Episode 74: Guns 'N' Poses

The Fun Gun Bunch
To the left are images described as "motivational posters", circulated among right-wing, survivalist, outlaw militia, and assorted gun-nut web sites. (The captions read, from the top, "FORTY FIVE: Because they don't make a forty six. " "M2: Making red jelly out of the enemy since your grandpappy was in diapers." "DIVERSITY: Let's celebrate it.")

Geezer invites you to keep these in mind when considering the recent bill in Congress seeking to make it legal for a gun owner with a carry permit in one state - say, Wyoming or North Dakota - to take it on his or her first visit (by plane, most likely) to New York. Think about what might be a sufficiently provocative word or action to draw that weapon from its holster: Jostled in the subway? A surly response to a request for directions? A threatening gesture from a panhandler? A culturally confusing encounter with a person of race or origin rarely encountered in the Rocky Mountain West?

This Geezer is not a wimpy standard-issue liberal who quails at the very sight thought of guns. On the contrary, as most men, I am fascinated by displays of weaponry. My father was a staunch NRA member who at one time possessed over 300 pistols and rifles. I was awarded a sharpshooter badge in the infantry and have enjoyed skeet shooting. I have had occasion to load, fire, take apart, and reassemble both of the top two weapons pictured here. I bear no ethical or moral reservations about hunting and I'm delighted with gifts of fresh-killed venison.

But sport shooting and hunting don't include human beings as potential targets. That there is no other reason for the existence of automatic weapons than killing people is hardly a new observation. But admit it, gunlovers, they aren't used to dispatch deer or elk or squirrels. Nevertheless, they can be purchased at gun shows throughout the country, and laws about background checks are routinely ignored. Their buyers are too often deranged, homicidal, or simply dimwitted. Skim through any daily newspaper to know the results.

Come on, guys. You really don't need an assault weapon to symbolically extend your favorite body part. Give adulthood a shot.
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Bumper Stickers Recently Observed
"God doesn't believe in atheists."
"If going to church makes you a Christian, does going to a garage make you a car?"
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Town Brawl Meetings
The senators and congresspeople conducting those screechfests known as "town hall meetings" might wish their August vacations were over. Amid all the jeering and yelling, a fair example of their level of discourse - and dumbfounding ignorance - might be contained in the demand of one possibly addled old goat, who shouted "keep your government hands off my Medicare!"

Among the numerous oft-stated convictions about health care is the one about the United States having the "best medical care in the world." Bob Dole declared just that for years. Representative Peter King, Republican of Long Island, repeated the claim a couple of days ago, and he's far from the only one to divest himself of that opinion.

But Peter, we plain don't. Maybe you meant the most expensive health care system in the world, because that's true. Otherwise, the United States is well off the mark on virtually every other count:

* The U.S. ranks third among nations with the highest rates of diabetes. Ahead of it are India and China.
* The U.S. has fewer hospital beds and doctors per person than Italy, France, Austria, and Australia.
* The U.S. ranks 17th out of the 24 industrialized nations in life expectancy.
* The U.S. ranks fifth in rate of deaths per 100,000 due to circulatory disease.
* The U.S. ranks thirteenth in deaths due to heart disease among major industrialized nations.
* The U.S. health system ranks 37th among 190 nations studied by the World Health Organization, just ahead of Slovenia, and following, among others, Dominica, Morocco, Chile, Colombia, and Malta. In first place was France.
* The U.S. has the second worst newborn mortality rate in the developed world.

So what we have is the best system the most money can buy.

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Faith On The March

This month in Godliness:
* An 11-year-old girl died when her faith-healing parents refused to take her to the hospital even though she couldn't walk, talk, eat, or speak. Instead, mom, dad, and a few of their friends surrounded the girl and prayed while she lay dying on their living room floor.

* In Tel Aviv, a masked man opened fire at a gay community center, killing three and wounding ten others. Officials speculated that the motive was homophobia, the murders possibly by a member of one of Israel's Ultra Orthodox sects.

* Days of rioting by Pakistani Muslims resulted in the deaths of six Christians, including four women and a child. More than 100 Christian houses were looted and burned. There was a rumor that a few pages of a Koran had been defiled.

* In Sudan, police fired tear gas and beat women protesters outside a courtroom where a female journalist was being tried for wearing trousers in public, deemed "indecent dressing" by the local interpretation of the Islamic code. If convicted, the defendant faces forty lashes.

* While we're in Islamic Africa, note that an extremist insurgent group called Shabab is forcibly removing silver and gold teeth from residents in southern Somalia. Anyone found with such un-Islamic decorative dentures is taken to a masked man who removes the offending teeth with pincers or by hand. No anesthetics are mentioned.

* An "apostolic visitation" of five Roman Catholic bishops has been assigned to investigate the worldwide operations of the once-powerful, secretive religious order known as the Legionaries of Christ. Revelations first made public in 1997 alleged that seminarians were sexually molested by the founder of the order, Reverend Marcial Maciel. Nothing came of this until it was discovered this year that Maciel had fathered a child as part of a double life.

* Elsewhere on the Christian hypocrisy front, news reports (and Gary Trudeau) have unearthed the existence of a D.C. rowhouse nicknamed The Prayer House. Conservative Protestant members of Congress go there to dine and participate in religious study groups. Senator John Ensign lived there, the better to carry on his subsequently revealed affair. Governor Mark Stanford received counseling there during his affair with his Argentinian soulmate. Former Mississippi congressman Chip Pickering lived there during his affair with Elizabeth Creekmore Byrd. (He retired from Congress to become a lobbyist for the cellphone company owned by his mistress.) All three participants have insisted on their devotion to family; at least one demanded that Bill Clinton resign in the wake of his interlude with Monica.

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"Christian Fundamentalism: The doctrine that there is an absolutely powerful, infinitely knowledgeable, universe-spanning entity that is deeply and personally concerned about my sex life."
-Anonymous
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