Where are they now? "The Magic TimeWaster."

Remember in that last post about The View from the Porch shutting down, when I mentioned that we've all been in this game for a long time, and burnout is normal? Well, there's good news and bad news.

Good news:
The View from the Porch is back up as an archive. Comments are closed for crazy-person-related reasons, but you can go back and read VFTP again now.

Bad news:
I checked, and that first website of mine, The Magic Timewaster, also still exists.

That's actually an image of the "Idiots of the Web" page. Some of them have gone on to greater fame, such as the Westboro Baptist Church. Others, like the Creator's Rights Party, sort of disappeared. Still others, like the "World Church of the Creator," still appear to be humming along (despite the WCOTC having suffered a small setback in their mission to spread love and truth when their dear Pontifex Maximus, Matt Hale, went to federal prison for soliciting the murder of a judge.)

Ah, to be young again. Oh, look! A page entitled "Bad Poetry!" That's a bold gambit.

Yesterday was a dark day.

Yesterday, Tamara's readers checked in at The View From the Porch and found this:

It's not an error. Tamara is finally fed up, and at the moment there's no guarantee she's ever coming back. I don't like it, but I've personally quit blogging several times, deeply annoying both my readers, and so I don't have a stone handy to throw at her house. Besides, if you've been paying attention for the last few years, you've watched Tamara's personal baseline of frustration mount ever higher, with no end in sight. Derpes is constantly breaking out all over the internet, and it seems to be the only reliably viral thing on the networks, flashing from computer to phone to tablet.  It's easy to forget that Tamara's been doing this--fighting a desperate rear guard against people saying dumb things electronically--since the last century. 1996 feels like yesterday to me, but it was 16 goddamned years ago. Tam might go back further than that; that was the year I created my first Geocities website, "The Magic TimeWaster," and it quickly evolved into a naming-and-shaming site featuring neo-nazis, a guy who wanted to become Governor of Georgia so he could undo Roe v. Wade by seizing nuclear weapons to hold D.C. hostage. Even then, some of us just couldn't look at this giant communications network without finding ourselves transfixed by The Dumb-Dumbs. It can be exhausting.

I used to get death threats with that dumb little Geocities vanity site, but I've never had to spend years--literally, years--dealing with obsessive misfits who thought we would be best friends (or maybe more!) if only I would wake up and realize that we were meant to be. Tamara gets that kind of a lot.
Of course, there's one thing we can all hold for certain and true: that difference has nothing to do with any silly liberal-arts-major notions of "privilege" or any other made-up goofiness such as that. Right?

Anyway, that's the bad news. The good news is that Tamara is not going away. If you've been paying attention for the last few years, you've seen her evolving into more of a "gun writer" and less of a social commentator. I look for that to continue in better-paying venues even if the blog doesn't return, starting with her cool new "Good Guys Win" column in SWAT Magazine and a whole mess of articles on this gun or that ammunition--the kind of work with deadlines, editors, and paychecks. Eventually, I expect to see the Tamara Keel byline on one of those "back page" columns that gun magazines reserve for the people you just know you want to hear from in every issue. It may not be in a paper magazine by that time, but as long as the implanted hyper-node uplink can handle advertising, there should be a way to work it out.

The "Rapture Forums Prophecy Conference 2014" Is Coming To Town.

Rapture Forums Prophecy Conference 2014 will be held in Springfield this weekend. This is very exciting news! I have a bit of  scheduling conflict, but I'm hoping I can make the Thursday evening session, billed as "THE 100% SOLUTION: A survey of past Biblical Prophecy and its 100% accuracy." That should be awesome. Unfortunately, the scheduling conflict is with a party my wife wants me to attend with her, but, I mean . . . she'll understand, right? I figure the party is at 6:00, so if I leave about 6:45 to make it to a sketchy Bible prophecy lecture by 7:00, everybody'll be OK with that. But there's this nagging voice in the back of my head trying to tell me that I may be stretching the social convention a bit.

Maybe if I invite everybody to come along?

RaptureForums.com is a thing that exists on the internet.

Then there's a session on Saturday morning that I'll probably have to miss because it'll cut into my gym time, "Nathan Jones: PAVING THE WAY: The role of technology in the End Times." I was relieved to find that it's not being presented by Rear Admiral Nathan Jones, Ret., a fine and friendly gentleman who publishes the Virden Recorder in the greater Virden metropolitan area. I really like Rear Adm. Jones, and his wife is a hoot. It could have been awkward if it'd been him . . . but . . . I really do want to know about technology and how it paves the way to armageddon.

I think I'll start by registering and then just see how many sessions I can fit into my schedule. Apparently there's a session on Sunday about coming wars in the Middle East, which would certainly be a feather in any prophet's cap if it it turned out to be true. "Brother Nathan prophesied that there would be a war in the Middle East, and lo and behold, it has come to pass! How could he know?"

A Note On PapaDeltaBravo's "A Note On Privilege."

I get where PDB is coming from with this, I really do, but I couldn't resist leaving him this note:

PDB: you linked to an example of someone doing what you said you’d never seen done. ;)

Remember, kids, "the unexamined life is not worth living for a human being." One of the characters in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure said that, and after 25 years it has stood the test of time.

"That movie is an underrated treasure!"

Ambulance Driver Class on the Care and Feeding of Medical Emergencies for Shooters, or: How I Learned to Quit Worrying and Love the Tourniquet

“Air goes in and out, blood goes round and round. Any variation on the theme is a problem.”

About a month before NRA Annual Meetings kicked off in Indianapolis this year, Ambulance Driver put out a call for students. In real life, AD is Kelly Grayson, emergency medicine subject matter expert and gadfly extraordinaire, and when he’s not running critical care transfers for the voracious and merciless EMS collective known as “The Borg” or writing books, he does a lot of teaching. This time, Kelly and friends had decided to create a class for the average gun owner on what to do about a medical emergency at the range or in the field (including, but not limited to, first aid for gunshot wounds.)  Why’s that matter to you? Well, it might not, but this is my blog, and you’ve got some nerve coming in firing questions. Besides, I think there’s a good chance that this class could be added to Kelly’s offerings, and that means it might come to your town one of these days.

Bro, do you even tourniquet?

Let me cut to the chase: if you aren’t at least an experienced first responder  with experience with gunshot wounds, I think you’ll benefit from this class. Kelly brought three friends in as instructors, including the author of Too Old toWork, Too Young to Retire and two other experienced medics, one with extensive experience in Detroit. Any one of the four have probably treated more GSW than I have car accident injuries, and their experience showed.  Bringing help also meant that the instructors had the manpower to break the class into four sections for small-group hands-on instruction in CPR, use of AED’s, and application of bandages and tourniquets. That time was valuable, and it looked to me like the instructors were consistent and efficient in running their individual groups. I was not expecting OldNFO to stand up deliver a history of hemostatic bandaging (products like Quik-Clot) but it was fascinating.

Aw, snap. Knowledge is about to drop on you like the other shoe, son.

The agenda was intelligently basic and can be summarized as three big questions:

·      What can we do about acute cardiac or respiratory problems at the range? (What if Joe has a heart attack at a remote range?)

·      What can we do about gunshot wounds to the extremities?
(What if Joe shoots himself in the leg at a remote range?)

·      What can we do about thoracic gunshot wounds?
(What if Joe gets shot in the belly or the chest at a remote range?)

What if there's inappropriate touching?

Negatives? Well, obviously, a four-hour course is not going to turn anyone into a medical superhero, so if anyone was hoping to learn to repair wounds surgically in the field with a fishhook and line, they would have gone home disappointed. The course could go longer easily; I believe Kelly mentioned that it may be extended in future versions, and I think that makes sense.

Positives? Brisk pacing, not a lot of superfluous discussion or information, good balance of lecture and participation, well-considered agenda of basic information, and a good job of addressing varying skill levels from medical laymen who’ve never really thought about medical emergencies at the range before to practicing nurses and doctors.

Now you're cookin' with gas, ya big lug! But seriously, you should probably take that thing off at some point.

In the end, I walked out with knowledge and confidence I hadn’t brought in with me, and that’s a win. In particular, I picked up new knowledge and much firmer confidence in my knowledge of thoracic wounds, especially sucking chest wounds, and I no longer fear the tourniquet. I also walked away with a compact emergency kit stocked with a good field tourniquet and appropriate bandages, gloves and cleaning supplies, plus an occlusive chest seal for sucking chest wounds (which has helpfully been covered in notes with a Sharpie™ because I walked in late without a pencil or paper on my person.)

Be prepared! But if you can't manage to be prepared, at least be prepared to be weird. 

It must be noted that the use of St. Francis Hospital’s excellent conference room and the food and drink supplied by Brownells out of the goodness of their hearts added to the experience for most of the attendees.  Personally, I haughtily refused to partake of the delicious breakfast pastries or drink the soda and juice provided, because I am an arrogant monster. But if you’re into that sort of thing, you can see how having one of the giants of the industry step up to support a small class like this one—a class with, it must be admitted, zero application to either Crossfit™ or shooting terrorists in their faces—makes a difference.

My thanks to Brownells, to St. Francis Hospitals in Indianapolis, to Kelly Grayson and TOTW and their fellow instructors. Going forward, I’m going to be sharing a version of what I’ve learned out to members of the Sangamon County Rifle Association. The SCRA met two nights ago, and between my account and the praise delivered by Snooze Button Ronin, I think we have some interest in hosting Kelly for a similar class in the future. I’ll be watching with interest to see if it becomes available!

Check Your Privilege (in which I annoy my friends.)

So there's a "Check Your Privilege" meme going around the gun blogs, and so far, I've only seen it approached from one direction: the idea that "privilege" is obviously a stupid and fictional concept created by silly people in universities to make white people and male people (especially gender normative cismale fascists) feel guilty. The idea seems to be that "check your privilege" doesn't make sense, because white people and men aren't all rich, and they often face real struggle in their lives.

Here's the thing: that's not how privilege has been explained to me in the past, nor is it how I use the term in my life. So I'm going to follow the instructions of the meme (I will "check my privilege" and tell my "story of privilege") but first, I'm going to lay a couple of ideas out here.

• Checking your privilege is not generally intended to mean wallowing in guilt or self-hatred over the racism of your ancestors or your oppression of post-lesbian transwomen. The point of understanding privilege is mainly to remind myself that there are problems others face that I simply do not face, and may not completely understand. That wouldn't make me a bad person, just a human being--nobody can know everything, and nobody is capable of perfect empathy.
• Check your privilege does not mean "shut up." There are certainly people who say the one when they mean the other, but they're using it wrong, and I'm not obligated to obey them. I'm also not entitled to use them to discredit people who simply want to make a genuine effort to see another person's point of view despite serious differences. Like the "shut up!" people, I can do that--I have the power to do it if I choose--but it would make me wrong.
• Among reasonable people of good will, "check your privilege" is the equivalent of "your fly is open" or "did you mean to leave the house without pants today?" Taking my privilege into account is something I want to do for myself, because I want to understand other people and also myself. When someone points out that I've forgotten to do it this time, that's generally not because they're trying to be mean to me; they're reminding me of something that they know I prefer to do, like zipping my fly before I leave the bathroom. 

Now, given all that, what's it look like to check your privilege? Well, for me, it's not stories of how hard my immigrant great-grandparents had it, or tales of how poor we were when my dad's factory job was moved to another state, or how hard I had to work to get through college rustling drunks for the school and signing my paychecks directly to the school, even though those things happened. It's not the stories about detasseling corn or walking bean fields in the summer sun, though I did that. The thing about all my stories of hard work and lean times is that none of those actually change the fact that I was and am a privileged person.

Generally speaking, people don't tell others to be patient with me because I "tend to be emotional," as opposed to women, who "tend to be more logical in their thought patterns." I don't get treated that way because men don't generally get treated that way.  Yes, yes, I know, we hunted the mammoth and we dig the coal, etc., but that's a privilege nevertheless. I can also walk down the street without people shouting propositions at me, even if I decide to walk alone or late at night.* I read the "Everyday Sexism" Twitter feed when I can, and the women who post their experiences are going through things I never have--often things I would have said don't happen. Are they all liars? Or does my privilege hide these experiences from me and color the way I see the world? I think that's the most plausible explanation.

The last time I went through a "roadside check" was last fall, after midnight, on a main thoroughfare in Springfield, IL.  I was bringing my son back from the emergency room after he'd gotten a laceration on his head stapled closed. Normally, I avoid those checkpoints, but I stopped for this one. A cop shined a flashlight into my car, looking for anything "in plain sight" in the passenger compartment, inspected my license and insurance creeds, then asked me where I was coming from and where I was going. I was tired and cranky (my son had not been doing something smart when he hurt his head, and my patience was already strained.) I snapped at that cop a little bit; I demanded to know why he needed to know that information. Basically, I copped an attitude. He backed off and sent us on our way. Would that have worked for one of my black coworkers? I dunno, but we suspected it would at least have ended with them being put through a lot more hassle than I was.

That's a privilege.

I'm a man married to a woman. People don't generally demand that I pretend not to be married to her, or that I pretend not to love her, to spare their feelings. Nobody has ever demanded to know how they should explain my marriage to their children, and nobody's trying to outlaw it, either. That's a privilege.

And, yeah, I'll go there: I'm a "cis male." I was born with the body that matched up to my sense of self. I never had to justify my existence to anybody. My body hasn't been perfect, and it has its quirks, but I don't have to explain to people that I'm not trying to trick everyone I meet. No one accuses me of being a pervert for going to the bathroom. I don't get told that I'm just confused, that I don't know who I am, or that the all-powerful creator of the universe will make it all go away if I just pray and wish hard enough (meaning, of course, that if it doesn't "fix me," it must be because I'm doing it wrong.)

Those are privileges, and I have them. I didn't ask for them, and even if I were willing to give them up, I couldn't. They come with the deal. They don't make me a bad guy, and I don't feel guilt or shame for having them; I just keep them in mind, because they tend to lie to me.  They tell me what the world is like, what works and what doesn't, and they make it harder to see that the world isn't like that for everyone.

*Usually. There was that guy in Houston who wanted me to cross the street to tell him the time . . . 

Blogging and Fitness: Progress and Setbacks

So . . . how've you been since March?  Good?  Probably good.  You're not even reading this, are you?  You've stopped checking for updates, just because I stopped posting content, right?

Quitter. You are a quitter. Now let's talk about me.

The Good News:

The last time I wrote about my life, I was trying, not for the first time, to lose a lot of weight and get fit.  There's good news and bad news on that score today.  First, the good news: I've now lost over 100 pounds. I'm stronger than I've been in a long time, maybe ever, depending on how you measure it. I'm capable of balance and grace that I really thought were impossible for me. My blood pressure is around 120/80 most days, which is the upper end of normal, but normal. My resting heart rate is consistently between 50 and 60 BPM, which is lower than normal but consistent with hard cardiovascular training ( recently had my vitals taken regularly over a period of several days--more about that in a moment.

The Bad News:

The reason I had my vitals taken so regularly was that I had a small problem that had to be repaired with emergency surgery, followed by a short hospital stay. Years ago, when I was at my very most morbidly obese bodily volume, I had mysterious abdominal pain and a mysterious lump above my navel. One doctor diagnosed this as lipoma, a small fatty bump that forms under the skin on some people, but that's generally painless, and this was painful enough to cause nausea.  Other doctors diagnosed a hernia with fatty tissue (morbid obesity, remember?) becoming "incarcerated" and "strangulated" when it poked through.  I had surgery to repair it early in the summer, reasoning that I would have time to recover before school began.  I took the few weeks before surgery as a time to diet and exercise (with no coaching or guidance, of course.)  On the morning of the surgery, I weighed 396 pounds in a hospital gown.  I can't prove it, but I'll always be convinced that I once weighed over 400 pounds.  The surgery was an apparent success, but recovery was tough.  The standard advice is not to lift anything over 10 lbs. in weight for six weeks after hernia repair, and to avoid bearing down with the abdominal muscles.  There is no way to follow that advice without a powered lifting chair or bed when you weigh 400 lbs., so I did my best but screwed up repeatedly.  Still, I thought I'd recovered, and although I wasn't certain the hernia was gone, I told myself that I would exercise like a madman and lose the weight ASAP.  I'd get down to 300 lbs., maybe even a little lower!  I began exercising again about two months after the surgery, and for some reason that now eludes me, I decided that I would begin by running on the bleachers at my school. No, I can't think of any reason for a 400-lb. man to do that, either, but it turns out I didn't hurt myself doing it, because before I'd been doing it a week, an infection at the surgery site broke loose and I spent another week in the hospital, followed by a month at home giving myself anti-biotics through a PIC line (basically a fairly permanent IV line the patient can use to administer IV drugs at home.)

When I'd recovered from that, I went back to have the hernia repair repaired.  I was told that the last surgeon had tried a newfangled technique, but this guy was going to do something brutally simple, just sew a big mesh patch in place.  That would leave a big scar and the incision would hurt more as I recovered, but it would be strong like bull and I'd never see that hernia again. That sounded perfect to me. And I'd lost a little weight by that time, down to . . . about 350, I think?  Not enough, certainly. Again, I did my best, but getting out of a chair or off a bed was a major effort, and I couldn't afford to be bedridden.  I don't know whether I messed up, or they did, but it was clear almost immediately that the hernia was still there.  I went back to my doctor, who told me that if I could "reduce" the lump--squeeze it down until it went back inside, basically--I could put off attempting the repair again for a long time, maybe forever.  I never intended to wait forever, but I did think I'd wait until I got into better shape. Along the way, I lost and gained weight like a yo-yo; I went as low as 290 pounds, but I gained again until I was over 330 pounds.  Then, desperate, I joined Overeaters Anonymous, which turned out to be a bad move; I ballooned to 370 pounds before I gave up on that one.  Last year, after I left OA, I decided that I would go back to the only "diet" that had ever worked--low carb--and find a trainer to guide my exercise program. It worked.  I got lucky with my trainer, Wayne Carrels of HIPE Fitness, and I made rapid progress.  This summer, I plateaued around 280 pounds, but I could tell I was losing fat and adding muscle.  I considered going back to schedule a hernia repair, but by that time, I'd been living with it for years, and I was confident that I'd be much lighter and stronger next summer.  

That seemed smart until last Tuesday, when I found myself in nasty pain from warming up, then reached the point of dizziness a few minutes into a light workout.  I left the class and tried to reduce the hernia, tried to rest, tried to throw up.  Nothing helped much, and I allowed a friend to drive me to an Express Care (I still thought I'd end up reducing the hernia and breathe a sigh of relief.)  By the time we got there, I was fading in and out, pouring sweat, and apparently quite pale.  I was just trying to breathe slowly through the gut-twisting pain, but I heard people saying "BP 85 over 55" and "get two IV's, 18 gauge on both" and "America says the ambulance is a few minutes out."  It began to occur to me that I was in real trouble.  Long story short, nobody was able to reduce the stupid thing, and I had emergency surgery to remove 15cm of bowel and repair the hernia at 3:00 a.m.   It was the first day of school for my students.  I was not there.

The Silver Linings:

So here we are.  The hernia repair isn't the strongest; they couldn't use mesh because it raises the risk of infection (don't I know it?) and the bowel surgery is already an infection risk.  There's a possibility that I'll have to have the repair re-done yet again if it doesn't hold.  That means I've got to handle this recovery as well as I can.  But there are some bright spots here, mostly because my fitness level has changed so much:

• I weighed 268 lbs. yesterday.  That means I'm about 125 lbs. lighter than I was the first time I tried to recover from hernia surgery, and although this procedure was a lot more disruptive than that one was, the recovery has been a lot easier so far.
• I was up and walking much faster this time, out of bed the day after surgery and walking two days after.
• I have some pain, but I haven't had to use any of the Tramadol they sent home with me.  I don't get much more than a dull ache with the occasional sharp jab, and I'm afraid to dull it too much, lest I cause some damage without realizing it.  I'll use it if I find that I need it, but I think the recovery is better without it.
• I can't go back to the gym until at least October, and I won't be able to work at the level I was before for at least six months, maybe more like a year.  But I've kept my diet clean since leaving the hospital and begun to take long walks again.  Walking won't build muscle like the Turkish get-ups and pullups at HIPE, but it'll strengthen the injured area without causing damage, and it should let me continue to lose fat.
• I didn't die, and I don't have to accept any permanent loss of function.  All I have to do is be smart and a little lucky while I recover, and I can still reach all the goals I had before.  It's just going to take longer than I'd hoped.  

Imma post something today: Zombie-killing music.

Don't look so shocked; I still know the password to this place.

Anyway, Tam wants to know what song would come up on my iPod when I loose lead into zombie heads. In case anyone else is wondering, this is what an atheist listens to when he fantasizes about splattering zed-brains across chain-link:



Well, one atheist anyway . . . what can I say? Somebody's gonna cut you down, you filthy undead shamblers, and it might just be me. As my dad used to say, one of us is going to get hurt, and it might not be me.

Tam actually got it from Random Nuclear Strikes, who chose Ministry's Assimilate. And I really only decided to contribute mine after I listened to Breda's quirky, Icelandic death-pop selection.

Yet another reason We Can't Have Nice Things

Xavier is finally fed up with the dumbasses who want to pick fights with him every day. People sometimes forget that the entertainers they think are dependent on them really aren't, and people who are providing free entertainment because they enjoy it really have no stake in the game to keep them coming back for abuse. So Xavier's blog is ending for the rest of us, although he'll still have it around.

He should try obscurity. It's much more peaceful.

(That link won't be good forever.)

Congratulations David Hardy!

Big ups to David Hardy for winning the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Citizens' Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, announced here at the Gun Rights Policy Conference in St. Louis. Dave isn't here, but congratulations to him!

Tell me the truth:

. . . . is my font too light?

Would it be better if it were blacker? Or am I just getting too old?

Wait, did I just post a racist font question? I apologize sincerely.
Well, I apologize. Let's leave it at that.

And now, a random story from my youth. The other night, I was telling my parents about taking My Bride and The Boys across the Kampsville Ferry on our trip down to the river to see the replicas of the Nina and the Pinta (short version: it rained. We toured Renaissance caravels in the pouring rain, had a picnic in the pouring rain, went fishing in the pouring rain, drove a hundred miles in the pouring rain . . . then rode the ferry in the sunshine.) My mother assures me that this really happened when I was about ten years old:

"We were going to cross over the Brussels Ferry to go to the game area, not far from where you and the kids were at Grafton today. Grandpa was with us. You wanted no part of that ferry; the more we talked about it, the more you insisted that you wouldn't ride it, no way, no how.
'I'm not getting on any ferry!' you said. 'You can't make me ride a ferry! I just won't get on!'
'It's not scary, buddy,' your dad said. 'It's just like being on the road. It's actually a lot of fun.'
'I'm not riding a ferry! I don't ride ferries!' you said. You were almost yelling. I was afraid you might cry. Then your grandpa said something like, 'You like to go fishing in my boat, right? This one is actually a lot safer than that. You can't get hurt unless you jump over the side.'
You opened your eyes wide and looked at him like he'd just turned on a light in a dark room.
'Ohhhhh!' you said. 'You're talking about a boat!' And then you were happy as could be."

Robb Allen is a Genius

Go. Look. See and be amused.

"I'd Say It's Getting a Little Worn Out"

WHY, YES . . . .

I do remember the attacks on 9/11/2001.



Very well. But I don't think I'll tell a story about it this year. The page is blank and black. That's the story.

You should read Abby, if you're not yet.

I haven't had Abby, at Bad Dogs and Such, on the blogroll for very long, but I've been reading her off and on for a long time. She's back from Iraq, and although she's not really writing explicit "Johnny comes marching home" posts, she's writing about home and America and tomatoes and oak trees. The sheer joy of being home shines out through all the little gaps and crevices between each sentence like a lightning bug inside a child's loosely-curled fingers.

The Breda Fallacy: yuk yuk

"Let he who has never drowned a young woman cast the first . . . .well, actually, let's hold off on that . . . ."

The Breda Fallacy: yuk yuk

Even more accusations that Ted Kennedy was a heartless monster who joked about leaving Mary Jo Kopechne to drown in cold, dark water . . . . except it's Joe Klein remembering, and he thinks it's a sign of Kennedy's broad-minded good humor.

You see, Joe, if the victim can laugh about it years later, that's a sign of a strong soul and the healing power of humor. But if the perpetrator can laugh about it, that means something entirely different.

New RSS Feed

Sorry about not fixing the RSS earlier, folks. The new feed is:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/pushpulldoor

LTE--Newsprint-Blogging

Longhorn Jeff found this Letter to the Editor in the local fishwrap; I'm actually kind of proud of this one. The editors didn't change it, as far as I can tell, except to change a "%" into a "percent" and add the world's worst title. That's something of an accomplishment.

I don't really know how many minds I reach with a letter to the editor, but I figure the paper has a respectable circulation, and it makes me feel better.

Calls into question group’s gun statistics
In his recent letter to the editor, “Glad Durbin voted against concealed-carry proposal,” Thomas Mannard stated his opinion: Unlike marriage licenses, drivers’ licenses and most business licenses, licenses to carry concealed weapons from one state should not be recognized by all states. Fifty-eight out of 100 senators disagreed, but it’s Mannard’s facts that demand a closer look. Perhaps he should have checked them at www.illinoiscarry.com before he wrote . . . .

If You're reading this . . . .

Then you're either here for the first time, or you've found me again. Many people who read this blog (well, if there were many) might wonder what's going on. Simply put, what's going on is that I've decided that the old title of this blog caused me too much heartburn when I had to deal with people who didn't appreciate the fine distinction. I'm a school teacher, and I'm also a gun-rights activist and an avid shooter and collector, but none of that means I would carry a firearm onto school property. My professional life and my personal life are separate.

Besides, I've always thought there should be a blog called "Pull the Push Door." I don't really know why.

I'm not saying that Gary Larson's classic Far Side cartoon on the right (heh heh . . . we can call that fair use, right guys? Right?) Larson captured so many things that seemed unearthly weird, but a man could generally relate to each piece in some way. Well, I could, anyway. I was never like that kid, though. I mean, I went to a lot of "gifted" classes and such, and I pushed on a few pull doors, but never actually one at a school for the gifted.

(However, I did spend a weekend at a "School for the Gifted" that shall remain nameless, where the sales pitch included an explanation that automobiles were prohibited, the suicide rate was still enormous but really starting to come down, and then we all went to a pep rally for the soccer team at which the school's own mascot was burned in effigy.)

Obama "Kenyan Birth Certificate" Hoax

Why, it can't be! I'm SHOCKED, I tell you!

No, wait, no I'm not. This was completely predictable and widely predicted. Sorry, I forgot for a minute there.

Fine cotton business paper: $11

Inkjet printer: $35

1940 Royal Model KMM manual typewriter: $10

2 Shilling coin: $1

Pilot Varsity fountain pen: $3

Punkin' the Birthers: Priceless

Before you get your panties in a knot, observe that those aren't my words. I'm quoting the person who used a few dollars worth of office supplies to expose Birthers as what they are: people who really, truly believe in the power of magical thinking.

Hat Tip to Little Green Footballs.

Paypal . . . in case anyone's wondering . . .

The Paypal Incident has not escaped the notice of The Chicago Gun Rights Examiner. I'm just waiting to hear back from Paypal's press people. It hasn't escaped the notice of the Armed School Teacher, either, but I figure I'll write about it once.

So far, it appears that we suck, and Paypal hates us . . . . but we haven't heard that from their own mouths yet, just their actions.