my best to fulfill the oath I took when I enlisted (even as I am no longer legally bound by it), to defend the United States from all enemies, foreign and domestic. While I may not do that in a military capacity anymore, I can advocate for causes, I can vote, and I can work for change. In the end that will have to be good enough.

What Difference Can One Man Make?

Tomorrow is the 100th anniversary of the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, archduke of the Austria-Hungarian Empire, and his wife. Sure, there was a genuine conspiracy to kill him, but in the end it came down to one man, Gavrilo Princip.

When he shot Archduke Ferdinand, it set into motion the deaths of untold millions. World War I was just the beginning of it. Trench warfare, chemical weapons, tanks, machine guns, all created to fight a war which need never have happened. Men were mowed down by the numbers trying to fight an old-style war with modern weapons. Empires fell, revolutions changed countries, borders were altered. When it was all over everybody said it was the war to end all wars and set to ensuring it would never happen again. To that end they wrote the Treaty of Versailles, putting the screws to Germany. Had they but known what they were doing they would have done anything else.

Thanks to that treaty, Germans spent the next 15 years simmering in resentment, culminating with the rise of a former Austrian corporal who was always mindful of what came to be known as the stab-in-the-back legend, the idea that Germany didn't lose, their politicians simply quit. Yes, World War I was instrumental in the coming of Adolf Hitler. Perhaps you've heard of him.

So now we have World War II and more untold millions killed, finally ridding ourselves of the future potential for disaster by totally destroying Europe and dividing Germany for the next 45 years. Except that we didn't rid ourselves of anything, because World War I was also instrumental in the ascension of the Bolsheviks and the formation of the Soviet Union. They also killed millions, as did we through the proxy wars of Korea and Vietnam, along with several other skirmishes through proxy states and the like.

So, what can one man do? Gavrilo Princip might not have been the person that created the political environment that ultimately precipitated vast death and destruction lasting to the present day, but he was the catalyst for it. Don't ever underestimate your potential. You too can change the world. Only in your case, try not to kill the wrong guy.

Resolved: The Civil War Was About Slavery

Today I came across the commonly-offered argument that the Civil War wasn't about slavery, but "states rights", a term that has regained currency in recent years. I consider this to be extraordinarily disingenuous, an attempt to whitewash history. And whitewash is definitely the term to use in this case.

The reason, of course, is because the war was about states rights. Unfortunately for the people who argue that, they never finish the thought. The end of that is "to own slaves". That's right, the Civil War was about the southern states' right to retain the "peculiar institution" of slavery. To argue otherwise ignores the known history of the abolitionist movement and everything leading up to the Civil War. Should we ignore the Missouri Compromise, the Compromise of 1850, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and the Dred Scott decision? Should we ignore the aftermath of the war, when the South fought Reconstruction tooth and nail until it was ended as a result of the compromise that installed Rutherford B. Hayes as the President? How about Jim Crow, Plessy v. Ferguson, separate but equal, the "Lost Year" in Little Rock, and the necessity to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965?

Shall I go on? I didn't even scratch the surface of the virulent racism in this country, both before and after the Civil War. But we are expected to believe that the Civil War was about non-specific states' rights that were being abridged by the northern states, ones that have never been named? Sure, we ought to just take their word for it in this case.

The Big Lie: it works everywhere it's tried. Goebbels had nothing on the good ol' boys. Only in this case, it's a lie that doesn't go away. It didn't die with a Confederate defeat, it didn't die with integration, it didn't die with legislation. And it's still passed around as absolute truth.

There is only one bit of good news: anybody who says it identifies themselves as a racist and an idiot. And that's no lie. Thank God for small favors.