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10.31.17

Uh oh. When he starts with dessert you know the main dish is going to be excruciating. Like epically boring.

Who wore it better?

This would be a good place to go into my "boy who cried wolf/rape hoax" deal again, and why Congresswoman Wilson is despicable.

Just kidding. I won’t put you through that. If you're feeling overstimulated or experiencing insomnia you could bring your heart rate way down by reading in on my Leany on Life Facebook page.

Warning: If you're not overstimulated, it will just bore you. If you're already lethargic you may well slip into a coma.

What's that you say? Why, no, as a matter of fact I don't know why I maintain two different forums for my worthless opinions. (LOL--you call this maintaining?)

It's fitting that she "culturally appropriates" the rodeo clown look, because they take refuge in empty barrels.

This guy usually has the worst cartoons. I get the feeling he’s a great guy, kinda like your dad, who you love, but oh, those dad jokes . . .

This cartoon is okay, but I love how well he captures the likenesses.

I was once teaching primary kids about poetry. I was the music leader and songs are just poems set to music. I was telling them that the three elements of poetry are rhythm, rhyme, and repetition. And we were making up some rhymes. One of the kids raised his hand and pointed out that poems don’t always rhyme. I said "That’s true. Poems written by liberals don’t rhyme."

All the leaders laughed and all the kids looked confused and we sang about popcorn popping on the apricot tree.

I made that smart-aleck comment because I had just read some "poetry" by some crazy liberal, maybe Rosie O'Donnell. She called it poetry. It wasn't poetry, but it certainly didn't rhyme. I'm not sure what qualified it as poetry.

To just
Space words
In an unusual
Way
Does not constitute
Poetry.

Let's just get this straight, if it doesn’t rhyme, it’s not poetry.

Now, I’ve either piqued your curiosity or sent you away thinking I’m stupid or I don't understand poetry. Guilty on both counts. But if you’re still with me, here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to invoke the methodology of our old pal Bill Clinton.

It all depends on your definition of "rhyme."

All poetry must rhyme; that's what makes it poetry. I can hear you screaming, I can see you shaking your head. Just accept my premise for a minute. Just keep the definition of "rhyme" fluid for me for a minute. Can you do that?

In fact, just keep reading and accept all my premises trusting that I will explain them. Otherwise, I'm going to have to constantly interrupt the lyrical flow of this poetic post with caveats.

Now, the easiest kind of rhyming is to simply match everything past the last accented syllable in a line. Or, if you're writing country music, just slant rhyme the sucker using assonance. That's the simplest way to make things "rhyme."

Can we agree on this? Just because it rhymes (in that specific way), doesn't make it poetry.

We've all heard these painful sorts of renditions that Oscar Wilde said "springs from genuine feeling."

It's Christmastime with all the snow.
And off to Grandma's house we do go.

Now, if I weren't trying to be lyrical (or not specifically trying to chase off liberals and other close-minded people) I could just say that to be poetry it must have structure. But I think that calling it "rhyme" is more . . . well, poetic.

Remember, you're absorbing this trusting that I'm going to bring it all together to make sense. Let's base our new, more fluid understanding of rhyme on the concept suggested in this old saw: History may not repeat itself, but it rhymes.

Everyone understands that history doesn't repeat everything from the last accented syllable. What history does is form recognizable patterns. Is this helping? Let's inform our new understanding of rhyme with the term "echo." The concepts in history echo; they feel similar.

We good still? Have you internalized that concept? Good. Now we're going to add another layer.

One day in church I was appreciating the harmony of the music and absently watching the lady who was doing ASL interpretation for a deaf lady in the ward. And some tumblers aligned for me.

Harmony is a critical part of our musical experience. It adds dimension to the audio texture. Think of some of your favorites harmonies—you can borrow mine if you need. The last chords of Colorado Trail. If you sing the melody by itself that's nice enough. But put those chords underneath it and it opens a whole new dimension. It feels full, it feels complete.

I wondered if deaf people seek harmony in other aspects of life. They can't experience it in music. But our human experience would be lacking without it. Does their soul find other ways to fill that void?

So I started thinking about places that we can find "harmony." Visual patterns. Events. Relationships. Supporting elements through other sense that enhance experience. Things outside of the mathematics of audio harmonics that fit that same configuration that we identify as harmony. Harmony is mathematically related repetitions of a frequency. In a literal sense it is echoes.

Rhyme.

Okay, now that we have those Cheerios floating around in the milk forming a couple of patterns, let's get back to poetry—verse.

In order for something to qualify as poetry it has to have a structure that is harmonic, that is "shaped" in a way that echoes.

The structure may be rhythmic, it may be repetition of a pattern. But the elements tie together, they have similarities, they have structure that is pleasing. Again, I like the term "echo." I did it with a sentence above: It feels full, it feels complete. I didn't say "It feels full, or complete." The structure repeated. It "rhymed." The words didn't rhyme, the structure did.

I've talked about tumblers aligning. I talked about Cheerios in milk forming a pattern. That's poetic. Because it "rhymes." The visual experience of tumblers aligning in a lock rhymes—it echoes, it mimics, it parallels—the concept of ideas coming together in your head. That’s a metaphor. We used metaphors and similes and symbols because they’re poetic. What I’m doing here is grouping those elements into a larger concept that I call rhyme.

(Irony is another literary technique. Like a treatise on verse that has absolutely no structure, cadence, rhythm, or meaning)

Now I'm going to keep plowing ahead without inserting a break. This discussion won't fit on a bumper sticker. Any liberals who weren't chased away when I insulted Bill and Rosie glanced down at this never ending-piece and found something else to look at on the computer in Mom's basement.

Newton wrote the Principia in Latin so that only certain qualified people could benefit from it. I don't speak Latin, so I preserve the sanctity of this privileged knowledge by presenting it in a form that only the highly boredom-tolerant elements of society will consume.

On to dreams.

I wonder if some of the conventional methods of interpreting dreams are flawed. It seems like fundamental to an understanding of the images we sense in a dream state is this idea: that dreams are echoes of our conscious experience. In that sense they aren't literal renditions, but they have similar patterns. Conventional approach is symbolic; that a plane represents freedom, that a coat represents protection.

Sometimes I’ll get a song in my head and I won’t know why. In those cases it’s not a song that I’ve recently listened to. In a couple of instances I was able to track it back to a rhythm or an interval that prompted it. My chainsaw revving elicits a certain song—I can’t remember what it is right now, but I’ll let you know next time I fire that sucker up.

That’s what I mean. Echoes. Just that little scrap has a similar texture, so the pitch/rhythm/harmony is a portal to that song.

The images in dreams may be the same way. You’re in an airport lounge but that’s just the image that was prompted by something else that has no relation to planes or lounges or waiting or traveling.

I swear this concept seemed to explain a lot of stuff when it came into my head. Once I try to get the combinatory play out of it, it makes a lot less sense.

Plowing ahead.

Another example. Every time I load the dishwasher I am transported to Colorado, where a friend’s mother told me “Frank, you just did the worst thing you can do for a dishwasher. It needs some food particles for the soap to cling to, so don’t wash off the dishes before you put them in.”

That’s a logical portal. Takes me to Colorado, which has nothing to do with dishwashers, but in this case is logically and obviously connected.

Now, I have a very rational, practical, functional brain. So I’m not a good example. But I’ll use my close personal friend to get a little further afield on this. When my CPF feeds his three cats he is transported to the TV room of his childhood friend. Every time. As it turns out he was once there watching his friend’s brother pour two glasses of Kool-Aid and holding them side by side to get the amount equal. That’s why partitioning one can of cat food into three dishes recalls that scene.

But my CPF (who is a nice enough guy, but that brain of his is just whacked) has other similar occurrences that he can’t source. Doing design work on the CAD many of the operations where he is very focused on the task access specific scenes or images from his childhood. Scrolling through files in the CAD transports him to a dining room in the Capitol in DC in 1978. No one has any idea why. There are many, many other operations that have a similar effect.

I suspect that it’s a pattern that’s similar and he’ll never know why. Some theories on déjà vu are along those lines. Your mind categorizes and what you see as specific is just part of a general category.

You’ve seen this is a very elementary fashion with sections of highway that are similar. You’re driving west from Nephi and if you blink you could swear you were in Crownpoint New Mexico on a piece of road with the same contour.

All right. If you’re not asleep yet you might require some medical intervention. Good luck with that.

If anything here at all piques your interest, like if you’re crazy like my close personal friend, you might try looking up “synesthesia.” This article explores synesthesia in the context of lights and music. Might give you a feel for the basic idea of patterns crossing boundaries of various senses.

Sweet dreams.

You know the deal. Imaginary characters, made up stories. Just practicing my craft. Or in this case, no particular person is practicing. My craft is being practiced.

Frank was intrigued. He wondered if Carson operated the way he did from instinct or if his actions were the result of a conscious program that he was aware of.

The new cutting tool had been prototyped and was ready for testing, but in the last week Carson had raised a concern about its impact resistance. In the meetings with his reports that week he had wondered if they should have a copper disc behind the cutting head, then he suggested that they do that, then he ordered that it be done. The rest of the group had doubts about its effectiveness as an impact cushion, along with concerns about the chemical compatibility with the binder. But, hey, it was research. They’d try it out.

Now Carson had brought it up again. They were in the weekly meeting that included Carson’s bosses and the decision makers on the project. Only this time it wasn’t Carson’s idea.

"We are following a suggestion that we use a copper backing behind the tool head."

Frank didn’t have a notepad, he hadn’t brought his tablet to the meeting, and he didn’t want to suddenly whip out his phone and start typing on it. But he had to remember that tactic. "It was suggested" that Frank feature that trick in his manuscript "How to Populate Your Bandwagon: Support Recruiting for Managers."

Maybe a manual like that already existed and Carson had read it . . . or had written it.

As long as Frank was writing a book about tactics, he might include the one a friend of his told him.

Scott had a piece of property along the highway where he manufactured and sold add-on carports. They were made of steel tubing and sheet metal and provided an easy and inexpensive shelter for your car from rain, sun, snow and the like. Each shelter housed one car and was easy to erect. Frank was familiar with them; his neighbor had one.

One day a man approached Scott with an offer to buy the land his carport business was on. Scott considered it, but rejected it. He was happy with the income he was making and wasn’t ready to cash it out by selling the land.

Okay. Offer made, not interested, everyone moves on.

Except the man who made the offer was on the City Council of the small town where Scott and Frank lived.

The next thing you know a new city ordinance was proposed. Those add-on carport deals were a hazard seein’s how on accounta cuz they could get blown around in a high wind. So in order to erect one it was hereby forthwith and heretofore proposed that if you bought one you had to pay an engineer to do a study and approve the construction, and you had to buy a building permit from the city.

The Mayor and the City Council passed the ordinance. It became official statute,

Scott didn’t sell his land.

Frank was sitting in rehearsal Tuesday night. Miraculously another French horn player had shown up. The French horn part in symphony music typically consists of 196 measures of rest, followed by a French horn solo. So Frank, mediocre player that he was, was glad to have the burden shared.

But that night on the section where the two horns were playing the same note Frank’s horn sounded off.

The next time there was opportunity, Frank whipped out his phone, opened the n-Track Tuner app, and checked his horn on that note. He adjusted his slides and tried again. He about had the note.

Then an ad popped up. Frank tried to find the “x” in the upper RH corner of the popup to close it, thought the found it elsewhere, the orchestra was starting to play again, his part was coming up, the ad wasn’t closing, he tried again to close the popup ad . . .

Finally Frank just hit the home button on his phone to close the tuner app. When he did he saw the fingerprint ID screen, then "Thanks for your purchase."

Frank was pissed the rest of the rehearsal. He checked his phone for new apps. When he got home he checked his iTunes account and his credit card account. Maybe it was nothing.

Saturday, four days after the incident, he had pretty much forgotten about it when got an e-mail from Apple Re: his recent iTunes purchase. For $8.53 he had paid to remove ads from the n-Track Tuner app.

He contacted Apple, reported the fraudulent charge, and turned off his fingerprint verification for purchases. Then he warned his kids about the trick. If n-Track Tuner was running the scam, others had to be, also.

"It’s funny," Frank said, "I’ve been using that tuner for years without a problem."

His son offered a different angle on the situation. "You’ve been using their app for years and don't want to pay for it?"

Frank laughed. Fair point. But not for eight and a half bucks. And even if it had only been 99 cents he wasn’t going to give money to a crook.

(Actually, for 99 cents he probably would have let it go . . . principles don't kick in until about the two dollar mark)

Okay, I’m just going to have to write this and bookmark it so I can find it again every time I need it. Because I will need it again.

Yeah, tag or bookmark it somehow on this blog that my brilliant daughter observed was “very 90s” in its style . . .

So you’ve got a mass shooting. Next, people start screaming about gun control. It’s as predictable as an upgrade rendering all the features you liked unusable,.

I’m going to state two things at the outset. One, I am an unapologetic gun enthusiast and ardent supporter of the Second Amendment. Two, I am going to try to offend as many people on both sides of the issue as I can.

Have we done enough pre-ramble? Here’s the deal: What we should do as a practical matter and what positions we have to defend are, sadly, two different things.

Let’s orient ourselves on the topic this way (and you thought I was through with the pre-ramble to this). A local talk show host was talking about this yesterday, because every host, local and otherwise has talked about nothing else this week. All the usual suspects on the left were losing their minds and saying the NRA caused all of this. He was asking people to call in and offer suggestions about what we should do. Then the host re-framed the question without knowing it.

He said “If Wayne LaPierre were in your living room, or you were having dinner or drinks with him, what advice would you give him?”

So let’s think about that for a minute. What measures should we take to curb gun violence? And what advice would you give the president of the NRA? Is the answer the same to both questions?

It occurred to me that they are two different things.

I called in to explain it, in my inimitable incoherent rambling manner, but the call screener was a dick and I had other things to do, so I hung up (denying the local listeners the opportunity to hear the sonorous dulcet tones of my voice).

So you fine (imaginary) readers get to hear about it.

The problem is that we can’t have an honest discussion, because frankly everyone in the conversation is a dick. There. That should have offended everyone. I’ll start with my side. Somebody called in to the Glenn Beck program this morning with some honest concerns and Pat Gray ripped into him. The guy was former military . . . well, Army, so semi-military kind of . . . and wanted to have a dialog about the usefulness of assault weapons and such. I think the guy was sincere and wanted to have a discussion. Pat called his arguments stupid, shot him down at every turn, wouldn’t even discuss what he wanted to talk about. I turned off the radio. It bothered me that Pat was being such a lout about it.

But the reason he did was because the people who typically ask those questions are dishonest. I don’t think this guy was, but the left is dishonest. Not just on gun control, on every single thing they pretend to want to talk about.

So actually this post could be about the dishonesty in the dialog about everything. But gun control is an excellent example to use to talk about it.

I would advise Wayne LaPierre to not give an inch on his position. Not open the door to any suggestions about more strict gun laws. The reason is because those on the left are dishonest.

Here’s the way the left works. You are trying to buy a car they have for sale. You want to pay $5,000, but they are asking $9,000. You negotiate and finally agree to split the difference at 7,000.00.

Okay, you shake hands and the deal is done, right?

Not when you’re dealing with the left. If you agree to 7K they are going to say “Okay, you’re willing to pay 7K, that’s good, but we want 9K. So they won’t stop until you agree to split the difference at $8,000. And once you agree to that, you know exactly what happens.

The left wants single-payer socialized medicine. If we give at all they don’t come to meet us in the middle. Always, always, always, every single gosh-darned consarned time in tarnation, we give and they don’t budge.

So what happens is we finally learn not to negotiate with them. We learn that. Stupid Republican politicians never seem to clue in that Lucy is going to pull the football away. Every. Time.

So they want “common sense” gun measures. Bullcrap. They want to take away guns from everybody except police. Except they want to take away guns from police, too. In their perfect world the only people who have guns are the criminals. And maybe their private security. But they know they have to whittle away at that a little at a time.

I am all for “common sense” measures. I, the avid gun enthusiast, am willing to talk and listen to idea about how to prevent these horrors from happening again. But I, the experienced optimist am not going to discuss any of those measures because I don’t trust the people I have to discuss them with.

You’ve realized by now that I’m just going to ramble forever. I can do a three hour presentation with ten minutes notice. But if you need a ten minute presentation, I’m going to need three hours’ notice.

I won’t be offended if you leave. (Don’t let the imaginary door hit you in your imaginary backside.)

The call screener was a dick for the same reason Pay Gray was. Because he’s tired of dealing with unreasonable people. So when I, the most reasonable, admirable, insightful radio talk show caller in history, call in he just automatically lumps me in with them based on his experience.

I got a news update on my phone that says the NRA is supporting legislation limiting bump stocks like the Vegas shooter used.

So . . . LaPierre listened to my reasoning self and not my advice to the NRA self.

Here’s my prophet self: The Nancy Pelosis and Chuck Shumers are going to take a mile from this inch they’ve been given.

Let’s chat about some of the measures.

First off, I’m not through offending people.

Note to those on my side—the Second Amendment supporters. We sound stupid when we defend stupid things.

The caller Pat Gray talked down asked “What would Sunday’s shooting have looked like if the only rifles available were bolt-action .308s? That’s a reasonable question. It has been posed by unreasonable people. But it is a reasonable question and there are good answers to the question. When you sound like you’re afraid to address the question, you don’t strengthen your case.

Absolutely. What happened Sunday would have been much different if he hadn’t had high-capacity, rapid fire weapons.

The truth is that those weapons do exist, so the question becomes taking those away from people. And when that happens they get taken away from the wrong people. It’s the same answer as to the question “Why do you need a semi-automatic assault rifle?”

I guess what frustrates me is that both sides issue their statements in a tone like they have it all figured out. Maybe they do. I certainly don’t.

I understand the question. Yeah, what happened Sunday could not have happened with a bolt-action rifle, and with fewer firearms in his possession. And I can understand your question about why I need my semi-automatic assault rifles. My answer, which you’ll probably find unsatisfactory, is that I have them because others have them. I’m not going to be driving a Smart car on a highway with 1-ton pickup trucks everywhere.

I get it. I do. I really wish we could have an honest discussion.

The problem is that it always comes back to taking away guns. And the technology is there. The toothpaste can’t go back in the tube.

I’ve told you I’d be the first on the list to give up my guns if there were a way to get rid of all the guns on the planet. I would be first on the list, but I’d be the last one to actually surrender it. As long as there are guns on the planet, I will have guns.

But that takes us into silly territory. I can safely promise I will do that, because that scenario will never happen. Can never happen. It’s absurd.

Okay, I’m still working on offending my side. Let’s continue.

One guy this morning was working out theories. There had to have been another shooter because—I’m seriously not making this up--the guy had no military training.

Seriously?

How much training does it take to spray bullets randomly into a crowd. Just stupid.

As long as we’re talking about people who have no experience with guns who have it all figured out, let’s talk about automatic weapons. I’m not going to educate you about the laws on those; if you care you’ve already been misinformed elsewhere.

But if you’re going to shoot a lot of people you might choose an automatic weapon. If you were going to kill a lot of people a semi-automatic is what you’d choose.

You can argue that a semi-automatic weapon isn’t any more lethal than . . . whatever. A hunting rifle. But you’d look stupid to anyone who has a brain.

Again. You are not going to take away my semi-automatic weapons.

Then there’s the anti-gun liberal who wrote the article about how she had had a change of heart and realize she had been wrong. Great. I’m glad. Welcome to the real world that understands that more guns can equal less crime.

But . . . (remember, I’m still offending here)

She said that you can change magazines fast enough that outlawing high capacity magazines won’t make any difference.

That’s kind of true. But honestly high-capacity magazines makes it much easier than carrying multiple magazines and changing them out.

Again, understand that I will never give up my high-capacity magazines. Never. But let’s not pretend that things are a way they are not.

For example: The problem isn’t the gun, it’s the person (true). A person who wants to murder will find a way even if there aren’t any guns.

Well . . . yeah, okay, but . . .

First of all, we live on a planet that has guns. So when you talk about “even if there aren’t any guns” you are talking about a fantasy world that doesn’t exist. Or a world where the liberals have taken a lot of them away. I’m not opening that conversation.

But really, c’mon. They’ll find another way every time?

A few years ago a waste of skin “estranged” husband waited for his wife across a church parking lot and shot her as she walked out of the building. Are you going to tell me he would have walked up to her with a bicycle chain if he didn’t have a gun? This was a coward. Poisoning is unwieldy, so are most of the ways to kill people. Sure, people commit murder in a lot of ways.

But if you really want to efficiently kill someone, there’s no substitute for a gun. That’s a fact.

Understand I’m on your side. I’m probably more pro-gun than you are. No, I am more pro-gun than you are, because I’m not defending stupid arguments.

When you defend your position with arguments that make no sense, you find yourself backing into corners.

Okay, more about the article.

The one guy (with the dick call screener) was saying that the article pointed out that something like 2/3 of the gun deaths are suicide. So see? Pfffft. Taking away guns won’t solve that.

Uh . . .

See above. You’re feeling depressed, suicidal. If you have easy access to a gun that’s what you’re going to do. Poisoning yourself is dumb, cutting your wrists, hanging . . . all dumb. If you don’t have easy access to a firearm maybe you’ll come to your senses before you off yourself.

Easy peezy. Take away people’s access to firearms.

Do you really want to go there?

Well, I guess I’m through offending people on my side. I could say a lot more . . . (I just sensed you tense up)

Note to the other side: You sound stupid. Period. See also: Michael Moore-on.

Did I get your attention?

The liberals say we need to all turn in our guns. They point to gun accidents. They say that guns in a home are dangerous; most often the criminal just uses them against the home owner.

We say guns are a reality. The best way to deal with it is to teach people gun safety. You’ll always hear “We have guns in our home but we’ve talked and taught and trained our children to use them safely.”

Okay.

Now, when the liberals say we need to teach kids sex ed and they are going to have sex so why not teach them to do it safely, we protest that their approach is wrong.

Discuss.

Like the suicides. Them: Well, if he didn’t have access to guns he might not have killed himself. Us: We need to take away access to porn.

Discuss.

I have no answers for you.

Back when I flew a lot, I used to get Flying magazine. At the back of the magazine they always had a feature called Aftermath. In that they looked at an accident or incident and tried to break down what happened. The idea was to arm pilots with information and understanding that could save their lives.

I had a roommate who wasn’t a pilot but wanted to be. One day he was reading my latest Flying magazine and got perturbed. “Pilot error! They always call it pilot error. What are they saying, that pilots are stupid?”

I had a different take on it. If there was an accident I wanted to know what the pilot did wrong, so that I would not do the same thing. The last thing I wanted was to buckle myself into the cockpit of a plane that was going to kill me and I had nothing to say about it.

I am looking for where the pilot screwed up.

That’s what’s frustrating everyone about this one. How could it have been prevented?

If every single person at that concert had a concealed weapon that wouldn’t have changed. That’s usually where I go—the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.

The guy had no history or background that would have pointed to him being a threat.

That’s where my side always goes: mental health. Right, it’s true that guns don’t kill, people do. So let’s single out the people who are not mentally stable and not let them own guns.

That’s just common sense, right? But the implementation is really tricky. How do you determine who’s fit to own a gun? Doesn’t that get back to the base issue of the Second Amendment?

I know I could give you a list of people I don’t think should own guns . . .

It’s a very slippery slope. If someone has seen a therapist? If someone has ever been prescribed an anti-depressant? Run-ins with the law?

Where did we or the system screw up that allowed this to happen? Where was the pilot error?

Because it’s so puzzling you’re getting a lot of conspiracy theories around this one. And some of them coming from places you don’t usually see them.

I’ve heard all kinds of stuff. I’ve heard it was a false flag operation to implement gun control. That’s what the Alex Jones crowd is saying (speaking of mentally unstable crazy people). But that one makes sense, (please don’t think for a second that I am for a second buying it) because the only thing that would have stopped this is the kind of radical, drastic measures the left wants to take, like sweeping confiscation of enormous amounts of privately owned firearms.

I’ve heard (from the completely dismissible Alex Jones crowd) that the guy was some kind of FBI operative/ISIS who know what gun runner type of deal.

I’ve heard speculation that the mafia types who owned the casino threatened the guy and he did it to ruin the casino’s business.

People are just struggling to explain this one.

I’ve told you before, liberals and I are not that far apart. I believe liberals should not own guns. I believe liberals should pay higher taxes. I believe liberals should take drastic measures to keep from reproducing.

You remember (dear imaginary reader) my (brilliant) explanation about whether you’re stupid or evil depending on whether you’re buying or selling.

This is one of those times.

I think it’s pretty clear that Nancy Pelosi is stupid. Honestly, something is seriously wrong with that poor woman. So that bodes well for her. The stupider the advocate of a dumb idea is, the more sincere they are. I mean, when she proposes things that just plain will not work, she may actually think they will. She may really want to solve the problem, but doesn’t have the mental capacity to do it.

Chuck Shumer . . . that guy may break my matrix. He’s definitely evil. Actually, maybe the matrix isn’t broken at all, and he’s just so evil that he’s able to carry out looking really stupid.

Sorry, thinking out loud there for a minute . . .

The point is, if you understand that your measures won’t accomplish anything but give you more power, you are evil for proposing them. (*cough Chuck Shumer *cough) You’re selling a bill of goods. But a lot of people are probably just desperate for a solution and may not understand the complications of taking guns away from the citizenry.

Then there’s a group of people who are honestly looking for solutions with an open mind. They’re neither buying nor selling, just searching honestly.

I had a conversation with a guy at work following a shooting, and it’s sick that I can’t even remember which one. He is on the opposite side of the political spectrum from me and it was one of the better political conversations I have ever had.

He was sincere and I didn’t have to question his honesty. Yeah, I told him stuff that I would never expect the NRA to concede to. We were both just baffled and wondering about a solution. And we were both open to listening to the other person’s point of view.

It’s amazing what happens when two people can talk honestly.