June 23, 2015

Time to boycott Amazon and eBay

and all other online sites that sell confederate flags.

Just checked -- eBay has already banned their sale.

Act now.

June 23, 2015

Surely you jest if you think

I don't know what the Bill of Rights does -- or the Constitution, for that matter.

Do you realize that nowhere in the Constitution are citizens given the right to vote?

[Edit. By the way, federal statutory law limiting ownership and possession of firearms would supersede state constitutions and state laws. It's right there in Article VI of the Constitution: "This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof ... shall be the supreme Law of the Land...."]

June 23, 2015

A brief entry from my blog, mentioning Horner.

"Many of us can associate soundtracks with the performers on them, but not with the composers. ... The London Symphony Orchestra and the Moscow Symphony were mentioned, but composer James Horner was not mentioned even though he composed the music for three favorite soundtracks: Legends of the Fall (1994), Braveheart (1995), and Titanic (1997)."

A handful of composers account for the soundtracks of almost all of the great and popular films of the last 60 or 70 years. And a lot of the bad ones, as well. James Horner composed for good ones.

June 23, 2015

Thank you for the link.

What I found made interesting reading compared to how it’s abstracted above. Now I know “just how far he went.”

June 22, 2015

Not to be a nitpicker, but there are

at least two problems with this snippet of David Goldman’s essay:

“... public display of any kind of the symbol of the slaveholders’ rebellion should have been banned after the Union victory in 1865.” Banned must mean against the law; such a law would violate the First Amendment. I’m all for repealing the Second Amendment, but not the First Amendment.

“... Civil War ... killed nearly a million combatants on both sides.” Wikipedia usually gets it right on historical matters: “The Civil War ... cost nearly 1,100,000 casualties and claimed more than 620,000 lives.” Citing as fact a death count some 50% higher than an accurate count is unnecessary to make a point. To me, it shows a too casual attitude towards historical facts.

It’s not uncommon to get your conclusions wrong when you get your facts wrong. The author may have fallen into that trap. For instance, his implication that many or most Confederate soldiers fought because they wanted to become slave owners. How could he possibly know that? While that may be true for some, there's no way to know that it was true for most. It's likely that Northerners as well as Southerners of the time wanted to improve their financial lot in life. For some Southern men of that era, getting wealthier could well have included becoming a slave owner.

Confederate veterans were still living when I was growing up and it was not uncommon to see a Confederate flag flown in a parade. (The notion that they fought valiantly for an evil cause simply never occurred to me.) The county I grew up in was in the South, but its populace sided with the North. I don’t know whether that meant they were anti-slavery or just opposed to seceding from the Union. As far as I know, no slaves were ever held in the county or any surrounding county.

Local men who refused to serve in the Confederate Army were taken prisoner and force-marched in chains to the state capital over a hundred miles away. They were forced to serve in the Confederate Army. "Many more men hid in the woods until they were caught or killed or could make their way to Union lines."

Tried to call a local history buff before posting this, but couldn’t reach him. I’ll try again later. If I find I’ve given any incorrect information, I’ll update the post.

June 22, 2015

Just checked Williams stock price.

It's up $11.61 a share this morning and still climbing. That's a 24.02% gain in half a day. Somebody's getting rich.

June 22, 2015

Which election fraud do you have in mind?

Wasn't the only fraud that mattered in Ohio, with its 20 electoral votes?

We need to get rid of the electoral college. The National Popular Vote Movement is one way to do that. However, if we elected our presidents by popular vote, Bush would have won by >3,000,000 votes.

June 22, 2015

It's important enough that I think it should be worth a try.

What's the worst that could happen? It gets shot down by the Supreme Court? ... After enough action has been taken to save some lives. Maybe people who are on the fence about stronger gun control would change their minds once they see how well it works.

This is the 21st century. It's time to get over the notion that we need firearms in the hands of the average civilian individual to preserve our freedoms. We are not going to lose our freedoms if guns are taken away from those who have no business possessing them in the first place.

Maybe, in fact, if we had fewer guns out there, more people would be freed from the tyranny of the NRA and rightwing gun nuts.

June 22, 2015

Maybe it's time for the President to take another strong stand with an Executive Order.

Either that or a strongly worded memo to the ATF and other federal agencies. Steps simply must be taken to stop gun violence. We've not yet at the point where we can get the Second Amendment repealed, but I think the day may be coming.

June 22, 2015

The United States should

never start a war, that's for sure.

As far as I'm concerned, we never should have entered World War I or World War II either. We would not have ended up speaking German or Japanese if we hadn't. That's just a stupid thing to say.