Wednesday Open Thread

87
  by: Colorado Pols Wed December 19, 2012 at 4:47 PM MDT

“All that we are not stares back at what we are.”

–W. H. Auden


Full story: Wednesday Open Thread

87 Community Comments, Facebook Comments

  1. parsingreality says:
    Wed December 19, 2012 at 7:00 AM MDT

    I’m sure some intelligent Polster can answer my question/suspicion.

    Hunters/Target Shooters/Collectors? I’m guessing that although they are the origins and the trotted out face of the NRA, not so much now.  I’ve read that only one in nine gun owners are NRA members.

    Manufacturers/Importers/Dealers?  I’m guessing that these monied interests are the real power behind the NRA.  After all, they have the most to lose.  

    The private equity firm that owns Bushmaster has said that they will divest themselves of their Freedom Group division, which I think I heard owns Remington and other old line companies.  Oh, we don’t want blood on OUR hands (too late, folks), let someone else sleep poorly.  I’d be more impressed if they shut them all down and sold the land for what it is worth.

    http://www.nydailynews.com/new…

    Oh, and catch the Second Amendment Knee Jerk name, Freedom Group? Yessir, our AR’s will stop those tyrannical gummint Apache gunships…..

  2. allyncooper says:
    Wed December 19, 2012 at 7:22 AM MDT

    Credit union group sues JP Morgan for $ 3.6 Billion

    Story on The Denver Real Estate News

    http://denverrealestatenews.in…

  3. Phoenix RisingPhoenix Rising says:
    Wed December 19, 2012 at 7:40 AM MDT

    For you gun owners out there…

    Has a high-capacity magazine ever been credited in civilian life for saving someone’s bacon?

  4. Duke Coxdukeco1 says:
    Wed December 19, 2012 at 9:14 AM MDT

    “Fort Collins Passes 7 Month Moratorium on Fracking”  

    Councilman Ben Manvel said the anti-fracking sentiment of citizens in Fort Collins and statewide is evident. He advised the oil and gas industry to pay heed and help craft regulations it can stomach.

    “If they don’t, the citizens will do it for them . . . and they won’t like the result,” Manvel said.

    http://www.coloradoan.com/arti…

  5. DavidThi808DavidThi808 says:
    Wed December 19, 2012 at 9:27 AM MDT

    And the few people that proposed eliminating duels were viewed as not understanding how they were a proper part of society. Andrew Jackson killed several people in duels before becoming president. They were an integral part of society that could not be eliminated.

    I’m starting to think gun ownership is today’s equivalent. A large number of people assume that we must allow most people to own guns. Even those who want to eliminate semi-automatics and large magazines accept that gun ownership should (not must due to the 2nd amendment, but should) remain common.

    But maybe it’s time to realize that like the duel, it is an anachronism that kills people. And it’s time to move on.

  6. GalapagoLarryGalapagoLarry says:
    Wed December 19, 2012 at 9:29 AM MDT

    You’re also buying boatloads of lawyers. Worldwide. Including in your home town?

    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12…

    This long investigative report lays bare just one more ugly side of America’s business “model”. To anyone familiar with the country to our south and its people, the photo alone will test your gag reflex control.

    It’s America’s largest (by far) retail gun and ammo dealer.

    It partnered with ALEC to push legalized murder laws and cripple middle class America.

    It screws its workers. And screws them. And screws them.

    It buys from horrendous sweatshops and hides behind crooked “contractors”.

    It kills mom and pops and downtown shops.

    And it feeds the most obscenely greedy family in the nation.

    Will there be justice?

    In the United States, the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission are investigating possible violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the federal law that makes it a crime for American corporations or their subsidiaries to bribe foreign officials.

    Happy holiday shopping!

  7. Lurker19 says:
    Wed December 19, 2012 at 9:41 AM MDT

    last week.  He was very sad.  In a tone of gloom and doom I doubt I could ever match, he announced that the GOP is dead.

    I told him that the GOP might be able to resurrect itself if it stopped all the hating and started considering women’s and minorities’ concerns.

    He stared at me as if I’d suggested decapitating his dog, and said again, “The GOP is dead.”

    This is somebody I like and get along with.

  8. Gray in Mountains says:
    Wed December 19, 2012 at 10:48 AM MDT

    some here, me included, are going to spend time everyday on some blog that is keeping an eye on those who are intent to raid SS/Medicare

  9. BlueCat says:
    Wed December 19, 2012 at 11:33 AM MDT

    and the fact that HRC is the buck stops here head of the State Dept. this does not bode well for her presidential chances.

    Yes congress short-changed the dept on funding but there is plenty of blame independent of budget considerations to go around. Also the whole fainting and sustaining a concussion thing is not helpful to a possible presidential candidate of her age. I don’t think things look as rosy for her as they did when every talking head was proclaiming it was hers for the taking just a couple of weeks ago.

  10. DaftPunkDaftPunk says:
    Wed December 19, 2012 at 1:03 PM MDT

    The decision came as a surprise to Rebecca Murray, manager of Planned Parenthood’s Glenwood Springs health center.

    “This is certainly disappointing news for us,” she said. “We have consistently relied on this funding from the county since 2002, and feel like we have been a trusted community partner for a decade.”

    According to the grant requests submitted to the Human Services Commission, the local Planned Parenthood clinic has an annual expense budget of about $800,000.

    The loss of $5,000 from Garfield County represents about 5 percent of the local health clinic’s approximately $100,000 local fundraising effort, Murray said.

    She said the county’s grant funds have served local residents by helping to provide family planning services, cancer screenings, testing and treatment for sexually transmitted diseases, contraception and education.

    Of the more than 100 patients accessing those services in 2011, Murray said 77 percent fell within 150 percent of the federal poverty guidelines.

    “None of this money goes to the provision of abortions, either directly or indirectly,” Murray also said. Only money from donors who request that their money go to abortion services is budgeted in that manner, she said.

    “The residents of Garfield County will feel the effect of this, including clients in need who rely upon our services the most,” Murray said. “This will mean fewer options to help patients get the care that they need.”

    http://www.postindependent.com…

  11. ProgressiveCowgirlProgressiveCowgirl says:
    Wed December 19, 2012 at 2:59 PM MDT

    According to the National Review’s Charlotte Allen, previously best-known for her 1998 book on the search for the historical Jesus Christ, Newtown happened because of a “feminized environment.” In fact, a few “husky 12-year-old boys” could have stopped Adam Lanza, armed as Lanza was with multiple firearms and clothed as he was in body armor.

    Who knew? It turns out that unarmed women, not armed young men, are to blame for mass shootings! We don’t need to ban guns, we need to mandate dicks!  

  12. Gray in Mountains says:
    Wed December 19, 2012 at 3:17 PM MDT

    by candidates and politicos: “I’m a proud gun owner”. What is to be proud of? You bought something. So what. I’m a proud owner of a refrigerator

  13. harrydobyharrydoby says:
    Wed December 19, 2012 at 4:46 PM MDT

    Boehner thinks Americans will blame Democrats if we don’t accept his take-it-or-leave it Plan B.

    However, that’s not likely to happen:

    The “Plan B” tax plan, which has been sold to Republicans for roughly 30 hours, does nothing to the cuts mandated by sequestration. It’s a gigantic punt, one with largely PR implications — blaming Democrats, not Republicans, for a standoff and a 2013 recession. Republicans are fairly, disturbingly confident that today’s polls are (to borrow a word) skewed, and that economic damage will be blamed on the president. As one Republican told me recently, voters would not look at a bad economy and call it the “House Republican recession.” They’d call it the Obama recession.

  14. allyncooper says:
    Wed December 19, 2012 at 7:29 AM MDT

    Years ago I joined the NRA for a short while. Cancelled my membership because I got a ton of solicitations from businesses, obviously the NRA was selling their membership list to marketeers.    

  15. Gray in Mountains says:
    Wed December 19, 2012 at 10:55 AM MDT

    but it is not intended to support them. I actually used to enjoy returning their surveys. Either they have taken me off the list for surveys after I was in favor of different kinds of registration and restrictions on purchase or they have completely stopped surveys. I haven’t gotten a survey in maybe a year.

    The NRA does do some valuable stuff; teaching firearm safety to youth, helping set up gun ranges, etc. Unfortunately if you take their help you also take their propaganda. If they would focus on hunting and firearm safety they could be a much more useful outfit. But, then they would not raise the funding they need to afford Wayne LaPierre a millionaire lifestyle

  16. BlueCat says:
    Wed December 19, 2012 at 11:25 AM MDT

    huge profits selling these weapons.  And don’t forget, Parsing…. corporations are people too, right? They’re just people with literally no skin (or muscle or bone or blood) in the game and with way more $$s/free speech to make themselves heard loud and clear than lowly human rank and file NRA members. At least that’s what the Supremes tell us.

  17. ProgressiveCowgirlProgressiveCowgirl says:
    Wed December 19, 2012 at 1:12 PM MDT

    I’ve never been a member before, but I’m considering joining just to vote Ted Nugent out.

  18. Phoenix RisingPhoenix Rising says:
    Wed December 19, 2012 at 7:43 AM MDT

    We need to suck some of that money out of the vampires running these criminally negligent/greedy banks.

  19. Diogenesdemar says:
    Wed December 19, 2012 at 7:55 AM MDT

    I used to use Playboy — occasionally — to help keep me from exploding . . .

    . . . but, that was before I actually owned any guns myself, so maybe I’m missing the connection in your question?  Is “bacon” some sort of euphemism?

  20. Duke Coxdukeco1 says:
    Wed December 19, 2012 at 8:32 AM MDT

    only if you are in combat facing a superior force. Doesn’t happen often in civilian life, I reckon.

    note…Dio..you slay me…pun intended.

    We all have to lighten up and turn our sorrow and sadness into determination…

    Know what I mean?

  21. GalapagoLarryGalapagoLarry says:
    Wed December 19, 2012 at 8:09 AM MDT

    I was feeling all nice and miserable looking out at this windy snow and was in no mood to laugh. You ruined a good funk.

  22. Phoenix RisingPhoenix Rising says:
    Wed December 19, 2012 at 10:34 AM MDT

    Thanks. I think this conversation needed that.

  23. BlueCat says:
    Wed December 19, 2012 at 9:31 AM MDT

    mass shootings in progress were stopped by a civilian with a semi-automatic or assault  weapon. Didn’t matter how I tweaked the phrasing, nothing popped up.  

  24. GalapagoLarryGalapagoLarry says:
    Wed December 19, 2012 at 9:48 AM MDT

    There’s so much talk about getting around to dealing with this “in the weeks to come” (Obama, among others), etc., that it looks like a long haul.

    Persistence.  

  25. BlueCat says:
    Wed December 19, 2012 at 9:34 AM MDT

    it’s really hard to stop shopping at a place I never shop in the first place.

  26. Duke Coxdukeco1 says:
    Wed December 19, 2012 at 10:10 AM MDT

    a great story. Not surprising, really. Many years ago my younger brother worked for Wal-mart long enough to get shit upon when he got hurt. The Walton family, The Kochs, Trump, Adelson, and their brethren don’t have to play by the rules…they make the rules.

  27. GalapagoLarryGalapagoLarry says:
    Wed December 19, 2012 at 9:35 AM MDT

    Good comparison.

  28. Phoenix RisingPhoenix Rising says:
    Wed December 19, 2012 at 10:43 AM MDT

    Sadly, all I can think about when I hear this is…

    This planet has – or rather had – a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much all of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movement of small green pieces of paper, which was odd because on the whole it wasn’t the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.

    And so the problem remained; lots of the people were mean, and most of them were miserable, enev the ones with digital watches.

    Many were increasingly of the opinion that they’d all made a big mistake in coming down from the trees in the first place. And some said that even the trees had been a bad move, and that no one should ever have left the oceans.

    And then, one Thursday, nearly two thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change, a girl sitting on her own in a small café in Rickmansworth suddenly realized what it was that had been going wrong all this time, and she finally knew how the world could be made a good and happy place. This time it was right, it would work, and no one would have to get nailed to anything.

    Sadly, however, before she could get to a phone to tell anyone about it, the Earth was unexpectedly demolished to make way for a new hyperspace bypass, and so the idea was lost, seemingly for ever.

    – Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, and So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish

  29. ProgressiveCowgirlProgressiveCowgirl says:
    Wed December 19, 2012 at 1:26 PM MDT

    They just happen to poor young men of color, not to wealthy white presidential candidates. We have yet to disabuse human males of the notion that their “honor” is worth ending the life of another human male. Along with mental health and gun control, America needs to take a long, hard look at its notion of masculinity.  

  30. GalapagoLarryGalapagoLarry says:
    Wed December 19, 2012 at 10:00 AM MDT

    I didn’t mention the word “boycott” because it would have been hypocritical to suggest something I can’t do myself. (Not that I’m above hypocrisy when convenient.)

  31. VoyageurVoyageur says:
    Wed December 19, 2012 at 10:35 AM MDT

    I live in central Denver and the nearest Wal_Mart is in North Borneo, or somewhere.   I do confess to frequently going to Sam’s Club on  Broadway, however.  And it is the same cor[porate ownership.   I also have a Costco membership but the closest one to me is in Arvada and I don’t get there as often as I like.  Costco has far better policies for its employees and I like it much better than union-hating Wal-Mart.

  32. Phoenix RisingPhoenix Rising says:
    Wed December 19, 2012 at 10:57 AM MDT

    I’ve been in a Wal-Mart once in the past decade where I’ve had a choice to go to another store (helping a needy friend shop, and they had a specific something they needed to buy at WM), and once more when it was the only game in the town I happened to be in.

    It’s hard to boycott something you never use. Same with Chik-fil-A earlier this year.

    Next on the list is resuming my non-patronage at Darden restaurants (Olive Garden and Red Lobster) for the crappy treatment of their workers (formerly their interest in protecting the right to club baby seals and kill whales and dolphins). Can someone please tell me where to get good seafood with similar variety? Joe’s and Bonefish don’t really fill the same niche.

  33. ProgressiveCowgirlProgressiveCowgirl says:
    Wed December 19, 2012 at 1:23 PM MDT

    I worked for a progressive organization once that got ahold of a copy of a union-busting film shown to WalMart workers, where an actor playing a happy employee (talking two disgruntled employees out of proposing a union) mugs into the camera, and says, “Join a union? Not with all MY benefits!”

    Made me physically ill to see even an actor asked to recite a line like that in the guise of a WalMart employee. They are literally today’s robber barons, expecting the working poor to shower them in gratitude for allowing them to work in a Walton establishment.

  34. Gray in Mountains says:
    Wed December 19, 2012 at 11:35 AM MDT

    never get killed in gun massacres

  35. Diogenesdemar says:
    Wed December 19, 2012 at 12:08 PM MDT

    jazzilions of dollars is an effective armor??  Shoulda’ guessed.

  36. Phoenix RisingPhoenix Rising says:
    Wed December 19, 2012 at 12:44 PM MDT

    never get “life in prison” or the death penalty when faced with convictions on premeditated decisions that lead to death.

    Imagine if Bank of America or Bear, Stearns received several years “in prison” for financial fraud like an individual broker might get. All profits confiscated; no unnecessary communication (read: advertisements and lobbying) allowed; executive, board, and shareholder pay nixed for the duration; unable to hold certain positions of trust after “release”…

    Or if Massey Energy faced a life in prison or death penalty for any of the negligent mine disasters it is responsible for… No sale of company; all assets are immediately seized for resale to completely unrelated companies; stock trading immediately halted and nuked; bank accounts frozen except to pay workers during the asset sale; negligent executives and board members barred from management for life…

    For some reason the Supreme Court has decided that such penalties are unjust because they outweigh the crime. Yet a really rich person does the time if he’s convicted. How fast would things change if corporations faced the same penalties as natural persons, including the incarceration time?

  37. Phoenix RisingPhoenix Rising says:
    Wed December 19, 2012 at 1:09 PM MDT

    Does this affect any Federal funds going to Garfield, as Texas’s decision did?

    By singling out an approved Federal provider of health care, Garfield County could be subject to elimination of certain Federal health program benefits.

  38. The realistThe realist says:
    Wed December 19, 2012 at 3:31 PM MDT

    While the backward-thinking BOCC cannot bring themselves to fund the family planning services of Planned Parenthood, they seem quite content to fund the Yampah Teen Parent Program at $7,500 (see the full list of funded human services programs at the Post Independent link).  

  39. Gray in Mountains says:
    Wed December 19, 2012 at 1:15 PM MDT

    ever getting a ballot.

    Did you choose a handgun yet?

  40. ProgressiveCowgirlProgressiveCowgirl says:
    Wed December 19, 2012 at 1:18 PM MDT

    Off topic, but if you do get there and want to have lunch sometime, it’s like five minutes from my house.

  41. BlueCat says:
    Wed December 19, 2012 at 1:34 PM MDT

    not perfect but we can’t not shop everywhere. Also they have some really high quality stuff like actual prime grade steaks for the same price as choice elswhere.

  42. BlueCat says:
    Wed December 19, 2012 at 1:31 PM MDT

    they should at least have to appoint one flesh and blood person, say the CEO, to  be the designated human representative of the corporate entity to serve sentences,  including those involving a death penalty, etc.

  43. ProgressiveCowgirlProgressiveCowgirl says:
    Wed December 19, 2012 at 1:43 PM MDT

    I’m still liking the Hi-Point, but haven’t bought yet — I think I’ll wait to take my classes until it’s a little nicer out, and then see where I stand after a course with a good firearms instructor. I’m not going to have one in the house until I’m 100% sure I’m ready for that, so it may be a while yet. Looking like golf lessons and shootin’ lessons are on my calendar for the spring… I feel so Republican =/

  44. BlueCat says:
    Wed December 19, 2012 at 1:48 PM MDT

    and the first thing they did was show new hires that anti-union propaganda. For literally years after his short stint he continued to receive notices about class  action law suits none of which really applied to him as a brief part time employee.  

    Let’s see…one was about forcing people to clock out and work overtime off the clock.  One was a gender discrimination suit. One had to do with their practice of locking the night shift stockers in the store over night. They were pretty much all undocumented Spanish speakers.  

    On the plus side, my son was taking Spanish and really learned to speak it, being an outgoing sort with all those Spanish speakers to talk to. When he got a job as a waiter he enjoyed how surprised the kitchen staff was to discover that he understood everything they were saying, especially teasing kinds of things not meant to be understood. Made work much more fun.

  45. DaftPunkDaftPunk says:
    Wed December 19, 2012 at 1:53 PM MDT

    That was about Medicaid funding which is a state share with federal, that provides fees for services, and patients are allowed to choose any qualified provider who accepts it.  This seems to be a grant of a supplemental pool of tax money.

  46. Phoenix RisingPhoenix Rising says:
    Wed December 19, 2012 at 2:03 PM MDT

    It’s shortsighted in any event. Typical GOP knee-jerk reaction to the bogeyman of the day.

  47. Phoenix RisingPhoenix Rising says:
    Wed December 19, 2012 at 2:06 PM MDT

    I think CEOs and other responsible parties deserve to lose the shielding of incorporation more frequently.

    But I like the idea of turning the corporation as a whole into a ward of the state for the duration of a natural person’s prison sentence – it better fits the scope of the crime and would make board members, shareholders, and others sit up and take notice.

  48. Duke Coxdukeco1 says:
    Wed December 19, 2012 at 2:35 PM MDT

    it is gender specific…is it? mebbe used to be. Yeah, I get that it is a guy thing…but a lot of ladies are acting like guys nowadays, then…unless I missed something.

  50. ProgressiveCowgirlProgressiveCowgirl says:
    Wed December 19, 2012 at 2:49 PM MDT

    Is still a problem with the definition of masculinity.

    If a woman thinks that power and self-expression demand “acting like a man,” and thinks that masculinity necessarily involves violence, phallic firearms, and an obsession with honor/reputation, that’s not a genderless problem, that’s a problem with 1) the definition of masculinity and 2) society’s assignment of power and dominance to the masculine to such an extent that adopting masculine behaviors is the route of choice for women to acquire power and dominance.

  51. Duke Coxdukeco1 says:
    Wed December 19, 2012 at 2:55 PM MDT

    two out of three ain’t bad.

    and an obsession with honor/reputation,

    this one…not so much.

  52. Gray in Mountains says:
    Wed December 19, 2012 at 3:05 PM MDT

    found them absolutely useless so I pitch them when they come

  53. Gray in Mountains says:
    Wed December 19, 2012 at 3:06 PM MDT

    Huckabee thinks the shootings happen ‘cuz we chased Jesus out of school. The new Senator from SC has taken a similar position

  54. VoyageurVoyageur says:
    Wed December 19, 2012 at 3:37 PM MDT

    I’m not going with the idiot who wanted the administrator armed with a machine gun.   But if the teacher who had time to hide her kids before being killed by Lanza had been able to slide a strong bolt on a steel-reinforced door, then unlock a secured Glock, she would have been able to defend at least her classroom from the killer while waiting for police.   Certainly teachers and administrators who pass the background checks and a safety course should be allowed access to secured weapons.   But no one, outside of law enforcement, needs an assault weapon or a 100-round magazine.  

    armored or not, a shooter breaking through a door has revealed his position and is vulnerable to a head shot from a concealed teacher.  It’s a shame it’s come to this, but

    we need to learn the lesson the airlines did, when they began to securfe cockpit doors and allow pilots to carry weapons if they choose.

  55. ProgressiveCowgirlProgressiveCowgirl says:
    Wed December 19, 2012 at 3:08 PM MDT

    In honor-obsessed cultures, male “honor” tends to expand to include not just his standards for his personal behavior, but the obsessive need to avoid and punish insults to his honor, including those perceived to have been committed by the women in his household and circle of acquaintance. The father of Nujood Ali counseled her at ten years old not to leave her husband who beat and raped her, because this would dishonor him as her father.

    This isn’t much different from the masculine honor theories present in American society, much as the jingoistic xenophobes would have you believe it’s a brown people problem or an Islam problem. Think of a father who turns his pregnant teenage daughter out on the street to starve for embarrassing the family, or the husband who beats his wife for wearing revealing clothing to a party. (I promise you, these things happen and are happening in your neighborhood. Trust me.)

    “Honor” at its best is a ruleset for a man (or woman) to follow in their own dealings with others. For instance, “A man, without his word, is nothing.” However, when present in patriarchal cultures, individual honor becomes conflated with the reflection of others’ behavior on the dominant male, and results in the violent, often lethal punishment of any perceived insult by either another male or by a female regarded as under the “honorable” individual’s protection/control.

    And yes, there’s a cowboy sitting next to me who agrees with all this, and he’s one of the most honorable folks I know :)

  56. ProgressiveCowgirlProgressiveCowgirl says:
    Wed December 19, 2012 at 3:08 PM MDT

    see if a ballot falls out.

  57. Gray in Mountains says:
    Wed December 19, 2012 at 3:15 PM MDT

    Wonder if we could get a rogue on the Board? Those would be fun meetings

  58. VoyageurVoyageur says:
    Wed December 19, 2012 at 3:26 PM MDT

    when we get past the holiday madness, let’s do it.

  59. VoyageurVoyageur says:
    Wed December 19, 2012 at 3:29 PM MDT

    It has served my family for four generations, from our farm in Northeastern Colorado to my current home in Denver.   Much of the Colorado prairie was tamed by that post hole digger.  And the cows it helped confine gave us milk, butter and meat, with eggs added in from the chickens it helped pen.   And it helped pen hogs as well.

     The post hole digger , not the six-gun, really won the West!

     

  60. ProgressiveCowgirlProgressiveCowgirl says:
    Wed December 19, 2012 at 3:30 PM MDT

    And they’re its owner.

  61. GalapagoLarryGalapagoLarry says:
    Wed December 19, 2012 at 9:31 PM MDT

    I’m using that.

  62. ProgressiveCowgirlProgressiveCowgirl says:
    Wed December 19, 2012 at 3:29 PM MDT

    I’m voting for you!

  63. Duke Coxdukeco1 says:
    Wed December 19, 2012 at 3:38 PM MDT

    Pentecostal Holiness/ Southern Baptist  Christian culture, in the 50s and 60s, in the deep south of the United States, I am familiar with the ramifications of patriachy you mention and perhaps a few you didn’t. I can’t argue with a word of your well put together comment.

    The patriarchal construct of much of society is born in the need for the leaders to be big and strong and smart. Nowadays, you only have to be smart. It is easy to cast a sort of Neanderthal head toss to men and maleness in an era when maleness is not such a big deal as it once was.

    It is sad though, to see how common the many men who see and understand the uselessness of a patriarchal heirarchy in the modern world are lumped in with the mouth breathers.

    And yes, there’s a cowboy sitting next to me who agrees with all this, and he’s one of the most honorable folks I know :)

    And before you scold me …understand that you are talking to an honorary lifetime member of the GJ National Organization for Women. And as such, I will simply suggest that maleness hopefully still has value in our world. It isn’t all bad.   :)  

  64. ProgressiveCowgirlProgressiveCowgirl says:
    Wed December 19, 2012 at 3:50 PM MDT

    For being open to allowing highly trained teachers to volunteer to arm themselves.

    But it’s literally an arms race. This works once before the next shooter is wearing a SWAT helmet. Steel-reinforced doors would be a good investment, at least when constructing new schools.

  65. harrydobyharrydoby says:
    Wed December 19, 2012 at 4:26 PM MDT

    I’m fine with Air Marshals carrying guns on airplanes, and I would be fine if a highly-trained “school marshal”, e.g. a local, well-trained and experienced cop patrolled our schools.

    But arming teachers, even if they were volunteers? Not such a good idea:

    A gun belonging to the pilot of a US Airways plane went off as the aircraft was on approach to land in North Carolina over the weekend, the first time a weapon issued under a federal program to arm pilots was fired, authorities said.

    The “accidental discharge” Saturday aboard Flight 1536 from Denver, Colorado, to Charlotte, North Carolina, did not endanger the aircraft or the 124 passengers, two pilots and three flight attendants aboard, said Greg Alter of the Federal Air Marshal Service.

    Fortunately, no one was hurt.  But even if the gun in a school was locked in a gun safe, no doubt a small, but irreducible number of enterprising/dumbsh*t students would figure out how to break into it — most likely by social-engineering someone with the combination just like hackers do to thousands of computer users every day.

    The statistical tradeoff of having a gun for protection, be it in your home or a school, vs having that gun used against you or someone close to you is as bad a bet as the one math-challenged lotto ticket holders make.

  66. Gray in Mountains says:
    Wed December 19, 2012 at 5:05 PM MDT

    given all the national enthusiasm for arming teachers, would be for them to hold training classes during sumers and get Glock to provide guns free or at cost to schools

    Although I like the idea of the armored door I wonder how a firefighter gets in. Wonder if it might present more harm than good

  67. ProgressiveCowgirlProgressiveCowgirl says:
    Wed December 19, 2012 at 4:01 PM MDT

    I love men. Men are wonderful. My dad is one of my best friends, the cowboy sitting next to me is basically my brother despite not meeting him until 2009, and I need more than just my fingers and toes to count all the men I know and love who are genuinely honorable, in that they hold themselves accountable to do right by themselves and others, not “honorable” in the patriarchal, woman-as-chattel-reflecting-upon-man-who-owns them sense. My favorite elementary school teacher was male and he ended up teaching my niece at the same school, too. And I have a darn cute pair of nephews who I don’t want growing up to think that they need to tamp down their maleness (if they do, as expected, grow up to identify as male, of course) to be enlightened beings.

    Masculinity as penis-obsessed imprisonment of both genders in an obsessive, perpetual dominance battle, with rape and murder as expected, acceptable casualties and including the twisted, patriarchal consumerism that depicts guns and fast cars as essential to feeling like a man: Ugly.

    Masculinity as part of an individual’s freely expressed self-concept within a society striving to offer equal opportunities to people of all gender identities: Fabulous.

    I don’t especially know what being a man is like, but I know that I like being a woman and there are certain intangible pieces of that experience which I wouldn’t give up even if I could get male privilege in exchange. I suppose when one is a man, one feels the same way about those intangible, felt rather than described, aspects of masculinity that really are innate in male-identified persons. I would hate for enjoying one’s own masculinity to become a “guilty pleasure.”

    I just don’t want to see anyone, of any gender, constrained by the bloody, disgusting things that patriarchy does to humans’ expression of gender and sexuality. Nujood’s father must have been in enormous emotional pain when telling his daughter to return to her rapist husband, and he’s apparently cared for her properly since she was granted a divorce and returned to her parents’ household. I don’t think that men who base their self-worth on patriarchal honor theories are all just evil people who enjoy subjugating and beating women, although some certainly are. Some of them are just scared people trying to stay alive and gather a few basic resources in a culture where THEIR lives are at risk if they in any way seem to sabotage the patriarchy.

  68. Diogenesdemar says:
    Wed December 19, 2012 at 4:12 PM MDT

    or maybe Jesus just left because he felt heaven was a whole lot safer these days . . . never heard anything in the Bible about them letting guns past those pearly gates?

  69. Phoenix RisingPhoenix Rising says:
    Wed December 19, 2012 at 4:18 PM MDT

    A good way toward the SWAT helmet.

    If we want to arm teachers in classrooms, they had better look like installing seriously secured gun lockers in the classrooms in which to store the weapons. Kids get into all kinds of havoc, and teachers’ stuff, and… It’s not quite like the airline situation where you have pilots carrying in a secured environment.

  70. VoyageurVoyageur says:
    Wed December 19, 2012 at 4:29 PM MDT

    Steel with basically a bullet proof glass small window.  A teacher who throws the bolt on that door has kept at least her own class secure while the police come.   Maybe the shooter tries to go outside and come in the windows,m etc., but all that eats time and all that time, the police are on the way.   But, yeah, I’d allow for a gun safe securely set in the wall, so the teacher could arm herself after first securing the classroom.

      Again, she doesn’t have to shoot the scumball, just keep him down and cringing while the cops come.  

  71. ProgressiveCowgirlProgressiveCowgirl says:
    Wed December 19, 2012 at 4:35 PM MDT

    If you point a loaded gun at someone, you HAVE to shoot them. Guns are for killing, not for waving at an assailant making clear you don’t have the guts to shoot them so they can grab it and shoot you or the people you’re protecting with it.

    If someone is prepared to remove a gun from a locked safe and point it at an assailant, they MUST be prepared and trained to shoot to kill.  

  72. VoyageurVoyageur says:
    Wed December 19, 2012 at 4:43 PM MDT

    But I’m thinking of the situation I outlined above, where she has locked a secure door and the shyooter is trying to maybe come in via a window or something.   A few rounds might make him take cover.  I certainly think she should try to kill him if the opportunity presents itself, but the main thing is just to keep him out of the classroom while the cops come.

      I.e., say she locked the door but is looking out the window and sees a guy with a gun running to her outside window.  It probably wouldn’t happen, he’d have probablay tried other rooms inside, but if it did, she would probably see him before he saw her.   trhe killers have surprise on their side.   If you have sounded the alarm and locked the door, the element of surprise is gone.  judging by Harris and Klebold at Columbine, they backed down quickly even after a security guard got off a round or two.   Outgunned or  not, the guard got the little swine to back off.

      A dreary topic, I know.   But all roads lead to rome.  It’s not a choice between reasonable gun controls, better mental health rules, and allowing teachers to arm themselves with proper precautions.   It’s all of the above.

      For that matter, a lot of new schools don’t have windows on outside classrooms.   I hate those fortress style schools, but maybe fortresses are what we need.

      My mom was a teacher and said she never objected when a kid looked out the windows.  They fire up the imagination.   I agreed with her.

  73. Phoenix RisingPhoenix Rising says:
    Wed December 19, 2012 at 5:05 PM MDT

    The Senate can, I believe, amend the bill down to $250,000 (easiest procedurally to substitute their original already-passed bill by way of amendment), and send it back to the House with no request for a conference committee. $250k, take it or leave it.

  74. Phoenix RisingPhoenix Rising says:
    Wed December 19, 2012 at 5:12 PM MDT

    If her opponent in 2016 is Sen. Rubio, the report slams Congress worse than the Secretary of State personally.

    I actually like what I’ve seen of this report. It dings State for using outsourced security (I’m all for ending outsourcing on everything from food to shelter construction to security. If we’re in a security situation we need security, not “free market” advocacy…) It isn’t afraid to ding State for trusting the Libyan ambassador (killed in the attack) when he requested lighter security than the (known) situation suggested. It dinged the diplomatic security service… In short, it covered everything that needed to be covered, across a broad range of responsibility. I’m guessing it was similarly blunt about CIA failures, though that part was redacted…

  75. Phoenix RisingPhoenix Rising says:
    Wed December 19, 2012 at 5:12 PM MDT

    If her opponent in 2016 is Sen. Rubio, the report slams Congress worse than the Secretary of State personally.

    I actually like what I’ve seen of this report. It dings State for using outsourced security (I’m all for ending outsourcing on everything from food to shelter construction to security. If we’re in a security situation we need security, not “free market” advocacy…) It isn’t afraid to ding State for trusting the Libyan ambassador (killed in the attack) when he requested lighter security than the (known) situation suggested. It dinged the diplomatic security service… In short, it covered everything that needed to be covered, across a broad range of responsibility. I’m guessing it was similarly blunt about CIA failures, though that part was redacted…

  78. BlueCat says:
    Wed December 19, 2012 at 5:53 PM MDT

    Screwy internet tubes stuff happens. I don’t think it hits her hard either but it’s good campaign stuff. Don’t think her opponents wouldn’t keep reminding people of the fact that she was head of state when state was putting people at risk via negligence and incompetence. Doesn’t matter what level was most responsible.  She is the buck stops here person. I can see the black and white ads with sinister music bursting into cheerful color for fill-in-the-blank now.  

  79. DavidThi808DavidThi808 says:
    Wed December 19, 2012 at 6:13 PM MDT

    Where the bystanders shot (none killed fortunately) were all shot by cops. And cops go through intense ongoing training for this. Teachers will never have the same level of training.

    When something like that happens, it is intense, high stress, and requires making perfect decision in a split second. That’s unlikely to happen.

  80. VoyageurVoyageur says:
    Wed December 19, 2012 at 6:33 PM MDT

    If there is nobody inside to unbolt it, then I’m not too worried about firefighters getting in.   But if you know the kind of bolt I’m talking about, it has a big lever and can’t be accidently locked.  Of course, if they have too, the firemen can cut their way in with whatever is needed.   And, of course, since most modern school rooms have sprinklers anyway, it’s just not a problem.

  81. VoyageurVoyageur says:
    Wed December 19, 2012 at 6:35 PM MDT

    not 100 percent perfect, then the alternative is to do absolutely nothing, just sit there sucking your thumb while a madman kills your kids.  Or pray, maybe…that always helps.

  82. Gray in Mountains says:
    Wed December 19, 2012 at 6:59 PM MDT

    sprinklers are to reduce property damage and allow folks to leave.

    What about the shooter who barricades themself in a room with these kids?

    I do like the idea of an armored door, I just see it as fraught with other issues

    I like the thoughtful approach that you and PCG are taking. I want to solve the problem. But, the problem is not only with schools. The school shooting is the one that has had us in tears every day for 5 days. But, it doesn’t deal with theaters and malls and parks and other locations where these horrific events have occurred and are likely to be repeated.

    Last Friday I left home about 2:30 to go do some volunteer work at a grocery store. I do not have a CCW. Never felt the need. But, as I was putting on my coat I wondered if I ought take a gun. I didn’t, but I thought about it for a half minute or so

  83. DavidThi808DavidThi808 says:
    Thu December 20, 2012 at 7:51 AM MDT

    And civilians firing wildly is not the best approach.

  85. VoyageurVoyageur says:
    Thu December 20, 2012 at 12:23 PM MDT

    but as to a shooter barricading himselkf behind a closed door, armored or otherwise, he’s got his victims where he wants them.   I’m more concerned about keeping him out.  

      But you are absolutely right.   There are about 11,000 gun murders a year, according to this mornings New York Timnes, plus about 19,000 gun suicides.  According to the FBI uniform crime reports, less than 3 percent of those are with long guns.

      Any death is a tragedy, the deaths of little kids unbearably so.  

    but we need to focus on the whole problerm of gun violence, and be sure that efforts to stem one variety, mass shootrings, don’t inadvertently increase danger of other killings.  

  86. VoyageurVoyageur says:
    Thu December 20, 2012 at 12:24 PM MDT

    But what works in one situation doesn’t necessarily work in another.

       

  87. Gray in Mountains says:
    Thu December 20, 2012 at 3:37 PM MDT

    armoring the wrong doors. Maybe it is all the exit doors of the school building that require the armor. Then get back to the cop in schools programs. That could be financed, cop and armored doors, by tax on guns and ammo

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