Culture – Page 9 – Doug's Views

January 18, 2013April 18, 2020

More BS From The Gun Lobby

created image of a pistol on top of peanuts

Some Gun Nuts?

On Wednesday President Obama announced some initial plans to address the uptick in mass killings due to the ease of obtaining military style guns with high capacity ammunition clips. Of course the gun lobby lost their minds about it because they falsely believe that any regulation is equal to banning guns. The truth is, reasonable regulation will lower the chance of more Newtown type mass killings. Many of the screeching arguments used by the gun lobby are weak and don’t hold up to logic and reason.

January 14, 2013April 18, 2020

Time Passes – Leave A Positive Legacy

The artist as a young man (circa 1973)

This month is the anniversary of my birth. Part of our life cycle. Birth, living, then death. All simple, neat and tidy. Millions have done it before me and millions more will come after me. Why am I so special? What is my purpose? It may surprise you to know, I know the answer to those questions and I’m both thrilled and scared about it at the same time. Whenever my birthday comes around, I get this sick feeling of dread that I try to hide from my friends and family. (Oops! LOL) But I don’t want to ignore the date. We can celebrate growing old.

Someone, I can’t remember who, described life as a roller coaster. From birth to a certain point in life, we’re moving up and up like going up the big hill of a roller coaster. After that certain point it’s all down hill. I do feel like I have started that down hill trip. Or I’ve flipped over the hour glass and the grains of time are slipping slowly to the other side. Whichever sad depressing metaphor works for you.

January 13, 2013April 18, 2020

Aaron Swartz Case Highlights Our Unbalanced Scales Of Justice

I didn’t know who Aaron Swartz was before hearing about his death this weekend. I realized I had heard of him once his biography was reported when the story of his death spread across the Internet. It seems Swartz committed suicide and that action might have been the result of stress due to his upcoming trial for computer fraud and abuse. If convicted he was looking at least 35 to 50 years in federal prison. What crime did he commit with his computer? He “stole” information from behind a paywall that he believed should be free to the public since we paid for the creation of the information. While his death is tragic for his friends and family, his case shows how unbalanced our justice system can be.

January 10, 2013April 18, 2020

Gun Debate Solved: Ban Ammo

The other day I saw on Twitter someone mentioned a possible solution to the gun debate that heated up after the mass murder in Newtown Connecticut. It basically said – Guns don’t kill people, ammunition does and the 2nd amendment doesn’t say anything about ammunition. What a great idea. We should ban ammunition. That would allow people to keep their guns and would reduce the chances of more mass murders.

Again here is the text of the 2nd amendment of the US Constitution:

January 5, 2013April 18, 2020

You Don’t Have A Right Not To Be Called An Ass

Stop Censoring Me Bitches

Political correctness is where one tries to think about the words one uses before speaking. It’s about diplomacy and tact. You also try to keep in mind if you would like it if someone used offensive words at you. On the other hand I don’t support censoring people who sound like assholes. They should be able to say what they want when they want. What I don’t support is when the assholes get angry and complain when their assholeness is pointed out to them. That isn’t censorship. It’s making an observation and if they can’t take it then maybe they need to shut their pie hole.