Gun Nuts
Every few weeks Mexicans remember some reason for having a fiesta. The whole ever-lovin' town turns out -- everybody, babies on dad's head, grandmothers barely able to walk, and everyone between. Several bands consisting entirely of brass instruments (well, almost) try to override each other in competitive cacophony. A hundred puestos, little stands, pop up to sell tacos, enchiladas, trinkets, clothes, beer, plates, shoes. It's like a Superbowl riot without the organization. Crossing the plaza is a twenty-minute operation. You can't hear over the racket. A cahuamba, which looks like maybe a 32-ounce beer, is a tad under a dollar.
Then they burn the fireworks, which Mexicans flat love. These are on wickerwork towers a couple of storeys high. There is a tremendous swooshing and hissing and a hellish glow and everybody has a splendid time. It would all be illegal in the US -- the beer, the fireworks, the free-lance skyrockets, a religious festival, and especially having a good time. Violeta thinks it's normal. As a recovering Northern European, I'm just delighted.
# mvpel at The Firing Line - NH: Hearing on Concealed-Carry Licensing Repeal - Feb 8 10:00am - tomorrow morning there will be a committee hearing on HB285, a bill to repeal the requirement to have a permit to carry a concealed handgun in New Hampshire. Last year, a similar bill passed the senate, but was voted down in the house. Don't know how good a chance it has this year. [firingline]
# Alexander Cockburn at Counterpunch - The Right has a License to Write Anything: Ward Churchill and the Mad Dogs - don't speak truth to the neocons' power unless you're ready to be personally attacked. When the government is wrong, it's dangerous to be right. [whatreallyhappened]
So much for the voice of sanity. Now for the dementia of the right. The New Republic's Tom Frank (not the Frank, please note, who just wrote a book about Kansas) describes in TNR how he recently sat in on an antiwar panel in Washington.
Frank listened to Stan Goff, a former Delta Force soldier and current organizer for Military Families Speak Out, whose speech duly moved Frank to write that "what I needed was a Republican like Arnold [Schwarzenegger] who would walk up to [Goff] and punch him in the face."
Then upon Frank's outraged ears fell the views of International Socialist Review editorial board member Sherry Wolf, who asserted that Iraqis had a "right" to rebel against occupation, prompting TNR's man to confide to his readers that "these weren't harmless lefties. I didn't want Nancy Pelosi talking sense to them; I wanted John Ashcroft to come busting through the wall with a submachine gun to round everyone up for an immediate trip to Gitmo, with Charles Graner on hand for interrogation."
# David Codrea at The War on Guns - There's a Reason Why They Call Us "Gun Nuts" - and if Indiana representative Larry Buell gets his way, backed by the NRA, cops in his state will be able to confiscate your gun because they think you're "mentally ill and dangerous". No due process, no review, nothing but one cop's opinion. Hey, plenty of hoplophobes think just owning a gun makes you mentally ill and dangerous. Well, I hope they're right about the dangerous part. Dead right. [codrea]
